It’s time to focus on the latest in Hip-Hop!
With the upcoming 50th Annual Juno Awards, The Weeknd has received multiple nominations! Fat Joe reveals he made unreleased songs with The Notorious B.I.G. dissing Tupac and Swizz Beatz and Timbaland have responded to Michael Rainey Jr. calling them “Sellouts”.
Kicking things off, let’s focus on how successful this year has been for The Weeknd! He is leading the nominations for the 50th Annual Juno Awards with several categories including Artist of the Year, Album of the Year for his project “After Hours”, Single of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and Contemporary R&B Recording of the Year.
Now if that wasn’t enough for you, “After Hours” continues to rack up plaques for the singer and a year after its release this album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on Tuesday March 9th, 2021. In addition to this so were his songs “In Your Eyes” and “Save Your Tears“. Putting the icing on the cake “Heartless” became 2x platinum while the albums most known single, “Blinding Lights“, is now sitting at a 7x platinum! “Blinding Lights” also just became the first song in history to remain in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 for an entire year. Is The Weeknd going to go down as this era’s pop icon? I think so!
Now if you know anything about Hip-Hop in the 90’s and early 2000’s you would certainly know the names of Christopher Wallace (Biggie Smalls or The Notorious B.I.G.) and Tupac Shakur. With that, you would also know about the beef that happened between them which set off a feud between East Coast and West Coast Hip-Hop that progressed for many years to come. Fast forward to today, another renowned Hip-Hop Artist who you would have seen in that same era has recently revealed that they had numerous songs with Biggie dissing Tupac.
Fat Joe recently revealed on his Instagram Live show with Swizz Beatz and Timbaland that he recorded five songs with Biggie and they were aiming at Tupac Shakur. In this same conversation, he also admitted that he’s glad they were never released.
“I’ma keep it real, at the time, we were dissing Tupac a lot and all that and so that should have never seen the light of day,” Joe said. “Which is respectfully so, because you know they both passed on.”
Speaking of Swizz Beatz and Timbaland, Michael Rainey Jr. had a strong opinion about them both joining forces with Triller. Yes we are talking about the Triller Network, who had purchased the live-streaming song battle franchise “Verzuz” which Swizz Beatz and Timbaland founded. In response to this Michael Rainey Jr. decided to express his feelings and take to his Instagram story.
“Can’t ever just have something of our own it’s always bout the money … Cool move but these n***as still sellouts.”
In response, these two super producers commented on Hollywood Unlocked‘s post to respond. “But we own Triller” said Swizz Beatz and Timbaland added, “We own everything tell who done that.”
As of this past Tuesday, they had both said in a joint statement “This is a momentous occasion not only for Verzuz and Triller but the music business as a whole. By putting Verzuz in the Triller Network ecosystem and expanding the Verzuz brand to be side by side with the powerful Triller app, we will be able to continue to grow and evolve the music business as a whole, as we have been doing. To have partners in Triller who share our vision, specifically to celebrate and elevate the amazing artists who continue to shape culture around the world and give the consumer more direct access, is game changing.”
