Despite reportedly testing positive for COVID-19, YNW Melly remains incarcerated. The young rapper was arrested last year after authorities claim he was involved in a plot to kill two of his associates. YNW Melly was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder, but weeks ago, news surfaced that the 20-year-old had contracted coronavirus while behind bars.

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Melly’s legal team filed paperwork asking for the rapper to be released from prison to help treat his condition, but their petition was denied. Melly seemed to have even reached out to Kanye West following reports that he was being treated with Gatorade and Tylenol, most likely to gain assistance from Kim Kardashian and her prison reform team. Boosie Badazz recently sat down with VladTV and talked about the virus and why he believes YNW Melly won’t be freed.

“When you silent, if you not working for them, if you silent, they will deteriorate your health,” Boosie said. “They will do anything.” The rapper also said that he believes that authorities were “f*cking with [his] medicine” when he was previously locked up. Boosie Badazz claims that inmates who choose not to cooperate with authorities are guaranteed to be mistreated while behind bars. “They gon’ have it hard in there bro,” Boosie said.

Check out Boosie Badazz give his opinion on COVID-19 below and see why this is all familiar to him because it’s been the plot of plenty of films.

It's strange how a rumor can begin. In the 1990s, Ice Cube united with rappers Mack 10 and WC to form Westside Connection. The supergroup was poised to become the next big thing out of West Coast hip hop, but due to internal disagreement, they disbanded before they'd even peaked. Mack 10 has sat down with an interview with Vlad TV where he revisits his rise to fame and working with Ice Cube. During the conversation, Mack 10 was asked about a comment Cube allegedly made years ago about Westside Connection reforming.

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Vlad wanted to know what Mack thought about hearing Cube say that the only way the trio could work together again was if Mack would "kiss the pinky ring." Westside Connection reportedly broke up after Mack had a physical altercation with Cube's brother-in-law, and according to Mack, he hasn't spoken to his former friend in 10 to 15 years.

The rapper added that back in the day when he heard of what Cube allegedly said, he thought it was comedy. Obviously, it would be something he would never do, and soon a fan tweeted Cube about the incendiary comment. "Never happened," the rapper wrote. However, 10 years ago in 2010, HipHopDX wrote about Cube addressing a fan who asked if Westside Connection would ever reunite. The rapper allegedly answered, "I never say never, but he has the kiss the ring first." Watch Mack 10 talk about never kissing Cube's ring below.

Back in the 1990s, hip hop fans just knew that they were on their way to receiving an entire catalog from Westside Connection. The rap supergroup consisted of Ice Cube, Mack 10, and WC, but after releasing two studio albums—Bow Down and Terrorist Threats—the trio were no more. There have been plenty of rumors floating around over the years as to what led to the demise of Westside Connection, including gossip that Ice Cube’s brother-in-law’s beatdown was the last straw.

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However, Mack 10 recently sat down with Vlad TV to set the record straight. “It was conflict,” he said. “But I went to Cube about four or five times before the conflict jumped off and told him to correct the situation. That’s the part that everybody leave out, I think. I didn’t—Nobody didn’t intend on starting nothing, even like, escalating to that level. If you go to somebody five times before it escalates, then you was trying to be diplomatic about the situation.”

Vlad added that because it was Ice Cube’s wife’s brother, it puts the rapper in a difficult position. Mack 10 responded by saying if it was his wife’s brother, he would have made it clear that “he can’t f*ck my money up. And he can’t be out of line with anybody I’m getting down with and if you got that big of a problem with him, stay at home.” Mack 10 also said that he didn’t fight with Cube, but things became so heated that it became a “misunderstanding” that ultimately seemed irreparable at the time. Watch Mack 10’s clip 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.”

Once upon a time, Rich The Kid and Lil Uzi Vert were at odds. Prior to announcing last year that their beef has been put to rest, the artists were going at each other in videos, during live shows, and anywhere they were able to take verbal jabs at one another. Why these two were going so hard remained a mystery, but Adam22 revealed to Vlad TV that it all stemmed from Rich wanting to ink a deal with Uzi.

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After Vlad spoke at length about how terrible of an interviewee Rich The Kid is and how his feature was one of the worst-performing of the year “by far,” Adam22 chimed in to add that Rich is a smart guy. “He almost signed Uzi, he signed Famous Dex,” Adam said. Vlad couldn’t believe it. “Yeah, that’s what their beef was about,” Adam added. “It was super early on.”

“Uzi was one of those dudes that Rich was hanging out with and thought was going to sign to him and obviously it would have been his biggest success to date as an A&R,” Adam said. In the end, Uzi signed with Generation Now. “[If he] got him to sign to Rich Forever, that would be unbelievable. He would be beefing with Rich The Kid right now instead of DJ Drama.”

Watch the clip below and check out what else these two had to say about Jay Critch while continuing to discuss how unfriendly Rich The Kid comes across to the media.

The topic of colorism is a sensitive one in various communities, but Fredo Bang has become a target following comments he made on Vlad TV. The rapper recently sat down for a lengthy interview where he spoke about his incarceration, his homosexual father, living with PTSD, and his lyrical choices. With the latter, Vlad brought up the rapper’s song “Famous Crushes” where he mentions JT from City Girls. Fredo admitted that he used her name in the song because it rhymed and in real life, he isn’t attracted to dark-skinned women.

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Vlad relayed the story to Godfrey, and the comedian gave his take on why Fredo Bang would feel that way about women who share his complexion. “It’s colorist and it’s almost kind of a self-hatred type of thing,” Godfrey said. “Maybe growing up he was made fun of for being dark. I know what that’s like. And the negativity of dark skin has been around for so long, but a lot of people are breaking that, which is great. I think dark-skinned women are finally getting a little bit of shine.”

Godfrey went on to speak about the impact of colorism in the music industry and shared a few controversial statements of his own as he told light-skinned people to “bow down to their originators.” Check out the clip from Godfrey’s interview below.

There are plenty of reasons why Teyana Taylor loves her husband Iman Shumpert, but his high-top fade grabbed her attention when they first met. The NBA free agent talked about a myriad of topics during his lengthy interview with Vlad TV, and in a recent clip, he spoke about the development of his rap career. He also touched on his signature high-top hairstyle and shared intimate details of how he and his now-wife traded secrets early on in their relationship.

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“I was way more aggressive,” Iman admitted. “I was young. I moved a certain way and it wasn’t for her yet. We wasn’t in alignment.” He also said explained why he decided to tell her all of the people he’s slept with in the industry. “She works in a field of… She’s gon’ have to run into these people,” he said. “It wasn’t like, I gave a list of a girl in 3B type of thing. It wasn’t like that. It was just like, we going to this place and she may have to mingle with X, Y, and Z.”

For Iman, he wanted to make sure Teyana wasn’t caught off guard. “I don’t want no girl looking at you like she [had me first]. I want her aware of what’s going on so if a girl give her something too smart or slick, she know where it’s coming from and she don’t have to react.” Iman wasn’t the only one giving up details of his sexcapades, either. Teyana let him know who she has messed around with, as well. Would you do the same with your partner? Watch Iman Shumpert talk about his wife Teyana Taylor near the end of the video below.

Love him or hate him, LeBron James has been hailed as one of the NBA’s greatest players of all time. The Akron, Ohio native is respected on and off of the court for his basketball skills, philanthropic efforts, altruistic nature, and of course, Taco Tuesday videos. His former Cleveland Cavaliers teammate, Iman Shumpert, sat down with Vlad TV to discuss what it was like ballin’ in the paint with the basketball icon.

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Shumpert recalled moving form the New York Knicks to the Cavaliers and joining forces with LeBron. “It felt weird,” Shumpert said of the early days. “But Bron has a very genuine characteristic. It’s like, he has to share basketball knowledge. It might be his biggest superpower, his ability to get everybody on the same page. It’s actually kinda scary. He can explain this game forward and backward.”

The free-agent went on to call LeBron’s basketball IQ “unbelievable.” Shumpert said James knows the “playbook, knows where everybody’s supposed to be, know the other team’s coach’s playbook, style of coaching, how his ball club’s gonna play.” He added that it’s amazing that LeBron James can know intimate knowledge of every player’s strengths and weaknesses around the court and how their coaches are going to move because of Bron’s passion, skill, and talent of the game. “Make me feel like I didn’t do my homework!” Watch Iman Shumpert praise LeBron James below and check out what else he had to say about playing alongside Carmelo Anthony.

We’ve lost a number of artists recently to drug-related deaths including Lil Peep, Mac Miller, Lexii Alijai, and reportedly Juice WRLD. The growing list has caused rap artists to take a long, hard look at their lyrical content as it pertains to drug use. Some have even pledged to stop rapping about popping pills and drinking lean, while others have vocalized that while they don’t promote drug use, they still intend to talk about it in their songs.

When Fredo Bang, who once regularly drank lean, sat down with Vlad TV, he shared his thoughts on his generation of artists’ addiction issues. “I feel like a lot of us need help out here,” Fredo said. “Therapy. A lot of us have disorders and stuff that we don’t know of. I feel like everybody should be evaluated at some point in they life. Early on. Especially if you go through something.”

“The Juice WLRD thing, it’s real sensitive because it was like, a bad way,” he added. “I feel like a lotta people… It’s the way… I took it as he took it to get rid of them because the police was there.” Vlad interjected to share the circumstances around Juice WRLD’s death once again. “It’s sad,” the rapper said. Even though Fredo Bang had never met the Chicago rapper, he still admitted that “Juice WRLD was one of my favorite artists.”

“That’s what makes it a hurtful situation because it wasn’t like, I think dude was supposed to have got clean,” Fredo said. “I don’t know. It wasn’t like he was just taking them and getting loaded. He did it to not go to jail.” Fredo Bang added that “[President] Trump doing the opioid stuff” has caused there to be “a lotta fake pills” to be manufactured and distributed on the streets.

He said that people support Trump wanting to tackle the opioid crisis, “but they don’t know that it’s causing the reaction of fake pills people worse than the actual pills.” Check out the rapper with Vlad TV below.

The Goodie Mob wasn’t immediately accepted when they stepped into the hip hop scene. The rap group was born and bred in Atlanta, Georgia and from the start, they were met with resistance because they were going against “slow” Southern grain or the gangsta rap scene. Goodie Mob member Khujo recalled those early days in a recent interview with Vlad TV and said that despite some pushback, the group received an overwhelming amount of support from the West Coast.

A fellow artist who was apparently a superfan was the late Tupac Shakur. Goodie Mob met the “California Love” rapper at The Source Awards and immediately connected. “Just to see that man’s energy,” Khujo remembered. “You were able to touch him. He wasn’t [the type] to say, ‘Don’t touch me.’ He wasn’t that type of person. So, we met him that time and the next thing you know, we up in the studio with him.”

The group of rappers was in the studio by the next day and Goodie Mob didn’t know they were the first to hear Tupac’s infamous diss track “Hit Em Up.” Khujo said, “We just walkin’ into the studio and Tupac is in the booth and all I hear is him saying, ‘My n*ggas Goodie Mob in the house. Get them what they want, man. Y’all want some Hennessey or whatever.’… I didn’t even know history was being made at that time.”

There was a point, according to Khujo, that Tupac and the Goodie Mob were talking about uniting, “I was thinking, ‘Is Tupac finna be in Goodie Mob?’ That sh*t gon’ be hard.” Khujo said Tupac felt a “brotherhood” with the Southern rap group. Check out Khujo taking us all on a walk down memory lane below.