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Cordae Returns With His Soulful New Single, ‘Gifted’ Featuring Roddy Ricch

Dropping the “YBN” part of his rap name following the disbandment of the YBN crew, Cordae returns with his first single of the year with “Gifted” featuring Roddy Ricch. The song, which Cordae told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe the duo recorded last year, sees the two 21-year-olds trading bars about their respective comeups, from stress to checks.

The song will hopefully kick off the next chapter in the young rapper’s bright and undeniably promising career following the success of his debut album. The Lost Boy earned Cordae his first Grammy nominations for Best Rap Album and Best Rap Song with “Bad Idea” featuring Chance The Rapper. He says he plans to make many more appearances in the future: “We are going to be regulars at the Grammys,” he boasted to Lowe. “We are going to have assigned seating for the next decade.”

Aside from the split up with the YBN crew, Cordae’s most notable moment this year came after the rapper was arrested for protesting the death of Breonna Taylor last month outside the home of Kentucky’s Attorney General, Daniel Cameron. Eighty-seven people including rapper Trae The Truth, Houston Texans wide receiver Kenny Stills, and The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Porsha Williams were arrested outside Cameron’s home, but a few days later the charges were dropped “in the interest of justice and the promotion of the free exchange of ideas” as Jefferson County Attorney Mike O’Connell said in a statement.

Although Cordae stops short of announcing a new album during his interview with Lowe, when he does, the rapper already has a potential feature waiting for him from Lil Wayne. During his interview with Cordae on Young Money Radio, Wayne requested that he appear on his upcoming second album. After Cordae confirmed that he was “like 50 songs in” on the second album, Wayne jokingly said, “All you gotta do is text me the song, I’ll murder it and send you the finger so you know it’s dead.”

Listen to “Gifted” above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

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NBA Players Have Decided To Resume The Playoffs, But Thursday’s Games Are Postponed

The NBA season will resume at some point in the near future. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the players in the Orlando Bubble have decided to play after a league-wide strike on Wednesday, although the trio of games that were scheduled to take place on Thursday are going to be postponed and rescheduled.

The report was confirmed by Shams Charania of The Athletic, who said that the players want to “find new and improved ways to make social justice statements.”

On Wednesday, the Milwaukee Bucks led the way in initiating a player strike in the NBA to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in the back seven times in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The video of the shooting, which left Blake paralyzed from the waist down, has led to more protests. Three protesters in Kenosha were shot and two were killed by a 17-year-old white vigilante with an AR-15 on Tuesday night.

Following the Bucks lead, the Thunder, Rockets, Lakers, and Blazers all agreed to sit out their Game 5s later that day — with the league officially postponing those games as word emerged of players refusing to play — and a meeting was scheduled with every NBA player for 8 p.m. ET in the Bubble. The meeting was to determine the next steps for how players want to proceed and determining if or when they will play again. That meeting ended without a resolution beyond the Lakers and Clippers voicing their support for ending the season altogether, but another meeting was scheduled for Thursday morning. There, it appears, a decision to play again was made.

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50 Cent Thinks Cancel Culture Is Unfairly Aimed At ‘Heterosexual Males’

From those that are against it to those that have fallen victim to it, cancel culture has been a hot button topic in music this year. Doja Cat was canceled after insensitive videos resurfaced and Sun Kil Moon singer Mark Kozelek was canceled after three separate women accused him of sexual assault. Many musicians, like The 1975, have questioned the productivity of cancel culture, and 50 Cent is the latest. However, the rapper has a slightly different take, saying cancel culture is unfairly aimed at men.

In a recent interview with Variety, 50 Cent addressed his issues with cancel culture. The rapper thinks “heterosexual males” are now no longer “superior” because he believes there are no organizations in place to defend men’s rights:

“If you say something about someone who chooses something different, there’s organizations set up to start sending things around to get signatures and stuff. And tell me this, as a heterosexual male, who’s going to send things around to get signatures based on your failures? There’s no one. There’s no organization. Certain demographics have been conditioned because they’ve been taken advantage of in the earliest stages. Once inferior, now they’re superior because we have no organization. The biggest target is heterosexual males in general.”

50 Cent didn’t offer examples of men who have been recently canceled, and also failed to address the multitude of female celebrities — from Cardi B to Billie Eilish — who have briefly been canceled on Twitter.

Elsewhere in the interview, 50 wondered if Kanye’s presidential campaign is a ploy to help Trump’s re-election. “You see Kanye and the things that he’s doing, I wonder if Trump is not re-elected, does he go to jail for tampering with an election?” 50 said. “One of the weaker points for Trump would be the Black vote. So to have Kanye come in, somebody is going to vote for him and it’s probably someone who isn’t going to vote for Trump… It just creates noise. There’s a legitimate attempt at winning the election just by being in it, and I don’t know to whose benefit it is. I know it means nothing when Trump wins again.”

Read 50’s full Variety interview here.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

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‘Making The Witcher’ Gives The Humble Bard The Attention He Seeks With This Jaskier-Centric Trailer

The self-declared Humble Bard is at it again. After yesterday’s trailer drop for the now-streaming Making The Witcher (a half-hour documentary-style installment), Jaskier has apparently hacked into the production’s editing room to insert his own version, “Behind The Bard.” Geralt of Rivia has now been relegated to the Best Friend role, and all eyes are on Jaskier as he writes his own version and winds up to a familiar moment: the insidious “Toss A Coin” earworm that even gets on the nerves of actor Joey Batey.

Fortunately, Jaskier is much more lovable than his songs. With this trailer, Netflix asks us to “journey into the extraordinary world of ‘The Witcher’ — from casting the roles to Jaskier’s catchy song — in this behind-the-scenes look at the series.” From there, we get wall-to-wall bard, who “puts the ‘lute’ in ‘absolute talent.’” This certainly strikes a different tone than the version that focuses upon Henry Cavill’s swashbuckling skills. No matter what, though, this unexpected 32-minute gift to fans is a wonderful way to tide people over after Season 2 took some months off the schedule after you-know-what interrupted European production.

Rest assured, Henry Cavill and the rest of the cast are back at it with unflattering photographic proof, and eventually, we’ll see a live-action prequel series called The Witcher: Blood Origin and an animated, feature length movie called Nightmare of the Wolf. Hopefully, a lot of future bathtub action, too.

Making The Witcher is streaming on Netflix now.

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Gucci Mane Has An Inspirational Second Book, ‘The Gucci Mane Guide To Greatness,’ On The Way

In 2017, Gucci Mane published an autobiography. The rapper apparently enjoyed being an author, because now he is back in the writing saddle and is ready to release a new book. His second book, The Gucci Mane Guide To Greatness, is set for release on October 13 through Simon & Schuster.

Gucci said in his author’s statement:

“I live by the principles in this book. I wanted to write this book to give you a tool set. This book should touch people who are going through something. It’s not going to be easy. But study these words, and put them into action. I want this book to keep you motivated. I want you to keep coming back to it for guidance and inspiration. You can put it on your shelf and keep going to The Gucci Mane Guide to Greatness. This book is a challenge. Don’t underestimate yourself. Don’t think that what you’re saying is not important. Don’t think you can’t achieve the impossible. Everyone needs some game, so here it is. The Gucci Mane Guide to Greatness is for the world. Enjoy.”

The publisher’s statement also reads, “In this inspiring follow up to his iconic memoir, Gucci Mane gifts us with his playbook for living your best life. Packed with stunning photographs, The Gucci Mane Guide to Greatness distills the legend’s timeless wisdom into a one-of-a-kind motivational guidebook. Gucci Mane emerged transformed after a turbulent life of violence, crime, and addiction to become a dazzling embodiment of the power of positivity, focus, and hard-work. Using examples from his life of unparalleled success, Gucci Mane looks inward and upward to offer his blueprint for greatness. A must read for anyone with big ambitions and bigger dreams.”

Pre-order The Gucci Mane Guide To Greatness here.

Gucci Mane is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

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Metallica’s Kirk Hammett Isn’t Sure When Live Music Tours Will Return

When Edwin Outwater listens to Metallica, he doesn’t merely hear the most successful American metal band of all time. He’s also reminded of an iconic 20th century Russian classical music composer.

“That dark lyricism is so much of what sets Metallica apart from other bands, and Shostakovich,” he says. “Also, Shostakovich can get really aggressive and kind of thrashy as well.”

It makes sense that Outwater, a symphony conductor from California who is currently the music director of the San Francisco Conservatory, was tapped to oversee last year’s collaborative concerts by Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony at the new openly Chase Center. The shows, which will be released Friday as the live album S&M2, were a sequel of sorts to performances in 1999 by Metallica and the symphony conducted by the late Michael Kamen, in which they played dramatically revamped renditions of songs like “One” and “Master Of Puppets.” S&M2 marks a return to the same expansive sound, mixing up classics like “Nothing Else Matters” with newer songs such as “Moth Into Flame.”

When I mentioned Outwater’s Shostakovich comparison to Kirk Hammett during a phone interview earlier this week, the Metallica guitarist swiftly concurred.

“I’ve listened to Shostakovich, and it’s really super dark. And then it gets really super intense, really at the turn of a dime,” he said. “When I think about those factors, I mean, heavy metal does that as well. There’s an intensity, there’s a moodiness, and an intensity of emotion. And heavy metal, we’re able to shift that emotion within the next beat, or within the next measure. And classical music can do that, too. You can’t really do that in pop music, or the blues. Even jazz music, you can’t actually do those switching things that quickly. Classical music can do that, so can heavy metal music, and that’s one thing that really shares, is the dramatics.”

For Metallica, the S&M2 shows were the final performances before an audience, pre-pandemic. Now, one of the world’s biggest stadium-rock bands is trying to figure out how to navigate our present, confusing reality. On Saturday, there will be a new Metallica concert — likely their only performance of 2020 — presented as part of the Encore Drive-In Nights series, which takes place at drive-in theaters across the country. (Tickets are available here.) In the meantime, the band is also having regular conversations about when they might resume touring again, though Hammett adds, “I have to warn you, and I have to warn everyone: It’s going to take a long time, and no one’s going to tour until it’s safe.”

In this interview, Hammett discusses the S&M2 album and shares his thoughts on the future of Metallica’s live tours.

The strength of these albums is that even with the orchestra element, it still sounds like Metallica. It would be easy for it to come off as a pretentious, Spinal Tap-style move. Did you have any examples of rock bands playing with symphonies as examples of what not to do?

Well, we knew from the first album that there needed to be a balance, and finding that balance was a trick. With the first one, there wasn’t much of a precedent. The only precedent, really, that we can really think of that was similar, was the Deep Purple album. A concerto written for the London Philharmonic, but that was written in collaboration, and for symphony, and it was different on that behalf. And so there wasn’t really a band out there that was going out and playing balls out heavy metal, and an orchestra coming in and wrapping themselves around a heavy metal band.

We started hearing some of the string arrangements that Micheal Kamen was doing, just kind of like rough demos of string arrangements. We started thinking, “All right, this might be something really, really cool.” And then when we started rehearsing with the orchestra, it made us feel a lot better, because it started to make sense. With this album, we had the luxury of experiencing all of this once before, and knowing that it’s really just a balancing act between the symphony and the band, so that we still come across as a heavy metal band, and the symphony still comes across as a symphony.

Michael Kamen passed away in 2003. Was it strange not having him around this time?

Yeah. To a certain extent, it was a given that this was kind of like an unspoken tribute to him. Because it was his initial inspiration to do this in the first place. It wasn’t us.

A link between both S&M albums is that they start with “Ecstasy Of Gold” by Ennio Morricone, who passed away earlier this year. Metallica has used that as their walk-out music for years, and it always sounds awesome. How did you hit upon that?

We can’t take credit for that. The credit for that goes to Jonny Z, our first manager. I remember he suggested it, and it was tried out, and it was very effective as an intro. The epicness of it, the dark quality of it, the heaviness of it without having a lot of crunch, and the heavy metal guitars, and the heavy beats. But there is a heavy mood to it, and a real, real dark theme to it. And when it stops, you’re kind of left with a feeling of anticipation. I think that’s what’s so great about it, because it really just doesn’t fade out, or come to any sort of positive resolution. It just stops.

I have to think that you can’t hear that song now without immediately feeling the anxious excitement you experience before a show.

Absolutely, completely Pavlovian. There are times when I’ve heard that song, we have not been on stage, and all of a sudden I feel my adrenaline flowing. And then all of a sudden I’m thinking, “Oh man, am I stretched out enough? Am I warmed up enough? Is my guitar in tune? How’s my guitar sound?” And I’m just sitting there at the kitchen table.

These S&M shows took place in September 2019, which was the last time you played before an audience. Now you have this special drive-in show coming up on Saturday. How is that going to work?

We filmed the actual drive-in show about two weeks ago, at a secret location in Northern California. And it was the first time that we had gotten together since the S&M shows. It was really important for us to be able to come together and play that particular show, because we needed to just get some sort of semblance of, if we’re going to go forward in the future, how that was going to look with the pandemic going, and all of these safety protocols. We adapted this whole safety protocol so that we were able to work at HQ, and rehearse without us having any fears of being infected, or infecting other people. What that meant was getting tested for Covid, literally every other day. That week of rehearsal, I got tested for Covid five times.

Wow.

It also meant that our entire crew had to have face masks on. A double face mask, which was a paper mask and an N95 mask, [plus] a face shield, and a raincoat, and gloves, and sanitize, and just spray our guitars. That was while we were rehearsing. While we were filming, we were the only people in the whole place without masks on. Everyone else had masks on. And everyone, from the crew to us, had been tested, and quarantined as well. We were able to do that, and do that successfully without any health flare-ups, or any obvious sort of potential of getting infected. So that kind of set a precedent for us moving forward. It gave us hope, knowing that with all this that’s happening right now, if we need to, we can still get together and function as a band.

Not to give too much away, but what should people expect on Saturday?

Full balls out, Metallica show. We’re filmed playing outside, and it’s everything you should expect to see from us. We walk out on stage and play our music. It’s just the 2020 version. If anything, it’s a document of us playing in this time. And it’s also an opportunity for us to just put something out there for the people who are bored, and for Metallica fans who need something to do. I know I’m constantly looking for something to do. And so this is our way of going out there and just giving people something.

Looking ahead to 2021 and beyond, have you guys been talking about what touring will be like? There’s so much uncertainty for fans and musicians alike.

We’ve been talking about it a lot. And it’s a constant thing, because I mean, this whole entire time we’ve had dates. And once we hit a certain pandemic milestone, it seems like, okay, now we have to cancel these dates. A couple of months pass, we hit another milestone in the pandemic, and now we can’t play these dates. We just canceled dates in December, not that long ago. It’s really, really frustrating, because every two or three weeks, we’re in a different spot. The whole world’s in a different spot, every two or three weeks, and no one is at the same place at any given time.

We’re hoping that maybe if Europe can get it together, then maybe we can start playing some festivals in Europe in the summer. But I don’t know. No one knows. Maybe we’ll be taking temperatures. Maybe there’ll be a saliva test, I don’t know.

I have to warn you, and I have to warn everyone: It’s going to take a long time, and no one’s going to tour until it’s safe. I can only talk for us. We’re not going to tour until it’s safe for our fans. Until it’s safe for our fans, we’re not going to expose them, or take the risk of anyone getting sick and getting infected. We don’t want to be responsible for any sort of irresponsibility of that type.

In the meantime, have you guys talked about the next album?

Yes. We have weekly check-ins, and the dialogue has been steered towards what we’re going to be doing in the immediate future. And I’ve been using this time to go through all my musical ideas that I’ve come up with. In the last three or four years, it’s over 600 ideas, it’s taken me a couple of months to go through it all. But they’ve been sent into the big musical idea bank, and we’re starting to talk about going through all that stuff, and exchanging ideas, and just starting to get the ball rolling towards creating some new material. There’s a lot we can do remotely, but I really think that we all need to be together in the same room, to really create some really, really, really great songs and music. The magic really happens when we’re all in the same room, breathing the same air, even though that can be deadly.

S&M2 is out tomorrow on Blackened Recordings. Get it here.

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Kanye West Is Reportedly Suing Ohio’s Election Chief For Removing Him From The Presidential Ballot

Kanye West is reportedly suing Ohio’s election chief for removing him from the presidential ballot, according to the Associated Press. Kanye’s petition to be included on November’s election ballots was rejected by the state earlier this month due to signature irregularites — a problem that has plagued Kanye’s campaign in other states, as well — but attorney’s for Kanye’s campaign argue that the election chief, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, must accept any petition for an independent candidate as long as there is no formal protest against it and it doesn’t violate Ohio law.

LaRose rejected nearly 15,000 signatures, saying information didn’t match. Kanye withdrew his New Jersey bid earlier this month as well after election law attorney Scott Salmon did raise a formal protest, saying that many of the signatures gathered there appeared to have similar handwriting or were incomplete. Meanwhile, Kanye was blocked from Wisconsin’s ballots last week, where a bipartisan panel voted 5-1 against Kanye appearing on the ballot due to late qualifying paperwork. He also missed deadlines in California, Florida, and Pennsylvania, while failing to collect enough signatures in his home state of Illinois.

Meanwhile, there are many who see the campaign as nothing more than a ploy to siphon votes from Joe Biden’s bid against incumbent Donald Trump — a view that is supported by reports of Trump associates and Republican supporters helping Kanye with his (late) attempts to appear on ballots in battleground states. If so, it may not be a very good one; Kanye is reportedly polling very poorly among Black voters.

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Thandie Newton Was ‘Surprised’ By The Support She Received Following Her Comments About Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise is one of the biggest names in Hollywood, so it’s not often that another actor/actress speaks out against him (despite, y’know…). But in an interview published last month, Thandie Newton was candid about her difficult experience making Mission: Impossible 2. “I was so scared of Tom. He was a very dominant individual. He tries super hard to be a nice person. But the pressure. He takes on a lot. And I think he has this sense that only he can do everything as best as it can be done,” the Westworld star told Vulture. She also discussed Cruise not being “happy with what I was doing because I had the sh*ttiest lines… It just pushed me further into a place of terror and insecurity.”

Newton’s candidness was praised by Scientology defector Leah Remini and many others, which surprised the actress. “I was surprised by the appreciation I had got,” she said on a recent episode of Variety and iHeart’s The Big Ticket podcast. “I thought that I would be in trouble because that’s kind of what I’m used to.” She continued:

“I just happened to be an older woman who has recognized that knowing the truth and speaking the truth has benefited me a hell of a lot more than being silenced or seeing people silenced around me… And I have nothing to lose. I have nothing to lose because I could just then not get hired, which is kind of normal for people in my generation anyway. So I’ve got nothing to lose and I would rather go out using this moment… It’s not about confessionalism, it’s not even about my confessions. It’s about that this is the reality of what people face.”

When asked if she’s heard from Cruise since the interview went live, Newton replied, “I felt solid the whole time, but I know that it made people frightened… It’s like how far back do you go?” He’s too busy welcoming people back to the movies, anyway.

(Via Variety)

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Anya Taylor-Joy Is A Narcotics-Fueled Chess Champion In Netflix’s ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Teaser

Get ready for an unusual, unnerving tale about the true cost of genius from Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit. This limited series, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, will debut in October and bases itself upon the 1950s-set Walter Tevis novel of the same name. It’s not only a coming-of-age story but also a meditation on addiction and danger, given that Taylor-Joy’s Beth (a orphan/prodigy, not quite a prodigal orphan) becomes dependent upon tranquilizers while battling towards a chess championship title. It’s not exactly the underdog story that we’re all accustomed to seeing onscreen, which should give it an edge with those who don’t favor the frequent action-movie approach to such a story.

The series hails from Godless director Scott Frank. He’s pulling quintuple duty as co-creator, showrunner, director, writer, and executive producer. In two additional executive producing seats are WIlliam Horberg (Talented Mr. Ripley) and Allan Scott (Don’t Look Now), whose combined presence add to the thriller component. From the synopsis:

Abandoned and entrusted to a Kentucky orphanage in the late 1950s, a young Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) discovers an astonishing talent for chess while developing an addiction to tranquilizers provided by the state as a sedative for the children. Haunted by her personal demons and fueled by a cocktail of narcotics and obsession, Beth transforms into an impressively skilled and glamorous outcast while determined to conquer the traditional boundaries established in the male-dominated world of competitive chess.

The Queen’s Gambit (which also stars Marielle Heller, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Moses Ingram, Harry Melling, and Bill Camp) streams on October 23.

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What The Silence On Megan Thee Stallion’s Shooting Says About Male Rappers

On Monday, Bun B broke through hip-hop’s silence about the Megan Thee Stallion/Tory Lanez shooting by chiding “f*ck Tory Lanez,” and noting, “I’m from Houston and if somebody would have done something to Megan in this city, we would’ve rode.” His fiery statements were followed up by fellow Texan Maxo Kream, who brought up an LA incident he had with Tory Lanez and proclaimed, “Tory Lanez a b*tch, bro. Any n**** from Texas that ain’t standing up for Megan y’all some b*tch-ass n****s too.”

It was about time someone said something. The two Texans were a bit late to come to Megan Thee Stallion’s defense, but at least they said something. That’s more than most rappers have done since Megan took to Instagram to announce that she was shot in the feet, and recently outed Lanez as her shooter.

It would seem simple enough for artists to express sympathy for her and post about the needlessness of gun violence. But while it’s nothing but positive Q-points for them to tweet about arresting Breonna Taylor’s killers, an issue most Black people agree on, it becomes more of an exercise in politics and optics for them to speak on an issue involving two hip-hop community members. When it comes to a fracture between a male peer and a woman especially, it’s not hard to guess which way things will go.

Bun B stated the obvious when he said, “Nobody is talking about it because it’s a Black woman. And y’all can say what y’all want. That’s just what it is.” Artists are prone to defend their male peers at all costs. And if the evidence dictates that they can’t do that, they generally keep quiet. The response to Megan’s shooting exemplifies that in many ways, hip-hop is still a clueless boys club.

What would Bun B and Maxo say if Megan wasn’t from Texas? What took them so long to speak out? It’s worth wondering. Megan has been on a figurative island for the better part of two months, facing childish ridicule and criticism from a who’s who of hip-hop. From 50 Cent sharing memes to Draya trivializing domestic violence to Cam’ron implying she was a trans woman, the 25-year-old has been the object of relentless jokes by people way too comfortable disrespecting women.

There’s been immense commentary about the disgusting insults being levied her way. Writer Taylor Crumpton pondered in a sharply-titled Women in Hip-Hop Cannot Thrive While Misogynoir Exists piece, “Who hears a Black woman’s cries of fear and pain if their personhood is stripped away? If Black women are no longer regarded as human, then their bodies are deemed deserving of disproportionate amounts of pain.”

Megan has faced immense pain. Last year, Megan lost her mother. This year she was shot. That trauma is hard enough to bear without feeling as “unprotected” as she expressed feeling in July. There’s been a glaring silence amongst males in the hip-hop community. No one from Megan’s Roc Nation management or 300 Entertainment label has released an official statement of sympathy. It took two months for Bun B, Maxo, and T.I. to speak out.

When Boosie was recently asked about the shooting, the infamously outspoken artist took the high road. He expressed that “I don’t want to say the wrong thing,” but in a situation so cut and dry, his neutrality amounts to protecting the aggressor. What does it say when an artist who had graphic comments about 13-year-old Zaya Wade, and has several 2+ hour interviews with DJ Vlad, is mum about something seemingly so easy to soapbox about? Boosie expressed that he wanted to get a feature from her, expressing admiration for her artistry while simultaneously disrespecting her humanity.

But that’s par for the course in hip-hop, a deeply patriarchal industry where men have reigned supreme and women have for so long been ancillary characters. Woman agency isn’t respected, so when they come out against men, their claims are swept under the rug. The fraternal solidarity is why Akon guesstimated that, “half the time, [women] will set up a charge just for us to settle out” when defending Nelly. And why rapper Cash Talk said, “We don’t know what happened in that car,” but then blamed Megan by claiming, “Y’all know females be tripping and sh*t!” When there’s a lack of evidence, misogynistic men always find it safe to lean on pathology.

It’s why R. Kelly maintained a career long after his abuse case. And it’s why Chris Brown (who asked people to stop comparing him to Tory) still collaborates with a range of artists despite what happened to Rihanna.

Like Megan, Rihanna is regarded as a sex icon by male artists. Men flirt with her in songs and clamor to collaborate, but few of them came out to condemn Chris Brown, even after graphic photos came out of what he did to her. Men know how to sexualize women but rarely humanize them. Their inhumanity makes it easy to stand silent at their abuse, especially when it entails breaking the code and condemning another man.

Bun B, Maxo, T.I., and others deserve credit for coming out against Tory Lanez. But sadly, they’re the exceptions proving a pathetic rule. People had a lot to say in critique of “WAP,” but less to say about Megan being assailed. That selective silence is blatant misogyny, which justifiably makes Black women take pause at patronizing male artists. Women are rapidly rising in rap. As calls to make the XXL Freshman list an all ladies list indicates, the “first lady” days are gone. It’s not imperative to have mostly male artists in playlists anymore. If men in rap don’t do some deep reflection on their misogyny, they’re going to continue to lose the female fans that they do little to deserve outside the booth.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.