Category: News

Beyoncé’s fanbase is notorious for their intensity but also for their sensitivity. If they even think Cowboy Carter has been insulted, they’ll lash out without hesitation.

Which might be why Timeless producer Kaytranda did some preemptive damage control before his recent comments about Drake and Beyoncé could be taken out of context. So, what did Kaytranada say about Beyoncé that had the Beyhive so riled up?

In a recent interview with Vulture, the producer recounted his experience nearly producing for Drake. Elsewhere in the interview, Kaytranda also revealed why a similar opportunity to produce for Beyoncé never panned out.

After crafting a remix of Beyoncé’s Renaissance song “Cuff It,” Kaytra said he withheld the remix from streaming after being lowballed on a payment offer by Beyoncé’s team, which he called, “less money than what much smaller artists have paid.” He also noted that Bey would have retained “all the rights to the song.” “Sometimes, people don’t see your worth and how important you are. I know what I mean to people.”

Some Beyoncé fans felt this was disparaging to the original artist, and were quick to let Kaytranada know, prompting him to write a post on Twitter clarifying his statement. “Mannnn I didn’t drag her that’s just what happened,” he wrote, in the since-deleted post. “The remix didn’t get a release and it is what it is but later that year I opened [for] her on tour AND on her Bday on top of that. Now what? I love that girl & y’all ain’t gonna make me look like I ain’t rocking with her.”

Nobody has a better front-row perspective to the growth and development of pop music — and how it affects pop culture — than DJs. As the party controllers, they are the ones who set the vibes, yes, but they also get to see trends as they play out in real time. Sometimes, they’re even the ones sparking those trends.

In much the same way, so much of American culture has come from the Black experience: jazz, rock & roll, hip-hop, and dance music all started in music halls and underground venues catering to a Black American clientele that was often barred from more mainstream spaces.

One of the spaces that Black folks were kept out of was higher education. And so, as we found juke joints and empty rec rooms to develop jazz and launch hip-hop, Historically Black Colleges and Universities became cultural hot spots, where new movements in politics and art were nurtured and primed to change the course of American history.

In looking to gain some new insights and perspectives on how HBCUs have impacted America’s various party scenes, there was no better resource to turn to than LA native DJ R-Tistic. A veteran of the DJ scene, playing everything from local weekly residencies to corporate gigs to Coachella, R-Tistic has seen every kind of party imaginable. And, as a graduate of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University — also known as Florida A&M or FAMU — he’s got the unique experience of seeing how Black student life can have an outsized impact on social and cultural standards, even hundreds of miles away.

Can you tell me a little bit about what your experience at FAMU was like and how that has informed your approach to your craft today?

I didn’t start DJing until I got there and I was… Plugging in my laptop. Initially I didn’t even plan to be a DJ. It was more so, it just happened throughout time. But I would say it influences it in so many ways because the main thing is that everybody’s coming from somewhere different. So at that time, this is the mid-2000s, when I feel like everybody’s music was so different. You can argue and say that it’s still different sounds now, but overall we know it’s a lot more similar. Back then, St. Louis had Chingy and J-Kwon and Nelly versus LA having Snoop and Game. And even The Bay sounded different from LA back then.

My first time doing a New Orleans party, they were like, “But you from LA. You don’t know our real music. All you know is Lil Wayne. We wanna hear Webbie.” At a HBCU, I think everybody comes in as a freshman kind of arrogant because it’s like, you coming from whatever city you came from. You think your city’s the best. I got there playing Bad Azz and Eastsidaz and Suga Free, and they’re like, “Why you playing this happy music?” Harlem dudes are playing all Dipset. And even Harlem and Brooklyn going at it, talking about Dipset versus Jay-Z or the Philly dudes and D Bloc. So I feel like it was just the fact that we had so many different styles, and we got to really meet people and see how they reacted to it.

I remember it was a group called Dude ‘n Nem, they had a song called “Watch My Feet.”

Juke, juke, juke, juke!

I would’ve had no idea what it was. It would’ve sounded foreign to my ears if I was just in LA hearing it because I was out there, and I heard, “Bang, bang, bang, skeet, skeet, skeet, and let me bang.” It made sense when I heard it. So it’s just the fact that you hear so many different varieties [at HBCUs].

I think over time, as the blogosphere moved in, that replaced that in-person experience.

In some ways it did. It is still different because even when I go back now, you’ll still hear more regional music. For FAMU specifically, it’s different only in that because of the cost of everything, I don’t think there’s as many out-of-state students as it used to be when I was there. Whenever I go to the Hood clubs out there now just to check in, I do hear a lot more of the southern music and just Florida music than I hear the other sounds. The blog area and social media and streaming, it did kind of homogenize things to an extent, but you still will get a different variety.

A lot of those artists had sounds that didn’t match where they were from. Even Kendrick. People argue now that “Not Like Us” is his first LA song. [Writer’s Note: Those people are SUPER wrong.] I get what they mean because “Swimming Pools” and those songs did not have a traditional West Coast sound. I think they grew up in the era where they didn’t really have as much of a direct connection to that regional sound. So they made music that appealed based on what they grew up watching on 106 & Park versus what was really local.

How did the melting pot aspect of going to an HBCU help those artists break through, then?

We had a showcase called “Rep Your City,” where each city had their own two minutes to play their regional song and do a dance. So Chicago did “Bang Bang Bang Skeet Skeet.” We might’ve did a “Wrong Idea” or something like that. We crip up. The Bay had a little hyphy moment. Everybody had their own little moments. And some people got booed. They booed us just because it was like, “What is this LA music?”

A lot of folks are still stuck in whatever their region is into. Freshman year, everybody gravitates toward what city they’re from, and that’s your whole identity. So I think that, that flattening happens at HBCUs because after a couple of years you start meeting friends from different places.

I always wondered what kind of role the HBCU college scene played in accelerating or even in breaking things. Because a lot of times people would come back from school, and they would know what song was about to hit even before it hit on a national level. It almost feels like that’s the spot where everything starts. As much as we talk about “Black people generate culture in America,” I feel like that’s the microcosm.

Yeah, for sure. I remember bringing K-Wang back to LA in ’02, ’03 first time I heard it and I couldn’t dance to it, but people just liked the beat. And then I didn’t hear it to get in LA until ’08. And now it’s crazy because it’s a whole line dance to it. I think a lot of times it did accelerate things, because I remember even in high school when my boy, his older brother was at Morehouse, and he told me, he was like, “Hey, Jay-Z got a song with Twista called, ‘Is That Your Bitch?’ And Missy’s on there too.”

I had a homie who went to Clark, and once he got to Clark, all he liked was Atlanta music. So he got back, he was playing Bone Crusher and Drama and Pastor Troy in LA. I realized that a lot of the major DJs around the country are from HBCUs, from Young Guru to Drama and Cannon and Jae Murphy.

There’s been talk of whether HBCUs are still relevant. Politically, there have been a lot of arguments against HBCUs that have gotten louder. What do you see as the primary benefit beyond music, beyond anything else, of having HBCUs as not just learning institutions, but as cultural centers, as places that are for us in the climate that we currently exist in?

It’s an argument that I feel like anybody who even questions why they exist, they’re already going to be turned off and not really open to hearing the true answer. One argument is always that the real world isn’t all Black, but nobody white would ever tell somebody white to not go to Harvard or Yale or any other school that’s 70% or 90% white. “Don’t go there because that’s not diverse.” You never hear that.

For us going into the real world, it made no difference. Once I graduated, I realized that it made no difference because the only difference between us and other folks is when it comes to cultural references. That means we might have a joke about The Wood, they might have a joke about Breakfast Club. But even with that, we can watch a movie. We can learn “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

It’s more so them just realizing that Black students might not have the same advantages to begin with. So I had classes where the actual professor called me one night at 1:00 AM on a Thursday, like, “Hey Ron, you didn’t turn in these four assignments. Hey, if you don’t turn those in, you might not pass.”

And that’s 1:00 AM on Thursday. I spent until 7:00 AM working on that and turned it in. And it’s like that type of experience wouldn’t happen at a white school at all. I doubt it would. Maybe it would, but I doubt that because it was a Black teacher who felt like I was his nephew.

Right. He was trying to get you through the class, graduated from the school, so that you’re in a position where, okay, if you’re going to sink or swim, but at least get you on that platform first.

Get on that platform. Yeah.

The autumn album slate is taking shape. Becky G announced her forthcoming album, Encuentros, alongside the single “COMO DIABLOS.” FLO will finally drop their debut LP Access All Areas in November, and “Bending My Rules” is a formidable appetizer. Jamie xx also offered up a taste from his looming In Waves album.

Check that out and more in Uproxx’s Best New Pop Music roundup below.

Becky G — “COMO DIABLOS”

Becky G coupled her Encuentros album announcement with the release of “COMO DIABLOS,” an emotionally charged single about a painful heartbreak. Becky G told Rolling Stone that Encuentros is “Esquinas at night,” referencing her LP from last September. That vibe bleeds through in the Leo Aguirre-directed “COMO DIABLOS” video filmed in Monterrey, Mexico. “It’s about how internalizing your emotions turns into this power that’s inward, but also how that translates outward,” Becky G told Rolling Stone. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be an anger that is explosive, but it can still have this vibration that causes the ground to shake.” Encuentros is due out on October 10.

LE SSERAFIM — “Crazy”

In late February, LE SSERAFIM dropped “Easy,” which became the rising K-pop girl group’s first-career charter on the Billboard Hot 100. CRAZY, their fourth mini album out now, could produce a few more Hot 100 hits. The five-track project includes the BloodPop-produced “1-800-hot-n-fun,” which LE SSERAFIM debuted at Coachella, but “Crazy” is the standout track. The Nu Kim-directed video is captivating, with impressive choreography to accentuate tech house beats. You’d also be hard-pressed to find a more Instagram-ready hook than “All the girls are girling girling.”

FLO — “Bending My Rules”

To be clear, “Bending My Rules” finds FLO firmly in their slow jam R&B bag. It qualifies as pop because FLO possesses undeniable mass appeal. The track released shortly after the award-winning British trio announced Access All Areas, their debut LP, will arrive this November. Jorja Douglas, Renée Downer, and Stella Quaresma have never sounded better than on “Bending My Rules,” effortlessly delivering pristine harmonies and smooth vocal runs. “‘Bending My Rules’ is such a captivating song and a softer side of FLO,” the band said in a statement, as per Stereogum. “It shows our vulnerability, and it speaks to our current relationships with our boyfriends. It’s hard to be a baddie and a lover girl, but sometimes you just have to Bend Your Rules.”

Jamie xx Feat. Kelsey Lu, John Glacier & Panda Bear — “Dafodil”

Jamie xx will release his In Waves album on September 20, and “Dafodil” holds a special place on the tracklist. “‘Dafodil’ was one of the first pieces of music that I made for this album,” the English DJ and producer wrote on Instagram. “It was actually the song that made me realize I could finally make another album. I am forever grateful to Kelsey Lu, with whom this song began as voice notes about a hazy night we both remembered. Thank you to John Glacier and Panda Bear whose voices perfectly evoke the unique feeling of summer nights in London.” The dynamic track is mesmerizing and further solidifies Jamie xx as a limitless experimenter.

AleXa — “Joy Of Missing Out”

Nobody can question AleXa’s versatility. “Joy Of Missing Out,” AleXa’s fourth English-language song of 2024, is a far cry from K-pop, but the Oklahoma native seems right at home in a pop-punk palette. “I, myself, am an extrovert, but I’m the only one in my friend group,” AleXa said in a statement. “This song goes out to all those who’d rather party by themselves than get lost in the crowd.” Incidentally, “Joy Of Missing Out” shows why AleXa never has to worry about getting lost in any crowd.

Zedd Feat. John Mayer — “Automatic Yes”

On August 30, Zedd released Telos, his first LP since 2015’s True Colors. Before the 10-track album arrived in full, Zedd dropped “Out Of Time” featuring Bea Miller and “Lucky” featuring Remi Wolf. Both songs showcased Zedd’s world-class ability to mold soundscapes best suited for any kind of vocalist, and “Automatic Yes” featuring John Mayer multiplies that notion. Dance-pop and more soulful beats blend seamlessly. The drop is set up by Mayer softly singing, “I don’t wanna be the same mistake you make again / Yes, I’m gonna keep my promise / but if you ever ask me, it’s an / Automatic, automatic yes, yes, yes, I wanna.” Maybe the highest compliment to Zedd is that “Automatic Yes” could easily live on a John Mayer album.

Coco & Clair Clair — “My Girl”

Coco & Clair Clair are back with Girl, their nine-track album encompassing the Atlanta-bred duo’s affinity for unconventional risks — lyrically and sonically. It pays off with “My Girl.” “‘My Girl’ is an ode to your best friend, the girls you meet in the bathroom at the club, your idol, whoever it is that makes you feel on top of the world and like nobody can f*ck with you,” Coco and Clair said in a statement. “We’re not worrying about other people anymore. Let’s go out, have fun, and let the beat rock.” Coco & Clair Clair will do precisely that on their 21-date headlining North American tour, beginning on October 1 in Montréal, Québec, Canada.

James Bay — “Easy Distraction”

“Easy Distraction” was co-written by James Bay and The Killers’ Brandon Flowers, and it’s all I need to hear to know I’d like for James Bay and Brandon Flowers to write more songs together. The upbeat single finds Bay in a familiar pocket: Pouring his guts out atop anthemic, soaring instrumentals. “The song is about realizing too late that someone means so much to you, but you still want to show them and let them know,” the three-time Grammy nominee said in a statement. “It’s exploring how, in the face of adversity, we can still reach out; we can still connect.” “Easy Distraction” follows folksy, rollicking “Up All Night” with Noah Kahan and The Lumineers as singles from Bay’s forthcoming fourth LP, Changes All The Time, due out on October 4.

Greyson Chance — “Meet Me Outside”

Greyson Chance has been ramping up his output in recent months with “Rearview Mirror,” “Haymaker,” and now “Meet Me Outside.” The acoustic single is beautifully wistful. Chance displays vocal range injected with raw emotion, singing, “And all of those white picket fences were built to protect you from me / Why can’t you see? / I’ll never meet your parents / I’ll never drink their wine / They’ll never hang up a frame with our picture inside / We’ll never walk down the aisle / And maybe that’s alright / So I’ll keep the car running baby / Meet me outside.” Chance explained the inspiration behind the song here.

Daydreamers — “Don’t Delete My Number”

Daydreamers selflessly made the perfect summer outro in “Don’t Delete My Number,” which hinges upon the harsh reconciliation of knowing a blissful romance had to end with the summer but wishing it could last forever. “Don’t delete my number / Because I still remember this summer,” Riley sings in the refrain. The British alt-pop band’s lead vocalist added in a statement, “To me, Daydreamers is ‘sad euphoria.’ The lyrics will tear your heart out, but the music is euphoric.”

There is nothing quite exhilarating as getting a clue right when you’re watching Jeopardy, but imagine how it feels to actually be there in person? It would probably be very stressful, actually. With all of those lights, hard topics, and the constant suspenseful jungle, it’s no wonder former contestants are speaking about just how hard the game can be, and that’s aside from Ken Jennings’ jokes.

Jeopardy! contestant and frequent Tournament of Champions competitor Sam Kavanaugh told The U.S. Sun that the game is more difficult than fans believe. “The thing that generally surprises people the most is just how much of an endurance game it is,” he explained. Enduring Jennings can be hard enough, but when thousands of dollars are on the line, the stakes are even higher.

Kavanaugh revealed that there are multiple episodes shot in one day, which makes the whole thing draining. “You tape five episodes, sometimes up to seven episodes a day… I did seven. It is exhausting,” he said. Taping for each episode takes about 45 minutes to one hour.

It might not be the NFL, but it’s definitely demanding. Kavanaugh added, “It is the most tiring. I played physical sports as a kid – and I’ve never been as tired as after a day of taping.” Hopefully he does some thumb stretches to prepare his buzzer finger.

This might prove the longstanding theory that Ken Jennings actually lives in a little tent behind the clue board that he can be on-set as easily as possible to get started early with the long day ahead. He is dedicated!

(Via The US Sun)

When Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus took the franchise back to claustrophobic basis, select theaters caught a peek at this new Alien: Earth teaser. The brief yet terrifying look at a Xenomporph from FX’s upcoming TV series, which will arrive next year, only on Hulu.

Clearly, the confines of a spaceship present the classic “no one can hear you scream” dilemma, but the suggestion of this teaser is that this telltale secondary mouth will be making that horror known in a very different setting. Additionally, the medium of television will have fewer confines than finite feature films, so audiences should prepare for an abundance of new narrative possibilities for the next offering from the Alien franchise.

FX has released the following logline:

When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, a young woman (Sydney Chandler) and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat in FX’s highly anticipated TV series “Alien: Earth” from creator Noah Hawley.

The series stars Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, and Timothy Olyphant. The cast also includes Essie Davis, Samuel Blenkin, Babou Ceesay, David Rysdahl, Adrian Edmondson, Adarsh Gourav, Lily Newmark, Diem Camille, Jonathan Ajayi, Erana James, and Moe Bar-El.

Alien: Earth will touch down in 2025.

In The Substance, Demi Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a former Oscar-winning actress who now hosts a daytime fitness show. But when Elisabeth is fired by a buffoonish executive (Dennis Quaid, father of Hollywood’s best nepo baby boy), she injects herself with something called “The Substance” to become the “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of herself, Sue, played by Margaret Qualley (another good nepo kid). Gore and nudity ensues.

Lots of nudity.

In a spoiler-heavy profile, Qualley told the Los Angeles Times that she trained for months for The Substance. But all that weight lifting shaped her physicality in a way that she didn’t expect. “We’re representing perfect, right?” the Kinds of Kindness actress said. “And the movie has a pretty inspired message. So I also thought it was important for that perfect to be healthy, even if it’s unrealistic. I’m fortunate that the naked stuff was at the top because throughout the five months my ass was just slowly deflating.”

Moore joked, “I did admire how round Margaret’s ass was.”

Qualley, a trained ballerina, also discussed her elaborate dance sequence in the body horror movie. “It’s more of a challenge than I realized, pretending to feel hot when you don’t feel hot,” she said. “I practiced that dance incessantly, every day, until we shot it because it’s so far outside of the way my body moves. But I really enjoyed pushing myself to figure it out.”

Directed by Coralie Fargeat, The Substance opens on September 20.

(Via the Los Angeles Times)

The Boys Season 4 finale put nearly every core character’s fate in question, other than Homelander, Sister Sage, Firecracker, Deep, and Black Noir. The vigilante group tried to flee only to be detained by Gen V castmates, a long-lost The Boys presence, and a super sausage, so to speak. We don’t know where Butcher or Ryan are individually headed, and Vought International CEO Ashley has undergone a mystery transformation. And then there’s A-Train.

Jessie T. Usher’s speedy Supe was exposed as the Leak before cutting out his tracker and heading into the wind. Over the course of the fourth season, he’d undergone an unlikely redemption arc, which left viewers concerned for his life, and the show has now dropped a slight hint on how his disappearance will be handled. For the moment, Vought is pretending that nothing is amiss.

“Today, Vought can confirm A-Train is being deployed overseas effective immediately,” the show’s “corporate” account recently tweeted. “We have to keep all details confidential, both for his safety and the safety of the free world. Let’s wish him good luck and especially, God speed!”

What does this tell us? Not much other than Vought is probably panicking behind the scenes. Exactly who is doing the panicking on the forward-facing front remains a mystery. Ashley is a Supe now, and both Cameron Coleman and Tek Knight are dead. Perhaps they will pull another Ashley out of obscurity (RIP to that Other Ashley), or Homelander will be making every announcement for the foreseeable future.

Hopefully, A-Train is getting together with Starlight to plot how to save The Boys. Or A-Train might have succeeded in going off grid to such a degree that he can simply enjoy life in relative safety. We can guess that Ashley won’t betray him, but from there, we’ll have to watch for more clues to drop.

The Boys will return in 2026, but Gen V will be back in 2025.

In the short time Ice Spice has been in the spotlight, her career has seen huge successes thanks to hits like “Munch” and “Barbie World” and plenty of friction thanks to supposed beef with Cardi B and Latto. While she’s resolved both of those, it looks like there’s a new one on the burner — and this time, it’s with one of her Y2K Tour tourmates.

Cleotrapa is a New York-based artist who has seen moderate success over the past year with her songs “Rockstar” and “Von Dutch.” Apparently, she was well-enough acquainted with Ice Spice for the “Think U The Sh*t” rapper to add Cleo to her tour. However, it seems their relationship soured while on the road, as Cleo posted a video to her social channels disparaging Ice Spice as a “fake friend” who only brought her along to do damage control after allegedly falling out with Nicki Minaj.

In the video, Cleo says she wasn’t given enough time to prepare for the tour, wasn’t paid for her performances, and had to pay for her own room and board after being assured by Ice that she would be taken care of.

Ice responded during a chat with fans on Twitter Spaces, saying, “The scary part of fame honestly is the moment that somebody feels like they can no longer use your platform or like they’re not getting exactly what they want out of a situation the way that they want it … That’s when they decide to crash out every single time. I’m noticing a pattern.”

So, in summary, the two friends appear to have fallen out because either A) Ice Spice mistreated Cleo on the tour, or B) Cleo had big expectations, that weren’t met. Either way, they seem to be more interested in hashing it out in public than in private, so don’t be surprised if we see this thing escalate.

It turns out that in addition to hosting the 2024 MTV VMAs, Megan Thee Stallion will also be performing.

Meg revealed the news today (September 3), writing on social media, “Hotties not Onlyyyy am I your lovely host for the evening at the 2024 @vmas IM ALSOOO PERFORMINGGGG.”

This news comes just days after Meg announced a new collaborative single with BTS member RM coming out soon, so perhaps that tune will make her VMAs setlist. She said of the song, “This is one of my favorite RM verses I’ve heard. I’ve never heard him rap in this style before.” “Mamushi,” for which Megan just released a surreal new video, would also seemingly be a candidate for the performance slot.

Megan is nominated in five categories: Best Collaboration (“Wanna Be” with GloRilla), and Best Hip Hop, Best Visual Effects, Best Direction, and Best Art Direction (all for “Boa”). She’s behind nominations leader Taylor Swift, who has 10 nods, as well as Post Malone with nine and Sabrina Carpenter, Eminem, and Ariana Grande with six each.

The list of performers this year also includes Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Camila Cabello, GloRilla, Rauw Alejandro, Lisa, Halsey, Benson Boone, Lenny Kravitz, and Katy Perry (who is also receiving the Video Vanguard Award).

The 2024 VMAs are set to air on MTV on September 11 at 8 p.m. ET.

At the end of August, Sexyy Red canceled several of the dates on her Sexyy 4 President Tour, after previously claiming that she was being “sabotaged” on the tour. Sexyy blamed low ticket sales on “bigger companies” shutting her down for using an independent promoter.

However, the show must go on, and go on it has. The tour started at State Farm Arena in Atlanta on August, and thanks to setlist.fm, we now know exactly which songs from her growing discography she’ll be performing on the remaining tour dates. While Sexyy Red hasn’t been around for the longest time, she does have plenty of guest verses, which beef up the setlist considerably. Meanwhile, during the Atlanta show, Red was joined by some of the city’s biggest names, so don’t expect to see 2 Chainz and Quavo on the set every night. You can see the setlist below.

01. “TTG (Go)”
02. “I Don’t Wanna Be Saved”
03. “Awesome Jawsome”
04. “FTCU Sleezemix”
05. “Sexyy Love Money”
06. “Peaches & Egglplants”
07. “Shake Yo Dreads”
08. “Hellcats SRTs”
09. “Fake Jammin”
10. “Pound Town”
11. “Hood Rats”
12. “N.P.O.”
13. “Come Here”
14. “It’s My Birthday”
15. “Bow Bow Bow (F My Baby Dad)”
16. “Watch Out” with 2 Chainz
17. “Birthday Song” with 2 Chainz
18. “Freak No More” with Quavo
19. “Hotel Lobby” with Quavo
20. “Rich Baby Daddy”
21. “U My Everything”
22. “SkeeYee”
23. “Get It Sexyy”
24. “Get It Sexyy” – again
25. “Sexyy Walk”