Lil Wayne has addressed the killing of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man who died with the knee of police officer Derek Chauvin on his neck. In a conversation with Fat Joe on Instagram Live on Friday, Wayne said, “If we want to place the blame on anybody, it should be ourselves for not doing more than what we think we’re doing.” The controversial remarks came after a conversation about the time a police officer saved Wayne’s life. At the age of 12, the precocious rapper discharged a hand-gun and shot himself in the chest. Robert Hooper, an off-duty cop whom Weezy referred to as “Uncle Bob,” appeared on the scene. He said that, on the way to the hospital, Cooper “sat in the backseat with me and held me in his arms.” At the conclusion of that story, Fat Joe asked Lil Wayne about the death of...
Last year, Taylor Swift vowed to be more politically active, especially during the 2020 Election cycle. Keeping her promise, the pop megastar has just eviscerated Donald Trump in her very first public tweet to mention him by name. “After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence?” she wrote on Twitter on Friday. “‘When the looting starts the shooting starts’??? “We will vote you out in November. @realdonaldtrump” After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence? ‘When the looting starts the shooting starts’??? We will vote you out in November. @realdonaldtrump — Taylor Swift (@taylorswi...
John Boyega is a man who stands by his words. Struck by the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, the Star Wars actor tweeted out, “I really fucking hate racists.” When confronted by other Twitter users about his seemingly unassailable opinion, Boyega refused to apologize. It began when Boyega posted a tribute to Floyd, the unarmed black man who was killed when a cop pinned his neck to the ground while he was handcuffed. “This just burns,” the actor wrote. “Seems to be a never ending cycle. The murderers need to be charged severely. Even in the face of death this man was given zero empathy.” In a separate follow-up tweet, Boyega shared his aforementioned opinions on racists. And because the Twitterverse is a swirling netherworld of echoing contempt, people actually to...
Lana Del Rey took to Instagram on Friday to announce a new album and poetry collection — but the message was largely lost in the context of the rest of the post. The singer drew the Internet’s ire for framing a rebuff against critics by comparing herself to other female singers, mostly naming women of color like Doja Cat and Beyoncé, “who have had number ones with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, fucking, cheating, etc.” Meanwhile, Del Rey argued, she is met with allegations of glamorizing abuse “when in reality I’m just a glamorous person singing about the realities of what we are all now seeing are very prevalent abusive relationships all over the world,” The pop star insisted that modern feminism should allow for her point of view, too: “There has to be a place...
In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first female presidential candidate to be backed by a major US party. Gender was not surprisingly a hot button issue throughout the Clinton vs. Donald Trump election, dividing households nationwide, but longtime film director Paul Feig believes that the vitriol against Clinton had a substantial impact beyond politics: he blames the anti-Hillary movement for the backlash he received for his female-led Ghostbusters reboot. Speaking on Jess Cagle’s SiriusXM show last week, Feig said, “I think some really brilliant author, researcher or sociologist, needs to write a book about 2016 and how intertwined we were with Hillary [Clinton] and the anti-Hillary movement.” Officially titled Ghostbusters: Answer the Call, the reboot hit theaters Summer 2016, just ...
Dr. Dre (British GQ) No wonder Dr. Dre doesn’t post much online. In a new interview with Jimmy Iovine in British GQ, the prolific rapper said he thinks social media has “destroyed” the artist mystique by offering fans too much access into the life of musicians, reports NME. Dre and Iovine’s conversation primarily revolved around how digital fame plays a role in an artist’s success nowadays. “I probably would’ve hated social media when I was coming up,” said Dre. “There’s a certain mystique that gets destroyed. I like the mystique. I like waiting. I don’t need anybody to know where I am every minute or what I’m doing. Or what I’m about to do… There’s a certain mystique that came along with music that was entertaining to wait to see what was about to happen.” From there, Iovine took Dre...
It’s been a day for Lana Del Rey. In an Instagram post on Thursday morning, Del Rey announced the September 5th release of her new album and name-checked major pop stars of color like Beyoncé and Cardi B in a lengthy digression on the glamorization of abuse and feminism’s place in pop music. Shocker: It didn’t go down so well, eliciting all sorts of backlash from fans and passersby alike. Del Rey has since responded to the vitriol by replying to comments on her own Instagram post. To further broadcast her sentiments, Del Rey then republished her own comments in an Instagram story. Here’s the first comment: Bro. This is sad to make it about a WOC issue when I’m talking about my favorite singers. I could’ve literally said anyone but I picked my favorite fucking people. And this is the proble...
Lana Del Rey has been teasing a spoken word record for the last few months, but apparently she has even more up her sleeve. In an Instagram post early Thursday, she announced she will release a new album on September 5th, the follow-up to last year’s stellar Norman Fucking Rockwell!. Del Rey also appeared to shade major pop stars of color like Beyoncé and Cardi B in a lengthy discussion about the glamorization of abuse and feminism’s place in pop music. Del Rey’s social media post was predominantly focused on rejecting the criticisms that her music glamorizes abuse. “I’m fed up with female writers and alt singers saying that I glamorize abuse when in reality I’m just a glamorous person singing about the realities of what we are all now seeing are very prevalent abusive relationships all ov...
It’s true that Nine Inch Nails had to cancel their fall tour, but it’s also true that the tour already happened, totally kicked ass, and “every single comment on the internet about it was positive.” No, we’re not having a psychotic break (our hydroxychloroquine hasn’t even kicked in) it’s just that with a new line of tour merch, Trent Reznor is leaning in to the national mood of alternate facts and fake news, while taking another shot at his old enemy, “puking” Ted Cruz. NIN are selling collectibles from their “2020 Black and Cold and Infinite Tour” — which, just to be clear, really did get cancelled. In the last few days a couple of choice items appeared on the Nails’ website, and while the tote bag and wall flag are perfectly fine in their own right, the real action is in the descri...
Prior to the pandemic and global lockdown, the surviving members of Pink Floyd held a peace summit to discuss a re-release of their 1977 album, Animals, and other issues that have long caused inner-band tensions. Things didn’t go as planned, however: Roger Waters seemed to insinuate that drummer Nick Mason sided with David Gilmour. “I actually suggested going democratic. I said, ‘Why don’t we just have a vote? There’s only three of us…’ No, no, they wouldn’t have that. God knows why,” Waters recounted in a recent interview with Rolling Stone. Waters said the experience reminded him of why he left Pink Floyd in the first place and quickly dismissed the idea of a post-COVID reunion as something that “would be fucking awful.” He added, “Would I trade my liberty for those chains? No fucki...
For his 60th birthday, U2 frontman Bono curated a list of “60 Songs That Saved My Life”. As part of the project, he penned individual letters to each of the artists behind his songs of choice. Among those receiving the a handwritten note from Bono was Kanye West, whose Yeezus cut “Black Skinhead” sounded like nothing [Bono had] ever heard before.” Bono was actually in the SNL house the night “Black Skinhead” debuted in 2013. “I was a hundred feet away from your feet,” the letter begins. “Your eyes were shut so as not to be distracted from the words you had just written around the corner.” The letter quotes some favorite lyrics, and suggests that with this performance, “It felt like hip hop wanted the black leather jacket back from rock ‘n roll…. and the rock ‘n roll sil...
When Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump used a reference from The Matrix to promote conservative policies, Matrix co-creator Lilly Wachowski chimed in to say, “Fuck both of you.” It all began earlier today, when Elon Musk tweeted out the words, “Take the red pill.” On its face, this is an allusion to an early scene in 1999’s The Matrix. The character of Neo (Keanu Reeves) is offered a choice between a red pill and a blue pill, which represent facing reality or returning to the pleasant illusions of a computer simulation. But the phrase has accumulated charged political meanings over the years. In many internet communities, “taking the red pill” is a euphemism for a conservative political awakening, and TheRedPill is the name of a notorious misogynist subreddit. Right-wing figures in...