Drake Name Drops A$AP Rocky in Leaked Music Video Clip With Lil Yachty

It's a bit of a shorter newsletter today due to the Labor Day holiday—the Hot 100 chart will be updated on Thursday. Turns out Kanye’s Venetian boat ride was more NSFW than innocent, and he’s now banned for life ❌ In other news today:

• Discover new music with The Rap Index 🎵 

• Kanye previews music from new album after Venice boat ban ⛵️ 

• Drake films music video with Lil Yachty and name drops A$AP Rocky 📽️ 

• The real reason Drake’s interview with Bobbi Althoff was deleted 😳 

• Industry Insights 🔎 

The Rap Index ft. J.I.D, Lil Yachty, Rod Wave, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj & More

The Rap Index is a way to follow and discover new music. Divided into 4 categories describing rap subgenres, songs are placed according to their style and sound—giving you a better idea of what songs will appeal to your musical taste. Only releases from the previous New Music Friday are included to help keep you up to date.

RapTV’s Ranking of NMF Songs Featured in the Rap Index

1. “Come See Me” by Rod Wave (Listen on Apple Music & Spotify)

2. “Half Doin Dope” by J.I.D, Lil Yachty, BabyTron (Listen on Apple Music & Spotify)

3. “Kat Food” by Lil Wayne (Listen on Apple Music & Spotify)

4. “Doin Yo Stuff” by Blxst, Bino Rideaux (Listen on Apple Music & Spotify)

5. “Bonecrusher” by Maxo Kream, Key Glock (Listen on Apple Music & Spotify)

6. “Last Time I Saw You” by Nicki Minaj (Listen on Apple Music & Spotify)

7. “Die Today” by Earthgang, Spillage Village (Listen on Apple Music & Spotify)

8. “No Fake Love” by Queen Naija, NBA YoungBoy (Listen on Apple Music & Spotify)

‘For All The Dogs’ Updates: Drake Namedrops A$AP Rocky in New Song Snippet

Drake’s been doing everything but dropping his album. Most recently, he dropped $50K for a fan in Vegas and A$AP Rocky’s name in an unreleased song snippet. A fan in Vancouver apparently spotted Drake and Lil Yachty filming a music video for an unreleased song and captured a clip of it.

It’s impossible to confirm identities in the highly pixelated video but the audio sounds like Drake and has a bar shouting out A$AP Rocky. “I ain’t pretty Flacko bitch, this shit get really Rocky,” can be heard blasting while a car covered in Christmas lights drives by.

Drake also teased that he’s working on visuals with Lyrical Lemonade’s Cole Bennett, possibly a For All The Dogs music video? Drake x Yachty x Bennett link-up would be insane. Bennett directed the video for Lil Yachty’s viral “Poland” track last year, but this would mark the first collaboration between OVO and Lyrical Lemonade.

After two shows in Las Vegas over Labour Day weekend, Drake’s $50K lighter noticing a fan who held up a sign that read, “I spent my furniture money on your two shows, OVO for life.” After pointing the fan out, Drake generously said, “You know what, my man, your furniture money, imma give you 50 bands ‘cause I love you. That’s some real shit, I fuck with you.”

Why his interview with Bobbi Althoff was removed

Drake’s album rollout began with an interview on Bobbi Althoff’s The Really Good Podcast. He rarely does interviews, and when he does, it usually means an album is near. The episode was a success and all seemed well until recently, it was taken down from Bobbi’s YouTube channel, and fans noticed that the pair had unfollowed each other on IG.

Some called it a PR stunt, and others said bad blood behind the scenes was to blame. Still, no official word on what happened, but TikTok news account u/photogsteve81 posted a video with an alleged explanation of why the interview was deleted.

If you’ve seen the interview, you’ll remember when Drake questions Bobbi about Tyga, who she says she doesn’t know, and he plays 30 seconds of “Rack City,” Tyga’s most recognizable song. PhotoSteve insinuates that Drake and his team had complete creative control over the interview and specifically aired a version with an extended snippet of “Rack City” as leverage, should anything go wrong.

Something happened that neither Drake nor Bobbi will speak on, but his team allegedly reached out to Universal Music, who owns the rights to “Rack City,” and issued a copyright strike against Bobbi’s podcast episode. Filing it under the terms that Universal has YouTube music meant that all of the proceeds of ad revenue from the episode would have to be given to Universal.

Unable to monetize her biggest episode ever, her team decided to delete the video rather than forfeit revenue. None of this is verified information, but the pettiness sounds like trademark Drake.

Kanye Previews New Music Amid Lifetime Ban From Venice Boat Company

Kanye can now add Venetian Boat Company to the running list of things he’s banned from. Why? An NSFW boat ride with his wife, Bianca Censori, that Italy disapproves of.

He also made a public appearance in Ireland to support Steve Lacy and previewed new music, fueling the rumors that he has an album in the works. Find out more below.

Last week, photos of Ye sitting on a boat in Italy caught fire online because his butt was exposed in what could have been a wardrobe malfunction (or a weird Yeezy sample). Different angles of the boat ride emerged, as seen below, and prompted speculation that Ye’s lack of underwear was to facilitate Bianca giving dome in public.

When Venezia Turismo Motoscafi caught wind of the photos, they hit Ye with a lifetime ban, saying the couple was “no longer welcome aboard its boats.” A spokesperson for the company said, “On board, the driver had to keep a lookout for traffic and did not see these obscenities. If this had happened, he would have immediately disembarked and reported the transgressors to those in authority.”

The boating company will have to wait in line with the rest of the corporate brands who’ve felt personally victimized by Ye’s impulsive actions in the last year. According to Page Six, police in Italy are investigating the boat ride and may press charges against the couple for public indecency.

New Music for Steve Lacy

There have been multiple reports of Ye working on a new album as he gallivants across Europe, and he made a public appearance at Steve Lacy’s set on Sept. 1st for the Electric Picnic festival in Ireland.

The duo were seen hugging at the festival in the pic below, and Twitter u/kurrco posted a video captured by a festivalgoer in which you can hear Ye’s voice singing in the background. It’s unclear from the video if this snippet was previewed during Lacy’s performance, but Ye’s voice is undeniable.

There’s no evidence of this, but other songs were allegedly played that feature Ty Dolla $ and Young Thug.

If Ye’s been in the studio, it’s unsurprising that he would collaborate with Lacy. They got matching “we here forever technically” tattoos with Lil Uzi Vert last year in what looked like the BTS from a shoot for the now-canceled Yeezy x Gap collaboration.

Context for those of you out touching grass

Last month, news broke about a new album via prominent Ye leaker Insurge, who shared information with moderators of the r/GoodAssSub forum on Reddit. The album was described as a combination of 2004’s The College Dropout and 2016’s The Life of Pablo. While in Italy, Ye and Ty Dolla $ign allegedly had a studio session with Playboi Carti’s Opium collective. Insurge said that the working title for the album is Change, and it’s tentatively slated for an October release.

Why this matters

Ye’s antics have always been strange, but the consistency in reports from multiple sources strengthens the hypothesis that a new album is coming. Music previewed with Ty Dolla $ign at Steve Lacy’s festival set coincides with Insurge’s report that Ye and Ty had been in the studio recently. Lacy is also a plausible confidante for Ye to share new music with. It’s doubtful that the project will drop in October, but if Drake’s new album has any Ye disses, it could be the bait Bianca was looking for on the boat and prompt Ye to respond.

• Playboi Carti disappoints fans as Antagonist tour gets delayed by months. The North American leg, originally scheduled to kick off Sept. 6, has been shifted to mid-January 2024.

• Diddy reassigns music-publishing rights worth hundreds of millions to Bad Boy artists. The move is reportedly to give back to the people who built Bad Boy Records, including Notorious B.I.G’s estate, Faith Evans, Ma$e, the Lox, and more.

• LimeWire launches AI creator studio with music capabilities in partnership with Polygon Labs. Relaunched as an NFT marketplace, LimeWire says artists will be able to earn ad revenue from original content created on the platform.

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