The Boombox: Weekly Bangerz & Hip Hop News
Written by Lottey Willshire, Martin McConnell, and Jack Doonar.
With so much news and super-hot tunes dropping all the time it’s pretty hard to keep track of what’s going down in the pop and rap worlds! So we thought we’d save you the headache and publish a weekly rap-up (sorry for the pun) of the most important news and best new bangers, “The Boombox”. If you can’t check out AAA daily, hit us up every Friday for the news you need to know and the drops you need to hear!
Oh, and here’s the best new tracks according to us – have a listen while you read + follow the playlist & AAA on Spotify!
In this edition of The Boombox: Lady Gaga, DJ Shadow, Running Touch, Zack De La Rocha, Outkast, Nelly, Xylo Aria, Travis Scott, Beck, Drake & Kanye, Tiaryn, and Chance the Rapper.
Good Guy Chance The Rapper
If you didn’t like Chance The Rapper before you’ll love him now! The Chicago MC has just done the best deed ever ahead of his upcoming Magnificent Coloring Day Festival appearance. Set to feature performances by fellow artists Srillex, Lil’ Wayne, and Tyler the Creator, the Festival (undoubtedly) sold-out a while ago. But as it goes with big events, people have been selling their tickets online for up to three times the original selling price, the things people do to make a buck!
Chance The Rapper quickly caught on to the online shenanigans and decided to buy back almost 2000 floor tickets from scalpers to sell back to his fans at a fair price. He made the rightfully reclaimed tickets available on his website for US $45-$75 and posted his good deed on Twitter.
For all the Chance fans out there, the legend himself will be heading our way very soon as he’s set to headline at Origin NYE Festival, Beyond The Valley, and Field Day, but until then sink into a Chance trance with Cocoa Butter Kisses!
Tiaryn’s Debut Single Is An Instant Winner
Fresh out of Melbourne with her debut single Cement Love, Tiaryn is sure to get hearts pumping with her groovy pop vibes and the funky dance moves in the accompanying music video.
A blend of strong percussive beats and melodic chords drive the song along, peaking at the chorus when the echoey vocals and luscious electronics come together with all the other elements. With a mixture of sampled soundscapes, pop-driven melodies and eerie instrumentation, Cement Love will take you for a ride on a sonic rollercoaster. Check it our below!
Yeezy x Drizzy Newz
Kanye West has officially confirmed what we’ve all been hoping! The hip hop icon recently confirmed in an interview with Vogue the Drake-Yeezy collaboration rumour is in fact true! “We’re just working on music, working on a bunch of music together, just having fun going into the studio…we’re working on an album, so there’s some exciting things coming up soon”, Yeezy said in the interview.
Both Drake and Yeezy have been teasing us for months, installing a cryptic billboard in Los Angeles which showed Drake’s OVO emblem alongside West’s GOOD Music record label logo, and even hyping up fans at their concerts about a collective project. Although the pair have previously worked closely together on their music, this will be their first fully collaborative project as a duo.
Both Kanye and Drake are no strangers to topping the charts with their collaborations. Drake’s collaborative album ‘What A Time To Be Alive’ with fellow rapper Future soared to number one on the Billboard 200 last year, and who can forget Kanye and Jay Z’s ‘Watch The Throne’ in 2011!?
Kanye’s currently busy on the road for his ‘Saint Pablo’ world tour while Drake is staying in the headlines as he recently bought the house next door, a reference to the lyrics in his track Where Ya At where he raps “I’ll buy the neighbours’ house if they complain about the noise”.
Unfortunately, there’s no news yet about when the pair will drop their album, but at least there’s now some light at the end of the tunnel! If you’re as impatient as we are, get hyped and watch Drake bring out Kanye West at 2016’s OVO Fest below!
Read why this collab is probably a good thing HERE and Cub Sport’s Like A Version cover of Ultralight Beam HERE
Giddy Up! Beck Drops Insane Video for Wow
Grammy award winning artist Beck has unveiled a new joyous, yet completely confusing music video for his recent mammoth pop gem Wow.
It’s not often you come across horse riding, tiny tot dancers shaking what they don’t have, bizarre animations, and a man sitting in the middle of the road, all alongside Beck dancing on what we assume to be a merge lane on a major highway. YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT!
Travis Scott New Album + Listen Out Headlining Set
Houston rapper Travis Scott has just dropped his highly anticipated sophomore studio album ‘Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight’, and it’s a must listen! The album features Scott’s versatile rapping and vocal skills coupled with his signature trap soul sounds.
The album differs from Scott’s previous work and carries a serious undertone despite the dynamic tracks, and features guest vocals including Bryson Tiller, Andre 3000, Kendrick Lamar, Kid Cudi, Young Thug, The Weeknd, and Swizz Beats. ‘Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight’ stays true to Scott’s luxurious and melodramatic creative process, as soulful story-telling and warm synths resonate throughout.
The opening track the end sets the tone perfectly through auto-tuned vocals, syncopated raps, and percussive rhythms. Further down the track list is sdp interlude which plays with clever melodies and continues to create his signature hazy trap soul vibes. Goosebumps is a stand out track as its lyrical beginning transforms when Kendrick Lamar’s verse replicates the funky vibes featured on his album ‘Untitled Unmastered’. One of the last tracks on the album, guidance gives Scott’s signature style a twist with its up-tempo beat and slightly Latin melodic patterns.
Scott made his debut in 2013 with the release of his mixtape ‘Owl Pharaoh’ which featured Scott’s breakthrough track Upper Echelon feat. 2 Chainz and T.I, and his first studio album ‘Rodeo’ featured chart topping songs 3500 and Antidote. Travis Scott will make his Australian debut later this month headlining Listen Out and along with two sideshows!
Travis Scott Tour Dates
TUES 27 SEPT
170 Russell, Melbourne
WED 28 SEPT
Metro Theatre, Sydney
Get Tickets HERE
Listen Out Info + Tickets HERE
Xylo Aria Drops Amazing Noir Video For Paradigm
Xylo Aria’s music video for Paradigm is a black and white chaotic mix of burning photos, a murderous bashing, and a masked cult. It has dark undertones, an unpredictable storyline, and an intense dance scene we can’t get enough of!
There’s a super edgy dance scene that logically shouldn’t work with the style of the clip but instead it adds another layer to the beautifully tragic timeline within the video. Check it out below!
Help Nelly Get Straight Outta Debt With Hot In Here
Photo from Music Feeds
It seems it doesn’t always pay to be in the rap game! 50 Cent, Vanilla Ice, Fat Joe are famous bankrupt cases, and now it seems Nelly is the latest Emcee to be extremely strapped-for-cash. The artist behind Hot In Here has been hit with a $2.4 million tax lien…how the heck did that happen?
Anyway, it looks like YOU along with Nelly’s global fanbase can help the rapper pay his tax dues by streaming his biggest hit to date, over and over again. If he achieves over 400,000,000 streams Spin thinks he’ll be able to raise enough to pay off the tax hit. The math currently is if he earns between $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream, fans will need to clock up between 287,176,547 or +400,000,000 streams.
The track has currently been streamed 60 millions times on Spotify, meaning we all need to dig deep to #SaveNelly
Outcast Back Spittin’ It Live
While we were lucky enough to see the legendary duo of Andre 3000 and Big Boi aka Outkast back at 2014’s Splendour In The Grass, since then the pair have been on an frighteningly long hiatus. But not to worry, the pair reunited for the first time in almost two years this week, playing with almost the entire Dungeon Family (a collective which has homed Cee Lo Green, Outkast, Future to name a few) in their hometown of Atlanta.
Snapping through the group’s hits, So Fresh, So Clean, SpottieOttieDopaliscious, and Hootie Hoo among others, the pair even delivered their famed verses with collective-mate Goodie Mob, on the tracks Dirty South and Black Ice.
Ensuring this really was a Family event, even Run The Jewels’ Killer Mike managed to make an appearance, joining Outkast for the track which was his original break, The Whole World. All we’re hoping for now is Andre and Big Boi decide that they have one more world tour up their sleeves and head down under once again!
Zack De La Rocha (Finally) Announces Debut Album
While Zack De La Rocha’s band mates have been busy with their supergroup, The Prophets Of Rage (alongside Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Cypress Hill’s B Real), it turns out Zack has actually had something up his sleeve. It’s been an extremely long time coming, the Californian announced he was working on a debut album back in 2000 after leaving the legendary Rage Against The Machine. But 16 years later we actually have something, and man was it worth the wait!
Recorded this year, Digging For Windows is produced by the legendary Run The Jewels member El-P, therefore we can assume that this track is a result of their past collaboration, the brutal Close Your Eyes and Count To Fuck for ‘Run The Jewels 2’.
Either way, El’s electronic and experimental production is a heavy and perfect fit for De La Rocha’s vicious, metal influenced delivery. The only thing that makes this better is that “there is more where that came from”, and that according to El, the album will arrive next year.
https://twitter.com/therealelp/status/773885755210862595?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Running Touch Drops Funky Tune ft. Ira Horace
Aussie electronic new-comer Running Touch has just dropped his funky new dance track Aubrey. The artist teamed up with rapper Ira Horace, who features with some smooth verses in the killer new track!
The up-tempo track can only be described as a fusion between Michael Jackson pop and Klangarussell production, tied together with a dreamy soundscape similar to Flume. The contrasting vocal dynamics flow perfectly as the two producers paired up to give us soulful melodies matched with husky rhymes.
As Running Touch’s first collaboration, he decided to go big or go home while “recalling that 80s funk aura and injecting a new age reliability through rap”. Check out the track below!
DJ Shadow To Drop Remix Album
It’s been 20 years since DJ Shadow’s incredible debut, the almost entirely sampled ‘Endtroducing’, and to celebrate he’s been hard at work on a new remix album. Revealed on the ‘Talkhouse Music Podcast’ alongside producer Clams Casino, Shadow announced that not only Clams would join, but famed Scottish G.O.O.D. Music producer Hudson Mohawke.
“This year is the twentieth anniversary of ‘Entroducing’…so curating this remix album, I wanted to provide another layer of perspective on the record and invite my current favourites and a few favourites from other eras to do remixes,” said Shadow.
No doubt this leaves many on the edge of their seat, but surely with Shadow overlooking the project there’s no chance it will tarnish the original. Clams Casino and Hudson are the confirmed producers so far, and both have offered their praise.
“I mean I’m really honoured to, y’know, be a part of [this remix album]. [The track I picked to remix] sounded like something that I would just pick out and sample otherwise, you know, so I immediately knew just the mood of the original track and stuff and also that there’s so many different parts to use,” said Clams.
Honoured to be involved in 1 of the records that shaped my career. #Endtroducing saw the first tour at 10 years old https://t.co/wjlVgeO8H6
— Hudson Mohawke (@HudMo) August 2, 2016
A few months ago DJ Shadow premiered the HudMo remix at a show and luckily we have some live fan filmed footage to give us an insight into the upcoming project. For more info, listen to Shadow and Clams’ full interview here HERE and checkout the footage below!
