Rap and Hip-Hop

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      Bad Bunny and Steve Lacy Spend Another Week Atop the Charts

      by

      “Un Verano Sin Ti” and “Bad Habit” remain Billboard’s No. 1 album and song in the United States.The champions on Billboard magazine’s two most important music charts remain unchanged this week, with Bad Bunny holding the No. 1 album position and Steve Lacy the No. 1 single.“Un Verano Sin Ti,” the streaming juggernaut by the Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny — a.k.a. Benito Martínez — logs its 13th time as the top album, with the equivalent of 84,000 sales in the United States, including 116 million streams, according to the tracking service Luminate. Since it came out 22 weeks ago, Bad Bunny’s album, an international blockbuster, has racked up 3.6 billion streams in the United States alone and bounced in and out of Billboard’s top spot, never dipping lower than No. 2.“Un Verano” now ties Drake’s “Views” (2016) and Disney’s “Frozen” soundtrack (2013) for the longest stays in the chart’s penthouse in a decade, since Adele’s “21” (remember “Someone Like You”?) notched 24 weeks at No. 1 back in 2011 and 2012.Lacy’s song “Bad Habit,” which since midsummer has been inescapable on streaming services — and in TikTok memes — is No. 1 on the Hot 100 singles chart for a second week, with 20.6 million streams and 41.5 million “audience impressions” from radio play, according to Luminate.Back on the album chart, Slipknot, the Iowa metal band that has been dressing up in Halloween-like masks — and selling millions of records — for more than two decades, reaches No. 2 with “The End, So Far,” the group’s seventh studio LP. It had the equivalent of 59,000 sales, including 11 million streams and 50,500 copies sold as a complete package.Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” holds at No. 3, the Weeknd’s hits compilation “The Highlights” is No. 4 and Harry Styles’s “Harry’s House” is No. 5.“Dangerous,” released at the beginning of 2021, has now spent 90 weeks in the Top 10, matching “South Pacific” — the soundtrack to a 1958 film whose songs go back to a 1949 Broadway production. In the 66-year history of the Billboard 200, the magazine’s flagship album chart, only five other releases have logged more weeks in the Top 10, all soundtracks and cast albums from the 1950s and ’60s. More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      There Is No Excuse for Ye’s ‘White Lives Matter’ Shirt

      by

      Not from Ye. And not from his new YZY collection.PARIS — Yeezy is dead. Long live YZY. Stage three of the ambitions of Ye — the artist formerly known as Kanye West — to dress the world has begun.Presumably that was supposed to be the takeaway from the surprise show of Paris Fashion Week, held off-schedule in an empty office tower just down the road from the Arc de Triomphe.Though it turned out to be only nominally a fashion show and more like “The YZY Experience”: a chaotic mess of self-justification, confessional, bone-picking and messianic ambition, with a “White Lives Matter” shot of shock and provocation that overshadowed the clothes on the runway.The rumors began during the weekend, just a day or so before the Balenciaga mud show. Ye was in Paris and was going to stage a fashion show — a little more than two weeks after ending his much-ballyhooed partnership with Gap.Maybe it would happen Monday? Maybe not; Ye had just fired his PR agency. No wait, it was happening; he had found another agency. Then, Sunday night, a digital invite arrived. For the next evening. Guests were asked not to share the address.Monday at 5:45 p.m., the Avenue de la Grande Armée was heaving with screaming fans and photographers. So much for secrecy. They outnumbered the show’s actual attendees by what seemed like 100 to one.Still, Anna Wintour came. So did John Galliano. Demna, the Balenciaga designer, and Cédric Charbit, its chief executive. Alexandre Arnault, the chief marketing officer of Tiffany & Company and a son of the LVMH chieftain Bernard Arnault. Then they all sat, playing with the soap-on-rope that looked like three granite blocks and had been left on every seat, waiting an hour and a half for the show to begin. (Well, OK, Anna and John left before the whole thing ended, but that was because they had another appointment, Ms. Wintour said.)It was as good a reflection as anything this week of just how the culture and power structure of fashion and entertainment has changed in the past decade. Because it was 11 years ago, in early October 2011, that Ye held his first fashion show in Paris.The line at that time was called “Kanye West.” Heavy on the luxury frills — leather and fur and gold hardware — it was widely dismissed by its audience. But this time there they were, the powers that be of the industry, jumping at the last minute to see what Ye had to deliver.Which involved a live choir featuring a host of children from Ye’s new Donda Academy in California as well as his daughter, North, and began with his rambling speech about critics who complained about his shows being late; his former manager, Scooter Braun; his hospitalization (Ye has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder); the pain of being called “crazy”; critics who complained that his clothes might not be well made; the people at Gap who didn’t get his vision; Bernard Arnault, whom he called “his new Drake”; and the news that he was establishing yet another version of his own fashion house and it started now.Because “we changed the look of fashion over the last 10 years. We are the streets. We are the culture.” And when it comes to the culture, “I am Ye, and everyone knows I am the leader.”Except this leader was wearing an oversize shirt with a photo of Pope John Paul II and the words “Seguiremos tu ejemplo” (“We will follow your example”) on the front, and “White Lives Matter” on the back — a phrase that the Anti-Defamation League has called hate speech and attributed to white supremacists (including the Ku Klux Klan), who began using it in 2015 in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.The shirt was impossible to miss because, as he spoke, Ye’s image was projected behind him on a wall four stories high.Besides, Candace Owens, the conservative commentator, was in the audience and wearing one, too. Later the shirt appeared as part of the collection, modeled by Selah Marley, the daughter of Lauryn Hill and granddaughter of Bob Marley. (Matthew M. Williams, the Givenchy designer who worked with Mr. West earlier in his career; Michéle Lamy, Rick Owen’s wife; and Naomi Campbell also walked in the show.)It was the only message garment in the line, which was called SZN9 in reference to the Yeezy shows that had come before, created in conjunction with Shayne Oliver, the former designer of Hood By Air (Ye is nothing if not a great spotter and cultivator of talent). Which made it stand out even more in a show otherwise focused on garments that could simply be pulled onto the body, with no hardware — buttons or zips or snaps — involved, an idea that Ye first began talking about in the context of his work with Gap.As it happened, a lot of this line looked like that line, especially that part of that line engineered with Balenciaga’s Demna, including the full-body catsuits that opened the show, the duvet-like puffer ponchos, the blouson jackets and sweats that made the torso into a sort of steroid-filled G.I. Joe triangle, the lack of seams and the semi-apocalyptic palette.It has potential, but the import got swamped by the shirt, what it symbolized, and how its endorsement by a figure such as Ye — even one with a track record of wearing MAGA hats and toying with Confederate imagery — could be used as a rallying cry by those who already buy into its message.“Indefensible behavior,” wrote Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, the Vogue editor, on Instagram. Later adding, “there is no excuse, there is no art here.” Jaden Smith, in the audience, walked out. So did Lynette Nylander, the Dazed writer and editor.The next day, at the Chanel show, Edward Enninful, the editor of British Vogue and the most powerful Black man in fashion media, called the shirt “inappropriate” and “insensitive, given the state of the world.”Ms. Nylander had posted, “It doesn’t matter what the intention was … it’s perception to the masses out of context.”Indeed, in the end, it is the shirt out of context that made the news: not Ye’s theories about dress, or his allegations that Mr. Arnault promised to set him up in his own house and then reneged and now has become Ye’s biggest competition (an LVMH representative said Mr. Arnault had “no comment”); not even Ye’s assertion that, having disrupted the fashion week spotlight, he still felt “at war.” If so, this was a grenade that backfired.As to why he did it, backstage Ye declined to provide any theoretical framework. “It says it all,” he said, of the shirt. But what exactly does it say?That he truly believes he can appropriate the language of racial violence with irony? That someday the power structure of Black and white will be reversed, and since he says this collection is the future, that’s the world he envisions? That Ye gets a kick out of pushing everyone’s buttons? That he wants to see how far he can go and doesn’t really care about, or think about, the collateral damage in the meantime (including to those children singing at his feet), despite the violence this could feed?Or that, as he said in his speech, “You can’t manage me. This is an unmanageable situation.” More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Steve Lacy’s Streaming Smash ‘Bad Habit’ Climbs to No. 1

      by

      A left-field hit from a 24-year-old master of alternative R&B displaces Harry Styles’s “As It Was” as the top single, while Bad Bunny logs a 12th week atop the album chart.Steve Lacy, a 24-year-old guitarist and producer, started the year with a reputation as a gifted innovator on the fringes of alternative R&B, best known for a D.I.Y. approach in the studio. Now he has the No. 1 song in the country.“Bad Habit,” a spacey, pensive ballad driven by a slightly warped guitar, has been a monster streaming hit since its release three months ago. After gaining traction on pop radio it finally climbs to the top spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart this week, with 20 million streams and 40 million “airplay audience impressions,” a measurement of a song’s popularity on radio stations, according to the tracking service Luminate.The song, from Lacy’s second studio album, “Gemini Rights,” replaces Harry Styles’s “As It Was” at the top of the chart, after an on-and-off reign of 15 weeks since April.The ascent of “Bad Habit” has been one of the more surprising stories in the music business this year, but for those watching Lacy’s career it has not come out of nowhere. After emerging as a teenage member of the Internet, an offshoot from Odd Future — the boundary-pushing hip-hop ensemble that gave us Frank Ocean, Syd, Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler, the Creator — Lacy collaborated with Kendrick Lamar, Solange, Vampire Weekend and others, developing a track record as an artist who could comfortably bridge R&B, hip-hop and alternative rock.How long “Bad Habit” will hold, however, is an open question — “Unholy,” the latest from the British singer Sam Smith featuring Kim Petras, is hot on its heels.The Billboard 200 album chart is once again dominated by a familiar face: Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican superstar whose “Un Verano Sin Ti” is the year’s biggest album, with a gigantic stadium tour to match. This week, “Un Verano” is No. 1 for a 12th time.Bad Bunny’s album had the equivalent of 87,000 sales in the United States in its most recent week, including 120 million streams, according to Luminate. As far as No. 1 albums go, that total is modest. So far this year, the albums reaching the top each week have had an average equivalent sales number — a composite figure that incorporates streaming, individual track downloads and old-fashioned purchases of an album as a complete unit — of about 138,000. Even so, the numbers for “Verano” this week are still nearly twice as high as any of its competitors.The Australian pop-rock band 5 Seconds of Summer opens at No. 2 with the equivalent of 48,000 sales of its latest, “5SOS5,” which includes 36,000 copies sold as a complete package and just 16 million streams. (By comparison, in recent weeks Bad Bunny’s “Me Porto Bonito” and “Titi Me Pregunto” — just two of the 23 tracks on “Un Verano” — have each been drawing as many clicks.)Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album,” a chart mainstay for 21 months and counting, is No. 3. Last week’s top seller, Blackpink’s “Born Pink,” falls to No. 4 with the equivalent of 40,000 sales, a 60 percent drop. Styles’s “Harry’s House” is in fifth place. More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Music

      Coolio, ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ Rapper, Dies at 59

      by

      From a bookish, asthmatic child to crack addict to mainstream hitmaker, the West Coast M.C. charted a unique path to hip-hop stardom.Coolio, the rapper whose gritty and sometimes playful takes on West Coast rap and anthemic hits like “Gangsta’s Paradise” made him a hip-hop star in the 1990s, died on Wednesday in Los Angeles. He was 59.His longtime manager, Jarez Posey, confirmed his death.Mr. Posey, who worked with the rapper for more than 20 years, said he was told that Coolio died at about 5 p.m. at a friend’s house. No cause was given. Coolio, whose legal name was Artis Leon Ivey Jr., achieved mainstream superstardom and critical success with “Gangsta’s Paradise” in 1995. The track, which featured the singer L.V., spent three weeks atop Billboard’s Hot 100 and was later named the chart’s No. 1 song of the year. It won the Grammy for best rap solo performance in 1996.The song, later certified triple-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, outshone the movie it was featured in, “Dangerous Minds.” Its music video won best rap video and best video from a film at the MTV Video Music Awards.“Coolio still builds his raps on recognizable 1970s oldies, and he delivers intricate, syncopated rhymes as if they were conversation,” Jon Pareles wrote in an album review in The New York Times, noting that “Gangsta’s Paradise” uses “the somber minor chords” of “Pastime Paradise,” by Stevie Wonder.The song nearly did not make it into “Dangerous Minds,” The Times critic Caryn James noted in 1996. She wrote that the late addition “turned a preachy Michelle Pfeiffer film about an inner-city teacher into a hit that sounded fresher than it really was.”Coolio’s other hits included “Fantastic Voyage” — the opening song on his debut album — and “1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New),” which were both nominated for Grammys. “C U When U Get There,” which samples Pachelbel’s “Canon in D Major,” was a standout track on his third album of the 1990s, “My Soul.”But nothing could match the success of “Gangsta’s Paradise,” a song that, with its piercing beat and ominous background vocals, became instantly distinguishable for millions of ’90s rap fans, especially with a memorable opening verse based on Psalm 23:“As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life and realize there’s nothin’ left.”The song would expand the commercial possibilities of hip-hop, but Coolio would later say that he sometimes lamented how the track seemed to overshadow his other bodies of work, particularly follow-up albums.Still, he told PopkillerTV in 2018 that the song had taken him on “a great ride.” Its popularity has endured for decades, with the music video garnering a rare billion-plus views on YouTube.Artis Leon Ivey Jr. was born on Aug. 1, 1963. He grew up in Compton, Calif., a place known for producing some of hip-hop’s most successful artists, such as Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar.He told The Independent in 1997 that as a child, he would play board games with his single mother, to whom he later dedicated his success. After a turbulent youth — the bookish, asthmatic child became a teenage gang member, juvenile offender and drug addict — Coolio worked as a volunteer firefighter.In his 20s, he moved to San Jose to live with his father and fight fires with the California Department of Forestry, The Ringer reported. There, he became more spiritual. He later credited Christianity for helping him overcome his addiction to crack.When he embarked on his music career, he quickly gained a following among the rapidly growing audience of hip-hop fans, who had been enraptured by the music of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.After performing with the group WC and the Maad Circle alongside WC, Sir Jinx and DJ Crazy Toones, Coolio went solo. His debut album, “It Takes a Thief” (1994), garnered praise for clever lyrics infused with funky rhythms.“Gangsta’s Paradise” had a vast cultural imprint, even spawning a parody in Weird Al Yankovic’s “Amish Paradise” that replaced the streets with pastoral lyrics about churning butter and selling quilts.Reflecting on his career, and on the success of “Gangsta’s Paradise,” Coolio told Rolling Stone in 2015 that he was on tour in Europe when the song went No. 1 on the charts and he realized: “I was No. 1 all over the entire planet — not just in the States. I was No. 1 everywhere that you can imagine.”On Wednesday, the rapper Ice Cube recalled the significance of Coolio’s music at the time, writing on Twitter that he had witnessed “first hand this man’s grind to the top of the industry.”Coolio, whose spindly and sprouting cornrows defined his look, went on to sell 4.8 million records throughout his career, according to Luminate, the tracking service formerly known as Nielsen Music.He expanded his influence by writing and performing the theme song for “Kenan & Kel,” a Nickelodeon staple in the late 1990s. Coolio later became a fixture on reality TV, starting with “Coolio’s Rules,” a 2008 series that focused on his personal life and his quest to find love in Los Angeles.A complete list of survivors was not immediately available. Coolio had four children with Josefa Salinas, whom he married in 1996 and later divorced.Years after he topped the charts and solidified himself as a mainstream artist, Coolio confronted legal trouble, pleading guilty to firearms and drug charges.The rapper, who struggled with asthma all his life, served as the spokesman for the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, according to his official online biography. At a 2016 performance in Brooklyn, N.Y., Page Six reported, he had an asthma attack and was saved by a fan who had an inhaler.In recent years, Coolio had become aware of his indelible mark on hip-hop. He said in 2018 that after years of lamenting over his struggles in the music industry, he had realized that “people would kill to take my place.”“I’m sure after I’m long gone from this planet, and from this dimension,” he said, “people will come back and study my body of work.” More

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      Red Hot Chili Peppers Honor Eddie Van Halen, and 10 More New Songs

      by

      Hear tracks by Margo Price, Jamie xx, the Comet Is Coming and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. 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.Red Hot Chili Peppers, ‘Eddie’Red Hot Chili Peppers memorialize Eddie Van Halen and 1980s Los Angeles with what sounds like an old-fashioned, real-time studio jam in “Eddie.” Anthony Kiedis sings biographical snippets — “My brother’s a keeper/I married a TV wife” — while Flea’s bass and John Frusciante’s guitar chase each other all the way through the song, in an ever-changing counterpoint of hopping bass lines and teasing, wailing, shredding, overdriven guitar — the sound of a band in a room, still pushing one another. PARELESKelsea Ballerini, ‘Muscle Memory’In “Muscle Memory,” Kelsea Ballerini orchestrates an instinctive reunion with an old flame — “my body won’t forget our history” — with classic tools: two chords, a backbeat, a lead guitar with wordless caresses. “How long will you be back in town?” she asks, concealing her eagerness. PARELESMargo Price, ‘Change of Heart’Margo Price reaches toward the 1960s and the confrontational side of psychedelia with “Change of Heart.” A wiry blues guitar riff and jabs of organ hint at the Doors as Price delivers a breaking-away song that toys with paradoxes: “You run from danger/straight into trouble,” she sings, adding, “Way down deep you’re as shallow as me.” Just to keep things off- balance, every now and then the band adds an extra beat, while a long, gradual fade-out suggests she’s still a little reluctant to move on. PARELESJamie xx, ‘Kill Dem’It’s now been seven long years since the D.J., producer, and longtime xx member Jamie xx released his beloved solo album “In Colour,” but this year he’s put out two rousing new singles: first the ecstatic “Let’s Do It Again” and now the elastic “Kill Dem.” Built around a sample of the dancehall great Cutty Ranks’ “Limb by Limb,” Jamie minces his source material into barely discernible syllables and launches it into hyperspace, leaving its component parts to ping off one another with a bouncy, exuberant energy. ZOLADZThe Comet Is Coming, ‘Pyramids’The British jazz saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, who lived in Barbados from ages 6 to 16, is at the core of multiple groups with different lineups. In the Comet Is Coming, he works with the synthesizer player Dan Leavers, or Danalogue, and the drummer Maxwell Hallett, a.k.a. Betamax, in a zone where electronic dance music and jazz collide. “Pyramids” is from the trio’s new album, “Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam”; the title of this track might allude to “Pyramid Song” by Radiohead, which shares some of the same ascending yet foreboding chords. Danalogue uses 1980s synthesizers for plump bass tones and upward swoops; Betamax mixes drums and drum machines, constantly accenting different offbeats. And with his meaty tone on tenor saxophone, Hutchings plays a jumpy, dissonant line that’s equally mocking and party-hearty, a bent Carnival shout. PARELESWitch, ‘Waile’In the 1970s, the Zambian rock band Witch — an acronym for We Intend to Cause Havoc — fused garage-rock, psychedelia and funk with African rhythms, spurring a movement called Zamrock. The wider world discovered them with the release of a 2011 collection, and surviving members of the band — the singer Emmanuel (Jagari) Chanda and the keyboardist Patrick Mwondela — returned to the studio in 2021 backed by international musicians, including the Dutch neo-psychedelic songwriter Jacco Gardner. “Waile,” written in 1978 but not previously recorded, addresses “sorrow and suffering” and the separation of a family. It moves through a percolating xylophone-and-guitar riff, blasts of fuzztone, some brisk African funk and, midway through, a slower lament carried by women’s voices before the beat picks up again and hard-nosed guitar riffs push ahead — undaunted. PARELESFlo, ‘Not My Job’On “Not My Job,” the British girl group Flo update the glittering sound of Y2K pop-R&B with a little modern-day therapy-speak: “It’s not my job to make you feel comfortable,” the trio asserts on the chorus. “If you ain’t being vulnerable, that says it all.” The blingy sheen, skittering beat and synthesized strings all conjure an aesthetic you may have not even realized you were nostalgic for — it’s giving “Case of the X”; it’s giving “The Writing’s on the Wall” — albeit enlivened with a fresh, contemporary twist. ZOLADZLil Nas X, ‘Star Walkin’If Lil Nas X continues to play jester, expertly, on social media — this week, he posted impishly hilarious videos of himself sending pizzas to protesters outside of one of his concerts, and of his newly minted wax figure FaceTiming his confused friends — his new single “Star Walkin’” suggests that he is still interested in using his music as an outlet for feelings that complicate that persona, like anxiety, light melancholy and self-doubt. “They said I wouldn’t make it out alive,” he sings defiantly on this gleaming, synth-driven track, which serves as the theme song for this year’s League of Legends World Championship. The one-off certainly doesn’t rank among his most memorable singles, but it’s further proof that he’s figured out a reliable sonic formula to turn personal apprehension into steely braggadocio; by the end of the song, he asks, “Why worship legends when you know that you can join them?” ZOLADZEmiliana Torrini & the Colorist Orchestra, ‘Right Here’Emiliana Torrini attests to the reassurance of a lasting relationship in “Right Here”: “Here’s to all the roads that we’ve been down,” she sings with a smile. “I’m right here by your side.” She’s backed by the Colorist Orchestra, a happily quirky Belgian chamber-pop ensemble that mixes standard instruments with homemade ones — including, for this song, the sound of stone scraping stone. Torrini and the Colorist Orchestra rearranged some of her older songs on an album they shared in 2018, while “Right Here” previews an LP of new collaborations due early next year. There’s pointillistic syncopation from marimba, glockenspiel and pizzicato strings, with a backdrop of sustained chords: the ticktock of everyday minutiae held together by the promise of constancy. PARELESShannen Moser, ‘Oh My God’Shannen Moser recreates a community sing and a hometown band concert in “Oh My God,” from an album arriving next week. In “The Sun Still Seems to Move,” Moser offers theological and existential musings — “I know that life’s not one linear seamless destination” — over fingerpicking and woodwinds, muscles and hands and breath. The music is thoughtful but determinedly physical. PARELESAnna B Savage, ‘The Ghost’The London-based artist Anna B Savage’s devastating new single, “The Ghost,” derives its power from a gradual accumulation of small, intimate details. “We used to notice the same things: His toenails, that little bug,” she sings to an old flame in a trembling low register. “But that changed, you couldn’t see the grave we dug.” Long after the breakup, though, the memory of her ex still lingers. “Stop haunting me, please,” she begs on the chorus, as the austere, piano-driven arrangement suddenly fills up with an eerie atmosphere. It sounds like an exorcism — or at least a yearning, last-ditch attempt at one, in desperate hope that it works. ZOLADZ More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      New York Drill Rappers Say They Were Removed From Rolling Loud Festival

      by

      At least three local artists were cut from the traveling rap show, scheduled for this weekend in Queens, at the request of the New York Police Department, their representatives said.At least three rappers with ties to the booming New York drill scene — which has risen in popularity in recent years, even as law enforcement officials and politicians like Mayor Eric Adams have questioned its relationship to local gun violence — have been removed from the lineup of the traveling rap festival Rolling Loud, scheduled for this weekend at Citi Field in Queens, at the request of the New York Police Department, the artists’ representatives said.The rappers included Sha Ek, a 19-year-old from the Bronx; 22Gz, an influential figure in Brooklyn’s drill movement; and Ron Suno, a musician and comedian from the Bronx.Rolling Loud, which is scheduled to run from Friday to Sunday, and the New York Police Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the rappers’ removal this week. But the last-minute cancellations matched a similar scenario ahead of the festival’s New York stop in 2019, when five artists, including 22Gz and Pop Smoke, had their performances scrapped.The rappers had “been affiliated with recent acts of violence citywide,” according to a letter sent by an assistant chief at the Police Department to the festival organizers at the time. “The New York City Police Department believes if these individuals are allowed to perform, there will be a higher risk of violence.”Tariq Cherif, a founder of Rolling Loud, said then that the festival had no choice but to comply if it wished to return to New York. A representative for Sha Ek and 22Gz said this week that the artists were paid in full for their performances.But on Thursday, Stanley Davis, a manager for Sha Ek who is known as Noodles, said in a statement that his client had not been charged with any crime that could justify his ban. “The police try to associate what he’s doing with violence and negativity,” he wrote. “They don’t respect that he’s an artist and entertainer trying to better himself and feed his family at 19 years old.”Davis added, “Sha Ek has performed all over the Northeast this year. The crowds at his concerts are full of kids dancing and having fun. He’s excited to keep growing his touring business and proving the police wrong.”Diamond Brown, a manager for Ron Suno who goes by Bo, said via text message: “How can a person who has no criminal record and no gang ties — the kid never even made a diss record — be denied to perform in his hometown after all his hard work?”Suno had been involved in a fight at last year’s edition of Rolling Loud in New York, but he downplayed the incident in subsequent interviews and on social media. No charges were filed.A spokeswoman for 22Gz’s record label, Atlantic Records, confirmed his removal but declined to comment further. 22Gz is currently out on bond after being charged in June with attempted murder for his role in a Brooklyn club shooting that injured three people.Drill, which started as a neighborhood hip-hop sound in Chicago about a decade ago, has since traveled to London, New York, Stockholm and beyond, becoming a dominant mode for rap music. But the proudly hyperlocal artists, whose songs are often a reaction to and a documenting of gun violence, gang disputes and extreme poverty in their hometowns, have also faced heavy scrutiny from community leaders and law enforcement officials, who claim that the music incites more violence.In the United Kingdom, drill artists have said their lyrics and their very existence have been criminalized, resulting in constant scrutiny. Chief Keef, one of drill’s pioneers and a breakout star from Chicago, has also been prevented from performing in his native city, or even nearby, with police once shutting down a concert in Indiana in which Keef was appearing only via hologram from California.In New York, Mayor Adams has questioned whether social networks should ban drill music from its platforms. “Violent people who are using drill rapping to post who they killed, and then antagonize the people who they are going to kill is what the problem is,” he told reporters earlier this year.The mayor then met with a coalition of New York rappers to discuss drill and potential ways to reduce gun violence in the city. Two of the drill artists who sat down with Mayor Adams in February — Fivio Foreign and B-Lovee — are still scheduled to perform at Rolling Loud this weekend.Since its 2015 debut in Miami, Rolling Loud has grown into the defining and farthest-reaching music festival for rap, though it has also been connected to spates of arrests and occasional violence. Headliners this weekend in New York include Nicki Minaj, Future, ASAP Rocky and Playboi Carti. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Music

      Popcast Live! The New Faces of 2022

      by

      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherFor the first live taping of Popcast, held at Gertie in Brooklyn, members of The New York Times pop music team explored the ways music is evolving today by highlighting some of this year’s breakout stars. The conversation touched on the British rapper Central Cee, the Bronx drill rapper Ice Spice, the country-folk singer Zach Bryan, the alt-rock revivalist Blondshell, the haunted pop crooner Ethel Cain and more.The conversation included debate about what makes for innovation in the crowded and confusing pop music marketplace in 2022, and an audience Q. and A. session touching on Taylor Swift, the persistence of physical media and much more.Guests:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterCaryn Ganz, The New York Times’s pop music editorConnect 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

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Music

      Bad Bunny Leads 2022 Latin Grammy Nominations With 10

      by

      Rosalía has eight nods, while Jorge Drexler and Christina Aguilera have seven each for the awards, which will be held on Nov. 17 in Las Vegas.Bad Bunny, the chart-topping Puerto Rican star, dominates the nominations for the 23rd annual Latin Grammy Awards, leading stars from across the spectrum of Latin music, like Shakira, Rosalía, Carlos Vives and Jorge Drexler.Bad Bunny, whose “Un Verano Sin Ti” is an international blockbuster — and the biggest LP of the year in the United States — has a total of 10 nods in seven categories, including album of the year, according to an announcement on Tuesday by the Latin Recording Academy, which has been presenting the awards since 2000. The Mexican songwriter and producer Edgar Barrera has nine, and both Rosalía, the genre-blending Spanish performer, and the Puerto Rican singer Rauw Alejandro follow with eight.Artists with seven nominations include Drexler, the doctor-turned-songwriter from Uruguay who first came to international attention in 2004 when he won an Academy Award for a song from the film “The Motorcycle Diaries,” and Christina Aguilera, the American pop diva behind hits like “Genie in a Bottle” and “Beautiful,” who released a Spanish-language album, “Aguilera,” this year.Camilo, a playful Colombian pop singer with a handlebar mustache, whose recent music has been documenting his domestic life, has six nods, as does Carlos Vives, a veteran singer-songwriter from Colombia with 15 Latin Grammys already.This year’s Latin Grammys will honor music released from June 1, 2021, to May 31, 2022. To be considered, songs must be new and contain lyrics in Spanish, Portuguese “or Indigenous dialects of our region, regardless of where such product was recorded or released,” according to a statement from the academy.In addition to album of the year, Bad Bunny — born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — is nominated in the record of the year category for “Ojitos Lindos,” featuring the Colombian electronic duo Bomba Estéreo. “Un Verano” is also up for urban music album, and Bad Bunny’s other nods reflect his prolific work over the last year, solo and in collaboration.Bad Bunny competes against himself in the urban fusion/performance category (with “Tití Me Preguntó” from “Un Verano,” as well as “Volví,” a track with the New York bachata band Aventura); in reggaeton performance (two non-album tracks, “Lo Siento BB:/” with Tainy and Julieta Venegas, and “Yonaguni”); and in best urban song (“Tití Me Preguntó” and “Lo Siento”). Another non-album track, “De Museo,” is up for rap/hip-hop song.One surprise this year: a shutout for “Encanto,” the animated Disney film that came out in late 2021. Its songs, by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the composer behind “Hamilton,” draw from Latin styles including salsa and Colombian folk music, and tracks like “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” became ubiquitous hits. The soundtrack was eligible for awards, and was submitted for consideration, according to the academy, but it failed to get any nominations.In addition to “Un Verano,” the album of the year field includes “Aguilera”; Rosalía’s “Motomami”; Drexler’s “Tinta y Tiempo”; Bomba Estéreo’s “Deja”; Marc Anthony’s “Pa’lla Voy”; Alejandro Sanz’s “Sanz”; Fonseca’s “Viajante”; Sebastián Yatra’s “Dharma”; and Elsa y Elmar’s “Ya No Somos los Mismos.”Also up for record of the year are “Pa Mis Muchachas” by Aguilera, Becky G and Nicki Nicole, featuring Nathy Peluso; Rosalía’s “La Fama,” featuring the Weeknd; Anitta’s “Envolver”; Camilo’s “Pegao”; “Te Felicito” by Shakira and Alejandro; Pablo Alborán’s “Castillos de Arena”; Karol G’s “Provenza”; “Baloncito Viejo” by Vives and Camilo; Drexler’s “Tocarte,” with C. Tangana; Juan Luis Guerra’s “Vale la Pena”; and the title track of Anthony’s “Pa’lla Voy.”“Tocarte,” “Provenza,” “Pa Mis Muchachas” and “Baloncito Viejo” are also up for song of the year, a songwriter’s award. The other nominees in that category include Rosalía’s “Hentai”; “A Veces Bien y a Veces Mal,” as performed by Ricky Martin and Reik; “Agua,” performed by Daddy Yankee, Alejandro and Nile Rodgers; Mon Laferte’s “Algo Es Mejor”; Fonseca’s “Besos en la Frente”; Carla Morrison’s “Encontrarme”; Yatra’s “Tacones Rojos”; and “Índigo,” as performed by Camilo and Evaluna Montaner.The nominees for best new artist are Angela Álvarez, Sofía Campos, Cande y Paulo, Clarissa, Silvana Estrada, Pol Granch, Nabález, Tiare, Vale, Yahritza y Su Esencia and Nicole Zignago.Tainy, who worked on both Rosalía and Bad Bunny’s albums, is competing for producer of the year against Barrera (Camilo, Maluma), Eduardo Cabra (Elsa y Elmar, Mima), Nico Cotton (Conociendo Rusia, Elsa y Elmar) and Julio Reyes Copello (Fonseca, Cami & Art House).The awards are voted on by members of the Latin Recording Academy, which include artists, songwriters, producers and other music creators in all genres. The ceremony will be held on Nov. 17 in Las Vegas.A complete list of nominees in all 53 categories is here. More