The 9th annual Roots Picnic featured a stacked line-up, including Future, Usher (with The Roots), Leon Bridges and more. Willow Smith, one of the scheduled performers to hit the stage tonight, brought out her dad Will Smith aka The Fresh Prince to perform his classic anthem “Summertime.” To make things extra special, they were assisted by Jazzy Jeff. Watch the several fan-captured clips below.
DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince doing Summertime at Roots Picnic. Check it off the music bucket list. https://t.co/F0QEWTIEYm
— gadsden the patriot™ (@LibertyOrDeaf) June 4, 2016
Willow brought out Will Smith #RootsPicnic pic.twitter.com/4BDqSxlpgM
— emerald. (@VirgoFinesse) June 4, 2016
Big Sean and his rumored GF Jhene Aiko added fuel to the fire on Friday night.
Chris Brown is widely known as someone given to acts of violence. Well, according to a new report from TMZ, Brown allegedly lost his temper yet again quite recently at a concert in Cannes on May 18. The news site is asserting that an individual named Malek Mokrani attended a concert in the South of France last month and somehow became embroiled in a physical confrontation with the singer, by the end of which found Brown stomping on Mokrani’s head with his foot.
Mokrani told TMZ that, “he went to the hospital with neck and head pain and plans on filing a police report.” He also provided them with an image meant to show the real extent of his injuries.
Power 106’s annual concert is happening tonight at the Honda Center in Los Angeles. The line-up includes Chance the Rapper, YG, DJ Mustard, Big Sean, Joey Bada$$, E-40 & Too Short, Fat Joe & Remy Ma, and Yo Gotti. If you can’t make it out to LA, the station is streaming the entire show live when it starts at 7 p.m. PST on their website.
Chance the Rapper just released Coloring Book that has favorable tracks such as “No Problem” and “Mixtape” with Young Thug and Lil Yachty. Chance usually performs with The Social Experiment, which mean his set could be a mix of his mixtape catalogue and Surf material. Maybe we’ll hear them perform “The First Time” for the first time?
YG is another notable name because he’s gearing up to release his upcoming album Still Brazy (formerly Still Krazy). In building anticipation for the project, the Compton rapper shared the tracklist and title track this week. It follows some already well-received tracks like “Why You Always Hatin?,” “FDT,” and “Twist My Fingaz.”
Aside from E-40 & Too $hort bringing the function music to the City of Angels, Fat Joe & Remy Ma are having a moment right now with “All the Way Up.” It’s common knowledge by rap heads that Terror Squad always keeps one hit in the chamber, and the New York celebration anthem is definitely picking up steam. Be sure to watch their set as they might even bring out a special guest to perform their verse on any of the remixes out now.
Overall, the stacked line-up means it’ll be a good time, no matter if you’re there live or streaming comfortably in your own home. Kick back, enjoy, and watch it below.
Rapper Freddie Gibbs was reportedly taken into custody just minutes ahead of a planned performance Thursday in Toulouse, France on alleged rape charges. According to French news source La Depeche du Midi, Gibbs was “wanted in connection with a European arrest warrant issued by Austria for a rape allegedly committed in 2015.”
Gibbs was en route to perform at the Le Rex club in Tolouse when he was picked up by authorities and put in handcuffs. Shortly thereafter, according to La Depeche du Midi, “he was presented to the public prosecutor and imprisoned pending his extradition to Austria.” Austrian publication Vienna Online got in touch with the city prosecutor’s office, reporting, “Nina Bussek, spokeswoman for the Vienna prosecutor’s office confirmed on Saturday evening corresponding French media reports. ‘We have requested his transfer.'”
“Freddie Gibbs adamantly denies that allegations that have been levied against by Austrian authorities,” said Gibbs’ management in a statement to Complex. “It makes you wonder why it took almost a year for Austrian officials to bring these charges. Freddie will be fighting the extradition request as these are nothing more than trumped up charges.”
We will update this story as more details become available.
Muhammad Ali, a boxing legend who won his first world heavyweight championship at 22 and later became one of the greatest athletes in U.S. history—died late Friday night, after being hospitalized with a respiratory illness in Arizona, where he lived out the final years of his life. Ali was 74. The cause of death is not yet known.
NBC News first broke news of his death:
BREAKING: Boxing legend Muhammad Ali, 'the greatest of all time,' has died at 74https://t.co/tA6SGOWREz pic.twitter.com/wrHYu3wnOn
— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 4, 2016
Following his masterful hour-long interview with Drake and Noah “40” Shebib in May, Nardwuar has returned with an equally masterful one-on-one with the inimitable Cam’ron. The discussion, which took place during a Smokers Club Tour stop in Vancouver, kicked off with a generous offering from Nardwuar: a pristine Kool G Rap and DJ Polo record.
“One of my favorite artists ever,” Cam’ron said of the legacy of Queens legend Kool G Rap. “He inspired me to rap because I still got a lisp and he raps with a lisp.” Looking back on his early record-buying days, Cam’ron also shouted out his favorite shop Black Market. “They used to sell, like, cassette tapes and stuff like that,” he said, adding that he got his first Kool G Rap album when he was 11.
Nardwuar then asked Cam’ron about the highly rewatchable Drake interview he did, in which the 6ix god had nothing but praise for the Dipset founder. “I stay dapper,” Cam’ron said in response to Drake’s enthusiastic co-sign of his distinctive look on the cover of the 1998 Mase collab “Horse & Carriage,” which was the lead single to his debut album Confessions of Fire. “I’m always dapper. I’m dapper now actually.” Indeed, Cam’ron. Indeed.
But what’s it like to be Cam’ron in 2016? Apparently pretty damn great. “I don’t care if you care or not,” Cam’ron said. “That’s why people care because I really don’t give a fuck if you like me or you don’t like me. You like me or you hate me. There’s really no in between.”
Peep the full interview above, then revisit Cam’ron’s recent Juelz Santana collab “Oh Yeah” to ring in the weekend.
Drake’s VIEWS is dominating the charts. On the Billboard 200, VIEWS is No. 1 for the fourth week with 189,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen Music. Likewise, Drizzy’s “One Dance” rules the Hot 100 again for a third week and takes over the Radio Songs chart at No. 1. Now, Drake has officially surpassed one billion streams for songs off VIEWS.
VIEWS have been incredibly popular on streaming services, owning the four largest weeks for an album ever. Billboard reports that the tracks have now generated exactly 1.07 billion on-demand audio streams in the U.S. For comparison’s sake, Justin Bieber’s Purpose (1.38 billion), The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind the Madness (1.31 billion), and Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late (1.06 billion) all have hit over a billion streams.
The statement made it sound like the 74-year-old’s hospitalization would be relatively routine, but the Associated Press spoke with two sources close to Ali on Thursday night who indicated that the respiratory issue Ali is dealing with could be complicated by the fact that he suffers from Parkinson’s disease. Those sources did not provide details on Ali’s condition, but they did tell the AP that Ali—who has been hospitalized on several occasions in the past, most recently in 2015 when he was treated for a severe urinary tract infection that was misdiagnosed as pneumonia at first—could be facing more “serious problems” that originally reported.