This week in Hip Hop, the 59th annual Grammy Awards saw Chance The Rapper take home three gilded trophies and Beyoncé graced the show’s stage with an epochal performance. Also, Future released his self-titled album and Jay Z took subliminal shots at Drake on DJ Khaled’s song “Shining.”
The 59th Annual GRAMMY Awards
So much happened at this year’s Grammy Awards. Chance The Rapper winning Best Rap Album, Best Rap Performance and Best New Artist was one of the major highlights of the evening as well as Beyoncé giving the Grammys the performance of a lifetime while pregnant with twins.
Nominated for nine awards, Beyoncé took home trophies for Best Urban Contemporary Album for LEMONADE and Best Music Video for “Formation.” Her not winning Album of the Year for LEMONADE over Adele’s 25 didn’t sit well with a lot of folks, including Adele herself who is a proud member of the Beyhive. So much so, she thanked Bey for LEMONADE in her acceptance speech.
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Adding some fun to the award ceremony, Lil Yachty popped up with a colorful grill priced at $35k and Rihanna was seen turning up and sipping out of a bedazzled flask.
Who could miss Cee-Lo dripping in all gold?
Was it mentioned that Queen Bey’s monumental performance was the highlight of the evening?
Read the full list of Grammy winners here.
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Future Releases Self-Titled Album, No Features
FUTURE was released this week with 17 full tracks sans features and the Atlanta rapper announced he’d be touring with Migos, Tory Lanez and Kodak Black.
It also sounds like the Atlanta trap star took aim at Desiigner on the song “Zoom.”
With FUTURE, he has hopes of getting back to his day one fans who love his mixtapes.
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“I want to go back into being more underground,” he explained in an interview with Zane Lowe. “Reconnecting with the fans, being more hands-on with my fans again, tweeting to fans, responding to things they want to know about.”
Stream FUTURE here.
Jay Z Takes Subliminal Shots At Drake, Again
Jay Z and Drake’s relationship is something like a page out of the 48 Laws Of Power. They’re cool but then they’re also not cool as evident by the barbs they’ve traded over the past few years. Kind of like the obvious silent war Kendrick Lamar and Drake have going on.
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On DJ Khaled’s “Shining,” Jay reportedly slights Drizzy following his maybe-aimed-at-Jay verse on the 21 Savage assisted hit, “Sneakin.'”
“I know you ain’t out here talkin’ numbers, right / I know you ain’t out here talkin’ summers, right / I know you ain’t walkin’ ’round talkin’ down / Sayin’ boss shit when you a runner, right?” Jay can be heard spitting on the song featuring his wife, Beyoncé.
Aside from the sneak dissing, Jay has been in the studio with Zaytoven. The producer hung out with HipHopDX during Thursday’s DXLive segment and shared with us the moment Jigga heard his beats.
“It’s the reaction I always want to get,” Ziggy says. “When we got to the third track he was like, ‘Hold up. Play that one again.’ That’s when I [knew] I got his attention. I knew what he wanted so I had like 25 beats on [the CD]. He was like ‘Give me all [of] them’”
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Read more here.
DXclusives: Jidenna, T.I., Sean Garrett & Joey Bada$$
HipHopDX’s Ural Garrett caught up with Jidenna over Grammy weekend and the Wondaland artist gave a positive way to look at life while Donald Trump is the current sitting president.
“In a time where there is a bully of the earth, but the beautiful thing about the bully of the earth is you can not have a Moses without a Pharaoh,” he preached. “It’s a blessing that there’s this madman running around trying to create chaos so that there’s some order. You create chaos when you want to create order. That’s all that’s happening. Don’t get distracted by even the chaos. You gotta look at what’s the order that’s coming. I don’t want us to lose sight of experience of life. Eat, drink, be swanky and have fun getting the job done.
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As T.I. is featured on Ghost Recon Wildlands, he explained why it was something he ultimately decided to do after the opportunity was presented to him by producer My Guy Mars.
“For me, the main thing was, I know how much my kids play video games,” T.I. says of deciding to jump on the project. “I really just did it to have the opportunity for my son to just call me and say, ‘Hey Dad, you’re a part of this?’”
Sean Garrett also explained why Nicki Minaj’s song “Massive Attack” flopped. While it did well online, it wasn’t a radio success.
“The record was massive online. The numbers online were through the roof for the video. It was a matter of timing,” Garrett told DX. “I’m going to be honest with you, I think she came with that one too fast. That shouldn’t have been the first single in my opinion. I felt like it should have came after she dropped the street record.”
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Joey Bada$$ spoke with DX ahead of NBA All-Star Weekend and detailed his longtime business relationship with Mountain Dew as he dropped a new song called “Victory.”
“Me and Mountain Dew, we’ve been doing deals over the years,” Bada$$ told DX over the phone. “We’ve been building up our chemistry and a solid rapport over the last couple years, so immediately when the All-Star Weekend conversation was brought up, they go to me right away and they decided to get me involved. That’s where I came in. I stepped in, I was challenged to make a song for basketball tied in with All-Star Weekend, tied in with afew NBA players such as Russell Westbrook and Kyrie Irving, but me as a solidified Hip Hop artist, it was a challenge for me to merge both worlds.”
