Crawling back into the dungeon of one’s day job is a seriously horrendous task following a long weekend away, but FX made the return to normalcy a bit easier with the premiere of Donald Glover’s long-awaited original series Atlanta. The first pair of episodes were unveiled via standard-ass television Tuesday, which may be a cause of concern for prospective viewers. Thankfully, FX has quickly made the very excellent first episode available to watch for free via YouTube and Facebook.
“The Big Bang,” directed by Hiro Murai (Bloc Party, a grip of Childish Gambino videos), manages to squeeze in a “Worldstar!” interjection within the first minute. Impressive. From there, the episode introduces viewers to the life of Earnest “Earn” Marks (Glover). Earn, a Princeton dropout on a quest to find meaning somewhere in the cruelness of existence, eventually links up with his cousin Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles (Brian Tyree Henry). With Paper Boi’s career on an upswing, Earn sees one last chance to find that meaning he’s been so desperately searching for.
The show is already garnering Glover some of the best reviews of his career, meaning his forthcoming TV directorial debut with the episode “Value” should seal the deal: Dude’s a true multihyphenate.
Atlanta returns for more next Tuesday on FX.
Kanye West dropped some huge news while speaking to Vogue ahead of the debut of his Yeezy Season 4 fashion show later today by finally confirming that he is collaborating with Drake.
“We’re just working on music, working on a bunch of music together, just having fun going into the studio,” West told the magazine when questioned about a billboard featuring the G.O.O.D. Music and OVO logos together. “We’re working on an album, so there’s some exciting things coming up soon.”
‘Ye did not reveal any more details or a release date for the project, but it’s definitely something to hear the news confirmed by the rapper himself after he teased the project during his guest appearance at the second night of this year’s OVO Fest.
A project with Drake is only the beginning of new music that we can expect from Kanye down the line. On Thursday, Travi$ Scott stopped by Hot 97’s Ebro in the Morning and revealed that the long-awaited G.O.O.D. Music compilation, Cruel Winter, is “coming very soon…I’m saying February.” Scott is executive producing that album and confirmed that “every G.O.O.D. Music artist is involved.” We also still have the forthcoming Turbo Grafx 16 on the way.
Only time will tell what ‘Ye and Drake will rap about on their collaborative album, but there is no doubt that Yeezy season is upon us.
Former N.W.A. manager Jerry Heller’s death has inspired mixed reactions within the hip-hop community. Some people have praised him for his work in putting N.W.A. into the mainstream, while others have criticized him for long-standing allegations that he fleeced the group out of money. One person who surprisingly doesn’t have strong feelings about the situation is Ice Cube.
The Weeknd is the cover star of the latest issue of VMAN, and during the interview, he spilled some new information about the recording process for his next album. “There are new inspirations on this album. The production feels aggressive but still sexy,” he said, going on to list a number of artists that served as inspiration. “The Smiths, Bad Brains, Talking Heads, Prince, and DeBarge play roles. We wrote it all in Los Angeles. I think it’ll be the best-sounding album I’ve ever done. It’s hard to label the sound because, when I first came out, nobody would label it R&B. I just want to keep pushing the envelope without it feeling forced.”
So far there’s no word on when his next album might come out, but it has some big shoes to fill. His 2015 project Beauty Behind the Madness proved to be a smash hit, spawning the popular singles “The Hills” and “Can’t Feel My Face.” Although The Weeknd saw success before it, Beauty Behind the Madness was his mainstream breakout moment, success that he’s surely trying to replicate again with his new project.
Even he sees this, although he denies any feeling of pressure. “Even though I’ve been putting out bodies of work for years, Beauty Behind the Madness felt like the beginning,” he said. “My purpose is to make exciting music, and I feel like I’ll be doing that for the rest of my life, so there’s no pressure. Nothing is stopping me from doing what I love to do.”
He also touched on the topic of police brutality. Although his music isn’t known for being overtly political, recent events have him rethinking things. “It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that there are people who can’t or won’t see what Black Lives Matter is trying to accomplish. I wish I could make music about politics,” he said. “I feel like it’s such an art and a talent that I admire tremendously, but when I step into the studio I step out of the real world, and it’s therapeutic. It’s an escape, but recently it’s been very hard to ignore, and it’s also been very distracting. Maybe you’ll hear it in my voice, but it is not my forté.”
Fader, saying there is “no Outkast news to report.”
See below for original story.
Rapper, style icon, and hamburger enthusiast Gucci Mane has been busy as hell since his release from prison, releasing a new album and announcing another one is already on the way. According to his Snapchat, Gucci recently recorded eight features in a single day, jumping on tracks for Lil’ Wayne, Diplo, Boosie, 2 Chainz, Peewee Longway and Quavo.
One name on that list though jumps out way more than the others: OutKast. Watch Gucci mention the duo himself in this rip of his snap video.
To cap off his second annual Houston Appreciation Week, Drake announced last night that he’s opening a new club. Called The Ballet, the club is a new venture for Drake that he claims is opening in early 2017. “Tonight is a different take on how it should be done in Houston,” he wrote on Instagram after announcing it live. “Treat yourself don’t cheat yourself. Where the women are on a pedestal and the surroundings are unforgettable. The Ballet pop up tonight for HAW.” The announcement came as part of a pop-up event he held, which was also titled The Ballet. Not much was known about the event prior, as Drake only revealed it as a “new dance experience.”
This past weekend Complex News hung out at Philadelphia’s Made In America Festival. Now celebrating it’s 5th year, MIA has grown to become one of the most diverse and well put together festivals. This year, it feels like the whole world stopped by, to enjoy the event. We saw a gang of performances like Travis Scott, Rihanna, Tory Lanez, Denzel Curry, Justine Skye, and A$AP Ferg. And we even caught a glimpse of some very important people including Jay Z and Beyonce. Oh yeah, President Bill Clinton stopped by to catch Chance’s The Rapper’s set.
Kanye West’s “Saint Pablo” tour kicked off in Indianapolis on Aug. 25, and it has already made stops in Buffalo, Toronto, and Montreal. On Saturday night, West brought his floating stage experience to Boston, where he gave another passionate monologue in between songs.
West’s speeches have evolved since the media has labeled them “rants.” In just about every interview or performance these days, he uses his platform to speak his mind about anything: society, fashion, hip-hop, and the human race to name a few. Last night, West took the opportunity to preach about the importance of self-love during “Runaway.” “We only got a 100 years here, if we’re lucky,” he said. “…We need to start thinking of ways to change the way we treat each other, the way we talk to each other, the way we talk about each other.”
Yeezy continued that it all starts with “self-love” and “we have to love ourselves before we can love anybody else.” He then points blame at the media for teaching everyone to not love ourselves, saying they “take stuff out of you and try to sell it back to you.”
He leaves everyone with this message: “The greatest gift you have is your now…you don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow and the past is the past.”
Kid Cudi said before that he was planning to release two albums in 2016 and now he has finally confirmed that the new music will be coming this month.
“So I’m working on a date for a release this month,” he tweeted. “Available on ALL PLATFORMS for streaming and download, physicals shortly after. At 18 tracks deep, the album is well over an 1hr 30mins long, so the physical will be a double disc set.”
Cudi’s specification that he will be releasing the music on all platforms seems like a very important qualifier, especially when considering the current controversial landscape of music service exclusives that has become an industry trend. For Cudi, it sounds like it’s most important to him to make his music available to the masses.”Music shouldn’t be a headache to find especially in a digital space. It’s actually easier going to Best Buy to get a CD than it is to DL one.”
It’s a significant message as artists like Chance the Rapper, Drake, Travi$ Scott, Usher, and more have selected services like Apple Music and Tidal to have the exclusive first release of their music. Follwoing the release of Frank Ocean’s Endless, UMG’s CEO ordered the company to stop making exlcuisve deals. Spotify has gone on record saying that exclusives hurt the business because they require users to pay for more than one service to have all the music, which inadvertently results in people stealing music in other ways. Cudi actually contributed to Scott’s new album, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight, which debuted as an Apple exclusive earlier this month.
One thing is definite: we are more than ready for some new Cudi in our lives. Stay posted for more information on the albums.
It looks like Wayne is at a breaking point, as the veteran rapper took to Twitter early Saturday morning to share that he was feeling defeated and even hinted that he was going to retire.