Havoc has plenty of faith in his catalogue of hits, as he told Swizz Beatz he wouldn't be afraid of whichever producer they put him up against since nobody would be able to "destroy" him in a battle. The Mobb Deep rapper and producer reached out to Swizz in order to get involved with his and Timbaland's insanely popular Verzuz series, which has been keeping tons of people entertained during quarantine. The series, which has seen tons of legendary producers, songwriters, and rappers face off in a battle of their greatest hits, has been a source of joy for many hip hop and R&B fans during these dark times, and Havoc wants to get in on the action.

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“I just hit up Swizz, I sent him my list,” he revealed. “Now I said, ‘Swizz, I’ll battle anybody you put me against.’ He said, ‘I bet.’ I said, ‘I’ll be waiting,’ and he said, ‘I’m going to do it ASAP.’ So look for that.” He went on to explain why he's not afraid to take on any producer that's thrown his way, whether it be his longtime collaborator, Alchemist, previous Verzuz champion, RZA, or a newcomer like Metro Boomin.

“You could put me up against anybody and I’m not going to get destroyed," he explained. "I believe that in my heart. I could definitely hang in there with the best of them. And yeah, I was going to say [RZA] but I didn’t want to get beside myself, but I would take him on. I’m willing to lose just because.” Swizz seemingly implied that Havoc was already on the roster for a future battle with one of the aforementioned beatmakers during an Instagram live session on Saturday (April 18th) with Timbo. Swizz responded to Alchemist's lighthearted jab about Swizz in the comments by telling him, "you just focus on Havoc."

As convenience has become king, the idea of downloading mixtapes has begun feeling strangely archaic — especially given the prominence of streaming services. For that reason, many classic tapes have simply fallen by the wayside, left in the dust over uncleared samples and other behind-the-scenes predicaments. Luckily, many artists are beginning to take measures in bringing their mixtape catalog back into the fold, with Fabolous being the most recent example.

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Today, Fab took to Instagram to announce that he had officially uploaded his 2011 classic The Soul Tape to SoundCloud, which features contributions from Lil Wayne, Lloyd Banks, Paul Cain, Vado, and more. The fan-favorite tape clearly remains dear to Fab’s heart, as he not only took the measures to highlight it once again, but also launched an entire merch capsule commemorating its nine-year-anniversary; should you be interested in copping some of said merch, check that out right here. 

If you’ve never heard The Soul Tape, consider checking it out below. There’s a reason many still hold Fab’s bars in high esteem, and it’s not because of his romantic tracks — classic though a few of those might be. For the most part, his mixtape catalog played a major role in solidifying his reputation as punchline royalty. Be sure to check out The Soul Tape right now, and sound off – is this a classic tape by your estimation? 

Machine Gun Kelly has been keeping all of his fans busy with new music every single day during the quarantine. The rapper has been locked down for twenty-one days and, unfortunately, he has to celebrate his birthday right now. While we're sure he would have been pulling some crazy ragers in Las Vegas this weekend had the circumstances been different, MGK is making the most of his big day under quarantine.

Continuing his plan to drop new vibes every day, Kellz hopped on a FaceTime call with none other than Marilyn Manson to field requests. The suggestion that came out of the rockstar's mouth is incredibly surprising.

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"I'm doing these covers for fun. I need a song request, what are you thinking?" asked Machine Gun Kelly on the phone. "Rihanna, Love On The Brain," replied Marilyn Manson without thinking twice about it. Uhh... alright. Is anyone else wildly surprised that Marilyn Manson, of all people, is listening to Rihanna's Anti?

Well, MGK delivered. He grabbed his guitar, set up the microphone, and came through with yet another inventive cover of a song that many would consider being way out of his range. 

Listen to the brand new cover below!

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and a guitar solo for my birthday. ?#LockdownSessions Day 21

A post shared by Colson ??‍♂️? the Blonde Don (@machinegunkelly) on Apr 22, 2020 at 10:06am PDT

Nicki Minaj is MIA, according to a photo agency that’s trying to take down the rapper in court. The Blast reports that Splash News and Picture Agency is fighting to have their case against the rapper move forward after suing Nicki for using a picture they captured for her Instagram page without getting the proper authorization. The agency accuses Nick of making money off of their copyrighted work.

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Though they are having trouble trying to find Nicki Minaj, they’ve proposed a new method of trying to get ahold of her — Instagram. Splash is requesting that the judge gives them permission to serve the legal papers Instagram. Seeing as how they claim it’s been nearly a year since they first tried serving the rapper the papers, they’re clearly trying to get in contact with her by any means necessary. On top of that, they said they haven’t been able to find Nicki’s legal representation. 

They previously asked to use a different method to serve Nicki the papers. Nicki’s apparently made it incredibly difficult for them to get in contact. Process servers have been hired as well as money spent on trying to find Nicki’s home address. When they did, Nicki’s bodyguards did their job and prevented them from going near her.

Splash “believes that it will be impossible to serve defendant directly because (a) in public she is accompanied by a team of bodyguards, (b) a current resident address in Los Angeles is difficult to confirm, and (c) the resident addresses in Los Angeles that are associated with her are gated communities and therefore inaccessible,” they said in court docs. 

In a recent interview, Conway The Machine professed a desire to be revered as one of the greatest of all time. As such, he’s been steadily honing his craft and working on new music, promising a slew of projects to come in 2020 — including his long-awaited Shady Records debut God Don’t Make Mistakes, an album said to encapsulate the pinnacle of modern hip-hop. In the meantime, however, The Machine has been steadily building his resume, taking to Instagram to raise the curtain on yet another body of work.

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This one is tentatively titled the Big Ghost Tape, currently made up of nine tracks produced entirely by Big Ghost LTD. For those who have been following the Griselda movement for a minute now, you might recognize Big Ghost LTD from his work on Conway and Westside Gunn’s Griselda Ghost project in 2015. This time around, it seems that Conway is flying solo, continuing his 2020 tradition of rocking with a singular producer for the duration of an album.

Though we have yet to land a release date for this one, look for the Big Ghost Tape to arrive at some point in the imminent future. Machine has never been one to sit on music for long, a fact that benefits us all. Check out the full tracklist below, Conway’s latest Instagram post.

The last time Young Dolph announced that he would be releasing new music, he never came through. In March, the Memphis rapper told the world that he would be dropping a brand new album to keep fans entertained during the quarantine but that never happened. So, now that he’s effectively doing the same thing again, people aren’t exactly buying the fact that he will actually stick to his word.

Announcing a new single dropping this week, Young Dolph teased some music that will directly relate to Donald Trump and the coronavirus. At least, that’s what he’s suggesting with the topical cover artwork, which shows the President on the side and somebody being treated for COVID-19.

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While the prospect of new music from the rapper is certainly exciting, his fans won’t allow themselves to get their hopes up. In the comments of the post, the majority of his fans are calling “cap” on the announcement, telling Dolph that they’ll be keeping a close eye on their streaming service of choice before actually believing that he will drop.

“We will see. Don’t cap,” said one fan. “Stop playing with us dolph,” begged another.

Hopefully, Young Dolph keeps to his word and delivers some new music this week. If not, you can’t pretend to be surprised.

In the wee hours of the morning, an earthquake with a 3.7 magnitude hit Los Angeles. The “light shaking” occurred in South L.A., Inglewood, Culver City, and the L.A. International Airport, marking the second earthquake in a matter of 10 days that had a magnitude above 3.0. 

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Los Angeles residents immediately hit the ‘Gram to react to the earthquake as dishes and cars began shaking. However, while the rest of the L.A. area reacted to the earthquake, Snoop Dogg was sound asleep. He took to the ‘Gram recently explaining that he didn’t feel the earthquake at all. His hair, on the other hand, “gathered itself up” once the earthquake struck.

“They said we just had an earthquake. I didn’t feel shit,” Snoop said. “The fuck happened to my hair? We must’ve had an earthquake because my hair didn’t look like this when I went to bed. My hair must’ve got scared and gathered itself up to protect itself from the earthquake. I didn’t feel it.”

Ultimately, this train of thought only lasted for a little while before Snoop declared that he was going back to bed. Quarantine is clearly giving Snoop a well-deserved break from his regularly scheduled events but truthfully, it’s a bit alarming that his hair reacted to the earthquake before he did.

Peep Snoop Dogg’s hilarious Instagram clip below. 

Chris Brown has quietly remained one of the game’s most prolific artists, continuously padding his studio albums with enough songs to tide fans over for years. Yet even after gargantuan releases like Heartbreak On A Full Moon and Indigo, Breezy still has heat left over. Case in point, the upcoming collaboration with T-Pain “Wake Up Dead,” set to arrive in full this Friday, April 24th. Given that Brown is the official featured artist, it stands to reason that T-Pain is gearing up to drop off a new project, with this being the start of a new rollout.

Taking to Instagram, T-Pain made his excitement for the upcoming drop well known, sharing both the official single artwork and a lengthy snippet of the new track. From the sound of it, “Wake Up Dead” will come heavy on the harmony, with Breezy and T-Pain pairing their voices in what promises to be an epic display of skill and showmanship. “I don’t want to wake up dead,” they sing, simultaneously. “I don’t want to turn up missing.” 

T-Pain shared another snippet of Breezy’s verse, which seems to be building into a crescendo. From the sound of it, the instrumental will center around muted, reverb-soaked guitar chords, though it’s as of yet unclear as to how the drums will be arranged. At the very least, we won’t have to wait much longer to find out. Check back this Friday for “Wake Up Dead,” the brand new single from T-Pain and Chris Brown. Do you have high hopes for this one? 

An artist cannot control their creative impulses. Nor should they. We’ve long seen comfort zones left behind in favor of newer, but not necessarily greener pastures.

It is, after all, part of the artist’s eternal curse. The fans want change almost as much as they inevitably come to long for the glory days. The “old” insert artist’s name here. In favorable situations, the change might elicit criticism at first, only to be damn near revered years later; consider Radiohead’s transition to Kid A, or Kanye West’s to 808s & Heartbreak. For those who aren’t so lucky, the detions are shoved into the closet to collect dust, aberrations better left forgotten. Alas, such was indeed the case for Lil Wayne’s foray into the mire that is rock-rap, his seventh studio album Rebirth. At least, at first glance. Ten years later, is it really as bad as the initial reviews would have you believe?

There’s a case to be made that Rebirth wouldn’t exist without “Lollipop,” Lil Wayne’s wildly popular Carter III single. Despite having previously established himself as one of the game’s deadliest lyricists — by a wide margin at that — Weezy opted for simplicity in both bars and arrangement. The end result was a seductive club banger strangely appropriate for stadium play, a combination that helped “Lollipop” clinch the position of being the most popular song of Wayne’s career. It’s no wonder he was, at minimum, enticed at the prospect of further exploring this potentially lucrative road. And thus, Lil Wayne’s first “rock album” was born — a flight of fancy perhaps, but one well-earned. Even now, if there’s anything to be said about the project, it’s that there remains a clear sense of artistic freedom throughout.

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Seeing as rock and roll music is a historic and expansive genre that has spawned countless subgenres, simply slapping a “rock” label onto an album does little in revealing a clear sonic direction. A rough translation might be better served as follows: there are guitars and loud drums. Guitars played by Weezy himself, if that’s worth anything on your scorecard. As such, he should be judged as a guitarist, from technique to tone. For the most part, Wayne tends to soak his chords in distortion, heavy on the sustain. Sometimes his riffs are shrill and piercing, closer in spirit to heavy metal than a typical rock band might employ. Other times they’re surprisingly whimsical, seeped in the fairy-tale romance of the pop-punk radio playbook.

Such is indeed the case on the Nicki Minaj-assisted “Knockout,” which feels directly plucked from a late-nineties summer camp comedy. The strange thing is, Weezy’s ear for melody is surprisingly solid; his vocals never lack sincerity, which in turn helps him swerve the pitfalls of parody. It’s clear he genuinely enjoys this style of music, having previously developed friendships with the likes of Pete Wentz, Green Day, and Gym Class Heroes. Unfortunately for Wayne, the direction was so left field that many of his longtime listeners were simply incapable of making the jump — to appreciate Rebirth not only required a stalwart dedication to the man behind it, but to the music he was attempting to explore. Otherwise, enjoyment for Rebirth was wholly dependent on one’s threshold to suffer through a genre they don’t even like out of sheer loyalty.

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At times, it seems as if Weezy was driven by caffeine, unchecked energy, and pent up sexual frustration, all but shrieking out his words on songs like the frantic “Price Is Wrong.” Lyrically, Weezy seems to have taken the schoolyard romance concept and run with it, pitting himself as the leading man in a John Hughes-esque adventure — albeit one slapped with an NC-17 rating. The pattern is arguably at its most obvious on the infamous “Prom Queen,” the lead single and first taste of Wayne’s vastly different energy. For many, the song became an easy target, if only because of how different it was. On the surface, there’s little on Rebirth that jumps out as being overtly hip-hop. But one look at the liner note credits might prove surprising. Production is handled by a laundry list of familiar names, with heavy involvement from Cool & Dre, J.U.S.T.I.C.E League, and Streetrunner. Eminem contributes a Recovery-era verse on “Drop The World,” a largely rapped duet picking up where “No Love” left off. Wayne does come through with a few bars here and there, but for the most part remains fully dedicated to the world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Upon its release, critics and fans alike weren’t exactly kind to Rebirth. It quickly became the butt of many-a-joke, painted as a musical midlife crisis — one largely made up of underdeveloped songwriting from an underqualified source. But did those negative sentiments withstand the test of time, or did they melt away in favor of a newfound rosy-tinted perspective? In hindsight, many songs on the album seem to have garnered appreciation, if not exactly acclaim — especially given the clear influence Rebirth had on many of the new generation’s younger artists. Especially the likes of Juice WRLD, XXXTentacion, and Trippie Redd, all of whom included elements of rock and metal in their own catalogs, though never quite with Weezy’s headlong dedication.

Even if it wasn’t the music itself that proved particularly inspiring, the willingness to boldly attempt a complete reinvention in the name of fun is undeniably admirable. As such, it further solidified Lil Wayne as a fearless artist, willing to follow a creative impulse straight off the cliff, provided that’s where it took him. It may not be your cup of tea, but there’s an argument to be made that Rebirth deserves respect, not ridicule. So many rappers fancy likening themselves to rockstars, but few are willing to commit to the cause so thoroughly. 

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There is an important chunk of Kanye West‘s discography missing from streaming services. While all of his studio albums are available, the majority of his G.O.O.D. Friday drops are not on Apple Music, Spotify, or TIDAL. That means we can’t readily listen to songs like “Christian Dior Denim Flow,” “Don’t Stop,” “Looking For Trouble,” “Take One For The Team,” and more.

According to Mike Dean, Kanye West’s go-to engineer and producer, that all may change this year.

In a new interview with Vulture, Mike Dean spoke about his new album 4:20 and what he loved about the G.O.O.D. Friday era. Revealing his favorite release from that time, the producer explained why those songs are not available on streaming services yet, offering fans a timetable as to when they can expect them.

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“They’ll be out someday,” he said. “Maybe on the 10th anniversary [in August]. I was trying to do it last year, but it was too late. They’ll probably end up on Tidal or something.”

As for his personal favorite of the bunch, he has a soft spot for “Take One For The Team.”

Considering we just went through another Good Friday holiday without being able to listen to Kanye West’s marathon of hits on streaming services, it’s a pleasure to hear that next year may be different.

Cross your fingers!

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