can y'all let DaBaby an'em be great?
hip hop's new daily operation | 6.9.20
TheMotto 37 jumps off with DaBaby. He just scored his first No. 1 song, “Rockstar” featuring Roddy Ricch. Challenging criticism that his flow is “repetitive” and all his songs “sounds da same,” North Carolina’s own Jonathan Kirk continues to outwork the opps and deliver hits ⬇️ Speech!
hip hop is currently ruled by the Drake, Cole, and Kendrick narrative. Our 3 Kings. Geniuses. All with decade-plus careers. All with hall of fame accomplishments. All connected to greatness — Lil Wayne, Jay-Z and Dr. Dre before them. But these new stars are doing it without the legacy connections. The already-home heavyweights don’t have to leave the building or pass the throne for us to lift up the young legends in the palace.
let’s look at the lay of the land: after getting his DMX on and dropping two full albums in a calendar year — 2019’s Baby On Baby and KIRK (SCMG/Interscope) — DaBaby was one of the first major hip hop artists to step up during this pandemic and say, I got some new music. On April 17, 2020, he threw the mask on and gave us Blame It On Baby. That’s three impressive bodies of work in a li’l over a year.
And yet hip-hop fans are hesitant to place DaBaby, Roddy Ricch, Megan Thee Stallion, and Lil Baby in that intangible space near Drake, Cole, and Kendrick (and tbh Minaj should be here too). The young crew has been consistent over the past 2-3 years with social media reach, fan engagement, fat streaming numbers, multiple gold/platinum certifications, and impact on the culture. And we haven’t even talked about Travis and Future who have been putting up big shots since 2015.
At a certain point in XXL history, we just kept returning to icons: Biggie, Jay-Z, and Nas. We had this blogger, though, Sickamore — who today is Travis Scott’s A+R mastermind — who wrote a 2006 post about how hip-hop should focus on Southern heavyweights, T.I., Jeezy and Lil Wayne ⤵️
seriously though, as we are seeing daily with many of the protests, the youth is at the front. And DaBaby ain’t lettin up. Looks like a “Rock Star” remix is on the way. His new verse focuses on police brutality. Let’s goooooo.
top billin’:
once again, Drake has his focus on our George Floyd case
“[the doctors] were not happy. Everybody said, ‘You fucked up. You lost 10 years, bro....They said about a third of my brain’s dead at this juncture.” Drake’s right hand man behind the boards, Noah “40” Shebib grants a rare interview. It’s an excellent piece by Charles Holmes and 40 talks about on his career and lifetime battle with multiple sclerosis, as well as the Pusha-T diss and he even ranks The Boy’s catalogue. In order: So Far Gone, Take Care, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, Scorpion, Nothing Was The Same, Views, Thank Me Later.
⬇️ attending a George Floyd ceremony, Bun B spoke to CNN about his respect for Stephen Jackson and the need for Black kids to feel they can prosper in more ways than music or sports ⬇️
below find the official video of Wayne’s collaboration with Migos’ Takeoff from The Funeral (Young Money/Universal Republic) ⤵️
allow me to introduce myself:
Biggs told us this guy was special, but man! Brooklyn’s rising star, SAINt JHN is now in your top ten with 2016’s “Roses” ⏬
⬇️ this Imanbek remix fueled it internationally. And now JHN has a remix with Future too ⏬
allow me to reintroduce myself:
Fort Worth, Texas singer, Leon Bridges is far from a rookie (his 2015 debut album, Coming Home was Grammy-nominated). But his music hasn’t really hit my radar until now. Featuring Terrace Martin, Leon’s latest song is inspired by the death of George Floyd and is the soothing soul we need right now.
for the sport of it:
the Portland Trailblazers’ Damian Lillard can’t leave rap alone. No drums needed, D.O.L.L.A. vents acapella on the state of America.
what more can I say:
Not all interviews are masterpieces. I’d like to take another crack at it ⤵️
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Danyel Smith + Elliott Wilson