Following the release of his entirely self-produced album The Allegory, Royce Da 5’9″ has continued his epic press run with a conversation on Elliot Wilson and B. Dot Miller’s Rap Radar. Within the opening moments, it becomes clear that Royce’s artistic vision stretches well beyond lyricism; the way he speaks about crafting a cohesive sonic vision, tailoring his beats to best convey his chosen message.

“When I get beats from people, I always look for the proper marriage between the vocal and the beat,” he explains. “That proper marriage is not created through the best rap that you can say or the best beat you can make. It’s created through the right marriage. It’s about hearing the beat and decided–” He remembers seeing footage of Jay-Z reacting to Timbaland‘s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” instrumental in the studio. “[Jay] was in there, he took a stab at it, and I remember some of the delivery not being as sharp as when he finally finished it,” says Royce. “Then the recut made it perfect. That beat is phenomenal, but it may not go down in history as the best Timbaland beat. But because of what they did together it’s classic.”

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Around the 15 minute mark, Elliott asks whether Royce ultimately regrets taking to social media to air his grievances, specifically pointing to the time he called out Lord Jamar on IG Live. “I don’t have regrets with that,” says Royce. “The only thing I can honestly say I would probably switch around is anything I might have said he could have taken offense to in terms of feeling disrespected. I never want to disrespect OGs. I never want to say anything that might come across as wanting to take away from his legacy. I respect him, I respect Brand Nubian…It’s just difficult to be able to say that and still disagree with something he might be saying.”

“It’s not like I had to defend Em,” he continues. “I spoke about things when my name as mentioned. The only time I challenged him was on Twitter, I challenge him on some cool shit. I felt like I kept it respectful.” Miller jokes that he didn’t keep it respectful for Kid Rock, prompting Royce to double down. “I don’t respect Kid Rock,” he says. “I feel like everybody should be allowed to say what they want to say and feel how they want to feel. As long as everyone is willing to stand in the center of their truths if they get held accountable. I’m personally someone who is going to hold you accountable if I feel disrespected.”

Wilson praises the way he held Yelawolf accountable on “Overcomer,” and Royce elaborates on his seemingly hardline stance. “I consider him a friend. I hold my friend to a certain standard…I don’t ask for respect, we give respect and we get respect. If I say something about somebody on a record and I’m taking a friendly jab, it’s all in fun.” Wilson asks whether he thinks the weight of his words landed on Yela, and Royce nods. “He knew exactly what was going on. He didn’t feel the need to make a phone call or call me and clarify anything. He feels entitled. Just like he reached out to me when the antics wore out — that’s the same entitled behavior.”

Check out the full conversation below, and be sure to support one of the game’s greatest lyricists right here. 

During the 2019 Holiday Season, Drake spoke rather highly of the Griselda movement during his interview with Rap Radar. “In a mainstream space I feel like the art of bars and that traditional long verse is kind of going extinct,” he reflected, chopping it up with Elliot Wilson and B. Dot Miller. “Then you got guys like Griselda making it wavy again to be on your gutter, straight rap shit. The interesting structures — that gutter shit.” When Miller asked if a Drake and Benny The Butcher collaboration was a possibility, Drizzy took a sip of his wine. “I’m down. Benny showed me love one time in an interview. He did show me love.”

Though Westside Gunn, Conway, and Benny are used to high-profile co-signs — they’ve already been endorsed by Eminem, J. Cole, Jay-Z, Raekwon, Royce Da 5’9″, and Ghostface — many were excited to see Drake showing love to such a bar-centric collective. Especially those who value Drake getting back on his BS, spazzing on lyrical slow burners like “Omerta.” While there’s certainly a strategic benefit of securing the Drake feature, as seen for Lil Baby, Blocboy JB, and even Migos, the Griselda trifecta have already established themselves as key players in the game without Aubrey’s blessing. Be that as it may, the idea of these particular worlds colliding is enticing on a purely stylistic level. 

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As luck would have it, what started as a what-if fantasy has become a reality. Seizing the opportunity presented by Drake’s Rap Radar interview, Benny The Butcher stepped up and slid an instrumental to Drizzy’s camp, the confirmation of a full-scale collaboration all but locked in. Taking to social media to fan the flames of hype, The Butcher made is known that the wheels are in motion. “Sent Drake a record and I kno imma wanna drop it as soon as he send it back,” he wrote, in a screencap captured by Elliot Wilson (the man who may have inadvertently helped spark this unexpected friendship in the first place).

To make things even more exciting, Drake slid into the comments with a simple Typewriter emoji, roughly translated to “I’m writing as we speak.” Of course, going toe to toe on wax with Benny The Butcher is no easy feat — one must bring their best bars to the table, and in no small dose. Benny is used to lyrically trading with the likes of Conway The Machine, another formidable wordsmith. While Drake is certainly competitive, a collaboration with Benny might be the biggest challenge he’s faced in a minute. On the other hand, it might be exactly what the game needs right now — a reminder that when inspired to do so, the 6ix God can spit at elite levels. No matter how things turn out, it’ll be exciting to see whether he’s capable of keeping strides with The Butcher on Benny’s home turf.

Concrete details surrounding the track are scarce. We can speculate that it will be produced by Daringer or Alchemist, but that’s about it. All we know is that, much like The Butcher himself, it’s coming. 

Entertainment couples collaborate all of the time. Once a relationship ends, it can be difficult to avoid an ex, but many former couples have mastered the art of keeping things cordial in order to secure the bag. While there are plenty of people who are able to put the past behind them, fans aren’t expecting to see Bow Wow and Ciara take to the stage for a revival of “Like You” anytime soon.

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In 2005, the rapper and the pop-R&B princess were right in the middle of their two-year relationship. They released their classic jam “Like You,” but the following year, they pulled the plug on their romance. Since that time, they’ve both moved on and don’t seem to have any real contact with one another. Ciara is happily in love with her NFL superstar husband Russell Wilson and their brood of children, but in the summer of 2019, Bow Wow decided to remind a nightclub full of people that he “had this b*tch first.” The clip quickly circulated on social media.

During his recent interview with Rap Radar, Bow Wow was asked if he and Ciara would ever link up to perform “Like You” again. “We tried, but I think after that video went viral…” Bow said as everyone joined together in laughter. “[I was] on Circoc, I was feeling myself… but we tried it though.” He added that Ciara performs the song live as apart of her normal set, albeit by herself. Check out the clip of the Rap Radar interview below.

If you ask Omarion, he'll tell you that Jermaine Dupri has a pretty peculiar routine in the studio. At times, it may not feel as though the legendary figure is actually working as hard as he can on things. Obviously, that's not the case. His catalogue does all the necessary talking for him. However, his longtime collaborator and mentee Bow Wow just wasn't feeling things when he and Omarion got to work with the producer on Face Off and, in the new episode of the Rap Radar podcast, they revealed that JD was given the boot one day into the project's inception.

In their first-ever joint interview, Omarion and Bow Wow linked up to speak about their reconnection on the upcoming Millennium Tour. Both artists are entering their twentieth years in the entertainment industry and their talk with Elliott Wilson and Brian Miller was incredibly nostalgic, including one moment when Bow's relationship with Jermaine Dupri was called into question.

"At one point in time, we were doing the Face Off album and, I'm thinking to myself, 'alright, we gon' have Jermaine [Dupri] do this half and then we gon' work with these other two producers,'" recalled Omarion. "The first day in Atlanta, Bow fires Jermaine. 'No no no, fuck that, we going, O.'" Omarion's impression of Bow had everybody cracking up before the man himself interjected to explain his side of the story. 

"We didn't even get a chance to record over a Jermaine Dupri track," said Bow Wow. "Day one, we go to the studio and I believe me, O, and Jermaine were just talking. And I'm just like 'you know, I'm just not really feeling what the fuck you doing.'"

Bow Wow and JD were on their "father-son shit" at that point and things got so heated that Bow and O ended up moving their studio sessions to Los Angeles, finishing up there and still making a hit, even without Jermaine. Listen below at the 11-minute mark.

Bow Wow and Omarion are about to reunite for the upcoming leg of the Millenium Tour, even teasing the arrival of a sequel to their Face Off album coming soon. While the imminence of Face Off 2 is still up in the air, the topic is addressed in their first-ever joint interview with the great Brian Miller and Elliott Wilson on Rap Radar. Some of the best hip-hop journalists on the planet, Miller and Wilson always conduct a ton of research for their interviews, which have been outstanding as of late. With Bow Wow and Omarion joining them on the podcast, they continue a string of impressive displays with over an hour of worthwhile chatter from the two former child stars.

While there are tons of moments that stand out during the chat, including the reason why Bow Wow "fired" Jermaine Dupri from Face Off after one day, Ashanti's inclusion on the upcoming tour, and more, an anecdote about Jay-Z attending their joint concert back in the day and leaving after just one song stands out among the rest. Speaking about the team-up between himself and O, Bow Wow confirmed that they were inspired by Jay-Z and R. Kelly's 2002 link-up on Best Of Both Worlds. Hov even ended up attending their show at Madison Square Garden, hearing that they would be tributing him and Kellz during the performance.

"He heard about it and said 'They perform Best of Both Worlds. That's the first song that they come out on,'" says Bow Wow, recalling Jay's words. "Bow does [Jay's] verse, [Omarion] does Kellz' part. So Hov comes to the Garden, stands in the tunnel, watches the intro and me and O are hyped. By the time the song was off, I looked in the tunnel, Hov was gone. He came to watch that one piece, there were twenty thousand in that motherfucker, he saw that shit and then got in the car and drove off."

Watch Bow Wow tell the story at the 15-minute mark below.

He’s known as a social commentator of the culture, so MSNBC invited Joe Budden to their studio for a candid interview about music, diversity, politics, therapy, and much, much more. The podcast host chatted with Ari Melber for nearly a half an hour, and while there was a myriad of topics discussed, right out of the gate they spent quite some time analyzing Drake.

Recently, Budden and his The Joe Budden Podcast co-hosts spoke at length about Drake’s filmed Rap Radar interview, a rare appearance for OVO’s head honcho. Ari wanted to chat about Drake lamenting that he doesn’t get recognition as an accomplished black artist and he played the clip back for Budden.

“Sometimes I don’t feel celebrated when I know somebody else would be celebrated for those accomplishments,” Drake said in his interview. “I don’t feel like people say when Drake is the artist of the decade, I don’t think anybody says ‘Wow, a black artist is the artist of the decade.” After the clip ended, Budden said, “That might of been one of the first times I heard him refer to himself that way. Like, as a black artist, but he’s right.”

“He’ll never be on the outside looking in, so who are we to say how he feels, how he should feel, but I think that many entertainers and athletes and just people in our industry move around with that chip on their shoulder,” Budden continued. “And they carry it. And they protect it. And I think we got a rare chance to see that in Drake. Somebody who’s piled up so many wins that I guess we feel like that shouldn’t be there.”

Budden thought it was good to see the superstar rapper “humanize himself” in such a manner on that platform. Check out what else Budden had to say about the Toronto rapper below.

In Drake’s widely discussed Rap Radar interview from December, the rapper touched on many different aspects of his career. Though Drizzy did indicate that his beef with Kanye did not have an end in sight, he also noted Kanye’s 808s & Heartbreaks album as inspiration for Drake to start singing. Another source of motivation for him to pursue singing was “obviously, 50 Cent.”

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“’21 Questions’ will probably be my most inspiring example of a guy who’s not supposed to be singing, singing,” Drake said about Fif’s 2003 hit with Nate Dogg. Fresh off receiving his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Fif told Variety that he was overjoyed to hear what Drake had said about him.

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“Drake was saying recently that I had influenced him to start singing, which was the coolest sh*t in the world for him to say, because I can’t sing as good as he sings,” he confessed. “I was always just trying to outline the melody. Because once you have a broad enough audience, you’re gonna have people who don’t speak English, so all they can follow is the melody…And when you’re writing [lyrics], I mean: ‘Go shorty, it’s your birthday’ — that’s not rocket science. Every day is somebody’s birthday.” It is indeed, 50.

He who laughs last laughs best, indeed.

While Pusha T has kept mum publicly about Drake's recent interview with the Rap Radar podcast, that hasn't kept the rest of the Internet from weighing in on the latest development in what could be considered the seminal rap beef of the past decade.

His silence wasn't of the ordinary, either. That was until, of course, Push took to Twitter in the literal eleventh hour--11:56 pm to be exact--to tweet out his final remark of the year: laughter.

"Hahhahahahhahahhahahhahahhahahahahahahahahahhahhahahahahahahahahhahahhahahhahahhahahahhahahhahahahahahhahhahahhahahahahhahahahahahahaahhahaahhahahhahahaahahahahahahhahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahhahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahhahahahhahahahahahhahahhahahahahahahahahhaha," was all he wrote.