Tag: Rap

NME

Headie One has shared a brand new single – listen to ‘Illegal’ below.

• READ MORE: Headie One live in London: a star-studded run through the greatest hits

The track is the latest of a number of tracks the rapper has been sharing throughout 2022. Back in May, he shared the track ‘Came In The Scene’, before following it up later that month with ’22 Carats’, a collaboration with French rapper Gazo.

The three tracks are the first taste of new solo music from the rapper since his 2021 mixtape ‘Too Loyal For My Own Good’ and 2020 debut album ‘Edna’. He also released a collaborative mixtape in 2020 with producer Fred again.. titled ‘Gang’ that featured appearances from FKA twigs, Jamie xx, Sampha and more.

Watch Headie One’s new ‘Illegal’ video below.

In a four-star review of ‘Too Loyal For My Own Good’, which was released last year, NME wrote: “This mixtape proves Headie One’s great musical ear: ‘Cry’ is an amazing listen, flipping Busta Rhymes’ 1997 classic ‘Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See’. Headie still delivers floorfillers, but never loses his rapping touch along the way.

“Featuring no help from his UK rapping mates, ‘Too Loyal For My Own Good’ should live on as a highlight of Headie’s discography. Think about how much the young man from Tottenham has grown in just a year as he sits pretty as an upper echelon of the UK scene.”

Last November, Headie One played a huge London gig at Wembley Arena, which NME called “a spectacle to behold, and well worth the wait” in a four-star review.

The post Listen to Headie One’s intense new single ‘Illegal’ appeared first on NME.

NME

Dave was joined by special guests Stormzy and AJ Tracey during his Reading Festival headline set last night (August 26) – see the full setlist, footage and reaction below.

• READ MORE: The story of Reading & Leeds 2022 – in glorious photos

The rapper was co-headlining the festival’s first evening alongside Megan Thee Stallion, and played a career-spanning set featuring tracks from both his studio albums.

Alongside a cover of Headie One’s ’18HUNNA’, Dave was joined by AJ Tracey to perform ‘Thiago Silva’, while later on in the set, Stormzy came on stage to perform ‘Clash’, returning the favour Dave paid him last summer by coming on during Stormzy’s headline set at the festival.

See footage of the special guest appearances and Dave’s full setlist below.

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@postaccountt

#randl22 #readingfestival #fyp

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Dave played:

‘We’re All Alone’
‘Professor X’
‘Funky Friday’
‘Wanna Know’
‘No Words’
‘Heart Attack’
‘Thiago Silva’ (with AJ Tracey)
’18HUNNA’
‘System’
‘Location’
‘Twenty To One’
‘Both Sides Of A Smile’
‘Clash’ (with Stormzy)
‘Starlight’

Elsewhere on Friday at Reading, Megan Thee Stallion invited two groups of fans on stage to dance with her. At the start of the set, Stallion said security wouldn’t let any fans on stage. Later, she brought a security guard on stage and told fans he was going to help get her “hotties” on stage.

Before they arrived, Stallion said there were “rules” for when they are on stage. One was “do not be on your phone the whole time” and the other was to “fuck things up”. She told the crowd to “show them all some love”.

Reading & Leeds 2022 continues today with performances from Arctic Monkeys, Bring Me The Horizon, Fontaines D.C. and Wolf Alice.

Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, photos, interviews and more from Reading & Leeds 2022.

The post Dave joined by Stormzy and AJ Tracey at Reading Festival headline set appeared first on NME.

NME

Bartees Strange is the latest to drop a single exclusively on Amazon Music, putting his blues-imbued folk spin on Freddie Gibbs’ ScHoolboy Q-assisted single ‘Gang Signs’.

• READ MORE: Five things we learned from our In Conversation video chat with Bartees Strange

For his new take on the song, the Ipswich, England-born, Oklahoma-raised indie-rocker locks into the feel of the original track’s gentle, groove-driven instrumental. He reappropriates the melody with crisp and roomy electric guitars, noodling away while he emulates Gibbs’ biting swagger with his rapped verses.

In a Tweet shared upon the track’s release, Strange said he “loved covering this song by two of the hardest”. Have a listen to his take on ‘Gang Signs’ below, then compare it to Gibbs’ original:

Strange’s ‘Gang Signs’ cover comes as the latest in a growing catalogue of his tributes. Prior to releasing his debut album, 2020’s ‘Live Forever’, he released the ‘Say Goodbye To Pretty Boy’ EP that featured covers of five songs by The National. In the year that followed, he shared covers of ‘Province’ by TV On The Radio and ‘Skinny Love’ by Bon Iver.

Then, in March of this year, he covered ‘About Today’ by The National for Sound Of Saving’s ‘Song That Found Me At The Right Time’ series. Earlier this month, he joined the band themselves to perform ‘Mistaken For Strangers’ at two of their shows. 

June saw the release of Strange’s second album, ‘Farm To Table’, which he previewed with the singles ‘Heavy Heart’, ‘Cosigns’ and ‘Hold The Line’. The same month, he performed album track ‘Wretched’ while appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

The post Bartees Strange puts a folky spin on Freddie Gibbs’ swagger with ‘Gang Signs’ cover appeared first on NME.

NME

Megan Thee Stallion has performed her set at Reading Festival this evening (August 26) and invited two groups of fans on stage to dance with her.

• READ MORE: The story of Reading & Leeds 2022 – in glorious photos

At the start of the set, Stallion said security wouldn’t let any fans on stage. Later, she brought a security guard on stage and told fans he was going to help get her “hotties” on stage.

Before they arrived, Stallion said there were “rules” for when they are on stage. One was “do not be on your phone the whole time” and the other was to “fuck things up”. She told the crowd to “show them all some love”.

After they danced with her on stage, Stallion posed for pictures with the fans.

Stallion repeated the same with a second group of fans, one of who had a sign asking Stallion to sign her chest. When the fan didn’t have a pen, Stallion said: “You don’t have your pen, how I’m gonna sign you tits?”

Moments later, Stallion got hold of a pen and signed the fans chest.

Another fan told Stallion that her boyfriend broke up with her, to which Stallion called him out on stage. “Why would someone break up with her?”, she said.

You can watch the moment on i-Player here, at the 21:50 mark.

Megan Thee Stallion’s Reading set:
‘NDA’
‘Megan’s Piano’
‘Freak Nasty’
‘Simon Says’
‘Big Ole Freak’
‘Sex Talk’
‘WAP’
‘Body’
‘Captain Hook’
‘Cash Shit’
‘Cry Baby’
‘Girls in the Hood’
‘Thot Shit’
‘Kitty Kat’
‘Plan B’
‘Her’

The twin-site festival returned this weekend with its biggest and most sonically diverse lineup yet.

Arctic Monkeys, Dave, Halsey, Bring Me The Horizon and The 1975 are also set to the top the bill, and there’s also huge sets to come from the likes of Charli XCX, PinkPantheress, Polo G, Willow, Fontaines D.C. and many more.

You can check out the full line-up for Reading and Leeds and the stage times here.

Reading & Leeds 2022 continues today with a headline performance from Dave.

Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, photos, interviews and more from Reading & Leeds 2022.

The post Watch the moment Megan Thee Stallion brings fans on stage at Reading Festival appeared first on NME.

NME

DJ Khaled‘s 13th studio album, ‘God Did’, has arrived. The follow-up to last year’s ‘Khaled Khaled’ is a predictably star-studded affair that features a veritable who’s who providing guest appearances.

• READ MORE: DJ Khaled – ‘Khaled Khaled’ review: another one from the best schmoozer in the biz

Contributors on the new album include Drake, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Future, Migos‘ Quavo and Takeoff, SZA, Travis Scott, Gunna, 21 Savage, Kodak Black, Lil Baby, Jadakiss, a posthumous appearance from Juice Wrld (on a track titled ‘Juice Wrld Did’) and more.

Among the 18 tracks on the album is a remix of Kanye West‘s ‘Use This Gospel’, which originally appeared on Ye’s 2019 album ‘Jesus Is King’. Khaled’s version features a guest appearance from Eminem, reuniting the two rappers for the first time since 2009’s ‘Forever’, which also featured Drake and Lil Wayne.

On the remix, Eminem delivers a characteristically rapid-fire verse that seems him reflect on struggling to maintain his faith: “Please let this hate make me stronger, for they turned on me like a zombie / It’s like I’m being strangled unconscious, when temptation is almost like Satan is baiting you.” Listen to that – and the album in full – below:

Khaled previewed ‘God Did’ earlier this month with its sole single: ‘Staying Alive’, a Drake and Lil-Baby assisted song that interpolates Bee Gees‘ 1977 song ‘Stayin’ Alive’. The Gibb brothers are credited as co-writers on the album as a result.

‘Khaled Khaled’, the DJ’s previous album, arrived in April of last year and featured a similarly stacked list of collaborators, including Cardi B, Post Malone, Nas, Megan Thee Stallion, Justin Bieber, Drake, 21 Savage, Lil Wayne and more.

In a three-star review, NME called the record a “slightly hollow, glitzy blockbuster of an album” but conceded that “after endless hits and three Platinum albums, you can forgive [Khaled] for refusing to change the blueprint”.

Back in April, Khaled received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with Jay-Z, Diddy and Fat Joe among those in attendance. “We the best. It’s not just me, it’s we,” Khaled said during his acceptance speech.

The post DJ Khaled’s ‘God Did’ arrives with Drake, Kanye West, Eminem, Jay-Z and more appeared first on NME.

NME

Snoop Dogg and Eminem will return to the stage together this Sunday (August 28), performing their recent joint ‘From The D 2 The LBC’ at the ceremony for this year’s MTV Video Music Awards.

• READ MORE: The biggest moments from the Super Bowl Halftime Show 2022

As Variety reports, the pair’s appearance has been organised in partnership with Yuga Labs – an NFT and cryptocurrency company best known for the Bored Apes project – and will be inspired by “the world of the Otherside metaverse”.

Though it’s yet to be launched publicly (and has no formal release window), Otherside is an online video game described as “a gamified, interoperable metaverse” that “blends mechanics from massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) and web3-enabled virtual worlds”. When it launches, the game will be intrinsically tied to a cryptocurrency called ApeCoin, and have a large focus on NFTs.

Snoop and Eminem’s performance will be held on a real-life stage at the VMAs – set to be held at the Prudential Center in New Jersey – with its ties to Otherside assumedly being purely aesthetic in nature.

It’ll be their third joint performance for the year, and second to come in tandem with Yuga Labs. After performing at the 2022 Super Bowl alongside Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent and Anderson .Paak, June saw the pair link up again at ApeFest – a music festival open exclusively to holders of Bored Ape NFTs – in New York.

It was there that they premiered ‘From The D 2 The LBC’, which was released that month alongside a music video featuring Bored Ape characters. The song features on Eminem’s latest compilation album, ‘Curtain Call 2’.

Earlier this month, Eminem and Snoop were spotted in the studio with Dr. Dre, where the trio posed for a photo in front of a mixing desk and a large set of speakers. It came after Snoop revealed he was working on new material with Dre, teasing that they were “cooking up a little something”.

On Monday (August 22), it was announced that the Red Hot Chili Peppers would be honoured with the Global Icon Award at this year’s VMAs. They’ll also perform at the ceremony – which Jack Harlow, Nicki Minaj and LL Cool J are set to co-host – joining Snoop and Eminem on a line-up that also includes Lizzo, Måneskin, BLACKPINK, Panic! At The Disco and more.

The post Snoop Dogg and Eminem to deliver metaverse-inspired performance at 2022 MTV VMAs appeared first on NME.

NME

An Atlanta-based rapper has alleged that he is the voice behind AI star FN Meka and in turn has accused Capitol Records of ghosting him after he was promised equity in the label.

• READ MORE: Burning Banksys and rubbish tweets: these are the most WTF NFTs so far

Kyle The Hooligan has posted notes and videos in which he claims that the Universal-owned label have left him “high and dry” and shared information that purports to prove that he is the formerly unknown voice behind the viral robot rapper.

FN Meka, made in collaboration with Factory New, was dropped by Capitol less than a fortnight after launching after its critics highlighted the way the project trivialised elements of Black culture and used them for shock value. The label alluded to this in a formal apology shared online earlier this week by The New York Times’ Joe Coscarelli.

Meka was marketed as the “world’s first” AI rapper to sign to a major label, with Ryan Ruden, Capitol Music Group’s executive vice president of experiential marketing and business development, saying that the project “meets at the intersection of music, technology and gaming culture” and “is just a preview of what’s to come”.

Capitol released its first FN Meka single, ‘Florida Water’, on August 12, which featured guest vocals from real life rapper Gunna and ancillary involvement from gaming streamer Clix.

But controversy followed when Meka, who’d garnered more than 10million TikTok followers, was seen to use the N word and appeared to make light of police brutality. As one of his creators, E.Town Concrete vocalist Anthony Martini explained to Music Business Worldwide, “lyrical content, chords, melody, tempo, sounds, etc” for Meka were all determined by artificial intelligence but he was voiced by a human.

Now, Kyle the Hooligan has broken his silence to claim that Capitol “used me for my voice my likeness and the culture got 10million TikTok followers and a big record deal off what I created then ghosted me…”

 

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“They came to me with this AI shit and was like would I want to be the voice of it, and I thought it was going to be some collaboration,” Kyle wrote in a caption for a video.

In the clip he alleged: “They promised me equity in the company, percentages, all this stuff, so I’m thinking, ‘OK, this about to be some collab, something different for me, so I can do my music and do some AI stuff with this FN Meka character.”

“So everything going good,” he continued. “Next thing I know, n**** just ghosted me. Use my voice, use my sound, use the culture and literally just left me high and dry. I ain’t get a dime off of nothing, and they got record deals, all this stuff. I wasn’t involved in no meetings or none of that, which is fucked up. So, I’m glad they ass got canceled ‘cause that’s karma for they ass ‘cause God don’t play with me. I’m gonna tell you that right now.”

In a second clip, Kyle claimed that one of FN Meka’s songs, ‘Moonwalkin’, is his. “Just to prove to y’all this was my music and me Moonwalking and Internet,” he wrote in a caption.

 

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NME has approached Capitol Records for comment.

Meanwhile, as journalist Coscarelli noted in his own New York Times report on Capitol ditching the FN Meka project, Factory New’s founder (and E.Town Concrete singer) Martini, predicted that would happen.

Martini blamed the impending cancellation on “blogs that have latched onto a clickbait headline and created this narrative”, seemingly alluding to the notion that Meka as a character is primarily developed by artificial intelligence (a narrative that Factory New championed themselves last year).

The founder told Coscarelli that the project was “not this malicious plan of white executives”, and that the FN Meka character was primarily the work of an anonymous human rapper – who Martini described only as “a black guy” – with Factory New’s role being “literally no different from managing a human artist, except that it’s digital”.

Martini also claimed that the expanded team behind FN Meka is “actually one of the most diverse teams you can get”, with Martini himself being “the only white person involved”.

Additionally, he claimed that Capitol had not pledged any financial commitment to the project, and did not pay Factory New an advance in finalising the deal. The New York Times reportedly confirmed this with the label.

In a statement via the NY Times after culling the project, Capitol Records wrote: “We offer our deepest apologies to the Black community for our insensitivity in signing this project without asking enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it.”

The post Man claiming to voice FN Meka, controversial AI rapper dropped by Capitol Records, says label “used me… then ghosted me” appeared first on NME.