TMZ Hip Hop - Page 50

Diddy shocked the world when he revealed he had recently welcomed a new baby girl into the world ... and now we've learned more about the baby's mother.

According to the baby's birth certificate, Love Sean Combs was born October 15 in Newport Beach, CA. Diddy is listed as the father and 28-year-old Dana Tran is the mother. Dana goes by Dana Tee on most of her socials ... though it appears her Instagram was recently deleted.

Dana works in the cyber security industry and appears to be a SoCal native.

It's unclear exactly when Diddy and Dana met, or the extent of their relationship ... but obviously Diddy isn't hiding the fact he's a new dad.

He wrote Saturday, "I'm so blessed to welcome my baby girl Love Sean Combs to the world. Mama Combs, Quincy, Justin, Christian, Chance, D'Lila, Jessie and myself all love you so much! God is the Greatest!"

21 Savage couldn't fully enjoy the moment he and Drake had performing during Lil Baby's friends and fam concert inside State Farm Arena over the weekend.

The "Her Loss" co-star surprised his hometown audience during Drake's performance of their song "Rich Flex" -- and nailed his cameo but after the show, he admitted he was lamenting the absence of several ATL superstars.

Despite Future, Chris Brown, Lil Yachty and several other high-profile rappers turning out for Lil Baby's extended birthday bash ...  21 said the event didn't feel the same without the incarcerated YSL members Young Thug and Gunna and added an extra heartbreak for Lil Keed and Takeoff ... who both died this year.

Takeoff's Migos brother Offset has also been coping with the pain ... recently dedicating The Jackson 5's "Never Can Say Goodbye" to the slain star while performing at the SteppinOut Music Festival in Bengaluru, India on Sunday.

Desiigner appears to have reconsidered his decision to quit rap following Takeoff's murder ... and is using his new song to once again distance himself from the Future comparisons that have plagued him since his career began.

Over the weekend, Desiigner released the song "Bigger and Bigger" ... an Auto-Tuned blowout that finds the New York-born rapper bragging about his wealth increasing and detailing his past crimes.

Desiigner was obviously peeved by the criticism the song reminded fans of a Future track and used the opportunity to take aim at his critics on TikTok ... captioning the video "When they say I sound like Future" with his new song playing as his nose grew like Pinocchio.

Ironically, Desiigner earned a Billboard No. 1 single before Future when his debut single "Panda" went topped the charts in 2016, but to Desiigner's point ... confusing the two artists at this point doesn't make a ton of sense.

Future recently won Song of the Year with triple-platinum Drake and Tems collaboration "Wait For U," is up for 6 Grammys next year -- and just dumped his song catalog for several million dollars!!!

Desiigner threatened to retire over hip hop's violence ... but is back to rapping about his gang of hitters on the new track.

Too Short is officially getting his flowers from his hometown of Oakland -- he now has a street sign in his honor for his years of community service!!!

The ceremony was a full circle moment … the Bay Area rap legend was honored inside his '84 alma mater Fremont High School, where he was a standout drum player.

As a result, Mayor Libby Schaaf proclaimed December 10 as "Too Short Day" and renamed the stretch of Foothill Boulevard after the legendary rap star.

Oakland OGs Sway Calloway and Mistah F.A.B., who himself just received the key to city, were also on hand to show love -- which Short passionately lobbed back to the people of the Bay, touching on many key points that shaped his globally successful career.

Short's Mount Westmore bandmate Ice Cube also shared some emotional words … crediting the "Blow the Whistle" rapper for creating his own rap lane and bringing hope to the state of California as a whole.

It was Mayor Schaaf's last proclamation in office as her term is ending at the end of the year, but she left Short with some bars of her stating, "You have told the stories of Oakland’s streets, so it’s only right that Oakland gives you a street!!!"

DaBaby's famous song "Rockstar" is a total ripoff, according to a new lawsuit ... because a music producer claims the rapper straight-up jacked his rhythm.

DaBaby is being sued by a music producer with the stage name JuJu Beatz, who claims DaBaby stole the entire beat for his No. 1 song.

According to the lawsuit, obtained by TMZ, JuJu claims he sent DaBaby's camp a musical composition back in 2019, which was then sampled for "Rockstar" without his permission.

In the suit, JuJu claims he sent the beat in a digital file to DaBaby's team ... and he says DaBaby's camp accessed the file more than 40 times between late 2019 and early 2020. "Rockstar" came out in April 2020.

JuJu claims "Rockstar" has earned millions of dollars since it dropped ... but he says he hasn't been compensated for his beat, which he says was sampled illegally.

The music producer says he's tried to resolve the matter without going to court, but DaBaby has been unwilling to "cooperate or accept responsibility for blatant and willful copyright infringement" ... so now he's suing for damages.

Teddy Riley and his Guy bandmates are getting back together for a classic R&B reunion that will take them on the road for what's shaping up to be one of 2023's biggest tours.

We're told it will be a full group reunion for Guy, with Teddy Riley, Aaron and Damion Hall all in, and they're relinking with New Edition is especially epic -- the 2 groups haven't toured together since 2016.

Guy was one of the hottest acts in the early '90s, selling millions of records, but more importantly, helping pioneer the "New Jack Swing" era that later set up hip hop culture to dominate down the line.

As if those 2 acts wouldn't be a big enough draw ... we're told R&B legends Keith Sweat and Tank will also be in the mix, cementing an era of R&B millions hold dear to their hearts. 💘

TMZ Hip Hop recently spoke to Bobby Brown at LAX ... where he initially popped the lid on the tour, and told us why he and the rest of NE's bond will forever be strong.

We're told New Edition will be performing a host of new songs they didn't do on their last tour -- which previously ranked as one of Pollstar Awards Top 10 U.S. tours.

Kanye West apparently finds the idea of Meek Mill being a high-ranking celebrity that's to be taken seriously laughable -- to which Meek says ... hey, at least I still have my wits about me.

The Philly rapper responded to a Clubhouse chat that Ye participated in this weekend -- during which, he mentioned Meek being part of a group of stars whom Kanye suggested were being rallied to reign him in amid his ongoing media appearances.

Ye -- apparently referencing someone else's plan to confront Ye in what sounds like an intervention setting -- name-dropped Diddy and Dave Chappelle ... and then Meek, which made KW laugh out loud and uncontrollably for several seconds.

He added, "What made somebody think Meek Mill could say something to me?" Somebody else on the CH tried defending Meek, saying he's a gangster -- but Ye wasn't buying it.

Welp, MM himself caught wind of the shade ... and he fired back with pretty spicy comments of his own. He took to Twitter Sunday and wrote, "Never lost my mind for fame or money … I still have my family …my people respect me … I’m freeing people from prison… I’m doing community service all month with children up close and personal."

Meek adds, "I’m chilling wit my son and his friends today.. y’all on clubhouse at 50 lol."

Meek and Kanye have been on fairly good terms in the past, having attended the same events and posing in the same shots even. MM has even gone so far as to say recently that he used to find Kanye to be a huge source of inspiration early in his career. Used to ...

French Montana is on top of the world, and it showed as he led a massive Times Square rally to celebrate his homeland of Morocco making World Cup history.

The rapper was a proud cheerleader Saturday evening as he stood on top of scaffolding, waving the Moroccan flag and chanting along with a crowd of thousands who were hyped up about their soccer team defeating Portugal -- sorry Cristiano Ronaldo -- and making it to the World Cup semifinals.

French -- who was born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco until his teen years -- had pure joy written all over his face after watching his Atlas Lions play the Cinderella role.

Morocco is now the first African, and first Arab-speaking country to advance this far in the World Cup tournament -- and they've defeated powerhouse teams like Belgium, Spain, and now Portugal, along the way.

Kanye West may never win another music-related award again, but there's one group that's honoring him with a not-so-flattering title ... "Antisemite of the Year."

After several weeks and nearly 10,000 votes from members online, watchdog group StopAntisemitism has named Ye the most problematic person of 2022 when it comes to the group's mission.

Liora Rez, SA's Executive Director, tells TMZ, "Kanye uses his celebrity platform to push dangerous antisemitic tropes about Jews and power and he refuses to stop. His continuous onslaught of bigoted statements has resulted in horrific antisemitic acts perpetrated by white supremacists, Black Hebrew Israelites, and other fringe groups looking to cause Jews harm."

She continues, "Jew hatred is already out of control in the United States and the last thing we need is a celebrity like Kanye to add fuel to that fire.”

It's not hard to find the evidence backing Kanye's "Antisemite of the Year" victory.

As we reported, it was shortly after he declared he was, "going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE" when a group was spotted hanging a "Kanye is right about the Jews" sign over an L.A. freeway.

Just a few days after that, Kanye told Piers Morgan he only wished harm on Jewish people who did him wrong in music and business deals.

Finally, it was last week on Alex Jones "Infowars" when Kanye declared he loved Hitler, denied parts of the Holocaust and demanded Nazis get hated on less when things really ramped up.

We know Adidas, Balenciaga and some of Kanye's closest friends have all cut ties ... he even lost an honorary degree.

Diddy has added another member to the family ... announcing he's welcomed a baby girl into his life, who really takes after her old man.

The Bad Boy honcho broke the news Saturday, which came out of nowhere -- saying he has a new daughter whom he's effectively named after himself. Diddy writes, "I’m so blessed to welcome my baby girl Love Sean Combs to the world. Mama Combs, Quincy, Justin, Christian, Chance, D’Lila, Jessie and myself all love you so much! God is the Greatest!"

It's unclear when this kid was born, or who the mother is ... Diddy didn't spill those details. But, he's clearly happy about the latest bundle of joy, so we suppose that's all that matters. The baby marks the 7th child of his -- he has 6 other children from different women.

Of course, this is taking the internet by complete surprise ... as no one even seemed to know Diddy was an expecting father of late. We know he's in a polyamorous relationship with Yung Miami -- but there's no suggestion she's the mom, as she hasn't appeared preggo at all.

They were spotted out together as recently as this past week, and YM looks as slim as ever. It's also not entirely clear at this point if Miami was even aware of this child of Diddy's. She responded to a Twitter user who told her to hop on a podcast, as the public has questions.

Her reply was simply a pair of eyeball emojis ... which is pretty telling in and of itself.

We've reached out to Diddy's rep for more clarification ... but so far, haven't heard back. In the meantime -- congrats, Puff.

Fat Joe’s latest round of storytelling has landed him in the crosshairs of Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell … who disagrees with Joe’s recollection of a key Florida rap timeline.

Joe was a guest on Math Hoffa’s “My Expert Opinion” over the summer -- where he claimed to have been the first cosign for future legends Trick Daddy and Pitbull … and spun their early demos into successful career launches -- like the Don he says he is.

Joe also took credit for blowing up his fellow Bronx rapper French Montana — but the 2 Live Crew founder, who just came across the interview, couldn’t stomach the Pitbull and TD comments and dug into his bag of receipts ... which Rick Ross found rather amusing.

He actually commented under Luke's long caption, laughing at his word selection.

Anyway, Luke says it was HE who put Trick Daddy on -- via their 1996 booty-shaking anthem collaboration "Scarred" -- recorded right when TD came home from jail and started his career ... suggesting FJ was full of it for claiming he had discovered him.

The proud Miami native said the same for Pitbull ... noting he signed the Cuban megastar to his Luke Records imprint during his career origins, which happened back in 2001.

Bottom line ... Luke is directly contradicting Joe's recollection of events, and dares him to correct the record, as he says he has proof to back his memory. Not just that, but Luke went on to say he actually dug DJ Khaled out of obscurity and made him mainstream too.

Joe hasn't responded yet -- but the dude's been catching a lot of flak lately for such tales -- including the assertion that Latinos were equally important in founding the hip hop genre.

R. Kelly isn't admitting a damn thing when it comes to the "I Admit It" album that dropped Friday -- speaking from jail, he calls the recording a plot to screw him over in court.

TMZ obtained this audio Kelly's attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, says he recorded Friday shortly after they'd met. The disgraced singer immediately shuts down the notion he'd put out any music right now, much less something with the lyrics, "I Admit It," because he's trying to appeal his latest federal conviction.

Even more mysterious ... Kelly seems to insinuate the album recordings aren't even his voice. He says, "I hope people recognized my voice and know that" he wouldn't be recording in the middle of a legal battle.

As we reported, it certainly looked and sounded like he'd release a 13-track album, with the title track addressing many of the allegations leveled against him.

After just a few hours, though, the project was pulled from Spotify and Apple Music -- as Kelly's label, Sony Music, denied any involvement in the recording or in distributing it to the streamers.

His legal team later told us, they were investigating to figure out who may have released the music. BTW, we know it was uploaded by Ingrooves, a distributor owned by Universal Music Group ... with no ties to Sony Music.

Also, the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed R. Kelly didn't produce any songs using equipment in prison.

During this voice recording, he seemed to want to prove it's not his voice on "I Admit It" -- so, he broke into a few bars of his song, “When A Woman's Fed Up."

He thinks there's a clear difference, but listen for yourself.

A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie is making good on his promise to celebrate his birthday all month ... even if has to cut the festivities short to conduct an interview!!!

The Bronx-born rap star stumbled into The Breakfast Club on Friday still lit from his latest birthday celebration to promote his long-awaited comeback album "Me Vs. Myself."

When the ball dropped at midnight, the newly minted 27-year-old was front and center in Times Square soaking up love from his adoring fans.

A Boogie says he later fell through Starlets strip club for the after-party ... and graciously gifted Charlamagne with the stacks of singles in his designer jacket during the interview!!!

A Boogie says he tossed $30K in strip clubs over the past two nights ... which means he hasn't been sleeping and flexed the Walmart-sized bags under his eyes to hammer home his point.

He also had been under the impression they were $100 bills. A gracious Charlamagne accepted the generous gift but also stressed the importance of donating to charity ... to which A Boogie agreed.

A Boogie's new album features guest spots from Lil Durk, Tory Lanez, G Herbo and Kodak Black, who hops on the follow-up to their nearly-diamond collab "Drowning."

R. Kelly's legal team is digging deep into the mystery of who dropped an unauthorized album using his name and recordings, and his attorney says they've already got their sights set on a few possible suspects.

R. Kelly's criminal defense attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, tells TMZ the disgraced singer's lawyers, entertainment attorneys and trusted friends are all trying to get to the bottom of who currently has access to his music catalog. She says they have a small group of people who they've ID'd as culprits ... but notes a potential problem could be his material changing hands.

Bonjean says she spoke with R. Kelly Friday afternoon -- he was surprised and upset about the music's release without his permission.

Bonjean tells us stuff like this has been a reoccurring issue for R. Kelly ... claiming a bunch of studio equipment, computers and masters were taken shortly after his 2019 arrest. She says there's also been an issue with his calls and emails being stolen from prison.

As we reported, an album called "I Admit It," featuring a bunch of R. Kelly's SoundCloud tracks, silently made its way to major streaming platforms Friday but was quickly removed. A source at Sony Music told us it appeared to be a bootleg version.

SZA finally answered the prayers of her fans, releasing her new album "S.O.S." after a nearly 5-year drought ... and her supporters' emotions are in shambles!!!

Thousands of enthusiastic fans worshipped SZA as their "toxic queen" Friday on social media ... lapping up her lyrics as their new hostile gospel.

As the album title suggests, the TDE 1st Lady tackles a ton of alarming topics. She hits everything from admitting to getting a BBL on the opening title track, and desires to kill ex-lovers on songs "Kill Bill" and “Smokin on my Ex Pack” among those detailing other relationship drama ... which Drake helped shape back along the way.

Drake and SZA dated years ago ... a fact he made public to the world via 21 Savage's "Mr. Right Now" song back in 2020.

In a new interview with Big Tigger for Audacy, SZA revisited their relationship, comparing Drake to "Regina George" from the iconic film "Mean Girls" 'cause of his passive-aggressive ways.

SZA was reacting to the recent 'SNL' skit that lampooned Drake's past exes banding together to start a support group but says they still remain friends to this day!!!

"S.O.S." serves as the follow-up to SZA's debut album "CTRL" -- which dropped all the way back in June 2017.

The project features a hefty 23 tracks ... which makes sense. TMZ Hip Hop caught up with the sultry singer ahead of the big drop and she told us she was sitting on 100 songs and obviously picked her favorite quarter of tracks.

YG is honoring his late friend Slim 400 with help from Lil Wayne on a new sobering track on the one-year anniversary of his murder.

The song "Miss My Dawgs" borrows a script from Wayne's 2004 'Carter 1' track with the RIP vibes and features both rap stars rapping fondly of the lost loved ones using big crimson energy.

YG posts up next to a hearse throughout the black-and-white visual as splices of Slim 400 footage pepper the clip. The video ends with a throwback photo of YG, Slim, Wayne and Meek Mill ... harking back to the good times.

Slim was shot and killed on December 9, 2021 in Inglewood after being confronted in the driveway of a residence.

TMZ Hip Hop broke the story over the summer ... Inglewood police arrested a man and woman in connection to Slim 400's death and charged them with murder and possession of a firearm by a felon and accessory after the fact, respectively.

YG showed Wayne his appreciation for the collab by gifting him with a diamond-encrusted 4Hunnid label chain ... and fans can anticipate hearing the song live.