Megan Thee Stallion (Rapper)

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    7 Hot Tracks From a New Generation of Female Rappers

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    Listen to recent songs from Megan Thee Stallion, Ice Spice, Latto and more.Megan Thee StallionCharles Sykes/Invision, via Associated PressDear listeners,In April 2018, the same week that the Bronx superstar Cardi B released her debut album, “Invasion of Privacy,” Complex magazine published an essay by the writer Kiana Fitzgerald that explored a longstanding question: “Why can there only be one dominant woman in rap?”The answer, naturally, was sexism. It was the same old story: The rivalry between Cardi and Nicki Minaj just felt like a new generation’s Foxy Brown vs. Lil’ Kim. Male rappers, Fitzgerald argued, “have free rein in the genre and — consciously or subconsciously — want to keep it that way.” She added, “when women are pitted against each other, they’re occupied and out of the way, ensuring they take up as little space as possible.”It’s remarkable how much has changed since then. In the six years since that essay was published, an entire vanguard of female rappers has come to the fore, proving that more is more. Megan Thee Stallion and Ice Spice have become household names — and done so with markedly different styles that rep their respective hometowns of Houston and New York City. The St. Louis rapper Sexyy Red has transcended her initial co-sign from Drake to become a solo star on her own. Latto, from Atlanta, has commanded airplay with catchy hooks and lively bars; the Memphis-born GloRilla has found success with a harder-edged approach, leaning into the gravelly grit of her signature drawl.Today’s playlist celebrates the many female voices in the current rap game. And I do mean current: It’s composed entirely of songs released in the past few months, a testament to the fact that one of the most notable trends in music right now is the steady plurality of female rappers on the charts.It’s 7 p.m. Friday, it’s 95 degrees,LindsayListen along while you read.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The 15 Songs That Hit No. 1 This Year (So Far)

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      Hear tracks by Shaboozey, Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar and more.Shaboozey reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 this week for the first time with “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”Daniel PrakopcykDear listeners,It’s Caryn the editor here again, seizing control of the playlist one more time (don’t worry, you’ll have Lindsay back next week).On Monday, Shaboozey reached the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 with “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” making him the second Black artist to hit No. 1 on both the all-genre singles chart and Hot Country Songs. Somehow both milestones came this year: Beyoncé did it first with “Texas Hold ’Em.”The news got me scrolling through what’s topped the Hot 100 so far in 2024 — over the last 27 weeks, 15 songs have done it. And we’re going to listen to all of them in The Amplifier today.It’s always interesting to see how the official chart stacks up against cultural vibes. It may feel like the summer of “Espresso,” but Sabrina Carpenter’s Certified Bop hasn’t hit No. 1 in the United States (yet). It doesn’t just seem like Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” is dominating 2024: It is, with 11 straight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. But only one of its songs — its opener, “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone — has spent any time atop the Hot 100. Ariana Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine” has had two songs summit the singles chart; Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” had the one. Billie Eilish and Chappell Roan haven’t hit No. 1 yet this year, but I wouldn’t count them out.The longest run belongs to “I Had Some Help,” by Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen (six weeks, five of them consecutive). Two songs from the Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake beef hit No. 1; perhaps unsurprisingly considering the outcome, they were both Lamar’s.So let’s take a trip through the recent past together — and for fun (or counterprogramming), see how the biggest songs of the year (so far) compare to our critics’ best songs of the year (so far).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Olivia Rodrigo’s Haunting ‘Hunger Games’ Tune, and More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Megan Thee Stallion, Torres, Mount Kimbie and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Can’t Catch Me Now’A latticework of acoustic guitar and a building intensity drive “Can’t Catch Me Now,” Olivia Rodrigo’s brooding new song from soundtrack for (deep breath) “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.” “You think that you got away,” Rodrigo sings through gritted teeth, adding an eerily pastoral feel to another of her signature tales of heartbreak and revenge. “But I’m in the trees, I’m in the breeze.” LINDSAY ZOLADZMegan Thee Stallion, ‘Cobra’Megan Thee Stallion’s raps have constructed a persona that’s carnal, competitive and invincible even on bad days. But on “Cobra” — her first self-released single after leaving her old label — she hits “rock bottom,” admitting, “Yes, I’m very depressed/How can someone so blessed wanna slit they wrist?” The video shows Megan shedding her skin, but the song itself doesn’t declare victory; instead, a rock-guitar outro summons the bitterness of grunge. JON PARELESTorres, ‘I Got the Fear’Torres — the stage name of the singer-songwriter Mackenzie Scott — sullies organic folk sounds with a mechanized, industrial crunch on “I Got the Fear,” the second single from her sixth album, “What an Enormous Room,” due in January. Images of panic attacks and climate catastrophe haunt the song, but love provides a sliver of hope: “The dread doesn’t pay any rent money,” Torres sings, “But as long as it doesn’t get ahold of my honey, think I’ll be all right.” ZOLADZMount Kimbie, ‘Dumb Guitar’The English group Mount Kimbie keeps figuring out different ways to fuse meditation, confession and snarl. Its latest single, “Dumb Guitar,” promising a new album, taps through three chords with ever-evolving loops and waves of synthesizers, keyboards and guitars. As it churns ahead, Dominic Maker and Kai Campos sing lines like “Find a suit to wear out/Take the selfish side out,” “Another day I’ll kill myself” and “Lose it all in silence/Dig a hole in my mind.” The estrangement keeps growing, even as the music ebbs into a calm coda. PARELESWillow, ‘Alone’A shuffle rhythm, usually the sound of jaunty confidence, gets pushed and pulled into nervous, angular permutations in Willow’s “Alone,” a seething and then explosive two-minute distillation of a relationship full of need, betrayal and confusion. “I’m so tired of being a liar, it’s true,” Willow sings, well before the final rupture. PARELESEl Búho & Nita, ‘Cenizas de Agua’Robin Perkins, who records as El Búho (the Owl), is an English electronic producer who has devoted himself to Latin American rhythms, natural sounds and environmental activism. He collaborated with the flamenco-influenced Spanish singer and songwriter Nita (Cristina Manjón), from the group Fuel Fandango, on “Cenizas de Agua” (“Ashes of Water”). The track smolders with suppressed agitation about the fate of the planet. Over a subdued cumbia beat, surrounded by glimmering, time-reversed sounds, Nita’s lyrics contrast cherished memories with dire expectations: “I open my chest,” she sings. “I break the silence.” PARELESMajid Jordan, ‘Slip’Majid Jordan — the Canadian duo of the singer Majid Al-Maskati and the producer Jordan Ullman — makes hypnotically self-effacing R&B: pondering, contemplating, doubting, never raising its voice. In “Slip,” from the new album “Good People,” the beat is muffled and the keyboards are like distant radar blips as Al-Maskati struggles to stave off a temptation, though it’s clear he longs to succumb. PARELESJames Elkington, ‘A Round, a Bout’James Elkington, an English guitarist based in Chicago who has worked with Jeff Tweedy and Eleventh Dream Day, made his new instrumental album, “Me Neither (LP 1)” — the first of two parts — on his own, mostly with folky acoustic guitars but not ruling out electronics. In “A Round, a Bout,” melodies slowly materialize above, and then below, a serene picking pattern, sounding reticent but somehow inevitable. PARELESPeter Evans, ‘The Cell’On “The Cell,” Nick Jozwiak’s bass and Michael Shekwoaga Ode’s drums buckle in together, creating a pulpy beat for the trumpeter Peter Evans to dive beneath and around. Joel Ross finds the open space that’s left and lets his vibraphone ring there, one or two notes at a time. Ross and Evans are both dexterous players who can blow your hair back: The vibraphonist is known for his prolix soloing, and Evans for his extended technique. On “Ars Memoria,” the second album from the quartet that Evans calls Being & Becoming, both simmer down and submit themselves to the group imperative. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOAnthony Pirog featuring Wendy Eisenberg, ‘Night Winds’If you know Anthony Pirog, it’s probably as a fearless guitar slasher with a rack of effects pedals that let him encase himself in a turbulent cocoon. But on his newest album, “The Nepenthe Series, Vol. 1,” Pirog invites others to control the environment. During the pandemic, he asked peers and mentors to record one track each that they considered “ambient,” then he would play his way into the sound. The list of collaborators is impressive: Andy Summers, Nels Cline, John Frusciante. He made “Night Winds” with Wendy Eisenberg, another youngish guitar innovator; it is the album’s most cluttered and inclement-sounding track, and the most absorbing. Eisenberg’s growling, pseudo-industrial backdrop adds a high contrast to Pirog’s twinkly long tones, which pile up gradually until it all washes out into silence. RUSSONELLO More

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      ‘Dicks: The Musical’ Review: Hitting High Notes, Going Lowbrow

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      Larry Charles’s musical comedy is so hellbent on being outrageous that it just ends up being tiresome.The funniest part of “Dicks: The Musical” sneaks in at the very end, when outtakes are interspersed with the credits. Nathan Lane, in particular, comes across as a living illustration of the words “game” and “trooper.” He and his co-star Megan Mullally, pros that they are, elegantly suggest hints of disbelief at just how they ended up in a movie in which his character spits pre-chewed cold cuts into the gaping maws of hideous puppet monsters and hers complains that her vagina has flown away (at one point it attaches itself to someone like the facehugger in “Alien”).On paper this sounds intriguing, in a Troma Entertainment kind of way, and maybe one day this musical comedy will turn into a cult film like that company’s “Surf Nazis Must Die” or some of the jetsam perpetually washing up at pop culture’s edges.For now this movie from the hip indie studio A24 simply exerts itself as it tries way too hard to join the hallowed ranks of exploitation favorites extolling schlock values.Directed by Larry Charles (“Borat”), the film was adapted by Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp from a show they performed at Upright Citizens Brigade in the mid-2010s. The two writers also play the supposedly identical twins Trevor and Craig, who were raised separately after their parents (Lane and Mullally) split up. The siblings, whose straightness is too aggressive to not be conspicuous, coincidentally work at the same company, where they compete for the title of best salesman and the attention of their boss, Gloria (Megan Thee Stallion, who gets the movie’s single best number, “Out-Alpha the Alpha”).The new colleagues’ relationship is frosty at first: “You have long hair like a girl,” Craig tells Trevor; “you have short hair like a lesbian girl,” Trevor replies, expertly wielding the rapier wit of a peeved eight-year-old. But eventually, the pair team up to reunite their folks. One potential obstacle is that their father, Harris, is decidedly not heterosexual. Cue the song “Gay Old Life,” in which Harris details his fabulous queer existence and introduces the aforementioned creatures, his beloved Sewer Boys. (Jackson and Sharp wrote the passable songs with Karl Saint Lucy and Marius de Vries, and their staging is mostly anemic.)Once Lane and Mullally, who plays the lisping mom Evelyn like a 1930s movie’s idea of a Park Avenue eccentric, enter the story, they hijack it from Jackson and Sharp, which is not necessarily a bad thing but also destabilizes the movie.Despite brief instances when it spills into surreal madness, most notably in a scene set in a sewer, the film is rudderless — which is a polite way to say limp. Its only point is highly self-aware pseudo-gonzo provocation, peaking in a denouement that feels both surprising and inevitable, and looks as if it had been engineered to deliberately unsettle some viewers. Some keyboard warriors and craven politicians might take the bait, while the rest of us will be left wondering why Lane and Mullally didn’t get a song with Megan Thee Stallion.Dicks: The MusicalRated R for language, sexual single entendres, cartoonish taboo-breaking and offenses against musical theater. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. In theaters. More

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      MTV Video Music Awards Recap: Taylor Swift, Doja Cat and More

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      Nicki Minaj hosted and helped close out a nearly four-hour show heavy on performances and reaction shots of Taylor Swift in the audience.The MTV Video Music Awards returned to the Prudential Center in Newark on Tuesday night, as Nicki Minaj hosted a nearly four-hour show that included the members of ’N Sync coming together to present a Moon Person trophy to Taylor Swift (who gushed directly to the boy band, “I had your dolls”) and Sean Combs receiving a global icon honor (and telling the crowd his career had humble beginnings, as a paperboy). The Brazilian pop star Anitta delivered one of the event’s most solid one-liners — “I want to thank myself because I worked so hard,” she said in an acceptance speech — which she also proved onstage, performing both a solo medley and a collaboration with the K-pop group Tomorrow X Together. At the end of the night, the following five moments stood out.Most Memorable Performance: Doja CatOne of pop-rap’s most unpredictable voices turned out the night’s most polished and high-concept performance, capturing the anxiety of return to office in a look perhaps best described as “business sexual” while surrounded by dancers doused in ghoulish red paint. The audience looked confused and a little terrified as Doja Cat glided around the stage nailing her marks, the calm in an increasingly hectic storm.Most Memorable Fake-Out: Olivia RodrigoOlivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” video dramatizes an awards show performance gone wrong, and though it has 54 million YouTube views, none of those evidently came from V.M.A.s audience members like Selena Gomez, who looked stricken when Rodrigo partly recreated the clip Tuesday night. After the song’s first section, lights seemingly burst onstage and a curtain fell as a “stagehand” ushered the singer away — only to return seconds later grinning and performing another song from her new album, “Guts,” the bouncy “Get Him Back!”Most Memorable Return That (Likely) Didn’t Attract F.C.C. Attention: Cardi B and Megan Thee StallionCardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s first televised performance of their hit “WAP” came at the 2021 Grammys, and their salacious choreography caught the attention of over 1,000 viewers who complained to the Federal Communications Commission, Rolling Stone reported. The duo reunited last week with a fresh collaboration called “Bongos,” and played it relatively safer on the V.M.A.s stage. The censors caught most of the profanities and the audience camera caught one of the night’s many shots of Swift dancing along.Most Memorable 10-Minute Performance Involving Knives: ShakiraPerforming a mega medley to celebrate receiving the video vanguard award, the Colombian pop star didn’t appear to be doing much live singing, but her lengthy number included plenty of choreography, hair flipping, microphone stand tossing, guitar playing, a quick wardrobe adjustment, crowd surfing and a lift bringing her high above the crowd. But a truly eye-grabbing moment came halfway through, when she wielded two knives, dramatically running one across her torso before tossing them aside.Most Memorable Flashback to MTV’s Past: Hip-Hop Anniversary MedleyThe Grammys went big with a tribute to 50 years of hip-hop earlier this year, but MTV’s celebration of rap’s anniversary had some highlights, too: After Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh gave the crowd a lesson on the genre’s beginnings, Minaj emerged with “Itty Bitty Piggy,” one of her beloved early mixtape tracks, then reunited with her mentor Lil Wayne for “A Milli.” LL Cool J commanded the stage for two of his own songs, then went (shell) toe to toe with Run-DMC’s Darryl McDaniels on “Walk This Way.” (The performance mostly elided the 1990s, but Diddy’s eight-minute performance earlier in the night covered that era.) It was a reminder that MTV was once the home of “Yo! MTV Raps,” and used to spend a lot more time on music. More

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      The Rolling Stones Roar Back, and 13 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Allison Russell, Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion, Ashley McBryde and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.The Rolling Stones, ‘Angry’There’s no mistaking the time-tested Rolling Stones sound on “Angry,” the first single off “Hackney Diamonds,” the band’s first album of its own songs since 2005. The beat is blunt and brawny. The guitars riff and mesh, but also tangle and tease one another. And Mick Jagger unleashes full-throated indignation as he lets a lover — an angry one — know that they’re breaking up. He’s aggrieved, petulant, wounded and flippant, almost all at once. JON PARELESJoni Mitchell, ‘Like Veils Said Lorraine’This stunning, previously unreleased song from the forthcoming third installment of Joni Mitchell’s archive series (which will cover her early Asylum Records years, 1972 to 1975) begins with a quote about life from the titular character: “It’s veils you tear off one by one.” Another voice disagrees: “No, it’s walls we put up.” Accompanied by resonant, searching piano chords, Mitchell wrestles with these dueling perspectives and as ever, doesn’t settle on an easy compromise but finds the truth between extremes. Recorded as a demo sometime between Mitchell’s intimate 1971 masterpiece “Blue” and “For the Roses,” her labyrinthine 1972 meditation on the emptiness of fame, “Like Veils Said Lorraine” sounds like a bridge between those two eras of Mitchell’s rapidly developing artistry and serves as proof that her archives still contain untold riches. LINDSAY ZOLADZAllison Russell, ‘Eve Was Black’On her remarkable 2021 album, “Outside Child,” Allison Russell recalled childhood abuse and celebrated her survival. Her new one, “The Returner,” is just as strong, and it examines larger forces as well — most directly in “Eve Was Black,” which directly confronts racism and considers the African ancestors of all humans. “Do I remind you of what you lost/Do you hate or do you lust?” Russell sings. “Do you despise or do you yearn/To return, to return, to return back to the motherland?” What starts as a bluesy, folky, foot-stomping tune drifts toward jazz, then grows molten with rage as Russell sings about lynching. The track includes an epilogue; Russell, who grew up in Montreal, sings in French, over a banjo and fiddle, about a family uprooted from Africa to America. PARELESAshley McBryde, ‘Women Ain’t Whiskey’“You can’t just quit me/When you get lonely come pick me back up,” Ashley McBryde sings in “Women Ain’t Whiskey.” It’s a country-meets-U2 march that states the obvious; apparently it needs to be restated, loudly. At least it doesn’t have brand placements. PARELESGuppy, ‘Texting and Driving’J Lebow, of the Los Angeles band Guppy, talk-sings her way through the sinewy punk-pop of “Texting and Driving,” delivering lines like “Texting your dad a curated playlist/Texting God in my head — also known as praying” with sardonic glee. Produced by Sarah Tudzin (a.k.a. Illuminati Hotties), the track is laced with little sonic eruptions — bursts of dissonant guitar, out-of-nowhere backup vocals, outright screams — and there’s plenty of cowbell to kick it along. PARELESCardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion, ‘Bongos’The FCC’s least favorite duo, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, reunite on the unrelenting “Bongos,” their first collaboration since the 2020 succès de scandale “WAP.” Atop a clipped, appropriately percussive beat — bong, bong, bong — the two rappers trade boisterously braggadocious verses and winking, heavily stressed double entendre. “Bongos” feels more like a retread than a reinvention, though Megan — for once, more of a comic than Cardi — gets off a few hilariously memorable lines like “purse so big had to treat it like a person.” ZOLADZPeso Pluma, Jasiel Nuñez and Junior H, ‘Bipolar’Auto-Tune meets acoustic instruments in “Bipolar,” a very 21st-century regional Mexican collaboration by three of its stars: Peso Pluma, Jasiel Nuñez and Junior H. It’s an old-fashioned waltz about a newish situation: giving in to the temptation to check an ex’s social media, but then deciding “I’d rather make money than waste my time with mere stories.” PARELESResidente and Wos, ‘Problema Cabrón’The ever-provocative Puerto Rican rapper Residente harnesses an electric blues shuffle for “Problema Cabrón,” (“Problem Bastard”), a ferocious boast about being a perpetual troublemaker. “The day I die, you’re the ones who will be able to rest in peace,” he taunts in Spanish, over a track that keeps reconfiguring itself, from full band down to piano and finger snaps and back up. Like Residente’s other recent songs, the song arrives with a video; this one has him facing off with an authoritarian police force. The song itself is pure, apolitical insubordination. PARELESYussef Dayes featuring Shabaka Hutchings, ‘Raisins Under the Sun’The London-based drummer Yussef Dayes, the owner of one of the most distinctive backbeats in contemporary music — a taut but shrugging, hi-hat-heavy funk groove, lightly inflected with Afrobeat flavor but rooted in today — has spent years hanging out at the junction of jazz, hip-hop, garage and funk, awaiting his moment. Maybe it has arrived. His debut album, “Black Classical Music,” is both a sprawling declaration of his musical ambitions and a reminder that patience is his biggest virtue. Across 75 minutes, the focus is on catalyzing a vibe. On “Raisins Under the Sun,” he reunites with Shabaka Hutchings — they’ve known each other since childhood, and have collaborated intermittently — on a wafting, two-chord vamp, with Hutchings’s bass clarinet adding a misty layer but never forcing its way to the front. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOTirzah, ‘No Limit’“What’s your limit? What’s my limit?” repeats throughout “No Limit,” an evocatively low-fi track by the English songwriter and electronic producer Tirzah. That question runs alongside drum and piano loops, never to be fully answered; it’s a gateway to intimacy that recognizes all its dangers. PARELESMarika Hackman, ‘No Caffeine’In the verses, the English songwriter Marika Hackman dispenses random self-help advice: “Take a day off work, call your mum/Have a glass of wine, stay away from fun.” At first, there’s little more than a few piano notes chiming behind her. But as instruments assemble around her — double-time bass and drums, doleful strings — it’s clear her desperation is mounting, and the chorus is a reveal: “You got me good/And I feel so stupid.” PARELESLaufey, ‘California and Me’Is this the Samara Joy effect? If Joy’s best new artist win at the Grammys seemed like it could open the gates to a flood of young jazz singers who sound like they’ve leaped out of a reel-to-reel, then Laufey is at the crest of that wave. She’s a 24-year-old Chinese-Icelandic vocalist and multi-instrumentalist with a sepia croon and label support that’s helped her grab streaming listeners by the millions. Laufey’s tunes roll around in a plush, tear-stained bed, channeling the cool-jazz vocalists of the ’50s (think Chris Connor, but without the dangerous passion that haunts her music) by way of indie singers like Angel Olsen and Mitski at their most nostalgic. On “California and Me,” an original, she accepts heartbreak with an enthusiastic sigh, singing over London’s Philharmonia Orchestra: “Left me and the ocean for your old flame/Holding back my tears, I couldn’t make you stay.” RUSSONELLOJames Brandon Lewis, ‘Sparrow’James Brandon Lewis has a way of holding his tenor saxophone poised at the tipping point between a melody and a holler. That’s how Mahalia Jackson sang, too, when shaken by divine inspiration: moving from robust cascades of song to gravelly shouts. Lewis’s new album devoted to the singer, “For Mahalia, With Love,” turns his all-star Red Lily Quintet loose on nine gospel hymns. On its opening track, he combines the oft-covered “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” with an original, “Even the Sparrow.” Playing in unison with the cornetist Kirk Knuffke, Lewis keeps the focus on melodic clarity; it’s a moment of peace and meditation, before the album takes wing. RUSSONELLOVince Clarke, ‘The Lamentations of Jeremiah’Expect drones, not dance beats, from the new solo album by Vince Clarke, the synth-pop expert from Erasure and, before that, Depeche Mode and Yaz. In “Lamentations of Jeremiah,” an unswerving but subtly changing drone tone — with occasional distant-thunder eruptions — underlies the solo cello of the composer Reed Hays, which moves between moody, declarative melodic phrases and strenuous arpeggios, as if it’s wrestling with looming dread. PARELES More

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      How Hip-Hop Changed the English Language Forever

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      In 50 years, rap transformed the English language, bringing the Black vernacular’s vibrancy to the world. “Dave, the dope fiend shootin’ dope.” — Slick Rick, “Children’s Story” (1988) “Dopeman, dopeman!” — N.W.A, “Dope Man” (1987) Did you ghost me? 👻 Read 10:28 PM Homer Simpson going ghost. We unpacked five words — dope, woke, cake, […] More

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      Tory Lanez Is Expected to Be Sentenced for Shooting Megan Thee Stallion

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      The Canadian rapper was found guilty in December of shooting Megan Thee Stallion in both her feet during an argument.The Canadian rapper and singer Tory Lanez is expected to be sentenced on Monday for shooting Megan Thee Stallion, a fellow artist and onetime friend, in both of her feet during an argument in the summer of 2020. Details of the assault came out gradually via social media and evolving law enforcement accounts, leading to a yearslong legal saga that became tawdry tabloid fodder while also generating broader conversation about the treatment of Black women in music and beyond.Prosecutors are seeking a 13-year sentence for Mr. Lanez, born Daystar Peterson, arguing that he lacked remorse and was “clearly incapable of accepting any responsibility for his own actions,” citing “a campaign to humiliate and retraumatize the victim” following the shooting.“The defendant actively invited harassment of the victim by spreading misinformation to his large following in an effort to galvanize the public against the victim and even the prosecution team without any regard to the dangers it posed,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “The defendant has weaponized misinformation to his large following to such a degree that it has left a lasting traumatic impact on the victim.”Mr. Lanez was found guilty in December of three felony counts: assault with a semiautomatic handgun, carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. He faces a maximum of 22 years and eight months in prison, as well as potential deportation to Canada.Lawyers for Mr. Lanez, 31, had filed a motion for a new trial, arguing that Instagram posts and a tattoo shown in court were prejudicial evidence, but the judge denied their request in May. Prosecutors had said the defense’s motion was “replete with colorful rhetoric” but lacked substance and failed to “cite a single instance of error in the trial court.”Following that hearing, Mr. Lanez told the judge: “Please don’t ruin my life. I could be your son, I could be your brother.”Ahead of the trial, the two artists had traded barbs in songs and online for more than a year.Megan Thee Stallion, born Megan Pete, testified that Mr. Lanez, with whom she had a brief romantic entanglement, fired at her several times after she exited a vehicle that was taking them home from a pool party at the reality star Kylie Jenner’s residence. According to testimony, a drunken fight about relationships and careers had erupted between the two artists and another friend in the S.U.V., Kelsey Harris.Megan Thee Stallion testified in the trial in December, saying Mr. Lanez had offered her a million dollars for her silence.Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty ImagesMegan Thee Stallion initially told responding officers that she had stepped on glass, explaining later that she had been on high alert after the police killing of George Floyd and was also worried about how “snitching” on Mr. Lanez would affect her career in hip-hop. Following initial coverage of the case, in which Mr. Lanez was charged only with weapons possession, Megan Thee Stallion named the rapper as her assailant on Instagram.She testified that Mr. Lanez had apologized, and offered her and Ms. Harris a million dollars each to keep quiet about the shooting.On the stand, Ms. Harris declined to identify Mr. Lanez as the gunman, even as the defense put forth a theory that she may have shot her friend out of jealousy. But in earlier text messages and an interview with detectives that were also presented to the jury, Ms. Harris corroborated Megan Thee Stallion’s story.Mr. Lanez’s sentencing had originally been scheduled for January but was rescheduled several times as he hired new lawyers and sought a new trial. The rapper’s defense team argued that the jury might have been improperly swayed by a shirtless photo of Mr. Lanez that revealed a firearm tattoo, saying it could paint him as “a gun-wielding career criminal.” It also said the potential that prosecutors would use Mr. Lanez’s lyrics against him had “impermissibly chilled” his right to testify. More

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      Tory Lanez Found Guilty of Shooting Megan Thee Stallion

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      Mr. Lanez, a Canadian rapper, fired at the Houston hip-hop star after an argument in 2020. The matter became the subject of speculation and gossip on social media and in songs.LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles jury on Friday found Daystar Peterson, the Canadian rapper better known as Tory Lanez, guilty of shooting a fellow artist, Megan Thee Stallion, in both of her feet following an argument about their romantic entanglements and respective careers in the summer of 2020.Mr. Lanez, 30, was convicted of three felony counts: assault with a semiautomatic handgun, carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. He faces more than 20 years in prison and could be deported.Jurors reached a verdict after about seven hours of deliberation across two days, following a trial that lasted nearly two weeks. Mr. Lanez, who had been free on bail during the trial following a period of house arrest, was immediately taken into custody. Sentencing was scheduled for Jan. 27.Megan Thee Stallion was not present in court. As the verdict was read, Mr. Lanez appeared motionless and stared straight ahead until his father stood up and began shouting at the judge and prosecutors. “God will judge you,” he said, as bailiffs moved to block his path.Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Megan Thee Stallion, said in a statement: “The jury got it right. I am thankful there is justice for Meg.”The case, which played out as both a tawdry tabloid narrative and a weighty referendum on the treatment of Black women in hip-hop and beyond, was closely watched for both its famous characters and what it said about the recent adjudication of alleged abuse by notable men, such as Johnny Depp and Harvey Weinstein, in court and in public.Mr. Lanez, though not a household name before the case, has seen his celebrity profile rise since the shooting, earning explicit and implied support from various corners of the hip-hop universe, including influential blogs, social media accounts and the rappers-turned-talking heads 50 Cent and Joe Budden.In court, Mr. Lanez’s defense had raised the possibility of another shooter, a friend of Megan Thee Stallion’s who was also involved in the argument, which occurred on the way home from a gathering at the home of the reality star and beauty mogul Kylie Jenner.But Megan Thee Stallion, who testified in the case, identified Mr. Lanez as her assailant, tearfully recounting how he had shouted “dance” and a sexist slur at her before firing several times from the passenger seat of a sport utility vehicle.She said Mr. Lanez then apologized and offered her and the friend, Kelsey Harris, a million dollars each to keep quiet about what had occurred.In his closing argument, Alexander Bott, a deputy district attorney, said that Mr. Lanez had been pushed to a breaking point when Megan Thee Stallion demeaned his artistic stature, noting that she had been reluctant to come forward after the traumatic event.“Megan did find the courage to come and tell you what the defendant did to her,” Mr. Bott told jurors. “Was Megan telling the truth? I think everyone in the courtroom knows the answer to that question.”The lawyer added, of Mr. Lanez, “Hold him accountable for shooting the victim for nothing more than a bruised ego.”Mr. Lanez’s defense team argued that the two women were fighting that night over the male rapper, implying that Ms. Harris might have been motivated to shoot her friend out of jealousy when she learned that Mr. Lanez and Megan Thee Stallion had been intimate behind her back.George Mgdesyan, a lawyer for Mr. Lanez, said that the case “was about jealousy and a sexual relationship,” calling the prosecution’s case “full of holes and speculation.” Megan Thee Stallion “lied about everything in this case,” he told jurors.Some eyewitnesses provided muddled accounts of the shooting at trial, though most testified to seeing Mr. Lanez with a gun. Ms. Harris, who was offered immunity in exchange for her testimony, denied pulling the trigger or receiving hush money from Mr. Lanez, The Los Angeles Times reported. But on the stand, she also backtracked on her previous statements to the police that identified Mr. Lanez as the shooter, testifying that amid the drunken scuffle, she did not see who shot Megan Thee Stallion.Megan Thee Stallion, who testified in the case, identified Mr. Lanez as her assailant.Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times, via Getty ImagesProsecutors then received the judge’s permission to play Ms. Harris’s entire 80-minute interview with detectives from September, in which she implicated Mr. Lanez. They also presented a text message Ms. Harris sent to Megan Thee Stallion’s bodyguard the night of the shooting, writing, “Help” and “Tory shot Meg.” (In response to her conflicting accounts, Ms. Harris said she could not remember what she had said previously and had not been entirely truthful with prosecutors in the past.)Another eyewitness, who saw the encounter from the window of a nearby home, said that he observed a violent, chaotic fight and that the first “flashes” — which he initially believed were fireworks, noting that he never saw a gun — came from a woman. But the witness added that he then saw a short man, believed to be Mr. Lanez, “firing everywhere” four or five times, Rolling Stone reported.Experts testified that gunshot residue was found on both Mr. Lanez and Ms. Harris, who were in close proximity, though DNA evidence tying Mr. Lanez to the weapon was inconclusive. (The police did not collect a DNA sample from Ms. Harris.)Ahead of the trial, the case had played out on social media, gossip sites and in music released by both rappers.Megan Thee Stallion, who had collaborated with Beyoncé shortly before the shooting and went on to win three Grammy Awards, including best new artist, in 2021, was initially circumspect about what had occurred.“Look what coming forward has done to her life, her reputation and her career,” Mr. Bott, the deputy district attorney, said in his closing remarks, raising his voice at times for emphasis. “Do you think she wants to be here?”In her testimony, the rapper said she did not tell police officers that she had been shot that night in July — claiming instead that she had stepped on glass — because tensions between Black people and law enforcement were high after the murder of George Floyd. “I didn’t want to see anybody die,” she said. “I didn’t want to die.”She was also worried about her career. “I didn’t want to talk to the officers because I didn’t want to be a snitch,” the rapper added. “Snitching is frowned upon in the hip-hop community,” which she identified as a boys’ club.In a statement after the verdict, George Gascón, the Los Angeles district attorney, highlighted what he called Megan Thee Stallion’s bravery in court. “You showed incredible courage and vulnerability with your testimony despite repeated and grotesque attacks that you did not deserve,” he said. “Women, especially Black women, are afraid to report crimes like assault and sexual violence because they are too often not believed.”At first, Mr. Lanez was arrested and charged only with concealing a firearm in the vehicle. But in the days and weeks that followed, Megan Thee Stallion revealed online and in an interview with a detective that she had been shot, eventually naming Mr. Lanez as her assailant. That October, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged Mr. Lanez with assault.Still, for years since, some skeptics and conspiracy theorists have questioned whether Megan Thee Stallion was shot at all. At trial, a surgeon testified to removing bullet fragments from both of the rapper’s feet, with X-rays presented in court showing tiny fragments that remained.Mr. Lanez, who opted not to testify in his own defense, has not detailed his version of events, though he released an album barely two months after the encounter in which he denied shooting Megan Thee Stallion, focusing instead on their personal relationship.“We both know what happened that night and what I did/But it ain’t what they sayin’,” he rapped.Megan Thee Stallion later responded in her own track, titled “Shots Fired,” in which she seemed to recount what led to the shooting — “He talkin’ ’bout his followers, dollars,” she raps, adding, “I told him, ‘You’re not poppin’, you just on the remix’” — as well as its aftermath. (“You offered M’s not to talk, I guess that made my friend excited, hmm/now y’all in cahoots.”)On the stand, Megan Thee Stallion said she had initially lied about the extent of her personal involvement with Mr. Lanez, including in a television interview with Gayle King, because it was “disgusting,” she said. “How could I share my body with somebody who could shoot me?”Even as her career skyrocketed, the assault had caused her to “lose my confidence, lose my friends, lose myself,” she said in court. “I wish he had just shot and killed me.” More