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      Ed Piskor, Comics Artist, Dies After Sexual Misconduct Accusations

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      Ed Piskor, 41, was known for his detailed “Hip Hop Family Tree” and “X-Men: Grand Design.” A Pittsburgh gallery canceled an exhibition of his work after the initial allegation.The comics artist Ed Piskor, who was best known for his multivolume “Hip Hop Family Tree,” died last week after posting a lengthy note to social media about an accusation of sexual misconduct that led a gallery in Pittsburgh to indefinitely postpone an exhibition of his work.The death of Piskor, who lived in Munhall, Pa., was confirmed by a funeral home, but no cause was given. Many people read his note on social media — in which he repeatedly spoke of his death — as a suicide note.Two of Piskor’s relatives declined to comment. The chief of the Munhall Police Department said Piskor died outside of Pennsylvania.The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, a nonprofit arts group, announced last month that it would not open the five-month exhibition as planned after a woman accused Piskor of trying to “groom” her in 2020, when she was in high school, and posted screenshots from their online conversations.Piskor, 41, apologized for the messages in his note and said he never should have communicated with the teenager. He also addressed separate allegations from another artist, saying that they had a consensual sexual relationship.His agent, Bob Mecoy, said the artist had defined himself by his work and was devastated by what the future had held.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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      J. Cole Apologizes for Kendrick Lamar Diss Track

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      J. Cole also vowed to update the track, “7 Minute Drill,” or remove it from streaming services after it was featured on his new album, “Might Delete Later.”The rapper J. Cole apologized on Sunday for releasing a diss track about Kendrick Lamar, saying he felt “terrible” and vowing to update the song or remove it from streaming services.The apology followed an exchange of verses that began in October, when J. Cole and Drake ranked themselves, with Lamar, as the “big three” in hip-hop in the song “First Person Shooter.” In March, Lamar dismissed that comparison in a guest verse on the song “Like That” by Future and Metro Boomin, rapping that there was no big three, “it’s just big me.”In response, J. Cole on Friday released the diss track “7 Minute Drill” on his surprise new album, “Might Delete Later.” It includes the lines: “I got a phone call, they say that somebody dissing / You want some attention, it come with extensions / He still doing shows but fell off like ‘The Simpsons.’”Two days after the song was released, J. Cole apologized for it while onstage at his Dreamville Festival in Raleigh, N.C., according to videos posted on social media. During his headlining performance, he said that when he saw the response to the song after it came out, it didn’t “sit right with my spirit,” and that he was speaking about it at the concert to end the beef.He also called Lamar one of the “greatest” to ever use a microphone and said he hoped Lamar would forgive him.“The past two days felt terrible,” J. Cole said. “It let me know how good I’ve been sleeping for the past 10 years.”As of early afternoon on Monday, “7 Minute Drill” was still available on major streaming services.J. Cole released “Might Delete Later” on his Dreamville Records label, an imprint of Interscope Records, which is owned by Universal Music Group. Universal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Lamar does not appear to have addressed the track or the apology publicly. Representatives for Lamar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Drake seemed to respond to Lamar’s verse at a concert in Sunrise, Fla., in late March, according to Complex. He told the crowd that people had been asking him how he was feeling and that he had his “head up high,” and felt as if no one could mess with him.Lamar, Drake and J. Cole have worked together in the past and have individually received numerous awards for their music, including multiple Grammy Awards and nominations. In 2018, Lamar received the Pulitzer Prize in music for his album “DAMN.” More

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      Chappell Roan’s Eye-Roll Kiss-Off, and 11 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Prince, Young Miko, the Black Keys and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Chappell Roan, ‘Good Luck, Babe!’The rising pop star Chappell Roan sends an ex-lover off with an eye roll on the wrenching “Good Luck, Babe!,” a synth-driven tune that allows the dynamic vocalist to do her best Kate Bush. The subject of the song is noncommittal and perhaps in denial of her sexuality: Roan imagines her former flame kissing “a hundred boys in bars” and eventually becoming a man’s dissatisfied wife in the aftermath of their affair. But ultimately, Roan chooses herself, singing with all her heart, “I just wanna love someone who calls me baby.” LINDSAY ZOLADZPrince, ‘United States of Division’“Everybody stop fighting/everybody make love,” Prince urged in “United States of Division,” a song previously released only as a British single B-side in 2004, alongside Prince’s album “Musicology.” It’s six minutes of deep-bottomed polytonal funk — topped with synthesizer jabs and horn lines, goaded by a hard-rock guitar riff — that veers between disenchanted verses and a conditionally optimistic chorus. Prince was hoping for the best but seeing stubborn obstacles, pondering tribalism, inequality and faith all at once and wondering, “Why must I sing ‘God Bless America’ and not the rest of the world?” JON PARELESCharli XCX, ‘B2b’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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      Ye Is Sued for Hostile Work Environment at Donda Academy and Yeezy

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      A former employee sued the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, claiming a hostile work environment at Yeezy, his fashion brand, and Donda Academy, his private school.Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, was sued Tuesday by a former employee who accused him of discrimination and creating a hostile work environment by calling Adolf Hitler “great,” disparaging Jews and saying that “gay people are not true Christians.”The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by Trevor Phillips, who says he was hired in November 2022, around the time a series of antisemitic remarks publicly made by Ye lost the artist his major-label record deal and put his businesses in jeopardy.Phillips was initially hired to oversee “projects related to growing cotton” and other plants in an effort to make Yeezy, Ye’s fashion brand, “self-sustainable,” the lawsuit said, and then went on to work for Donda Academy, Ye’s private school in Southern California.Phillips’s lawsuit claims that Ye made antisemitic comments in front of staff members at Donda Academy, including, “the Jews are out to get me” and “the Jews are stealing all my money.” After Adidas ended its decade-long partnership with Ye over his public remarks, the lawsuit claimed, the rapper told Phillips: “The Jews are working with Adidas to freeze up my money to try and make me broke!”The lawsuit claims that Ye treated Black employees at Donda Academy, including Phillips, “considerably worse than white employees.”Representatives for Ye and Donda Academy did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.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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      Future and Metro Boomin’s First Joint Album Opens Big at No. 1

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      The Atlanta rapper and star producer topped Ariana Grande’s first-week total for “Eternal Sunshine,” but Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” may beat them all next week.Future and Metro Boomin, two of the biggest stars of Atlanta hip-hop, have scored the best opening of the year so far with their joint album “We Don’t Trust You,” though Beyoncé is on deck for next week’s chart with potentially even bigger numbers.“We Don’t Trust You” opens at No. 1 with the equivalent of 251,000 sales in the United States, a better opening than Ariana Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine” had two weeks ago (with 227,000). According to the tracking service Luminate, the vast majority of fans’ consumption of “We Don’t Trust You” was through streaming platforms, with 324 million clicks in its opening week — more than any album since Taylor Swift’s “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” which arrived with 375 million in November.“We Don’t Trust You,” featuring guest spots by the Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar and Travis Scott, among others, is the first of two announced LPs by the rapper Future and Metro Boomin, a star producer who has been behind dozens of hit songs over the last decade, and who has gone to No. 1 on the album chart three times before in his own right. The next joint album by Future and Metro Boomin is expected April 12.Beyoncé’s 27-track “Cowboy Carter” seized headlines even before its release last Friday, and fans started clicking as soon as they could. Spotify announced that “Cowboy Carter” became the service’s most-streamed album in a single day so far this year. It is expected to arrive with big numbers on next week’s chart, helped by sales on vinyl and CD — though fans complained that a number of tracks on the digital version were absent from the physical editions, including “Ya Ya,” one of the album’s most-streamed songs.Also this week, Olivia Rodrigo’s seven-month-old “Guts” jumps 16 spots to No. 2, thanks to the release of a deluxe version with five added tracks. Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine” falls to No. 3 after two weeks at the top, Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 4 and Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” is No. 5. More

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      The Sean Combs Saga Is Catnip for Pop Culture Podcasts

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      The raids of Combs’s homes have been a primary topic on podcasts and radio shows that cover the Black entertainment world.In the sprawling world of Black pop culture podcasts, its own media ecosystem covering the story lines and people central to the hip-hop genre, the one topic that dominated conversation this week was, unsurprisingly, the latest in the saga of Sean Combs.On Monday, federal agents raided the Los Angeles and Miami homes of Combs, the hip-hop mogul who has been accused in several civil lawsuits of sexual assault. He has vehemently denied all the claims. The news spurred days of freewheeling and varied reactions from radio personalities and podcast hosts whose discourse veered toward humor, speculation and denial, far from the tone struck by traditional news outlets.The rapper Mase, who topped charts as an artist signed to Combs’s Bad Boy record label in the late ’90s before their relationship soured, avoided addressing him by name on the sports-centric “It Is What It Is” podcast a day after the raids, but laughed and said that “reparations is getting closer and closer.”The same day, hosts of the popular morning radio show “The Breakfast Club” criticized the actions of the authorities — which Combs’s lawyer called an “unprecedented ambush, paired with an advanced, coordinated media presence” — as unnecessary: Charlamagne Tha God said he was curious about what information they had to justify the raids. Jessica Moore, known as “Jess Hilarious,” implied that the federal action was reminiscent of a television show. The third host, DJ Envy, agreed, and said the authorities acted like “they were going for the mob.”The former N.B.A. player Gilbert Arenas, who hosts the “No Chill” podcast, posted a 10-minute special episode on YouTube on Thursday that discussed the raids.“It’s over, no, it’s done, they got you,” he said, while laughing.To provide context for his listeners, Arenas said he had been at the scene of more than a dozen raids while he was in “the weed game, the poker game.” He noted that those raids happened between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.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 Decline of Sean Combs’ Revolt TV and Other Business Ventures

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      A restless ambition took him from hip-hop to the Met Gala, a reality show, a fashion label, a fragrance line and his own cable network. Then came the accusations and federal raids.Long before he was accused of sexual misconduct in a series of lawsuits, and long before federal agents in military gear raided his homes in Miami and Los Angeles, Sean Combs was unforgivable.That was the name he had selected for his first fragrance, which he sold through a partnership with Estée Lauder.It was promoted as a scent that “exudes the energy, sexiness and elegance of Sean Combs,” and he was supposed to give it a publicity boost in April 2006 by ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange alongside William Lauder, the Estée Lauder chief executive, and Terry Lundgren, the head of Federated Department Stores.But Mr. Combs didn’t arrive in time for the opening of the market, saying he had been stuck in traffic. So his fellow business titans did the honors without him.By then, Mr. Combs had successfully made the transition from Puff Daddy to the world’s most successful hip-hop mogul.Soon after the launch of his fragrance, Unforgivable, Mr. Combs appeared at the New York Stock Exchange with, from left to right: Todd Kahn, an executive at Sean John; John Demsey, the president of Sean John Fragrances; John Thain, the head of the N.Y.S.E.; Terry Lundgren, the chief executive of Federated Department Stores; and William Lauder, the chief executive of Estée Lauder.Seth Wenig/ReutersWe 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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      Metro Boomin Is Headed to No. 1 (Again). Here’s a Guide to His Music.

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      The producer has helped shape rap for the past decade, providing moody beats for Atlanta’s biggest stars and beyond. His latest LP, with Future, arrived last week.Since 2013, Metro Boomin has crafted the beats behind more than 75 songs that reached Billboard’s Hot 100, including 12 Top 10 hits. The Atlanta-via-St. Louis producer has turned contemporary radio into a shadowy world of nocturnal 808 drums and sinister synths while providing breakout moments for Atlanta rappers including Future, Migos and 21 Savage.Metro Boomin, now 30, emerged as a solo artist in 2017, but he has remained a vital collaborator. Two years later, he helped write “Heartless,” a No. 1 single for the Weeknd, and he oversaw the soundtrack for the 2023 sequel “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” This year, he was up for producer of the year, non-classical, at the Grammys (and lost to Jack Antonoff). Next week, he’s poised to claim his fourth No. 1 album with “We Don’t Trust You,” his 17-track collaboration with the woozy tunesmith Future. (A second project by the pair is due April 12.) Here are some of the crucial moments on his path to becoming hip-hop’s premier sculptor of sonic storm clouds.Listen on Apple Music and Spotify.Future featuring Lil Wayne, “Karate Chop (Remix)” (2013)Released in the run-up to Future’s highly anticipated second album, “Honest,” “Karate Chop” features a kaleidoscopic mix of sparkling arpeggios and buzzing synths. Metro Boomin was not sold on the beat, which he had crafted before his move to Atlanta, but Future became infatuated with it. The song became the first charting single to bear the producer’s credit, released while the 19-year-old Metro was a freshman at Morehouse College. “I had no clue from all the records we’ve done,” he told XXL, that this “would be the one. But these days, the people and the streets produce the singles.”ILoveMakonnen featuring Drake, “Tuesday” (2014)Produced with Sonny Digital and ILoveMakonnen, the breezy, peculiar “Tuesday” became Metro Boomin’s first Top 20 pop hit. Spacious, ethereal and recorded at Metro Boomin’s house, the track’s disorienting, calliope-style melody and barely there drums leave an open gulf for ILoveMakonnen’s singsong vocal to shine. “Every song with him is like one take,” Metro Boomin said of Makonnen in The Fader. “Even if he messes up at a little part, he’ll leave it, so it’s organic and raw. That’s why people love it. It’s breaking the rules.”From left, Future, Travis Scott and Metro Boomin attending A Night With Future DS2 in 2015 in New York City.Johnny Nunez/WireImage, via Getty ImagesFuture featuring Drake, “Where Ya At” (2015)Future’s first three Top 40 hits — “Where Ya At,” the Drake collaboration “Jumpman,” and “Low Life” — all came courtesy of Metro Boomin. The first, an ice-cold trap pounder that sounds like the tortured strings of a prepared piano, provided a blueprint for the two-times-platinum “What a Time to Be Alive,” the full-length collaboration from Future and Drake, where Metro Boomin served as executive producer.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