This week in Hip Hop, Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, passed away. Nicki Minaj was ever present in headlines this week thanks to the controversy surrounding the release of Queen and lastly, XXTENTACION’s alleged killer is begging to be let out of jail.
R.I.P. Aretha Franklin
Legendary singer Aretha Franklin passed away in her Detroit home Thursday (August 16) after a long battle with advanced pancreatic cancer. She was 76.
The Hip Hop community paid homage to the Queen of Soul via social media which include heartfelt messages from Talib Kweli, Nas, Snoop Dogg, Q-Tip, and Common among others. Franklin’s music has been sampled in a lot of Hip Hop music throughout the years, including tracks from Slum Village, Sean Price, and Styles P among others.
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Read more about Aretha Franklin’s music sampled in rap songs here.
Nicki Minaj Fights To Keep Her Top Spot
Nicki Minaj has been making media rounds since Queen released on August 10, including appearances with Elliott Wilson for a CRWN conversation, an interview with Hot 97’s Funkmaster Flex and her own Queen Radio show on Apple Beats 1. All conversations surround her holding down the top female rapper spot unchallenged for years.
Minaj also took to Twitter to put her ex Safaree Samuels on blast for using her credit cards and having to pay over $10,000 to get his hairline restored (she also drags Tyga into the drama too). In the same exchange, Samuels says Nicki put him in the hospital after stabbing him with a knife.
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On Queen Radio, Nicki addresses her issues with Cardi B and says she will not bite her tongue when it comes to her and also says she doesn’t have a problem with her.
However, Nicki does seem to have an issue with her sales being compared to Cardi and Travis Scott‘s. To help with sales, “FEFE” was added to Queen‘s tracklist.
Read more about what Nicki Minaj has to say about Cardi B here.
XXXTENTACION Murder Suspects Wants Bail
One of the suspected XXXTENTACION’s murders, Robert Allen, wants a Broward County, Florida judge to let him out on bail, TMZ reports.
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The 22-year-old says there’s no proof he committed a crime. Allen believes he should be released so he can take care of his pregnant fiancée and promises he will go back to work at a Broward County, Florida lawn care business.
Read more about XXXTENTACION here.
DX Reviews
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Andre Drummond — For Your Information
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DXclusives: Santigold, Chika, Sabrina Claudio & Nicki Minaj
Santigold On How She Finished “I Don’t Want” At 9 Months Pregnant
Santigold finished her latest project I Don’t Want: The Gold Fire Sessions right before she was about to give birth to twins. She found it she was pregnant when she moved to Los Angeles.
“That year, we moved like five times,” she tells HipHopDX’s Kyle Eustice. “We moved into a temporary rental and then we bought a new house and went from there. But then we had water damage, so we had to move out again and, at this point, I was about six weeks from delivery. I was so pregnant. So, we moved into a rental apartment.”
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Read the full Santigold interview here.
Chika Calls Segregating Male & Female Rappers “An Insult
Chika shares with HipHopDX why it’s insulting to separate male and female rappers.
“Separating them is almost as an insult to a lot of female rappers,” she says. “Not myself — I’m good. I don’t care what people do ’cause I know who I am. But there’s so many great MCs out there that are overlooked constantly because we’re separating categories instead of just making one. If we were to make them one, it would change a lot of people’s rankings to be honest. But that’s a scary thought for a male-dominated industry. So many have not been able to make it because of how the industry is set up.”
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Inside Sabrina Claudio’s Road To Redemption
Sabrina Claudio has said some disparaging things about Black women on Twitter and ever since she got aired out, she’s been on a redemption tour, asking for forgiveness.
In an exclusive interview with HipHopDX, Claudio admits that she understands she will never live it down.
“I understand that people are never going to forget, I understand that this is something that will follow me for the rest of my career,” she admits to DX’s Daniela Evgenivna. “It’s not even a fear, I’ve accepted it. I don’t ever think about getting to stardom or a certain level — I wasn’t afraid of losing that because that isn’t something I ever thought about. I just put out music, and people happen to listen to it.”
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Read the full Sabrina Claudio interview here.
5 Things We Learned From Nicki Minaj’s CRWN Interview
Nicki Minaj and Elliott Wilson got together for a CRWN conversation exclusively streamed on TIDAL and the Queen creator had a lot to say about the creation of her album, including what she believes to be the industry’s thirst to end her career.
Read all five things we learned from Nicki Minaj’s CRWN interview here.
