Early mixtapes like Astronaut Status and his signature hit like “Turn On The Lights” gave Future the enduring reputation as a devoted space-age robot lover with a soul pure as a dove. While that element is certainly present in his repertoire, Future Hendrix knows how to play several tunes.

His latest video for “Monster,” a song MTV premiered back in August, finds him ditching his sweet persona for something more, well, monstrous: he’s a heartless player, reveling in hedonism.

Gone are the sky-scraping autotune paeans to a life partner. Future’s embracing the colder parts of his identity, rejecting limits and social mores and he’s never seemed less interested in monogamy—all this along to the swooping synth flute-driven tune comes courtesy of Metro Boomin and Southside.

The video matches the sentiment: Future reigns over a rowdy mansion party, girls wearing nothing but thongs and body paint lining the halls. Someone brings a snake. Metro Boomin dances in the kitchen. Black lights add slightly mystical overtones. Future is clearly having his “Eyes Wide Shut” moment.

Mark your calendars: on October 28th Future releases his Monster mixtape, executive produced by Metro Boomin.

Ezra Marcus

Between them, Diplo and Waka Flocka have left an indelible mark on a generation’s approach to partying.

Diplo’s involved himself in almost every underground dance music movement of the last decade, opening up America’s ears to cumbia, reggaeton, dancehall, and most recently, the squeaky synths of dutch house and EDM trap. Mad Decent block parties have become epicenters of consumption and concentrated excess.

Flocka, meanwhile, embodies pure hedonism. “Hard In The Paint” and “Grove St. Party” diluted rap’s id into sheer party-hearty aggression; soon enough Flocka switched over into full-on EDM. The festival trap scene hasn’t been the same since.

Now they’ve teamed up for a new video, co-produced by LNY TNZ and Yellow Claw. With these names you’d expect nothing less than full-fledged molly-snorting, champagne snorting trap-stravagazna, right?

Wrong. Well, kind of.

Related: 2 Dead, 20 Hospitalized After Diplo’s Mad Decent Block Party

The video for “Techno” does involve drugs. Ecstasy, specifically. This isn’t the kind of slow-motion, neon-saturated abstraction we’ve come to expect from EDM videos,though. Rather, it’s an arresting narrative shot in muted tones, with distinctly non-model actors.

It tell the story of a working class father who, in an obvious homage to “Breaking Bad” and Walter White, starts selling ecstasy pills in order to give his daughter a better life and a college education.

He bankrolls a few young, edgy types, who concoct pills in a warehouse laboratory. The drugs make their way into a rave, which his daughter happens to attend. Tragedy strikes.

Though it sensationalizes the issue ...

Lorde is continuing her Instagram quest of teasing her new song by posting glimpses of the lyrics. The upcoming single will appear on the soundtrack for “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1″ and she’s shared three bits of it so far.

Three weeks ago Lorde posted an Instagram of the lyrics from the song—”I’m a princess cut from marble, smoother than a storm”—written on a piece of paper.

Now she’s followed up with two more simple, beautiful lyric images. She wrote the second line, “And the scars that mark my body, they’re silver and gold,” on her hand.

And she scrawled the third and latest installment on the sidewalk: “My blood is a flood of rubies, precious stones.”

Lorde is something of a poetic magpie: she’s attracted to shiny things. Her discography is filled with gemstones, like on her smash hit “Team”—”A hundred jewels on throats, a hundred jewels between teeth” or “cutting teeth on diamond rings…diamonds on your timepiece,” from “Royals.” So the gemstone references fall right in line with her past work.

These lyrics seem appropriately based on the life and times of Katniss Everdeen, a pure heroine if there ever was one (sorry had to!) and these new lyrics evoke her resilience under pressure.

Not only is Lorde releasing a new single for the movie, she’s curating the entire soundtrack. These lyrics might be the final teaser because the brand new song is coming tomorrow!

“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part ...

If there’s one thing you can expect from Ab-Soul, it’s the unexpected. He’s the dark horse of TDE, neither a boisterous man of the people like Schoolboy Q nor a widescreen cinematic storyteller like Kendrick Lamar. Ab-Soul, rather, investigates the territory of his own life, crafting detailed, painful narratives about his struggles and self-discovery.

His latest release “W.W.S.D” is as inward-focused as ever. Soul spits over Jackson Browne’s classic “These Days” in its entirety, adding nothing to the melancholy, redemptive country-rock song besides his equally gray-streaked words. Soul pulls no punches when exploring his insecurities: he details years of fruitless attempts before finding his current success.

“Can I win one time?” Soul asks, running through a laundry list of problems: “expensive clothes, insufficient funds… chasin’ the light at the end of the f–kin’ tunnel.” As if that wasn’t enough, “God took my angel and left me here.”

Soul also tackles questions about modern modes of media consumption: “Digging for gold in these codeine bottles/tryna picture potential potential in these Instagram models/information racing around the internet/before the iPad was invented/I had a pad, written.”

Nothing comes easy in Ab-Soul’s world, or Jackson Browne’s for that matter. They’re two dudes trying to figure things out, asking questions without obvious answers. Listen below.

Ezra Marcus

Last night, Rick Ross shared a collaboration with MMG’s Stalley, “Everything A Dope Boy Ever Wanted.”

The song is produced by Beat Billionaire, the in-house MMG producer responsible for Rozay hits like “John Doe” and “Yella Diamonds.” He flips an old-school soul sample over unobtrusive percussion—the result is cozy and weightless, like expensive silk you can barely feel yourself wearing.

Ross rarely wavers from his diamond-studded depiction of hedonistic boss life, and this is no exception. He proclaims himself a “Forbes cash king” and describes jaunts around the country “rolling blunts with the latest playmates of the month” at his “cribs in Atlanta and out in Vegas too.” In Rozay’s world, everything is plural.

Stalley’s verse is a lively slice of self-promo, heralding the release of his upcoming debut album Ohio as a king-making moment. His empire? The Midwest: “This the crown in Ohio, I sit on that throne/Welcome back Lebron, but Stalley been home.”

He also represents for upcoming releases from his label-mates Wale and the incarcerated Meek Mill: “It’s double M to the grave, free Meek Milly/Dreams Worth More Than Money, The Album Bout Nothin/This our year, tell ‘em stop frontin.”

Ross in Florida, Meek Mill in Pennsylvania, and now Stalley in Ohio: all important battleground states. Is MMG fielding a presidential candidate in 2016? We sure hope so.

Ohio drops on October 27th, and Rick Ross will release Hood Billionaire later this fall.

Ezra Marcus

As one of rap’s elder statesmen, T.I. has a rolodex thicker than your head.

On his latest mixtape he puts it to good use: every song on G.D.O.D. II features a bevy of hard-hitting guest appearances. Houston legend Trae The Truth unleashes his guttural drawl on several tracks; both Kanye protege Travis Scott and Dro (née Young) appear several times.

Trey Songz‘ croons on “Champaign Room” evoke late-night V.I.P debauchery and Young Thug warbles over the triumphant horns of “I Need War.”

Rich Homie Quan plays a similar role on “Make Me Something” and T.I. also peppers the tape with new verses from his Hustle Gang protege Doe B, tragically killed last year.

But the protege who everyone was wondering about is definitely Iggy Azalea, who spits about being the “only white girl with a ghetto booty” over the trance-sampling “We Go Hard.”

This mixtape allows T.I. to work with rising rappers and O.G.s, keeping his finger on the pulse of rap’s underground while still putting Iggy on.

He’s saving the big guns for his next album, Paperwork: The Motion Picture, due out October 21. He recently released the track list, featuring an absurd bounty of superstars: Pharrell, Usher, Rick Ross and The-Dream all appear.

To tide yourself over, download the new mixtape via Datpiff.

Ezra Marcus

“Told ‘em I finished school, and I started my own business/They say, ‘Oh you graduated?’ No, I decided I was finished.” – Kanye West, “School Spirit.”

Few people are more consumed with the ethical implications of a college education in America than Kanye West. A college dropout at age 20, he exorcised the specter of his unfinished education across three albums: College Dropout, Late Registration, and Graduation.

Now he’s back in the bosom of higher education. This time, though, he makes the rules.

In March, West, was sentenced to 24 months of probation and 250 hours of community service after a confrontation with a paparazzo lead to charges of misdemeanor battery and attempted grand theft.

How is Kanye servicing the community? By teaching its best and brightest about clothes.

Kanye has been teaching at the L.A. Trade Technical College, delivering lectures on fashion and creativity.

Although there have been rumors of Kanye teaching since June, one bold student’s Instagram has only now given us a glimpse into his classroom. User itschrisgaleno risked life and limb to bring us several snapshots of Yeezy in Chelsea boots and a muted green hoodie, gesticulating in front of a whiteboard marked “Presentations Tomorrow!”

What kind of homework does Professor Yeezy assign? Does he grade harshly? Does he ever bust out the Margiela mask during lectures? What happens if he catches you passing notes?

We may never know. All we can do is hope for the syllabus to leak.

Read More →

Stevie Nicks will display a gallery of polaroid self-portraits in New York next month. The show, titled “24 Karat Gold,” will take place at the Morrison Gallery, which displays photography of and by musicians. The show shares it’s name with Nicks’ new album, which will come with a special edition book of the self-portraits.

Taken between 1975 and 1987, the photos document a period of self-discovery for the Fleetwood Mac singer. In a statement to the New York Times, Nicks explains the inspiration behind the photos:

“I wanted to learn how to become a photographer. And I don’t sleep at night, so I thought, who am I going to ask to stay up all night, and then do a show tomorrow? So I’m not going to get Christine [McVie, also of Fleetwood Mac]. She’s going to say, ‘Are you crazy? I’m going to the bar. Bye.’”

The photos were selected from Nicks’ old shoeboxes by Dave Stewart, the guitarist of the Eurythmics.

Nicks wasn’t just snapping her iPhone in a bathroom mirror: the exquisite Polaroids find Nicks exploring props, costumes, and different kinds of lighting: “I did everything…I was the stylist, the makeup artist, the furniture mover, the lighting director — it was my joy. I was the model.”

With Kim Kardashian set to release Selfish, a 352 page book of selfies, it’s safe to say we’re living in the age of celebrity selfies as #art.

The exhibition of Nicks’ photos will take place at 201 Mulberry Street on Oct. ...

Jesus and Yeezus both asked a man who could not walk to stand up; only the former’s request was granted. Last night in Melbourne, Kanye West stopped a performance to demand that the entire audience stand up.

According to the Daily Mail, Kanye announced: “I can’t do this song…until everybody stand up. Unless you got a handicap pass and you get special parking and s–t.. ‘Imma see you if you ain’t standing up, believe me, I’m very good at that.’

You hit the nail on the head, dude. One audience member had to wave his prosthetic limb before Kanye told him “‘Okay, you fine!”

However, a second audience member continued to draw Kanye’s ire when he didn’t stand up, causing the rapper to remark, “This is the longest I’ve had to wait to do a song, it’s unbelievable.”

The Daily Mail corroborate several fans reports that the crowd yelled that the fan was in a wheelchair, while others even made “wheelchair motions” to let ‘Ye know the situation.

Never one to take wheelchair motions at face value, Kanye asked his bodyguard Pascal Duvier to enter the arena and check on the fan. He only continued the show after Duvier confirmed that the man was in fact wheelchair-bound.

With “Draking” running rampant in Toronto, this may be the biggest week ever for stories involving rappers and wheelchairs. We eagerly await Joe Biden’s input.

Ezra Marcus

“She got an onion booty stankin’ walkin”

“I’m wallowing in mud/I’m a guinea pig”

These are just a few of the completely absurd phrases Gucci Mane raps within the first fifteen minutes of The Return Of Mr. Perfect, a mixtape he shared on Soundcloud today (September 13). Gucci has always had a way with imagery, but this latest release finds him pushing his imagination to its limits.

Over the years Gucci’s narrowed his storytelling focus to a razor’s edge of boss behavior—money, drugs, jewels, cars, strip club politics, butts—allowing him to focus his creative energy on insane metaphors and his strange, melodic delivery.

He inserts croons and growls into verses that lesser rappers would play straight. He pronounces “hood” as “heeuuwwd.” On “Night Rider,” he croons a lullaby over the Knight Rider theme song. Planet Gucci has never sounded like a more idiosyncratic destination.

Gucci has played an integral role in the rise of New Atlanta over the last few years—he has an incredible ear for new rappers, giving early shine to the careers of Young Thug, Peewee Longway, Young Scooter, Migos, and many others.

He’s equally tuned in to the producers behind the sound. Mike Will Made It, C-Note, Sonny Digital, Southside, and 808 Mafia all contribute here, and it may just be a mixtape, but you can tell they’ve saved great beats for the scene’s most important mentor figure.

The Return Of Mr Perfect is the third project Gucci’s released ...