The “War On Drugs” and law officials killing innocent people during raids have nothing to do with J. Cole’s “Crooked Smile” song, but the 28-year-old rapper decided to shed some light on Aiyana Stanley-Jones’ story in the accompanying video.
In 2010, Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley shot and killed 7-year-old Aiyana during a raid targeting a murder suspect.
The music video finds J. Cole playing a drug dealer with a young daughter. A white man portraying a DEA agent provides juxtaposition. He too has a young daughter and is leading the raid against Cole’s character. Read More →
Ahead of its September 24th release date, Drake is slowly liberating tracks from his third album Nothing Was the Same. Following the Wu-Tang-approved “Wu-Tang Forever,” the former Degrassi star took to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to premiere “Too Much,” featuring Sampha, with a well-enunciated presentation.
On the first verse, Drake says that despite “stackin’ up like [he's] fundraisin’,” he won’t become complacent like most recording artists in his position. He also gives some backstory about his second home, Houston, and he references a few H-Town staples (Bun B, Paul Wall and Mike Jones) while doing so. Read More →
Frank Ocean and Iggy Azalea appear on the Nabil-lensed covers for Oyster‘s 103rd issue. Both images are monochrome—Frank’s is under-saturated while Iggy’s is over-saturated. The accompanying interviews are still in the vault, but luckily, we have other business to discuss with these two. Read More →
With Victoria Monet on the hook, Nas performed “You Wouldn’t Understand” on The Arsenio Hall Show before an audience consisting of rhythmless white girls. Life Is Good is in stores now.
A day prior, Mac Miller also appeared on the new late-night show to perform a mashup of “Aquarium” and “Avian,” both lifted from his Watching Movies with the Sound Off album. Read More →
Eminem wants to “take it back to straight hip-hop” on “Berzerk,” his first single from The Marshall Mathers LP 2, due out on November 5th. Rick Rubin laced the Billy Squier-sampled track with that Beastie Boys sound, and the video evokes that same ’90s pop feel.
The golden moment in the video, though, was Kendrick Lamar pushing Eminem out of the way to mime bars from the first verse. Read More →
In her calculated quest to be the bad girl of Pop, Miley Cyrus bares all and licks a sledgehammer in her video for “Wrecking Ball,” the second single from her Bangerz album. Famed photographer Terry Richardson was behind the lens while Molly Cyrus rode the wrecking ball like a mechanical bull and rolled around in broken concrete. Read More →
If Ashanti came out in the 90s and K Mart was exploiting black kids then like they do now, the commercial accompanied by the lovely sounds of “Happy” would surely look something like Ariana Grande’s “Baby I” video.
I’m not sure if that makes sense, but it really doesn’t matter because there isn’t a lot of sense to be made with the video. It’s just adorable and bubbly and everything Ariana. Read More →
Brandy posed with Jennifer Hudson, who sported a stylishly studded hat, at the 24th Annual African Festival of the Arts in Chicago. The “Vocal Bible” and the big-voiced soulstress complimented each other’s impeccable talents in a charming Twitter exchange after their performances.
“So jealous that [Jennifer Hudson] doesn’t need tea or honey for her voice,” Brandy tweeted. “She told me that little secret tonight. Wtf?? I was like #glowwraaay lol.”
“[Brandy,] u got all them hits! Can I atleast have one of em!” J. Hud replied. “U r a treasure that can’t be duplicated. I think we all have tried!”
“Whoa” is all Brandy could say in response. Read More →
