Ever since the early release of Tekashi 6ix9ine, granted in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, a moral conundrum has plagued both artists and producers alike. To collaborate or not to collaborate with the disgraced rainbow wonder, that is the question. At least, it's the question for CashMoneyAP, multi-platinum producer known for his work with Migos, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Young Thug, Chief Keef, and more. Taking to Twitter, he asked his fellow beatmakers whether the inevitable bag would be worth the implicit abandonment of integrity. 

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"Question for producers : would u work with 6ix9ine rn knowing that he’ll do crazy numbers?" he writes, opening the floor and gauging reactions accordingly. Now, we've naturally seen many rappers express a reticence toward locking in with Tekashi, who notoriously acted as an informant against his fellow Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods, down to his once-manager Shotti. As such, his reputation has taken an irreparable hit in certain eyes -- though he seems fine with running with the rebrand. 

Insofar as CashMoneyAP's question, it stands to reason that there will be plenty of producers lining up to soundtrack 6ix9ine's musical comeback. While he might very well miss out on those A-list placements, the looming possibility of a fat bag will surely be enough to bring no shortage of ambitious instrumentalists out of the wood-work. And what are the consequences, if any, for a producer who simply shrugs and hits send on that Tekashi beat pack instrumental -- is knocking the hustle not a faux-pas in itself? 

All things considered, perhaps this is the perfect time to flood 6ix9ine with beats. He'll be looking to hit the ground running, and someone's going to have to step up. The only question is: who will it be?

We'd like to think that some of our favorite albums are readily available on the streaming platform of our choice, but that just isn't the case. We still don't have Aaliyah's catalog and Dr. Dre's classic The Chronic will become widely available on April 20. Back in 2016, Future shared his mixtape, Purple Reign. It was the Atlanta rapper's 16th mixtape that hosted no features and had production credits from Metro Boomin, Southside, Zaytoven, DJ Spniz, and more. The 12-track effort's artwork pays homage to late music icon Prince's album of the same name, and for years the project was only available on select platforms.

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Now, fans will be able to stream wherever they like, and they took to social media to share their enthusiasm. The news of Purple Reign became the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter as fans took a walk down memory lane. The rapper has been slowly, but surely, releasing his projects on all platforms and his supporters can't get enough—especially after seeing that Future added his track "News or Something" to the end.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the project, give it a listen below. For avid future fans, enjoy the memories. Peep a few enthusiastic reactions from fans, as well.

Almost a month ago to the date, Kehlani shared with fans that the COVID-19 pandemic was delaying the release of her forthcoming project. The Bay Area singer has been sharing a number of singles and collaborations including “Get Me” with Jusitn Bieber from his album Circles, “Konclusions” with ex-boyfriend YG, her break-up jam “Valentine’s Day (Shameful),” and her recently released track “Toxic.” Fans have been begging Kehlani to release a new project, but the quarantine hindered her plans.

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However, Kehlani popped up on Instagram with a string of cute and silly selfies to share that she plans on delivering new music this week. “Hi i’m dropping music i care about from an album i rlly care about tomorrow,” she wrote in the lengthy caption. “Quarantined or not i’m going to continue with my mode of expression because my art works in real time.” She added that if she doesn’t release her art when she created it, she will hold onto it until the “right” time happens, which could be never.

“I’d probably be a whole new person with new feelings and new things to write about,” Kehlani concluded. “Right now in this time at 24 this music is how i feel. where i’m at widdit. like Cloud 19 was when i was 19.. or You Should Be Here was when i was 20. this is just 24. so yeah. i’m rambling at this point.” Check out her post in full below.

Inglewood’s Finest, Mack 10, may have been silent on the rap scene in recent years, but the West Coast hip hop icon is a staple in the culture. The Westside Connection emcee made waves with his classic single “Foe Life” and the hip hop supergroup’s fan favorite, “Bow Down.” Mack 10 sat down with Vlad TV and talked about his rise to stardom, including how he linked up with friends Eazy-E and Ice Cube.

“I met Eazy before I met Cube,” Mack said. “It was just about music. I was a pretty good writer. In the hood, my music was growing. I was in a group called First Amendment. My music was growing. My popularity was growing. The homegirl knew [Eazy-E], she introduced us over the phone one day. I think he pulled up or something one day. That’s how I met him. It was just about music. It wasn’t about I’m from Inglewood, I’m from Compton. It was just about music.”

Mack 10 added that Eazy-E didn’t attempt to sign him to his label, Ruthless Records, but he did end up writing for the rapper. “It was a normal experience. He was a cool dude,” Mack added. “I [wrote] a couple of records. I don’t even know if they came out or whatever. When I first went around Eazy, it was just about writing records. It wasn’t about nothing else.”

The Inglewood icon said he never saw Eazy-E in the booth laying down tracks that he’d written, but did joke that he was paid “a little bit of nothing.” Mack 10 said Eazy would “go in his sock” and pull out money to pay him for a song. “Everybody who knows him knows he’d go right in the sock!” he said with a laugh. Check out the clip below along with Westside Connection’s “Bow Down.”

While other artists are holding off on sharing their new projects, Big Sean is ready to drop. The rapper has been teasing Detroit 2 for some time, even sharing that the album may come prior to his scheduled Coachella appearance. Now that the world is on pause because of the COVID-19 quarantine, events have been canceled, but Sean told The Rap Pack that a pandemic isn't going to stop him from moving forward with his project.

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"My thinking was, I was gon' drop it now," Big Sean said. “Honestly, I deal with so many other people when it comes to putting an album out. Especially when you on a label and all these things and it definitely can happen and is happening. At the same time, it's just like, we've had to readjust a few things."

The rapper said that the public has been receiving differing timelines of when the quarantine will be over, but it keeps getting extended. "People like, ‘It’s only gonna last few—It should be up by this time in April' and this. And then it just keeps expanding, right? So, you hear things about how streams are down and all these things, but I also believe in making music for a cause, for a purpose, to heal, to help, to inspire."

"I truly feel like that's why, especially this project, it got songs that relate to me right now," he added. "I feel like it's time, especially for these times that we're in. So, I do feel the responsibility to, no matter what, get it out." Are you hyped for Detroit 2?

If there’s anything positive to take away from the current social distancing measures enforced, it’s the fact that rappers have been blessing us with tons of new music over the past few weeks. Lil Uzi Vert dropped off back-to-back projects, The Weeknd’s After Hours arrived just as things began to get serious, and let’s be real, you’ve been occupying your time by practicing the Toosie Slide. 

DaBaby has confirmed that he has a new album on the way titled, Blame It On Baby. Serving as the official follow-up to KIRK, the rapper revealed that his new project would be dropping this Friday and shared the cover art which included him donning a facemask — a reflection of the times we’re in. 

Just a few hours ago, the rapper hit the ‘Gram to preview two of the tracks off the project and now, he’s shared the artists that will feature on the project. Future, Quavo, Roddy Ricch, Megan Thee Stallion, NBA Youngboy, and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie all make appearances on the tracklist. It shouldn’t be too shocking because he’s been spotted in the studio with the majority of these artists. The one feature that does stand out is Ashanti. Perhaps, DaBaby gives us some “Always On Time” vibes on his new project.

Peep the Instagram post below.

Megan Thee Stallion‘s legal war with 1501 Entertainment won’t be dealt in arbitration as Carl Crawford had wanted. According to Billboard, a judge has denied Crawford’s motion to settle their legal dispute in arbitration. This is a pretty big win for Megan Thee Stallion since one of the roadblocks in her lawsuit was the contractual agreement that would force her to settle the case outside of the courtroom. The judge also denied Crawford’s motion to stay that case.

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“We are obviously very happy with the court’s decision and look forward to litigating this case,” Megan Thee Stallion’s attorney Richard Busch said about the ruling.

This marks the second small victory in Megan Thee Stallion’s legal war against Carl Crawford and 1501 Entertainment. After filing a lawsuit, she was successfully granted a temporary restraining order against the label which gave her the power to release new music. At the time the lawsuit was filed, she had alleged that they were preventing her from releasing new music. The judge later gave an extension on the restraining order to Megan.

Days after news emerged of Megan’s situation, she was able to release her latest project, SUGA due to the restraining order. A successful move, the album produced the singles “Savage” and “Captain Hook” which have both benefitted from TikTok dances propelling their popularity. 

We’ll keep you posted on any more updates surrounding the case.

After suggesting that he'd drop, again, whenever Playboi Carti, his former partner in crime, decided to drop new music, it looks like Lil Uzi Vert is keeping his word. We're currently waiting for the word that Carti has new music for the fans this Friday which would mark another exquisite drop in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Carti released a cover art to his Instagram page yesterday that many believe is for Whole Lotta Red. Though Carti's been relatively silent on the matter without confirming if the album is dropping this week, Drake also shared the cover art on his IG Story prompting speculation that their long-awaited collaboration could also be coming this Friday.

However, Uzi appears to want to drop new music for the third time in a matter of weeks. Taking to Twitter, he wrote, "I just made the realest shit of my life."In a following tweet, equipped with Chief Keef doing a reiteration of the iconic Uzi shrug, he wrote, "I ain't done turning up BITCH" along with a CD emoji. "Woke up the demon," he added.

It's unclear if that actually means Uzi will drop will actually release new music or if he's simply building the public's anticipation to feed a sociopathic hunger but we definitely wouldn't mind a new Uzi project this year. We are, after all, going to be stuck in quarantine for a very long time. 

Two years ago, Chris D’Elia had a viral moment on twitter thanks to a spot-on Eminem impersonation. The comedian was already pretty well established at the time, but this clip of him rapping in the vein of Eminem‘s newest Kamikaze album (at the time) propelled his career even further, and gained him new fans.

Not only that, it resulted in more work for the comedian, as he was later recruited to take part in Logic’s music video for “Homicide,” a collaboration with Eminem that featured D’Elia’s parody attached to the end of it.

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Now, a couple of years later, D’Elia dives back into the story to explain it in full while on Joe Rogan’s new podcast. Actually, this story is about Chris D’Elia almost shitting his pants on the way to meet Eminem for the first time– but he gets sidetracked along the way by Rogan so he can explain the story of how his little parody clip went viral.

Chris D’Elia begins, “I was at my old house, this was maybe two years ago at this point, and I was in the driveway, I don’t remember what I was doing but I was waiting for something. It had been right around the time of Eminem’s album, so he was on my mind. I was thinking about him and I was like this is how he raps. So I started doing it to the radio, and I was like oh this is funny, I’m gunna record it. And I recorded it one time– and i was like that’s funny, I’ll put it online. I put it online, and it got traction for me– it had a lot of hits for me, on my Instagram, I was like cool, great. And then like a month later, Black twitter took it..They didn’t know who I was but they were like, ‘this guy says this is how Eminem raps.’ And then it got millions of hits on twitter. Then it got so big, my buddy was like you think Eminem’s probably seen it right? I was like ‘maybe.'”

D’Elia continues, “And then a week or two later, my buddy texted me, like ‘bro, Eminem.’ I was like ‘what?’ He was like ‘You didn’t see? Check twitter.’ And I checked, and he was like, ‘I thought this was me.’ And I was like whaaattt?! If you told 20-year old me…And then he was like ‘I’m gunna rap battle Chris D’Elia one day’ and I was like, ‘am I in the hip-hop game now?!'” 

It didn’t end there, though, as D’Elia’s hip-hop connects kept flooding in: “And then Logic, the rapper, hit me up.”

D’Elia goes on to explain how his manager called him to tell him that Logic was planning a collaboration with Eminem, with D’Elia’s skit tacked on to the end. “I was like of course that’s okay! Don’t ask for any money just let him have it!,” he says. That collab eventually turned into a music video appearance for the comedian.

Catch this story, and the one about D’Elia almost shitting his pants around 25-minute mark. 

Leave it to Kanye West to make a variety of headlines off a single interview, though many of which tend to derive from the outlandish nature of his comments. On one hand, he’ll entice longtime fans with promising tidbits about his actual music, including the revelation that he’s getting back to rapping on his upcoming Dr. Dre-produced Jesus Is King II. On the other hand, his loftier declarations tend to have the opposite effect and only serve to rub people the wrong way — even if they are delivered in a sincere fashion.

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Take, for instance, his insistence that he and Kobe Bryant are reflections of one another, albeit in different fields. Made in a recent interview with GQ, Yeezy opened up about his connection to Bryant, one that stems from a place of genuine admiration, respect, and longtime friendship. “He was the basketball version of me, and I was the rap version of him, and that’s facts!” says Kanye. “We got the commercials that prove it. No one else can say this. We came up at the same time, together.”

“And now it’s like, yeah, I might have had a reputation for screaming about things—but I’m not taking any mess for an answer now,” he continues, elaborating on how Kobe’s death has left him feeling a renewed sense of purpose. “We’re about to build a paradigm shift for humanity. We ain’t playing with ’em. We bringing home the trophies.” In that sense, Kanye continues to seek inspiration from his late friend, with whom he collaborated on a hilarious Nikecommercial back in 2015. What do you make of Yeezy’s comparison — do you feel it’s an appropriate one to make?

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