This week, Baby Keem revealed that a major factor in the five-year gap between his The Melodic Blue and Ca$ino albums was an undisclosed health ailment that he called the “hardest setback.” He got frank about his health in a stellar High Snobiety profile crafted by . His candor is another reminder that artists are people, and we should be more considerate of their well-being before demanding output.

He told Hockley-Smith that, “I’ll never be super public about what it was because I don’t want that to be the narrative,” adding. “Going through that was the hardest setback for me. You have all these [moments] where you’re like, ‘Damn, I really won’t make music ever again.’”

And while he dealt with that devastating possibility, fans flooded his social feed clamoring for new music: “I turned off my Twitter. I didn’t need to see people telling me to release when I physically could not make music for a year. I had to learn how to do it again. It really fucked me up to where I didn’t want to go outside at all.”

Luckily, it seems like Keem is better and is currently on tour; just last night, he played down the street from me at Brooklyn Paramount. It’s great that Keem can continue his promising career, but it seems like his health scare reminded him that the opportunity to fulfill himself is a fragile gift. If it’s not promised to him, it could never be promised to us.

It feels like music fans, wired for mass consumption, have taken the “music is like athletics” adage to heart. We treat everyone who’s signed a record deal as if they’ve been drafted to pop culture. Once they’re in, they belong to us. We demand constant releases. We hound them in between albums. And now, on social, we tweet out detailed armchair A&R analyses of what we want their music to sound like. In the music business, art is a product, and our capitalistic impulse influences us to imbue our fandom with a “customer’s always right” perspective. But it’s unhealthy. Music fans are too comfortable demanding more than artists are able or willing to give.

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Acts like Sly Stone and D’Angelo suffered the weight of Black genius after releasing paradigm-shifting work. And rapper Jay Electronica’s aughts work flashed brilliance that portended him as a defining 21st-century artist; it didn’t quite happen that way. He dropped three EPs last September. But before that, he had four projects in 20 years. Hip-hop heads wracked their brains in frustration that he never went for the figurative crown. But he’s explained his hot-and-cold relationship with music.

On 2020’s “Ezekiel’s Wheel,” he rapped, “Some ask me, ‘Jay, man, why come for so many years, you been exempt?’ ‘ ‘Cause familiarity don’t breed gratitude, just contempt / And the price of sanity is too damn high, just like the rent.” For Keem, his physical health kept him away from music. For Jay, it was mental health. Being a successful artist is akin to being a rag doll pulled at the limbs by the demands of your team, your label, your fans, and yourself. Some people know how to navigate with finesse; others stop the show before they come apart at the seams. The latter group doesn’t deserve to be vilified by fans.

Lauryn Hill has spoken on her own qualms with the industry. I went to The Fugees’ 2021 concert at Pier 17. Our phones were taken, so the moment wasn’t documented, but I recalled what I could in a review:

She spoke about stepping away from the industry to live a childhood that she hadn’t experienced because of being a professional musician for years…She also talked about how making money in the industry brings people with agendas, and how she had to get away from it all. Her words took us back to ’98, when she was a five-time Grammy winner on the cusp of being one of the biggest music stars in the world—a pedestal that would have brought on demands that she simply didn’t want.

A year before that, she made a post on her Instagram account responding to the discourse around her daughter Selah being open about childhood trauma. Hill acknowledged Selah’s comments in a post that noted, “My life has been about protecting my children from all kinds of danger, and that’s only possible when you protect yourself from the danger as well.” She added, “When I realized that the pressure on me was so incredibly hypocritical and unfair, criminal even, that even my children weren’t allowed to be children, I stepped away.”

And in May, she reiterated the sentiment when music account Fraim made a post theorizing “Why Lauryn Hill Never Released Another Album.” She noted that she and her Fugees mates Wyclef and Pras “fought for every inch” of their creative expression in their music careers. “When you’re inspired and desire to be principled, what doesn’t get talked about enough is the drain,” she stated. She referenced greed and systemic control as

For Hill, making music isn’t about churning out 15 tracks every other year or so to keep the industrial conveyor belt running. As much as we want to hear from her, she’s been vulnerable multiple times about the circumstances hindering new music. Familial trauma and “the drain” of holding onto principles in a ruthless, exploitative industry (personally relatable) are all relatable, human experiences. Hill may be one of the few to be forthright about her industry experience, but she’s obviously not the only artist to share these feelings.

Honoring the artists we enjoy can’t entail demanding more of them at our whim. If we respect these artists, it’s our duty as fans to heed Hill’s suggestion: “These conversations should allow for more nuance.” It can be fun to hold Game of Thrones banter about the artists angling for the so-called “top spot,” but that circus isn’t every artist’s m.o. And in Keem’s case, even when it is, our bodies may fail us. We have to be considerate about all this the next time we’re acting entitled about an artist dropping new music. They have to give to themselves before they can give us anything.

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Speaking of Fraim, shoutout to them for highlighting my response to Tyler, The Creator surmising that the DJ Akademiks brand of media is “what we have to deal with” as rap fans. As someone who doesn’t focus on nonsense, and suffers in various ways for it, I can personally say it’s what many people choose to consume.

I keep seeing people talking about this Diddy sextape that was leaked, but Daphne Joy, who’s in the video, has said that she didn’t consent to being filmed and was extorted by the person who ulimtatley leaked it. So if you watched it and can’t help talking about it you’re a creep. There’s no way around it. Congrats. Also, the people claiming this woman’s trauma is “50 Cent’s karma” exemplify the bludgeoning impulse to strip a woman’s agency and attach her value to a man. That’s pretty sad as well.

So at the beginning of every month the President disappears and comes back looking haggard. Yesterday he fell asleep, yet again, in the Oval Office. Instagram user Epimestic Crisis Is doing the lord’s work by theorizing what could be going on healthwise. But why isn’t the media interrogating this? Yes, his lackeys now own a lot of major media, but they’re not running every single outlet. If reporters aren’t going to do the investigative work, they can at least run op-eds and interviews with health experts highlighting the issue.

Shoutout to Wale for calling out how reductive some spheres of rap media can be. They only focus on a select few artists, and even that’s often through the lens of beef. He’s not wrong, and I’m going to do my best to use this newsletter to take him up on his suggestion to me to do work that can “bridge the gap.”

Shoutout to journalist Scott Pelley for airing out Bari Weiss for “murdering” 60 Minutes. She’s essentially turned CBS into state media. Unfortunately, Pelley was let go this week after grilling 60 Minutes executive producer Nick Bilton. Hopefully he lands at a better outlet because his integrity is inspiring and I wish more journalists would stand up to pathetic people in leadership positions.

Suno just came out with a $5.4 billion valuation, and not a penny of that will go to any of the artists who’s talents they devoured for their prompts. One more reason to hate generative AI.

Courtesy: Live Nation

In Rafael Alvarez’ The Wire companion book Truth Be Told, show creator David Simon says he wrote Marlo Stanfield to represent “the ultimate totalitarian impulse.” “Marlo wanted money and power not for their own sake, but so the world would know they were his and his alone,” he says.

Marlo was gifted the real estate titan future his rival Stringer Bell coveted, but corporate connections couldn’t hold a candle to being respected in the streets. He couldn’t help but leave a stuffy downtown gala to check the temperature on the nearest corner.

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This week, Gamma CEO Larry Jackson took time off from fueling Kanye’s fraught redemption arc to file a lawsuit in New York Civil Court seeking to uncover the identity of whoever’s behind two sites calling him a fraud. Music Business Worldwide reports that the sites accuse “SCAMMA” of buying bots and inflating sales for Kanye, Mariah Carey, and Usher, as well as using the money he raised for Gamma, a multimedia company founded in 2023, on a lavish lifestyle. I’m not sure what to believe, which feels like a pretty static state these days.

Earlier this week, Trevor Noah shared a clip from his podcast about a service that artists pay to manufacture their online hype, creating a world where Tressie McMillan Cotton concluded we have “a false idea of what trends are.” In April, marketing agency Chaotic Good revealed their “narrative marketing” approach, and we learned that some of the discourse around their clients, like rock band Geese, is manufactured. Journalist Cassidy Sollazzo recently wrote a Fader report about marketing agencies that work with prominent social media accounts to promote their clients, creating an unpleasant reality where trending social media accounts “have become passive channels for music marketing without audiences even realizing it.” Publicist Cam Litchmore noted, “Everything appears in the same feed: a fan account, a critic, an algorithm-laced playlist.”

Marketing studies have revealed that Gen Z is nonplussed by traditional advertising. They’re the only generation to date who were born into this wired world, and simply don’t buy into traditional digital advertising techniques. Apparently, to reach them, marketing companies are straight-up hiding advertisements in fandom.

The dead internet theory surmises that AI and bots have replaced organic digital engagement. And now, even the humans we see may have ulterior motives. Which media personalities are sharing their real opinion, and who’s spewing payola-sponsored marching orders? What’s buzzing or fading organically? How much can we trust sales figures in an era of botting? The barrage of promo and smear campaigns running these days makes it very difficult to have an accurate assessment of an already fragmented music scene. The algorithm is fractured into an incalculable number of microscenes, and impure, paid-for opinions have corroded many of them; is our cultural zeitgeist the byproduct of an auction ground? Maybe capitalism’s done it again.

This digital warfare derives from the political arena. Russian intelligence has been terrorizing America for decades, including on the digital stage. They got caught vying to influence the 2016 and 2024 Presidential elections by creating fake social media accounts to steer public sentiment. And researchers John D. Gallacher and Marc W. Heerdink revealed how Russia created fake pro- and anti- Black Lives Matter accounts to inflame discord between the people and the establishment. In 2010, the United States Senate Intelligence Committee alleged that the Russian firm Internet Research Agency crafted a social media campaign to suppress the Black vote in America. The Trump administration has adopted the practice, repeatedly being exposed for using pro-MAGA bots on social media.

Some evil geniuses in the marketing world saw how effective this digital manipulation was and decided to use it for pop culture. Who knows when it first became standard practice, but we certainly can’t take anything at face value in 2026.

Drake’s recent trio of albums debuted in the Billboard 200 top three. As I’ve said previously, this album barrage is a grand-scale version of what he did in 2018 with Scorpion. After Pusha T put him on the Summer Jam screen in blackface, he sought to offset the sting of defeat with sheer volume. Like his 100gigs data dump, his recent trilogy put too much on our headtop. But that inundation had also stirred incessant engagement, all creating the illusion that Drake’s the only topic worth discussing.

But Twitter user JoeCatt made a thread (and TikTok video) breaking down the “simulated relevance” by apparently buying bots to Google search him thousands of times at both 3 pm and 11 pm. This comes after he sued UMG for allegedly inflating “Not Like Us” sales figures and made a big show of blowing up a botfarm at the end of his last ICEMAN livestream. Maybe he got all of his personal use out of it and needed to destroy the evidence. It all brings to mind what 50 Cent said about the suit: “they did everything Drake sayin’ they did. But, they did it for Drake too.”

This week, Drake was also the center of another alarming development that corrupts discourse: social media accounts that straight-up lie. A rumor emerged that UMG was trying to force Drake to reverse his long-held anti-Grammy stance and submit his recent albums for award consideration. People discussed it all day, with not enough people questioning if it was even true. It turns out that it was posted by a Twitter account that intentionally falsifies stories for engagement.

Rap news accounts on social media move in scary, suspicious accordance with each other, and few, if any, of them verify information before posting it. For them, staying in the algorithmic fray trumps truth. If they’re wrong, they’ll just delete the post; they’ll rarely issue a correction. But even if they delete their lies, it’s often too late to undo the harm done. I see their “effectiveness” every time I correct a friend who tells me “I heard” an unfounded rumor that was shared online. How much of our perception of musicians is fueled by lies?

Schools have to make media literacy a mandatory part of the curriculum. But even if that happens, those learned music fans will have to ponder whether what they’re consuming is paid for. This dynamic should be a boon for legacy media, which ostensibly has more audience trust than a random social media account. But those outlets have become just as bad about chasing the algorithm.

It feels like all this nefarious marketing is fishing for the fan who doesn’t do music discovery and needs reasons beyond the music to invest in an artist. But that cohort has already done immeasurable harm to hip-hop discourse. Many of us simply love good music and could do without the armchair A&Ring, obsession with numbers, and conversations focused on everything but the quality of the music. If we can’t trust the root of the hype and hysteria online, we should probably devalue it altogether.

In the meantime, the internet’s oversaturation has made artists and marketers mutually desperate to cut through the noise. And most people running culture accounts (or who just have a lot of followers) don’t see anything wrong with getting a bag. When that dynamic compounds into hundreds, if not thousands of people making covert marketing deals, it results in today’s a false algorithm.

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What will Jay-Z’s Roots Picnic set be like? I’m headed to the festival this weekend. I’m very curious what his setlist will be ahead of his upcoming Yankee Stadium shows. I also wonder if he’ll debut new music and/or diss Drake? This reminds me of seeing Kendrick Lamar’s 2021 Day N Vegas set, which was his first performance in years, right when the rumors of a post-DAMN project were at a fever pitch. Everyone was hoping for a new song, but the set was incredible regardless. Anyway, watch this space for my Jay-Z review.

If you’re looking for some new artists to check out, Alchemist just put hundreds of them in one place on Twitter.

Mark Zuckerberg recently rolled out paid subscription plans for Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. Capitalists will find any kind of way to keep nibbling at consumers’ pockets. The worst part about it is that there will be people who’ll say, “what, you don’t have $4?” missing the entire point.

There’s no smooth transition into this, but unfortunately, it seems like another Black person, 16-year-old Juliana Nzita, may have been lynched this week in Charlotte. What infuriates me the most, besides this actually still occurring, is how rarely these stories make the mainstream news cycle. RIP to her.

Photo credit: Bobbi Yamada, Peter Kramer, Getty

Illustration: Jefferson Harris

Earlier this month, JPEGMAFIA got the computers ‘putin ahead of his EXPERIMENTAL RAP album. He told Pigeons & Planes that he was claiming the throne as “The King” of experimental rap, which turned into a sarcasm-tinged tiff between him and Earl Sweatshirt. But beyond the fireworks of what writer Arielle Lana LeJarde deemed “2pac vs biggie for guys with an MF DOOM tattoo,” JPEGMAFIA sparked a community-wide discussion on what experimental rap even means in 2026.

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Last July, Journalist Ivie Ani observed that Drake’s “ICEMAN branding…is certainly a choice in this political climate.” She linked Drake’s album title and the ICEMAN truck he drove during his first p…

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We started the year guffawing about Summer 2016, and ICEMAN, the year’s most anticipated album, gave the people one more dose. Fans are raving that ICEMAN is his best album since Views From The 6, which sounds like a glass-half-full way of saying Drake’s formula peaked a decade ago.

Some might push back on that notion, resolving that “the boy” dropped new fodder for club nights, IG captions, and IG stories. But those are all inherently ephemeral spots. They don’t encourage critical examination or even good decisions. He may be shattering billboard records, but ICEMAN also had a historic 24-hour drop from listeners who only needed a couple of listens to realize they were good. While Maid of Honor is fun, and Habibti gets more into his R&B side, a deeper assessment of ICEMAN depicts a guy eroding an already withered rap persona with incessant scorn over a self-inflicted L.

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This week, Essence seemingly retracted a piece about Kevin Hart firing two of his Hartbeat employees. They didn’t take the aggregatory piece down because their information was wrong, leading people t…

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I said I wasn’t going to do an ICEMAN preview piece because I pretty much did that last year. But a lot has happened since then. Namely, he’s reinvigorated anticipation for the album with an ICEMAN installation, and just the right amount of ominous Instagram stories to feed fan anticipation. Last night, “1AM in Albany,” “3PM in New Orleans, “ and a full version of “Super Maxx,” which debuted on one of his ICEMAN streams, leaked. Did a hacker leak them, or was Drake employing his strategy of unofficially releasing a song before claiming it? There are more questions than answers surrounding the project, which arrives under the black cloud of an ongoing lawsuit with UMG.

Drake has always done well at a savvy album rollout. In the midst of dropping his ICEMAN livestream episodes, he told Complex, “What I hate is the redundancy of this formulaic approach that’s ingrained in our brains from early label days. Single, video, single, video, album cover post, etc.” He and 21 Savage subverted the typical rollout a couple of years ago with a fake Vogue Cover and a Howard Stern interview. And in the past year, he’s done that with the Adam Kaprow and Matt Adams-inspired Iceman installation, as well as the livestreams that featured him being stalked by a Pinochio character that seems to reference his nemesis, Kendrick Lamar. Even the title ICEMAN, polarizing in the era of mass deportation, has sparked memage like Kevin Durant posting digital renders of himself frozen.

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Credit: Pinho.

This week, Complex dropped its list of the most powerful figures in hip-hop media. I’m not surprised about pretty much anyone on the list, including the journalists and media personalit…

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Photo Credit: Stavros Symeonidis

A dozen hip-hop fans would have a dozen different laudatory phrases to define the genre; in the UK, judges and prosecutors call it “criminal behavior.” For almost a decade, London’s justice system has been levying Criminal Behavior Orders, or CBOs, that criminalize artists in the drill rap scene.

In 2018, London rap group 1011 faced a CBO that banned them from releasing music without the permission of the courts. And since then, the floodgates have opened with similar orders that require artists to seek permission to release songs, music videos, perform live, and even visit other areas of the city. A British kid with no legal history can make a song in his bedroom and suddenly be put on veritable probation, with the courts censoring them and telling them not to talk about rivals or face jailtime. It’s one of the world’s most draconian examples of rap criminalization.

Dr. Lambros Fatsis, a City St George’s, University of London Criminology professor and author of Policing the beats: Black music, racism and criminal injustice, says it’s a continuation of racist colonial policies that have criminalized Afrodiasporic music for centuries. He chronicled the troubling history in his book, which was released in March and also covers the policing of jazz, reggae, and calypso music in Britain.

A lifelong music nerd, the 42-year-old Fatsis wrote the book in four months after a decade or so of archival research. He views the book as him giving back to the music that he feels shaped his political consciousness. “These are my heroes, intellectually, culturally, socially, and politically,” he told me via an intercontinental Google Meet call. “So what, what am I to make of this disconnect of the whole world telling me, ‘That’s not, that’s not really intellectual, that’s not really cultural achievement.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean?’”

Policing the beats is Fatsis’ third book. His previous book was Policing the Pandemic: How Public Health Becomes Public Order, a 2022 chronicle of how the response to COVID-19 enacted policies that disproportionately affected Black communities. His first was 2021’s The Public and Their Platforms: Public Sociology in an Era of Social Media, an extension of Fatsis’ PhD work, which allowed him to write about the history of policing Black social life. It feels like a corollary of Policing the beats.

“There’s no discussions in the public sphere of sound systems or ciphers, or Bata drumming sessions, or brass band parades, or carnival parades. And I was like, ‘Are you out of your mind?’” he ponders. “For me, these are the best examples of occupying public space because it’s done joyously. It’s done independently. It’s done with the community spirit, and, of course, with the aesthetics of the music that I absolutely love. So that question was always in my mind as to, ‘Why is it that the thing that I’m interested the most is not there in the literature, in the curriculum?”

I talked to Dr. Lambros Fatsis about the ins and outs of London’s CBOs, their effect on the UK drill scene, and what the anti-criminalization fight looks like.

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Earlier this week, Universal Music Group sold 50% of its stake in Spotify, earning an estimated $1.4 billion. Music Business Worldwide reports that UMG will “use the proceeds to help fund an expanded…

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The Michael Jackson biopic has raced to the bank, accruing a $217 million global box office opening in a week. It’s a record for a biopic. Despite being universally panned by critics, the number is a win for Lionsgate, Universal Pictures, and the Jackson estate — especially for Jermaine Jackson and his $6.5 million civil suit judgment. Variety published a listicle titled, ‘Michael’ Electrifies the Box Office: 5 Reasons Bad Reviews Couldn’t Derail the Michael Jackson Biopic. Most reviews have panned it as omissive hagiography. But that doesn’t mean anything when it’s exactly what his stans wanted.

My expectations for the movie plummeted when I learned how involved the estate was. And, true to my suspicions, nearly all the critiques frame it as a film that plays the hits, but doesn’t succeed at showing how Jackson felt about having exorbitant expectations on his preteen shoulders, and how they shaped who he became. Jaafar Jackson is a wringer for young Michael and does well despite having little to work with. And, of course, the music is iconic. But there’s not much more positive to say. The script’s stringency makes it the perfect fodder for fanatics, who flatten their interpretation of a fave into the idea of them rather than the totality of their humanity.

That’s why Paris Jackson, speaking of the movie, noted, “The film panders to a very specific section of my dad’s fandom that still lives in the fantasy. And they’re going to be happy with it.” Filmmakers were unable to reference the ‘93 sexual assault allegations against Jackson because accuser Jordan Chandler’s settlement clause prevented him from being depicted in a film. The movie now concludes in 1988 instead of its original plan to end with the allegations. But even if they could reference Chandler’s allegations, it’s worth wondering how the original script would play out; nuance would get in the way of the fan service that the rest of the movie clings to.

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This week, Drake made a monument in commemoration of his upcoming ICEMAN album. Hundreds of Torontoans descended upon the ice installation he had built, first chipping away at it in hopes of retrievi…

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‘The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”

- Antonio Gramsci

That phrase looms over 2026 hip-hop, which is experiencing a fracture between dreamers and those intent on sustaining a monstrous status quo. I’m sure you’ve heard the shrieking about rap’s death: Album sales and Billboard chart numbers are plunging. Labels are shuttering hip-hop imprints and Black music departments. Hip-hop’s siloed scenes have eradicated #monoculture, reshaping the paradigms in real time. It’s not a death, just a shift. Hip-hop culture needs something more. Instead of mourning the old, predatory industry, it’s time to ideate what a new one looks like.

Some fans are invigorated by the possibility of independent artists circumventing major labels for direct-to-consumer sales models. Instead of clamoring for new platinum-selling superstars, they long for decentralized rap scenes too insular to be invaded by cultural interlopers who don’t understand Black culture. Other fans believe the industry just needs a shot in the arm and things will go back to normal. But that’s not what we need. This moment feels less about debating and more about acceptance.

The veil has been lifted, and we’ve all been made to realize that the mainstream subsists on labels colluding with streaming companies to engineer hype; it’s part of the formula that helps create and maintain superstars. Some long for more megastars, but what has the current crop done with their inordinate visibility? Aligned with the state, served as the face of exploitative companies, helped sports leagues divert from scandal, helped entrench the gambling and red pill epidemics, and weaponized their fanbases against survivors of assault. Your favorite multi-millionaire is probably complicit in some nonsense. We can’t avert our eyes from the mess that’s come from hip-hop being absorbed by broader pop culture. That’s why pleading for a “return to form” may be nostalgic to some, but feels monstrous to me.

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The justice system is getting further draconian toward rap music. Journalist Shawn Setaro reported that prosecutors in the Pooh Shiesty and Big30 kidnapping case have argued that Big30 should be kept…

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The other day, Detroit rapper Allstar Jr. got in front of the camera to address the world. Days earlier, he had allegedly been accosted by Baton Rouge rapper NBA Ben10 in a Houston restaurant. Allstar allegedly took a gun from Ben10 and shot him multiple times; the NBA Youngboy’s affiliate’s condition is currently unknown, though he’s now posting on Instagram. Aware of the times, I had no illusion that Allstar Jr. was about to call a truce with Ben10. Indeed, he lay on the ground and debuted the “Ben10 dance,” shaking to simulate someone being shot multiple times. He also offered $20 thousand to whoever could best emulate the dance.

Allstar is well within his rights not to squash anything with someone who allegedly tried to rob and beat him. He took to Twitter yesterday to push back on people telling him the clip went too far: “Talking bout ‘just chill ‘ nigga I was chilling wen niggas thought they was gone get off idgaf about nobody feelings being hurt.” Fair.

This piece isn’t about him, or any of the artists I mention. It’s about us. All Star mocked Ben10 because he knew viewers would eat it up and participate in the trend. The past two weeks have shown how entertained rap fans are by real-life violence: Pooh Shiesty, Big30, and others were arrested for allegedly robbing Gucci Mane at gunpoint. Offset was shot in an attempted robbery at a Hollywood, FL, casino in which Lil Tjay may be involved. And Ben10 and Allstar Jr had their altercation. If the worst-case scenario happened in these instances, artists who started rapping to better their lives could be gone behind complete nonsense. And not enough so-called hip-hop fans care. When early rumors arose that Offset and Lil Tjay had both been shot at the Hard Rock Casino, the responses were a bunch of jokes about Lil Tjay having been shot before.

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Six years after writer and activist Patrice Griffin filed a Child Victims Act lawsuit against Jason Hunter, known as “Brother J” of X Clan, she’s been awarded $10 million in damages by New York’s Sup…

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Photo Credit: Breakbeat Media

After over 30 years into the game, Juvenile and Mannie Fresh are still creating, still grindin’, and Still 400, as their podcast states. I got the chance to speak to them days before Juvenile dropped his Boiling Point album. He hadn’t released a solo album since 2014’s The Fundamentals, and told me that he thought he might be retired until the fans’ 2023 push for a Tiny Desk performance gave him a new creative spark.

The results are a versatile project with highs that prove he’s still got it. The remix of his “B.B.B.” single with Megan Thee Stallion earned him his Billboard Hot 100 entry in years. Juvenile told me during our early March convo that the two were set to film a video for the track — perhaps that happened before he embarked on his three-month-long Boiling Point tour, which started in early April.

Elsewhere on the project is the summer-ready “Hot Boy Summer” with famed New Orleans multi-instrumentalist Trombone Shorty, B.G., and Birdman. The latter two Cash Money artists pop up again on the menacing “The Reunion,” which feels like some good old New Orleans Solja Rags music. Juvenile’s pen is sharp, and he’s showing off new flows such as the escalating end rhymes on “Meph Town.” It feels good to hear a rap vet sound like he’s genuinely having fun on a record.

Juvenile told me he doesn’t have a creative process. He just locks in with producers and gets to it. One of his favorite producers is his longtime Cash Money brethren Mannie Fresh, who produced “He Gone” with Dee-1 and “Lenny Kravitz,” which was meant as a tribute to Lenny’s legacy as a popular Black rocker. Mannie says he wants the iconic artist to jump on the remix.

In the meantime, Mannie’s doing DJ gigs and prepping for his Reckless Weekend, a music series where he’ll collaborate with another act for an entire weekend, drop the project, and split the profits. He already has a slew of artists interested in participating in the creative gauntlet. And of course, the rap vets are cohosts of Still 400, the Breakbeat Media-produced podcast where the two hold court with fellow rap legends. They tell me they’re intent on fun, enlightening conversations that sidestep drama. “Most people want to know the dirt on you. We ain’t celebrating that,” Mannie says. “We celebrating your good times.”

I talked to them about Boiling Point, Still 400, and why they understand Lil Wayne being so oblivious to pop culture.

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Photo Credit: Angela Weiss

Three Kanye pieces in three months feels egregious, but he’s also one of the biggest artists in the world. He’s maintained a taut grip on the zeitgeist no matter what he doe…

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Photo Credit: Kaushik Kalidindi

It’s not easy to become a somebody in Harlem, where being fly and flashy is a local bylaw. The area comprising a 45-block patch of northern Manhattan isn’t even its own borough, but its rich history is vast enough to deserve the nickname “Harlem World.” It’s where foundational Black writers and musicians lived and socialized in the ‘30s, and the Black Panthers once had headquarters. And later on, as Paid In Full depicts, the span of 125th Street was filled with hustlers trying to outdo each other with furs, Dapper Dan-designed outfits, and European cars. That kind of competition is why seemingly every other prime Cam’ron verse had a nod to stuntin’ so hard on the block that “even the cops in the plain clothes said I crushed it.”

Just walking outside in Harlem is being onstage, intentionally or not. Fergie Baby is one of those “somebodies” for the new generation, and he captured that inimitable energy in the music video for “Good Day to be in Harlem,” a breakout single that feels like a culmination of eight years of grinding through the New York rap scene.

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