TMZ Hip Hop - Page 50

Gospel music royalty Yolanda Adams has nothing but love for Kanye West after he recently cleaned up at the 2022 Billboard Awards with 6 Gospel trophies.

We linked up with Yolanda outside SiriusXM Monday in NYC, and picked her brain about Ye taking home the artist, album and song trophies in both the Top Christian and Top Gospel categories

Despite not having a parental advisory sticker, ‘Donda’ was received as more of a hip hop album, but Yolanda (Billboard's Top Gospel Artist of the Decade in '09) says she loves Ye’s music, even if it doesn't cater to traditional church.

Given his age and longevity, Yolanda feels Ye's pulling in a new generation of young listeners who might not know about his past Gospel synergy -- like his 2004 hit "Jesus Walks," which he and Yolanda performed together that year at the BET Awards.

Yolanda's also putting a spotlight on the church with her role in the new BET+ series "Kingdom Business" -- a scripted drama that goes behind the scenes of the gospel music industry.

Travis Scott is being sued over another incident at a concert ... he's being blamed for inciting a stampede during one of his performances at Rolling Loud.

According to the lawsuit, obtained by TMZ, police told Travis to stop his 2019 gig at Rolling Loud in Miami because the crowd was getting out of control, but Travis ignored cops and instead riled up his fans even more.

A woman who says she was injured at the concert, Marchelle Love, is suing Travis and others ... claiming multiple stampedes broke out during Travis' set, resulting in folks in the crowd suffocating, losing consciousness, fighting, and being trampled.

Love claims Travis was aware and could even see people were being hurt in the stampede and did nothing to stop it. She says he ignored multiple warnings from security and police about toning down his performance, leading to a stampede where her leg was shattered in the scrum.

In the docs, she says Travis should have known better ... not only because there were other stampedes at Rolling Loud the night before, but also because his shows had a history of getting out of hand.

As you know ... Travis is also facing a ton of lawsuits for the deadly Astroworld festival, where 10 people died.

We reached out to Travis' camp ... so far no word back.

Kanye West is breaking his social media silence to let folks know what he's been cooking up ... a new design for McDonald's packaging.

That's right. Kanye posted about his new business venture, Monday, on Instagram ... after being ghosted from the platform for the last few months.

He posted a photo of the potentially new design and wrote, "Ye teams up with legendary Muji industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa to reimagine McDonald’s packaging" ... just after posting an IG story that said, "Next week it's the fries".

BTW, the fries line is an ode to Ye's verse in his song "Gold Digger" where he raps, "He got that ambition, baby, look at his eyes. This week he moppin' floors, next week it's the fries."

As we've reported, Ye was spotted out in Tokyo with his girlfriend Chaney Jones earlier this month ... so this might explain the reason for the visit.

TMZ broke the story, Kanye was suspended from Instagram back in March after his attacks on Pete Davidson, Kim Kardashian and a racist post aimed at Trevor Noah.

Freddie Gibbs knows he's swimming in dangerous waters sometimes -- when it comes to stirring up feuds in hip hop -- but he's openly choosing to go that route ... a statement that turned out to be pretty prophetic.

Gangsta Gibbs is set to be the first guest on the Paramount+ series “ Yo! MTV Raps” which premieres on Tuesday, May 24, via the streaming service.

When asked by hosts Conceited and DJ Diamond Kuts about the nature of his constant Internet beefs -- which most recently include DJ Akademiks and Gunna -- Freddie admitted he loves hip hop pundits, and the hijinks of trash-talking … claiming no one was going to get hurt or get punched.

Mind you, this interview was shot a couple weeks ago ... before Freddie got into that real-life Royal Rumble in Buffalo!!! Soooo, his prediction of no one getting hurt was a bit off the mark.

TMZ broke the story … Freddie was eating at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Benny The Butcher’s hood when all-out chaos ensued and what seems like 20 or so people joined the melee.

Freddie got lumped up pretty good, but still managed to perform that evening to keep his Space Rabbit Tour going strong.

Fetty Wap is counting his lucky stars this morning ... after a mid-air power failure turned his flight into a nightmare.

The "Trap Queen" rapper hinted on his Instagram stories he was coming off a successful show in Charleston, SC when he shared a pretty scary video as the aircraft he was riding outta town was left in virtual darkness.

After surviving the blackout -- he says they got on a different flight -- Fetty made a Tesla joke to lighten the mood, referring to airline staff saying they needed to "plug-in" the plane to make repairs.

Following a successful landing, Fetty went out of his way to thank his well-wishers and shame a troll who predicted he'd die in the plane crash.

Fetty’s latest travel woes come after he and his legal team fought in court for him to even be allowed to tour following his arrest on federal drug charges.

Gunna could be looking at a long time behind bars before his trial, a judge just denied the rapper bond and set his trial date for January 2023.

Gunna was in Fulton County Court in Georgia Monday where a judge ruled he be held without bond ... meaning it's possible he could sit in a cell for the next 6 months.

Prosecutors argued Gunna is one of the shot callers for the "YSL Gang" — the 28-member group that stands accused of being responsible for "50 murders" — and can command the troops to commit violence on demand.

According to Billboard reporter Jewel Wicker, Gunna's trial won't happen until January 2023. It's possible his legal team can try again for bond, but things are looking tough. He plead not guilty to all alleged involvement in the RICO charges.

Flavor Flav is making monthly child support payments for his 3-year-old son, but he's still got a pretty big balance owed to his baby mama.

According to legal docs, obtained by TMZ, Flav found out in 2019, shortly after little Jordan was born, that he was the dad, with the help of a DNA test.

Fast forward to 2021 ... Flav and the baby's mother, Kate Gammell -- his former manager -- were hashing out a child support agreement and agreed he would pay $3,000 a month going forward. No problem here .... Flav's been making the monthly payments.

Thing is ... by the time he started paying, Jordan was already 2 years old, and Kate had incurred various expenses, including medical, that she wanted Flav to pay. As part of the child support agreement, Flav said he would pay the baby's expenses for the first 2 years, totaling $78,704.

He was supposed to make his first payment of the $78k last month, but according to Kate's family, the deadline came and went and she didn't get the loot.

Flav tells TMZ ... he fully intends to pay the $78k, and is working with an accountant to straighten out his finances. Flav makes it clear ... he's making the $3,000 monthly child support payments. He's also paying down her $100,000 in attorney's fees -- he's paid $40k already.

FF adds ... he's doing his very best to provide for and be there for the son he loves.

Travis Scott still has the golden touch, or at least a VERY loyal group of fans, because his first merchandise drop since Astroworld just went crazy online.

Travis released a new collab Friday with pants, jackets, shirts and vests -- but it's the two pairs of Travis Scott Air Trainer 1's that really had fans in a frenzy, trying to score some of their own.

In fact, the hype was so wild for the shoe, Travis and his team needed to create a raffle to make everything fair.

A source close to Trav tells us more than a million people signed up for the raffle for the shoes in just 30 mins ... proving he's obviously still got it when it comes to hawking merch.

Security and the ability to prevent bots from scoring a pair was also a must for TS and team -- we're told they worked with web developers to set up anti-bot protection -- as his drops are some of the most heavily poached online.

This isn't it for Travis and Nike ... we've also heard there's rumblings of additional Nike releases next week, including an Airmax next Friday.

Of course, Travis has also had insanely successful releases with McDonald's, Fortnite and his Cacti hard seltzer flew off the shelves when it was released.

When DJ Akademiks talks, hip hop pays attention -- which is why he joined us on today's episode of "TMZ Hip Hop" to drop jewels and share his intel on some big stories.

Top order of business was the Migos breakup rumors, which got gassed up like a Chevron when Quavo got real quiet at LAX as he was peppered with questions about feuding with Offset.

Big Ak tells TMZHH he actually spoke to Offset just the other day, and while there might be some tense feelings ... he doesn't think any "beef" will escalate to a full scale split. His best guess is Quavo and Takeoff are stirring up buzz to promote their new song "Hotel Lobby."

As one of the most trusted voices in hip hop media, Akademiks has nearly 5 million followers, just on Instagram, plus his Spotify-backed podcast "Off The Record."

That being said, ... he doesn't consider himself an actual journalist -- and he explained the real reason he caught so much flak for a recent story about the Megan Thee Stallion and Tory Lanez case.

Of course, we couldn't let Ak go without getting him to weigh in on who's the best artist, so far, of 2022 ... and we're not mad at his pick.

Tune into the rest of the Akademiks interview above and hit your local affiliate to get the show in your area in addition to these hot spots below!

Nipsey Hussle's family is making sure the cannabis empire he'd started to build still comes to fruition, despite his tragic death.

On Friday, the estate dropped a new documentary titled "The Marathon Cultivation" which chronicles the grind Nip and his brother Samiel Asghedom endured in creating their favored Marathon OG marijuana strain.

The doc also serves as the official announcement of the upcoming opening of their dispensary The Marathon (Collective), which opens on June 18 in Los Angeles.

TMZ Hip Hop attended the screening last week … Sam greeted the crowd, detailing some upcoming plans -- including getting Nip a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this summer.

All Money In artists J. Stone, Pacman da Gunman and BH -- along with some other family members -- were also at the event.

The 40-minute film features a well-placed cameo from Snoop Dogg, who sang the product's praises when Nipsey hand-delivered him a special package.

The Action Jackson nickname for Lamar Jackson just got a whole other meaning -- as in Lights Camera Action -- 'cause the Baltimore Ravens star just made an appearance in a music video with Kodak Black!!!

The quarterback's cameo came about two minutes into the vid for Loe Shimmy's rap song, "Bounty," which features Kodak on the track.

In the flick that was released Thursday night, you can see Jackson rockin' gold chains and wearing an all-black fit while chillin' with Kodak in a hotel room.

Loe also pays homage to the former NFL MVP in the video by showing a shrine of the 25-year-old signal-callers helmets and framed jerseys.

Jackson was hyped about the appearance ... sharing it on his IG and saying, "Motion Boyz 🚀🚀"

Of course, the guest star role shouldn't surprise many ... Jackson and Kodak go way back, growing up together in Pompano Beach, Florida. The two actually went to the same elementary school!

In fact, when Kodak was serving a 46-month sentence in federal prison back in 2019, LJ reached out to then-President Donald Trump to plead for an early release.

"Hey Donald Trump, my friend Kodak Black deserves to be commuted," Jackson said on Twitter last January.

"The system punished him way to hard for a paperwork crime #freekodak."

The life, legacy and death of rap star XXXTENTACION is the subject of an upcoming documentary, and his loved ones say it will unpeel another layer of his mystique.

We chopped it up with X's mother Cleopatra Bernard and manager Solomon Sobande in NYC outside a screening for "Look At Me: XXXTENTACION" ... and his mom admits the film isn't designed for image control.

Cleopatra tells us the film's goal is more to show people, like her son, do make mistakes and are only human.

She also admits she wished they had included documents alleging X's girlfriend was not pregnant at the time of the domestic abuse incident he copped to ... clearly one of those mistakes to which his mother's referring.

The doc is directed by acclaimed filmmaker Sabaah Folayan and hits Hulu on May 26.

Cleo screened the film for a select few rappers -- Fivio Foreign, 21 Savage, Tory Lanez and 50 Cent. -- and she says they all gave it a '10.' She adds that Fiddy agrees the docs regarding X's gf should have made the final cut.

Quavo and Offset are on the outs again, and this time it means Migos is done as a group -- at least that's the online buzz, and Quavo isn't doing anything to put out that fire.

Huncho was at LAX Thursday when a photog asked him about reports the trio is breaking up, and his response is ... interesting. All the talk about Migos' demise stems from 2 things: Quavo's new Offset-less project and a bunch of social media UNfollows.

He was happy to talk about one of those things — namely, his and Takeoff's new track, "Hotel Lobby." The new duo's taking the name Unc & Phew, due to their family ties — but Quavo deftly dodged the topic of Offset.

ICYMI ... Offset and Cardi B stopped following Quavo and Takeoff on Instagram, and Quavo stopped unfollowed Offset and Cardi. Takeoff's like Switzerland: he's still following everyone.

So, is this real beef? Quavo isn't saying, which makes us lean toward this being a skillful marketing scheme for Unc & Phew.

The "TMZ Hip Hop" crew tackled the potential break-up news on Thursday's episode, and if it's true they found the silver lining ... for Cardi and Offset's fans, anyway.

Check out full episodes of the show on these stations:

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Bobby Shmurda is dancing for joy ... literally, now that the New York State Senate has signed off on the "Rap Music on Trial" bill.

The newly proposed law prevents cops and prosecutors from using rappers' lyrics against them in court cases. The bill has been championed by the likes of Jay-Z, Killer Mike, Fat Joe, Kelly Rowland and several other artists.

Although the new law would be too little too late for Bobby -- he served 6 years in prison for weapons possession -- the topic hits close to home for him. The lyrics of his big 2014 hit record "Hot N***a" made him a target for law enforcement.

While Bobby is excited for things to come, he really hopes to see the rest of the country adopt similar measures ... especially in Georgia, where Young Thug, Gunna and 26 other YSL members are fighting RICO gang charges.

Legal matters aside, Bobby's extremely hyped -- you really gotta see his energy -- about having a lock on hip hop this summer. He doubled down on what he'd previously promised during a chat with the "TMZ Hip Hop" crew.

His new visual for "They Don't Know" is out now and his EP that's dropping next month will feature his GS9 Records brother, Rowdy Rebel. On top of that, he has an LP coming later in the summer.

Master P says no one should be behind bars for low-level marijuana offenses, and he's not just blowing smoke ... he's actively trying to get people freed from prisons across the U.S.

The music icon joined us on "TMZ Live" Thursday and told us about his upcoming benefit concert for Friday's "Cannabis Freedom Day" ... and why more states need to change their drug laws.

Master P says there are way too many people locked up for possession of as little as $5 to $100 worth of pot -- in his home state of Louisiana and elsewhere -- and he says it's unfair and is wreaking havoc on entire communities.

To bring awareness to "Cannabis Freedom Day," Master P's No Limit Reunion Tour is performing in Norfolk, VA ... where he's taking the stage along with Mystikal, Silkk, Mia X, Fiend, Mr. Serv-on, Choppa Style, Mercedes and Juvenile.

Master P says he wants to put more pressure on states, like Louisiana, to follow California's lead and release people incarcerated for cannabis convictions while changing laws in the process. There have been over 60,000 people released in Cali, and with weed becoming decriminalized in 34 states, Master P wants to see more offenders get a second chance.

Chris Brown wants Rihanna and A$AP Rocky to know he wishes them nothing but the best in welcoming their baby boy to the world.

Just about an hour after TMZ broke the story RiRi and A$AP were proud new parents, Brown took to IG to write "Congratulations" with prayer hands, a heart and a pregnant woman emoji. While he didn't name Rihanna specifically, it's pretty obvious to tell who he was referring to.

As we told you first ... the couple's baby boy was born in Los Angeles on May 13, we don't yet know the baby's name.

Of course, Chris and Rihanna dated from 2007 to 2009 until things got violent. During an argument in February of '09, Brown attacked Rihanna, leaving her face bloodied and bruised to the point she had to be hospitalized.

Brown turned himself in to the police shortly after the incident and months later pled guilty to a felony assault charge. He accepted a plea deal that included community labor, 5 years probation and domestic violence counseling. There was also a 5-year restraining order put in place.