#Stream Lil Uzi Vert

[therageworlduncut]

Nicki Minaj & Kai Cenat dances to her song “Everybody” on Kai’s live stream.

[kywithavoice]

Da goat really doing legendary stuff. gifting subs in real life lol

[slut4megantheestallion]

Kai cenat Headcannons

● Kai loves constantly annoying or pulling pranks on you he just loves seeing get irritated. He pulled a prank on you, telling you to 'shut up' constantly every word you say. He was laughing but not too long since you beat his ass to get back at him. "Bro, ow why you gotta hit me like that, yo?" Kai said, rubbing his arms since you hit him so hard. "That's what yo ass get for pranking me, nigga." Y/n said laughing at him, as he glarer at you.

● He has you on your streams 24/7. His fans love you. They love the dynamic friendship y"all have together.

● He does the most dumbest shit and it you always have to get him out of it like it's annoying but it's funny as fuck.

● Nigga is a big back he may not look like a big back, but no he's a certified nig back nigga would be stealing or eating alot of food.

● If somebody tried to do something to you, he'd defend you.

● His mom and sister love and be teasing him since you guys would be a cute couple, but y'all brushed it off, y'all were just close.

●You're practically a part of Amp. His friends love you and are treated like a part of the group.

● Randomly dancing together.

● You'll scare him during his streams when he's playing a horror game.

● You tease him about being short. He only allows you to tease him, and he actually finds your jokes funny, to be honest.

● Y'all be doing crazy challenges together that can possibly make you both end up in the hospital.

● Try not to laugh videos with the rest of the amp members.

● That one time he brought nicki minaj on his stream, you were so happy because he knew how much you loved nicki and got a chance to meet her, Nicki liked you so much.

● You're his biggest supporter through everything, even through his ups and downs.

● Y"all be making secret joke no one could understand of how close you two are.

● Kai wanted to have you around every time through everything he appreciated you and is very glad to have as his best friend he couldn't be more grateful.

● If you were going through something with your mental health, he would always stop everything for you and would check up on you and make sure you're alright.

● When amp popularity soared, Kai became a household name, a beacon of positivity and laughter in a world of negativity, But through it all y/n remained by kai's side,being his confidant advisor and most important, his best friend.

● Kai and Y/n have the most infectious humor together and very entertaining qualities. You both are everything funny since y'all are both unserious and someone who can take his sense of humor.

● Kai is very humble and didn't let the fame change him. You'll expect a lot of support from his fans, friends, and family members. If kai was facing a lot of hate or backlash, you'll be listening to him rant and give him words if encouragement.

● Kai loves spoiling you he'll put you anything you want that you never had growing up. He bought you a car, and you were never much happier and more grateful. "Nah, what?? Yo, thank you for everything. You didn't have to do this." Y/n said, wiping the tears from her eyes as kai smiled at her. "No, you deserve it. we been through so much, and you were there through my ups and downs, you my best friend." Kai said as you both hugged each other longingly.

● Kai takes you everywhere together. Your friendship was never boring. He was taking you on trips traveling across the world. Attending exclusive events, meeting people, and just having fun, from red solo carpets, concerts, and having such a fun experience together.

● You never turned your back on kai even if he be annoying arms times, you would never be fake like everyone else Is on social media, you never talked shit about him ever and never used him for clout, you was like a sister to him.

● As y/n and Kai's friendship grew even stronger, they faced through challenges, good time, bad times, fame, but through it all, y'all were inseparable, bound together. Kai loves you, and he's lucky to have you by his side.

[breadboylovin]

i was watching ethan is online's "you're wrong about modern art" video and when he said "I don't think Charlie knows any gay people" it instantly articulated to me 1) why I hate moistcr1tikal and 2) why I love hivemind

like... moistcr1tikal is a bumbling fucking idiot who lives in Tampa. and I also live in florida so clearly there are gay people there but you can tell he's not talking to them. Tbh he gives me the vibes of someone who's not outwardly phobic cus its a bad public image, but if his fans were being nasty he would look the other way. Plus the only time I've seen him talk about lgbt stuff he said "most people in 2023 don't have an issue with people being gay" which is so untrue that I wanted to throttle him through the screen

Meanwhile hivemind clearly know SEVERAL gay people and talk about their support of the lgbt community all the time and one of riley's twitter besties (ro ramdin) is a cool and awesome tgirl that they'd love to have on the show. Like any jokes aside it is really nice having a lgbt-friendly youtube channel like this, both in just making jokes about stuff (like smokey the twink 😭) and actually moderating their community (turning off any vaguely phobic shit that gets submitted on streams and not refunding them iirc, and now I think Tony actually vets everything before it gets played). I could imagine it's also an oasis specifically for lgbt rap/hip-hop fans cus there's a loooot of homophobic and transphobic rap fans. If you bring up lil uzi vert's pronouns in like any other comment section I bet people would eat you alive

If Charlie moistcr1tikal tried to make a joke about gay culture I would want to kick him in the shins. When Dignan and Riley make jokes about piping bears (gay) in France and taking poppers I go like this 🫶 over my screen. Send post

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #68: 2017

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: Ed Sheeran, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, Bruno Mars, Kendrick Lamar, The Chainsmokers, Migos, The Chainsmokers, Sam Hunt, Imagine Dragons, Post Malone. End description]

More information about this blog here

It's easier more than ever to see the effects of streaming on the pop charts. As electropop and club music become a distant memory, the pop music of the late 2010's works better with individual listening. As mentioned before, streaming works better for album listening, much more than the iTunes era which encouraged the purchasing of individual songs (which was great for singles artists, but not necessarily for albums). Some artists were able to hack this system. For example, Drake's Views (featured on the previous poll) was notable for having 20 songs on its tracklist -- which is a lot for a pop release. Unlike the iTunes era or even the CD era before, longer albums with shorter songs flourish more in the streaming landscape.

Streaming also helped to continue blurring the line between genres and audiences. Without going too much into it (because this is a topic I could ramble on about endlessly), genres were not handed down to us from Mount Olympus or something. Genre is a tool of marketing, and the lines drawn between them can have a variety of cultural, racial, economic, gender, religious, and other variables between them. These lines were more prominent in previous years before streaming made it easier to access just about every kind of music at once. This is when we start to see the rise of a concept known as the "monogenre". In order to cater to as wide an audience as possible, everything starts to sound like everything. A little rock, a little indie, a little trap, a little tropical house, a little festival EDM. There were also those who criticized the streaming era in how it promotes a more "passive" listening style, since playlists and algorithms could continue playing ad infinitum without the listener needing to seek out new music themselves. While I certainly see the evidence of that on the charts, I don't think this tells the complete story.

As a less cynical counter-argument, streaming has made it easier for listeners to find music that otherwise wouldn't have been marketed to them. I believe that this could be one of the factors behind reggaeton finding a growing audience among English speakers. Obviously reggaeton did not originate this year. The roots of the genre can be traced back to the 1980's in Panama where it would later grow an even larger audience in Puerto Rico. The genre would grow in popularity in the States as well, especially in the early 2000's. But if you weren't paying attention to Spanish language music (and you didn't grow up in the Southwest), it was easy for mainstream audiences to miss it. Reggaeton includes influences from dancehall and hip-hop, so it makes sense that the genre would find a mainstream English-speaking audience when those two genres were also shaping pop music. Because Despacito wasn't just big for a reggaeton song. It wasn't even big for a Latin pop song. Despacito led to Daddy Yankee becoming the sixth most listened-to artist on Spotify in 2017, and led to an influx of Latin and reggaeton artists who were able to cross over without English language remixes. Billboard magazine has an article here about the "Despacito Effect".

[august-sysex]

my fav releases of 2023:

realyungphil & gud - victory music

realyungphil & gud - make moves not excuses

realyungphil & boofpaxkmooky - sonder freestyle

7038634357 - neo seven

död mark - död mark 4evigt

ML buch - suntub

earl swearshirt & the alchemist - voir dre

earl sweatshirt - making the band (danity kane)

bar italia - tracey denim

baba stiltz - paid testimony

ichiko aoba - meringue doll

ouri - blueprints of us (prod. oli XL ❤️)

arthur russell - picture of bunny rabbit

laetitia sadier - une autre attente

melody english - the web

björk & rosalía - oral

YS - brutal flowers

dijon - coogie

peso pluma, jasiel nuñez & junior h - bipolar

peso pluma - génesis

junior h & peso pluma - el azul

becky G & peso pluma - chanel

the-dream - stream (V7 demo archive 9.20)

tujiko noriko - crépuscule I & II

sampha - spirit 2.0

PLO man - anonymousmaterial

ESP - amber sun

tinashe - talk to me nice

kode9 & burial - infirmary / unknown summer

astra king - make me cry

tainy - data

osipenko bus stop - corner wax volume 2

lil uzi vert - pink tape

king krule - space heavy

mammo - variable / plate

CoA-A - the end of nduja

2301 - untitled

aphex twin - blackbox life recorder 21f / in a room7 f760

nation & ecco2k - ça va

ingrate - a melody inside

monolake - hongkong (2023 remaster)

vladislav delay - entain (2023 remaster)

holly waxwing - the new pastoral

joanne robertson - blue car

tammo hesselink - beam

tammo hesselink - paint reduce trick

tammo hesselink - sewei

tammo hesselink - work work work

yaeji - with a hammer

pinkpantheress - heaven knows

DJ babatr - las lomas / fuma con los panas + remixes

DJ babatr & arca - mek3fe

bad gyal, tokischa & young miko - chulo pt.2

teruyuki kurihara - parallel

james k & hoodie - 065 (scorpio)

special guest DJ - panoramic deep love story

agilität - unique / untradeable

chuquimamani-condori - DJ E

rabit - tears (elysia’s edit)

jorg kuning - BH007

instupendo & ripsquad - kissout

juno R13 - existens miserabel R13 edit

bambinodj - high as ever still passin’ through (remix)

colleen - le jour et la nuit du réel

kelela - raven

airhead - lightness

juanito - cumbias & reggaetones

DJ manny - control EP

mount eerie - huge fire

cousin - homesoon

[gothixdreaming]

Lil uzi vert. A year ago you covered chop suey by system of a down. Horrendously. Around your neck is a choppy heady thingy. Haven’t come up with a name for it yet. You have 60 seconds to delete this cover from all streaming platforms. Make your choice

[cyarskaren52]

https://web.archive.org/web/20210128141211/https://www.spin.com/featured/jack-harlow-january-2021-cover-story/

Jack Harlow Knew This Was Coming

Well, sort of. But now he’s got a smash hit, a new album featuring Adam Levine, and he may have accidentally altered the course of NBA history

January 27 2021, 10:00 AM ET

DJ Drama was in no rush to return from his lunch break.

Sandwiched between the outskirts of Atlanta’s Bankhead neighborhood and the sprawling campus of Georgia Tech University is Means Street Studios. This hub of hip hop recording has played host to a litany of stars since its 2013 inception. Playboi Carti, Gucci Mane, Lil Uzi Vert and the late Nipsey Hussle are just some of the artists who’ve graced its halls.

Machine Gun Kelly X SPIN Cover Story - Promo 2

However, on this day in November 2017, the Means Street corridors were not especially glamorous. Atlantic Records had selected the studio complex to host its quarterly A&R conference in which DJ Drama, legendary mixtape arbiter and co-founder of Atlantic’s Generation Now imprint (Lil Uzi Vert, Killuminati), played a significant role.

Overnight success stories often begin at conferences like this one, long before viral TikTok challenges and feature placements on streaming services come into play. It can sometimes take years for an artist to build enough trust with a label to earn a star-turning album or single rollout. Drama knows a thing or two about this waiting game. It was his seminal free mixtape series, Gangsta Grillz, that helped rappers circumvent this indefinite layover and maintain relevance during the 2000s.

“I was just kind of, you know, taking my time to get back,” he admits over a Zoom call, reminiscing. He was, after all, DJ Drama. He was far past the stage where he needed to outhustle fellow A&Rs and executives. New music needed to hustle its way to him.

Still, as 2014 signee Lil Uzi Vert inched closer to international superstardom, Generation Now was in the market for a second star. When Drama finally returned from his break, something extraordinary happened.

“Right as I walked in just a little bit late, ‘Dark Knight’ was on. They were playing ‘Dark Knight’ in the meeting.”

A few months prior to Atlantic’s A&R summit descending upon Means Street, during the waning days of summer 2017, DJ Drama sat in a room at the studios beside his fellow Generation Now execs: Don Cannon, a similarly legendary mixtape DJ, and their partner Leighton “Lake” Morrison. Meeting with them were KY, a renowned engineer from Louisville, and a lanky, curly-haired white boy, also from Louisville, whose brand of brash-yet-self-conscious raps had built a fanbase whose support had him teetering on the brink of vested major label interest. This was Jack Harlow, Drama was told.

He knew who the 19-year-old rapper was. Drama’s friend and colleague Randy had hipped him to Jack’s Instagram page several months prior. Intrigued, Drama followed it and listened to a handful of the young rapper’s songs. The night before the formal introduction at Means Street, Jack had been thrust into a studio session by this same friend, Randy, to record with Generation Now’s inaugural signee, veteran rapper Skeme.

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Harlow has endeared himself to a wide array of musicians in a short time CREDIT: Noah Schutz

“The way Randy talked about it,” Drama recalls, “He was like, ‘I just wanted to see if [Harlow] had his chops. ‘Cause, you know. Skeme ain’t no hoe.’”

However, despite Harlow’s passing grades at his session with Skeme, Drama and company weren’t ready to set anything in stone. “It wasn’t final,” he says as he remembers how the meeting with KY and Jack concluded. “I don’t know, it was like everybody wasn’t sold.”

In the aftermath of the inconclusive meeting, Harlow, sensing Generation Now’s hesitation, returned to Louisville and got right back to work. He would be releasing Gazebo, his fourth and breakout self-released project, the third week of November 2017, and he needed to fire a warning shot. One that both his fanbase and GN would heed. That materialized as “Dark Knight,” a bruising ramble introducing listeners to a reenergized Harlow, who did not appear to be reeling from the effects of leaving Atlanta without a deal.

“Know this shit boom when we came down south and I had to bring my own lil’ Metro,” Harlow rapped, likening a member of his crew to Metro Boomin, the multi-platinum Atlanta-based producer. The song ends on an even more confident note. “Funny how it all works out / Right before this I was feeling burnt out / Now the whole city ‘bout to get burned down.”

Harlow wasn’t quite peeved, but there was a specific edge to his delivery. The chip on his shoulder was just big enough. “Dark Knight” made exactly as much noise as Harlow hoped it would. Because of it, he quickly outgrew DJ Drama’s circle. Label offers were imminent, regardless of whether Generation Now was interested. Harlow knew this. So did Drama.

Thus, when the DJ returned from his lunch break that day at Means Street to hear “Dark Knight” blaring from studio speakers, he knew immediately he had a decision to make. On his own accord, Harlow had quickly gotten better, sharper and grown more polished. So much so that Atlantic would surely be preparing to take its own chance on him by meeting’s end, leaving Generation Now out of the picture.

“Oh! That’s just Jack,” he hastily announced to the room. “I’m already on that. We got that, you can tuck that,” he remembers saying. The room quickly moved to the next order of business. If DJ Drama was on that, the conversation was over.

Truthfully, neither Drama nor his partners were actually on that. But that would soon change. “I went to text Cannon to tell him they played ‘Dark Knight’ in the meeting,” Drama says, as he cracks a wistful smile.

“It forced our hand in a way, thankfully.”

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Jack Harlow photographed in Los Angeles, January 2021 CREDIT: Noah Schutz

It’s a Friday night in January 2021, and Jack Harlow is seated in complete darkness. The COVID-19 pandemic will soon be a year old, so instead of doing something like eating tacos and playing H-O-R-S-E—which, I’ve decided, would have been my suggested activity for this interview in a safer world—I’m staring at a Zoom screen as Harlow, whose camera is switched off, describes his current setting. I’m not allowed to see it. “I’m sitting in the dark right now, you don’t want to see me in this mood right now,” he warns. For a moment, it sounds like a very vulnerable-rapper way of saying I was in the zone right before this. My next question is, “What are you doing, writing?” His deadpan reply: “No, I’m doing an interview.”

It is exactly this type of shrewd and subtle wit that allowed Jack Harlow to become Jack Harlow.

Born in March 1998 to the proprietors of a family-run sign business in Louisville, Kentucky, Harlow’s narrative isn’t the most compelling. Unlike many of his peers, he didn’t have to escape extreme poverty or take penitentiary chances in order to provide. He’s not from a city that regularly produces rap stars, and despite his obvious skill level, it would be fair to mistake him for a math tutor. His free time would often consist of riding around with friends in search of adventure, hoping to catch a cute girl’s attention along the way. As exhausted of a character trope as this is, young Jack Harlow was very much just a regular kid. His writing ability is what made him irregular. It also gives him a puncher’s chance at becoming the preeminent star of his generation.

In the 2020s, as microwave TikTok fame continues to prove reliable as a launching pad to Billboard success, emphasis on range and craft in the mainstream will continue to dwindle across the board. In hip hop specifically, descendants of 808’s & Heartbreak-era Kanye West have spent much of the last 15 years redefining how much traditional rapping is necessary to be successful in the genre. These dynamics don’t interest Harlow as much as they could. His duty is to his wordplay, and the techniques he employs to keep listeners on their toes. Sometimes it’s a stretch of alliteration that he’s able to effortlessly maintain. Other times, he’ll thumb his nose so nonchalantly you’ll forget that it’s slick talk. “The ones that hate me the most look just like me. You tell me what that means,” he raps on the 2020 single, “Tyler Herro.”

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Jack Harlow is ready to roll CREDIT: Noah Schutz

In present-day hip hop, recognition is less contingent on lyrical ability than it ever has been. Despite scattered worlds that continue to place the technical art of rapping on a pedestal—the J. Cole-led Dreamville imprint and Westside Gunn’s Griselda immediately come to mind—being a Good Rapper has long taken a backseat to marketability. This transition has created somewhat of a perfect storm for an artist like Harlow, who isn’t going to blow you away with metaphors or dizzying flow switches. But his unassuming charisma, coupled with a sturdy pen and the attention to detail to execute a line like, “Been tryna pop, now I’m on like Shumpert,” provides for a lane that he can dominate.

“You know, for some odd reason, it’s been what I’ve wanted to do for so long that I can’t even pinpoint what it felt like to not want to do this,” Harlow says. “Like, sometimes I wonder, ‘What was it like to be a purposeless child that was simply enjoying life?” His mother, a hip-hop fan, would soundtrack the household with Jay-Z, OutKast and Black Eyed Peas. Perhaps unbeknownst to mom, her young son was taking meticulous notes. He wasn’t just enthralled, he was inspired. “What’s Poppin’” was an eventual outcome, but an inevitable one.

Harlow’s biggest hit song to date (and of 2020), “What’s Poppin’” materialized in the way that an innumerable amount of hit songs have come together. Hotshot producer slides into hotshot rapper’s DMs with hopes that they can form a mutually beneficial partnership. This particular exchange made perfect sense. JetsonMade, the Roc Nation-managed producer behind DaBaby’s breakout hit, “Suge,” was looking to diversify his portfolio. And Harlow was in album mode.

“I heard those piano keys, and I was just taken,” Harlow recalls. After a weeks-long back-and-forth with Jetson while touring in 2019, Jack had finally carved out time to get into the studio with the in-demand producer. On day two, Harlow heard the sound that changed his career. “I think I probably reacted how a lot of people reacted when they heard that beat. It’s fucking hard.”

Incidentally, it wasn’t even the featured beat of the night. In a recent interview with Genius, Jetson and Pooh Beatz, a producer Jet often partners with (“Told Pooh he a fool with this shit”), recall the night they flipped through instrumentals, looking for something for Harlow to “pop his shit” over. “You’ve got to give the artist room to be creative as well,” Pooh said. “So I’m always listening for that simplest piece.” 

That beat, accentuated with that bouncing, accelerated piano loop, gave Harlow more than enough room to be selective with his approach. “I said to myself, ‘Jack, don’t think too hard. Don’t bear down on this beat and smother it. You know, don’t try to go crazy on it. Just have fun with it.’ So that’s what I did. I said the first thing that came to mind.”

What’s poppin? Brand new whip, just hopped in I got options, I could pass that bitch like Stockton

Then,

Just joshing, I’ma spend this holiday locked in

Seriously? “Just joshing?” I had to ask.

“That was a line I’d always planned on replacing,” Harlow admits as he chuckles. Given the opportunity to address the subtle audacity of this cheesy-but-effective line, he perks up. “I was always going to get rid of it. It was a placeholder. It was literally just something that rhymes with the other shit.”

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Jack Harlow X SPIN Cover Talk 

By the time he’d completed the song, it was far too late for replacements. For just over two minutes, on “What’s Poppin,” Harlow’s subdued-but-sharp flow darts in and out of the accelerated piano loop, buoying the dancing bassline Jetson and Pooh concocted. The beat doesn’t rush Harlow, and in turn, he doesn’t stifle it. After wrapping his sessions with Jetson, he played the song for confidantes on his team and friends back home in Louisville. Their response was the confirmation Jack needed. “What’s Poppin’” was the one. “I really treasure that moment because I use it as a lesson now when I’m trying to write,” he says. “I’m just like ‘go, go, go’ because look at the success that song is giving me when I just let go. It’s a lesson, you know, you just gotta let go and…” Harlow trails off briefly, perhaps rummaging through his brain for the word that will summarize this lesson. Seconds later, he finds it.

“Be instinctual.”

Shortly after its January 2020 release, “What’s Poppin’” was added to Spotify’s Rap Caviar playlist, the leading gatekeeper in the hip hop playlisting world. Securing a placement on a playlist like Rap Caviar in the streaming era is akin to being named a member of XXLmagazine’s “Freshman Class” during the early 2010s blog era. It won’t guarantee a successful career, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a more effective springboard into the national conscience. Once “What’s Poppin’” hit Rap Caviar, it never looked back.

The song and its remix, which features DaBaby, Lil Wayne and Tory Lanez, have now been streamed over 700 million times on Spotify. Consequently, Harlow is a millionaire and Grammy nominee at 22. In case that was unclear, he announces it just 10 seconds into his debut studio album, That’s What They All Say, released in December, on the album’s intro, “Rendezvous.” The album, which features Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, Lil Wayne, Lil Baby, and an appearance from the late R&B legend Static Major, is his biggest flex yet. The world had just learned his name, and already he was getting A-list stars out of bed for a set of tracks so versatile, comparisons to Drake are unavoidable.

“You know, it’s funny because, I remember my dad said to me he was proud of me because, you know, his dad was broke on a farm and grew up incredibly impoverished. Then my dad grew up a little better than him. And now, I’m a millionaire,” Harlow says, unable to disguise his pensive tone. “And he just wanted to point that out to me. It’s a huge step. I mean, I know that seems obvious for me, but it’s a huge step for him. I never met his dad—rest in peace—but if he could see the success, shit would be a whole ‘nother world to him. So it’s just nice to put it in perspective. You know, that’s the one thing I’ve been really careful about doing.”

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Jack Harlow's trajectory continues to trend upCREDIT: Noah Schutz

The way Harlow ended his thought, it felt like a cautionary tale was coming. My hunch was pure. “Sometimes I think all these millionaires and artists get so wrapped up in entering the world and becoming friends with all the other millionaires when they get to L.A.,” he starts, “They get wrapped up in the world and it does become normalized. And they think to themselves, ‘Well, then, I have room to be depressed. Everyone around me is a millionaire and I’ll find something to be unhappy about.’”

Don’t let the depths of Harlow’s self-awareness disarm you; he knows he’s the guy right now. He always has. His account of the events surrounding his initial meeting with Generation Now at Means Street mirrors DJ Drama’s. Jack just sprinkles a little ego in, like parsley. “Drama was fucking with me, but he took a second. The label took a second. And I remember I ended up having to drop “Dark Knight.” I said, ‘I’ma just drop it.’ And that really got the buzz going. Labels started, people were interested. And I was like ‘O-K, yeah, yeah, no, I got it.’”

“So you sort of had to trigger your own bidding war,” I ask. He agrees. “Yeah, exactly. And they were on it quick.”

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He's laid back and ready for a big 2021 CREDIT:Noah Schutz

This Cinderella ascent has not come without setbacks, however. With fame comes heightened visibility, which can trip up even the most vigilant of stars. The NBA’s announcement that it would resume play following its March COVID-19 stoppage came with a strict set of safety guidelines. Players were prohibited from leaving the Disneyland campus that hosted the remainder of the season, fondly known as “The Bubble,” unless they had explicit permission from league authorities. Even so, they were still encouraged to stay clear of high-risk areas, like densely populated public venues.

Strip clubs—I’m guessing—would probably qualify as high-risk during a pandemic. That’s where Harlow was when he snapped a selfie with Los Angeles Clippers guard Lou Williams less than a week after the league had resumed play. They each wore masks, but Williams had been granted permission to leave The Bubble so he could attend a relative’s funeral, not pop up on a rapper’s Instagram Story while at the strip club. Lou Will maintains that he was simply picking up chicken wings when Harlow snapped the selfie, and not ripping wrappers off packs of singles. The NBA, however, would hear none of it and forced Williams into a 10-day quarantine. He missed the first two games of his teams’ restart, the Clippers never redeveloped their chemistry, and they were eliminated from the playoffs so quickly, their season became fodder for a Freddie Gibbs chorus several weeks later. “Hoes get fucked and sent home early, just like the Clippers.”

Naturally, no one blames Harlow for this. Not even Lou Will. “[Lou] called me like, ‘Don’t even fucking trip. I’m Lou. I don’t get in trouble.’ I was like well shit, you just gave me the pass to relax,” Harlow reveals as he fights back laughter. Still, one can’t help but wonder how things might have turned out if the restart to the Clippers’ season was less turbulent. After they were eliminated, the team fired its coach, retooled most of its roster, and saw its star player, Paul George, spend the entire summer soul searching. What a sequence of events.

There is also the matter of the aforementioned remix to “What’s Poppin,” one of the most successful remixes in recent hip hop memory. Just a few weeks after the song was released, Lanez was accused of shooting Houston hip hop star Megan Thee Stallion in her feet following a party in Los Angeles. With increased social attention to misogynoir and violence against women as the wind in their sails, scores of Twitter users “canceled” Lanez and began lobbying for industry figures to blacklist him and his music. Harlow, stunned at the news, didn’t know how to react. The very mention of it makes him uncomfortable. I asked him what his initial reaction was.

“It’s crazy,” he says. “The news broke right after we dropped the video. I was like, ‘I wonder how this is going to go.’ I was curious, I was shocked, I was just like, damn.” He would comment no further.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210128141211im_/https://static.spin.com/files/2021/01/SPIN_Cover_Story-Jack_Harlow-Hero_Image-5-1611704437-1280x853.jpg

Don't mess with Jack Harlow CREDIT: Noah Schutz

Eventually, Harlow’s whiteness had to be addressed. He knew it, and I knew it. In listening to his music over the years, I’d observed how many of my Black friends and colleagues were accepting of him in a way that they weren’t accepting of other white rappers. It’s comforting to have a white rapper just be a white rapper, and not cosplay their Black peers with guerilla music videos and disingenuous displays of gunplay and drug use. Maybe too comforting. Last year, Harlow trended on Twitter because the platform had somehow just discovered his race. He poked fun at the confusion on Instagram, posting a screenshot of his discography, which features his very white face on every cover art. “I did everything I could do to show y’all I am white,” he wrote.

Harlow expresses an understanding of what it means to be a privileged outsider. When Breonna Taylor was unjustly murdered at the hands of Louisville police last March, Harlow hit the streets as marches and protests swept the nation. “People have asked me, as if there was a strategy involved, ‘What made you do it?’ I grew up with Black people, and the empathy I have for them is ingrained in me. It’s not something that arrived this past summer, but I was charged up by the movement. It happened where I’m from and there’s a responsibility that comes with that.”

One of the earliest memories critics will have of Harlow is his visit to Sway Calloway’s Sway In The Morning show on SiriusXM. In the footage, Harlow, wearing a brown Ecko Unlimited long-sleeve T-shirt, is even more baby-faced than he is now. Sitting next to the much stockier DJ Drama, it almost looks as if Drama is the talent and Harlow is the management. He’s quiet and fidgety, slightly deer-in-headlights, and doesn’t look much like the guy who “forced” the hand of a legend.

I remind Harlow of this moment and ask him to consider everything that’s happened since. What will his legacy be?

“I want to be someone that’s true to myself, and someone that’s wholly original to the game.” He says that he’s been that person in spurts and that his goal is to intentionally chase that for the rest of time. “The beauty of making art and music is, ideally that’s what should live forever. That’s what gives me purpose. I think that’s what we’re all looking for. Mortality is in the back of all of our heads, and I found the thing that makes it bearable.”

I ask him, “Does that scare you? The thought of dying before you reach your full potential?”

“Oh yes. So much so, I don’t even want to talk about it.”

Jack Harlow is styled by Metta Conchetta.

Sent from my iPhone

[audioloops1]

The Fractals Synth Melody Collection Sample Loops Download

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[kywithavoice]

KAI AND UZI TWINNIN

[kanenites]

oh new mutuals while youre here. stream. (volume warning though)

[idolisnotdead]

anew - The First Group To Do It For Me In Nearly A Decade

Miss me? Probably not. It's only been half a decade since my last post. Did you guys know I was secretly working behind the scenes as a ghostwriter/producer for a pretty popular alt-idol group back when this blog was still active? I know, crazy, right? I'll admit to it now, but I'd still like to keep the circumstances, the "who", the "when", and the "how" a secret. Anyone who paid attention enough should probably have had it figured it out though.

It's honestly pretty incredible thinking about how much things have changed since even 5 years ago when I made that last post about what seemed like the end of Oyasumi Hologram. One of the most interesting parts is that they're surprisingly still around 5 years on from Hachigatsu's departure. Apparently they're still going a lot of live shows, but their music releases have been sporadic at best. They brought in two girls to replace Hachi as a sort of pseudo-band, but I believe both of them have left and it's just Kanamil left. I don't know much else to be honest, I'm really not caught up or tuned in much anymore considering how little music they've dropped and how much I've just lost touch with idol stuff as a whole lately.

Which is actually why I've dug up the old info and logged in today. A whole lot has changed since I started this blog, as a decade often does. I don't foresee myself posting again for a while though, so I suppose this is a happy 10 years to this blog just a few months early. Anyone who remembers the blog well will know that it basically started as an "ending" project to the historian/documentarian work I was doing in the early 2010s trying to get as much English info out there as possible about the underground J-pop and burgeoning anti-idol scenes at the time. Those of you old enough to remember the early 2010s will also remember that DeepL didn't exist and Google Translate was completely fucking useless. It's kind of insane to think there is near-perfect machine translation available now, though I also strongly believe it's not a replacement to the work a true human translator does, especially for applications like media localization and subtitling.

Anyway. What a ride it's been. It feels like a lifetime ago that I was making some of the internet's first English-language posts about BiS and Seiko Oomori. Maybe you've heard of them now? Also if you're wondering who tipped Anthony Fantano off to Haru Nemuri in the first place, it was me. Just saying. You can once again thank me for your favorite getting popular enough for you have heard about them in the first place.

Adding to my early work documenting this stuff in English for the first time, it's actually astounding to see just how successful idol stuff has gotten in the west so far this decade due to a few factors including the mainstream acceptance of anime (thank you to Lil Uzi Vert and Megan Thee Stallion for really doing the heavylifting there), the pandemic keeping people inside long enough to make an app like TikTok powerful enough to completely change the pop culture climate at admittedly far-too-fast/frequent of a pace, and honestly maybe even a bit of influence from hallyu; have you guys noticed how like...almost every recent J-pop/idol group who has gotten truly popular in the west kind of just fucking sound nothing like actual J-pop but instead more like the already very western-flavored K-pop of recent years? Yeah. God man, most Japanese music is actually on streaming services now. Did you guys know that you don't have to scavenge JPopSuki and JPopSingles (and whatever that other site was called that started with a Y) for downloads or import from CDJapan anymore to listen to J-pop? Yeah. It's just all on Spotify, mostly. Insane. I still prefer to own my music though because the streaming model is just not good. You will not catch me listening to stuff on Spotify after release day.

Getting to the point of today's post, I've actually found a new (lol) idol group that sparks joy in me for the first time in nearly a decade, and I think that's worth making a post about. So how did this come about? Well, it's really nice to say that I've actually still been in contact with friend of the blog Deadgrandma all these years on. He actually brought this group to my attention, thanks to their staggeringly unique looking new press photos to promote their concert this month. They're called "anew". It's pretty clear that their name isn't exactly the most SEO friendly, so I just kind of bookmarked it and sat it aside for now. Well, after finally diving around in my bookmarks again today while listening to Wasuta (still on about them, they're truly the GOATs of chika idols), I figured I'd give this new group a quick search. Lo and behold, they've actually released two minis and a few singles already. What struck me even more was that their newest single was actually a cover of Going Steady's "Doutei So Young". That is a very, very, very easy way to draw my interest.

And so my journey began, parsing through everything on anew's YouTube channel. Last year's single TSUKANOMA is what really drew my attention and reignited that flame I haven't felt in nearly a decade now. I think anew is doing something special, something that reminds me of the kind of noisy jazzy rock music Atarashii Gakko was doing in the late 2010s (did you guys know Atarashii Gakko are like fucking Coachella levels of popular in the west now!?).

Anyways, I'm still on this journey of going through their discography and soaking it all, but it's the fact that I'm on that journey at all that's astounding. Normally I hear 15 seconds of a recent J-pop or idol group and that's about all I need to hear to not give a shit; I've been around this game for a while, I've seen so many truly unique acts come and go over the last odd 15-20 years, so when a more normie-adjacent friend sends me something ultra-generic, I usually just have to be friendly, smile, and go "wow, sounds great!" as if I hadn't already heard another better group invent the wheel for the first time a decade ago and seen 50 worse groups borrow that same wheel for the 5000th time since.

And while I'm not saying anew is reinventing the wheel or anything, I will say it's unbelievably refreshing to hear a group this raw, this low budget, and this genuine. There's an unrefined edge to what they're doing, the type of group that only comes about when there's an actual passion for this kind of stuff, that only comes about when someone on your team is a fan of both Going Steady and idol music and is bold enough to combine them without concern for profit; Oyasumi Hologram's heavy Number Girl influence, anyone? What anew is doing is a genuine passion for the artform of idol, not the business model of idol. And that's just so unbelievably refreshing.

Anyways, that's about all I got for now. It just feels good to care again. Hell, I might even watch the Tokyo Idol Festival streams this summer just to see if there's anything else as fresh as this going on under my barely-existent radar these days. I really can't get over how this group is making me feel right now, it really feels special. It makes me feel like Bloodborne and Splatoon just came out, like BiSH just dropped SPARK. It's like 2015 levels of pure joy running through my head right now.

Tap into anew below:

By the way, if y'all are looking for my recent, more personal writings that won't be guaranteed to have anything to do with idol stuff, I write on Medium now occasionally. It's been a few years since my last post there too, but I have plenty of drafts in the pipeline for when I get around to them. Lots of rankings like my ever-popular Pillows discography ranking which I'd kind of consider the predecessor post to what I now do on Medium. I'm a VTuber now too as well as one of the most in-demand and prominent music producers and mix engineers in the VTuber business, so you can follow the trail of crumbs if you're that interested, I won't link any of that.

[kicksaddictny]

Playboi Carti Drops I AM MUSIC After Brief Delay

Playboi Carti’s highly anticipated album, I AM MUSIC, has finally arrived. After a brief delay, the project landed on streaming services in the early hours of March 14, delivering an expansive 30-track experience that fans have been waiting for.

Clocking in at just over an hour, I AM MUSIC boasts an impressive lineup of guest appearances. Future joins Carti on “CHARGE DEM HOES A FEE,” “TRIM,” and “DIS 1 GOT IT,” while Young Thug and Ty Dolla $ign link up on “WE NEED ALL DA VIBES.” Longtime collaborator Lil Uzi Vert appears on “JUMPIN” and “TWIN TRIM,” with Travis Scott lending his energy to “CRUSH,” “PHILLY,” and “WAKE UP F1LTHY.” The album also features The Weeknd on “RATHER LIE,” Skepta on “TOXIC,” and Kendrick Lamar on “GOOD CREDIT.”

This marks Carti’s first studio album in over four years, following Whole Lotta Red in December 2020. I AM MUSIC has been in the works for years, evolving through different creative phases—including an earlier title, Narcissist. Carti previously revealed that he spent three months recording a bulk of the album in a cave-like studio in Paris, adding to its mystique.

Stream I AM MUSIC now on Spotify.

[b3n4dryl]

en repeat

[hiphopraisedmetheblog]

Young Thug's "Slime Season 2" Now Streaming: A Resilient Return to Music

Young Thug’s 2015 mixtape “Slime Season 2” has made its way to digital streaming platforms, marking an exciting moment for fans of the Atlanta rapper. This 22-track project kicks off with the energetic “Big Racks,” featuring Lil Uzi Vert, and includes the popular track “Thief in the Night,” a collaboration with the late Trouble. Other notable songs from the mixtape are “Hey, I,” “Pull Up on a…

[dustedmagazine]

03 Greedo — Crip, I'm Sexy (self-released)

03 Greedo · Crip, I'm Sexy Hosted By DJ A-Tron

It is, thankfully, getting to be harder to remember a time when we might’ve never heard from James Jamal Jackson again. Originally arrested in 2016 on drug trafficking and possession of a firearm charges facing down a sentence of 300 years, 03 Greedo took a plea deal for 20 just as his star was ascending, just as he was finding his voice with the Purple Summer mixtape trilogy and The Wolf of Grape Street. Clinked up for four years, Greedo waited out two parole denials with a steady stream of second-tier compilations cobbled together from the vaults before his release in January 2023. The man’s been on a tear ever since, picking up right where he left off at an unmatched pace that feels as desperate as it did before he began his sentence in the summer of 2018.

Case in point: Just half a month after releasing the official, Sony-backed album Hella Greedy, the Watts rapper dumped Crip, I'm Sexy on listeners with no warning in early November. At 36 tracks running more than an hour and a half, there’s a lot for you to sift through — and make no mistake, it is on you to do the sifting. Greedo’s already said he might yet have another album to drop before 2024 is over, so what’s on here is already in his rearview mirror.

But let’s pause a moment to reflect on it: Crip, I’m Sexy is his best post-prison release in part because it benefits from that aforementioned desperation, like he can sense a clock is ticking and his brain’s bursting creativity needs unleashing as immediately as possible. What that translates to is an expansive platform for his abilities, a SoundCloud-only mixtape that shoots in every direction at maximum velocity for a breathtaking display of Greedo’s formidable skill.

He’s not alone here, either. Along with an elite cast of producers bringing some seriously diverse heat — Lex Luger, Pi’erre Bourne and Turbo all show up behind the boards, though the majority of the beats are handled by Detroit’s Mia Jayc — Greedo’s trying out local flows and flavors alongside luminaries like Michiganders Icewear Vezzo (you might’ve read about him), Peezy and Bfb da Packman, not to mention up-and-comers like respective Es GrindHard and Babyfxce; Cleveland native Doe Boy; Houstonian Guapo; Skrilla, who hails from Philadelphia, the first city he calls out on the tape in the opening verse of “Best Thing Yet”; the Drake-adjacent Canadian R&B singer Roy Woods; dudes pulled from his local scene out in L.A. in Wallie the Sensei and 500Raxx; and dye-in-the-wool megastar Lil Uzi Vert. That he can move so seamlessly among them is a huge part of his talent, but the other huge part is that he never loses his voice. You always know when Greedo has taken the mic.

Whether he’s cooking at a more lively tempo (“Maybach Minivan,” “Lil Drummer,” “Back End Freestyle”), hooking the chorus croon (“Song 4 U 2,” “Exotic Everything,” “My Gun”) or getting in his grapes over a mournful piano line (“Maybach SUV,” “Exorcist,” “Died in Vain,” “2 People”), 03 Greedo is in top form throughout Crip, I’m Sexy and it’s hard to deny two things: First, this man loves Maybachs; second, he remains one of contemporary hip-hop’s most distinctive, intriguing stylists. “I ain’t been inside the trenches in a while / Tryna provide some more protection for my child” he sings as he winds down “Best Thing Yet.” Hopefully that’s true for the sake of both the artist and the audience … but hopefully it’s also true that he never stops rapping like he’s constantly peering over his shoulder. The quality of his prolific output in that mindset is self-evident.

Patrick Masterson