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      ‘Vultures 1’: Where the New Ye Meets the Old Kanye

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      “Vultures 1,” the rapper’s album with Ty Dolla Sign, arrived on the 20th anniversary of his debut, “The College Dropout.”The old Kanye, the new Kanye. Kanye then, Kanye now. Few, if any, popular musicians have made as much hay from the tension between their prior selves and their current one. And no famous person perpetually sheds old fans and acquires new ones quite like Kanye West, now known as Ye.He is forever testing loyalty, which is a polite way of saying that he often leans into odiousness, never more so than in the last 16 months, which have been peppered with bursts of antisemitic remarks and revelations about similar past behavior.For a while, these latest provocations seemed to do what few of his past outbursts have done: remove him from the center of the conversation.And yet, “Vultures 1,” his new album, opened at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, and most of the past two weeks have been heavy with Ye news — about his earning a self-reported $19 million in a day from selling items from his clothing line for just $20, about the predictably chaotic release of the album, including ticketed listening sessions in arenas and pushback from artists who were sampled without approval.Hundreds of thousands of fans, or millions, have boarded the train — in part because public opinion can be elastic, but also because even in this era of Ye, glimmers of an older Kanye remain.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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      Apple Music Removes Ye’s “Vultures 1” Amid Distributor Dispute

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      On Thursday, the streaming platform took down “Vultures 1” after the LP’s distributor, Fuga, said its upload violated a service agreement. The album, which is on pace to hit No. 1, later returned to the service.Ye, the rapper, producer and provocateur formerly known as Kanye West, has what will likely be the No. 1 album on next week’s Billboard chart, with “Vultures 1.” But on Thursday, the LP briefly disappeared from Apple Music, one of the world’s top streaming platforms.Apple gave no explanation for the removal. But since its release, the album has been dogged by accusations of unauthorized samples, and earlier on Thursday an independent distribution outlet complained that its system had been used to release the music in violation of its service terms.“Vultures 1,” a joint release with the R&B singer Ty Dolla Sign, was set to be Ye’s comeback after a series of antisemitic remarks in 2022 made him a pariah in music and fashion — without a record label or booking agent, and with his lucrative partnership with Adidas canceled. In December, he apologized for those remarks in a social media post written in Hebrew.After listening events last week at arenas in Chicago and on Long Island — where young fans flocked to hear his new music, and some shrugged off his past controversies — Ye released the 16-track “Vultures 1” last Friday.It quickly became a hit at streaming platforms, despite problems like another brief disappearance online shortly after release, and accusations from Ozzy Osbourne and the estate of Donna Summer that songs on the album used those artists’ music without permission.One track, “Good (Don’t Die),” used a portion of Summer’s 1977 song “I Feel Love,” a pulsating classic of early electronic dance music. That track had been removed from Ye’s album on Spotify on Wednesday, according to reports.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 Vince Staples Show’ Is Part Art House, Part ‘Home Improvement’

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      The hip-hop star’s wit has long shone in his critically acclaimed music and on social media. Now, it is the center of his new Netflix sitcom.Vince Staples is not someone you would describe as “excitable.” During a recent conversation about his new Netflix sitcom, “The Vince Staples Show,” his deliberate drawl remained steady throughout. But his clear pride in the series, out Thursday, broke through his placid exterior a few times, such as when he talked about the cameo by the high-living rapper Rick Ross or the show’s Swedish film influences. He also knows that the mere fact of its existence is exceptional.“I don’t think there are many people who have been able to write and produce and star in their first television show, on a network that’s this big, that comes from where I come from,” Staples, 30, said in a video interview from his home in Los Angeles.Staples said he had ambitions to make his own show since he released his debut album, “Summertime ’06,” in 2015. On that LP and the four that followed, Staples wove stories about his upbringing in Long Beach with a sardonic delivery — a perspective that proved to be his through line between multiple mediums. His interviews and social media posts, in which he casts off irreverent one-liners and blunt social critique, have generated enough material for greatest hits collections.Staples made his acting debut in 2015 playing an inept sidekick in the comic coming-of-age film “Dope”; he has since starred in other movies, including the 2023 “White Men Can’t Jump” reboot, and in series like “Lazor Wulf,” an animated comedy on Adult Swim. He’s been able to incorporate some of his wit and other aspects of his personality in more recent roles, like the deadpan but well-meaning romantic interest he plays in “Abbott Elementary,” opposite the show’s creator Quinta Brunson.Staples, right, has acted in films including the 2023 reboot of “White Men Can’t Jump.”Hulu“The Vince Staples Show,” which counts Staples and Kenya Barris (“black-ish”) among its executive producers, is a more idiosyncratic kind of sitcom. In the world of the series, in which Staples plays a fictionalized version of himself wiggling through day-in-the-life predicaments, a trip to the amusement park becomes a treacherous sojourn and gun-culture satire runs alongside physical comedy. It’s part art house, but Staples insists it’s also just him.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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      8 Crush Songs for Valentine’s Day

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      Hear tracks by Frank Ocean, Alicia Keys and of course, the Jets.Frank Ocean.Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDear listeners,Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, but for today’s playlist I wanted to give you something more specific than a collection of love songs. (For one thing, that mix would be approximately three billion tracks long.) Here, instead, is a playlist of crush songs.How exactly to define a crush? I’m glad you asked, because earlier this week The Times published an entertaining history of the word’s etymological evolution. For all the experts consulted in the piece, I most appreciated the definition offered by one reporter’s 7-year-old daughter: A crush “means you are in love with someone but the other person doesn’t know.” She added, “If you walk past them, all your blood goes up to your head, and it feels so startling.”Naturally, this state of being has provided inspiration for all sorts of notable songwriters, like Bruce Springsteen, Frank Ocean and Alicia Keys. As you’ll hear on this playlist, though, crush songs run the emotional gamut from painfully heart-wrenching to light and flirty, sometimes even with a bit of self-deprecating humor thrown in.Valentine’s Day is too often considered a holiday only for those already lucky and content in love. But if you’ve got your eye on someone special and haven’t let them know yet, or if you’re just trying to ride things out until you catch the ick and are finally liberated, let this playlist be your soundtrack. Consider it a candy heart from me to you. Crank it up and get ready to pine.Got a beach house I could sell you in Idaho,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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      For Flagboy Giz, Mardi Gras Is More Than ‘Just Some Floats’

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      The 37-year-old artist is a Black Masking Indian who sews his own colorful suits. His blending those practices with rap music has made him one of the city’s most in-demand performers.In his cluttered two-room apartment in Gentilly, a small neighborhood just south of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, Flagboy Giz used dental floss to thread brightly colored beads through black gym shoes on a stormy February afternoon. His desk held a humble recording setup — a microphone, laptop and two speakers. An assemblage of neon feathers and phosphorescent beads burst out of drawers and scattered across the floor.Though he was out late at Mardi Gras balls the night before, Flagboy Giz, 37, had awakened early and headed directly to the bead store. “This is a tradition that you have to preserve,” he said, “so you’ve got to make sure you’re out there every year masking. Last year, I caught Covid two weeks before Mardi Gras, and I was still sewing with Covid. The year before that, a spider bit me in the eye, and I was sewing with one eye in the hospital.”Flagboy Giz is a Black Masking Indian — the flag-bearer of the storied Wild Tchoupitoulas tribe — who has risen to prominence in New Orleans by blending traditional Mardi Gras Indian music with hip-hop, with many of his songs assuming characteristics of the city’s bounce subgenre.Since 2021, he has been releasing up-tempo songs that feature stories about his culture and sharp social commentary concerning the shifting demographics in his hometown. On “We Outside” from 2022, he rhymes about marching on Mardi Gras day and talks trash about fellow Black Masking Indians while incorporating a call-and-response chant (“We outside!”) echoing the cadence of songs like “Ho Na Nae” and “Firewater” that have been passed down for generations.Flagboy Giz makes his suits in his two-room apartment in Gentilly, a small neighborhood just south of Lake Pontchartrain.Emily Kask for The New York TimesGiz is a flag-bearer of the storied Wild Tchoupitoulas tribe, and his suits celebrate that affiliation.Emily Kask for The New York TimesThe track became his signature song and led to a 14-minute remix featuring over 25 New Orleans artists including Choppa, 504icygirl and Hotboy Ronald. “‘We Outside’ is gonna be one of them records that never dies,” said Giz’s manager, Raj Smoove, a mainstay New Orleans D.J. whom Lil Wayne called “the greatest D.J. in the world.”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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      Usher Super Bowl Halftime Review: A Focus on Details With Alicia Keys, Lil Jon and More

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      In a halftime set that touched on more than a dozen songs, the R&B star delivered a raucous Atlanta party and a lesson in intimate showmanship.A few minutes into Usher’s dynamic and sly Super Bowl LVIII halftime show performance Sunday night at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas came a moment of uncommon, almost startling calm.Alicia Keys had just appeared, in a sequined red jumpsuit and matching encrusted gown, and rather gratuitously flubbed the opening note of her hit piano ballad “If I Ain’t Got You.”She recovered, and as she approached the end of the chorus, you could hear Usher singing in quiet harmony as the camera panned back, settling on the two of them at opposite ends of Keys’s piano. Usher picked up the final line of the chorus — alone, smooth and confident, almost whispered — before Keys returned to share the last note.Allegiant Stadium holds approximately 65,000 people, but in that instant, there were only two. It was one of the quietest sequences in halftime history, a remarkable testament to the gifts of Usher, a performer of precise detail who is enjoyed best with rapt attention.Usher was joined by Alicia Keys on Sunday.Bridget Bennett for The New York TimesAnd H.E.R. played guitar during his halftime set.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMost of the rest of the performance — which touched on more than a dozen songs — was grander in scale, designed to fill a football field: A small-bore, granular-gestured showcase gave way to an explosive party. But what this set did so well was make plain that Usher’s commitment to minutiae and his capacity for grandeur are fired in the same cauldron. He can control the stage when it is packed to the gills, and he can do it alone. More

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      Kanye West’s ‘Vultures 1’ Debuts in New York

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      The rapper formerly known as Kanye West has been mired in controversy after making a string of antisemitic remarks. Thousands showed up to hear “Vultures 1” on Friday night.Adidas severed ties with him. His talent agency dropped him. But on Friday night, an arena on Long Island was filled with thousands of people who most certainly had not turned their backs on Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West.Shortly before releasing “Vultures 1,” his first album since making a string of antisemitic remarks that cost him business deals and drew widespread condemnation, Ye previewed his new collaboration with the R&B singer Ty Dolla Sign at a listening party at UBS Arena, further testing the boundaries of his fandom with lyrics that did not tiptoe around the controversy.“‘Crazy, bipolar, antisemite,’ and I’m still the king,” Ye raps in “King,” the final song on the LP, which drew a modest wave of cheers.Ty Dolla Sign and Ye appeared a bit before 11 p.m. on a smoke-filled stage — at least, that was the impression, though it was hard to confirm who was there. Wearing a full mask, the rapper, designer and longtime provocateur never showed his face as he exulted in his new music, which included samples from Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” and the Backstreet Boys (“Yeezy’s back, all right!”).Originally slated to come out in December, delays and false starts pushed the release of “Vultures 1” to early Saturday morning, soon after the hourlong listening party had ended.Fans awaiting entry to the “Vultures 1” listening event at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y.The New York TimesWe 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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      2024 Grammys, Dissected: Taylor, Miley, SZA, Tracy, Joni and More

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicAt Sunday’s Grammy Awards, Taylor Swift won album of the year for “Midnights” and, for good measure, announced a new album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” due in April. Other big winners included Victoria Monét, Phoebe Bridgers (and boygenius), Killer Mike, Miley Cyrus and Billie Eilish.The show featured several moving live performances from elders: Tracy Chapman duetting with Luke Combs on “Fast Car,” a striking Joni Mitchell singalong and a closing stomper from Billy Joel.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation on whether this was the year the Grammys got it correct, whether there was a gap between what the awards indicated and what the speeches were saying, and the grounded joy of seeing worthy stars brought back into the spotlight properly.Guests:Caryn Ganz, The New York Times’s pop music editorJon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticLindsay Zoladz, a New York Times pop music criticConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More