This year's NAIDOC week theme is 'Because of Her, We Can', celebrating the importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in the community. To mark the theme, we brought together iconic musician Thelma Plum and veteran community broadcaster Kerri-Lee Harding, host of 3CR Community Radio's BLAKNOISE RADIO program. The two discussed working in the entertainment and arts industry as black women, their support networks, and send messages of support to other Aboriginal women around the country. NAIDOC Week runs July 8th to 15th, but you can catch Thelma performing with Mojo Juju, Kaiit and Sovereign Trax at Melbourne Museum's NOCTURNAL this Friday, and Kerri-Lee speaking on the event's Blak Writers stage. Read Thelma and Kerri-Lee's conversation below.

Kerri-Lee: The NAIDOC theme is ‘Because of Her, We Can’. It’s awesome, isn’t it?
Thelma Plum: I think Aboriginal women are the strongest women in the world. It's really nice that we’re being recognized on [a large scale]. We recognize it, and we know it already, but it’s nice that it can be recognized in the mainstream.

Let's talk about your music, and working as a black woman in the industry. What's it like as a young black artist, navigating your way through the current political landscape in Australia?
I'm learning every day, but it can be pretty difficult at times. It can be quite isolating. It can be a little bit hard to feel backed sometimes. I feel like me existing in itself, being quite unapologetic with the fact that––sometimes I think I'm not a palatable enough black, I guess because I am quite unapologetic, and existing in itself can be a bit of a statement. That can ruffle a few feathers, just existing, really. It can be really tricky, but honestly I just make sure there are great people around me, great tiddas around me. I have really, really strong Aboriginal women around me. I think that's something that can help me navigate, being in a predominantly white Australian industry. It can be pretty tricky.

Who are some of those strong Aboriginal women that inspire you from your family, or who are close to you?
There are so many. How long you got? My older sister, her name is Muriel. Ever since I was little, growing up, she was so pretty and so cool and so talented. My other sister, she's the oldest out of all of us and she's incredibly inspiring and just so wonderful. Just like all of my siblings in general. Nayuka Gorrie is someone I find so inspiring every time I... just her existing, I find inspiring. She's just like great in whatever she does. I'm like, ‘Oh, sis it’s so good. Keep it up.’ Who else do I love? You know, one of my really good girlfriends, someone I look up too. Do you know Murrawah?

No, but tell me about her.
Murrawah Maroochy.

Oh that darling, yes I do.
Yeah, I think you know her.

Yeah, she's a darling.
She's just such a darling and these are all just like really.... I guess I'm lucky that I have known them all for little while. I’m also very lucky that in the last couple of years there have been beautiful Alice Skye and Emily Wurramara in music––not just in music, but in the creative industries in Australia––so many strong Aboriginal women that can kind of group together and back each other and have each other's back.

Yeah, and how important is that to have that close relationship with other Aboriginal young woman artists?
I think it's the most important thing. But more than anything I think there’s just so much... I don't even know how to say this, but there’s so much trauma and so much hurt but there’s a lot of really fucking great stuff and a lot of great things that I am so proud of. I don't know if I'm making much sense at the moment.

You're making perfect sense, Thelma. What do you think of the current blackfulla musical landscape across Australia?
I love it! Because we're a talented bunch. Like I mentioned before, Alice Skye and Emily Wurramara and all these beautiful little tiddas. They're just like angels. It's just time. I think it's our time now. We've been here forever. People are like [sarcastic tone] “Oh, I don't hear much Aboriginal music.” But we’ve always been here, we've always been doing what we’re doing and we’ve always been creating! But I guess it’s becoming more mainstream to showcase that talent. Which I think is something that's needed to happen for a really fucken’ long time.

Yeah. And you’ve been collaborating, I understand, with Briggs lately, and [Jessica Mauboy] as well.
Yes! Look, I'm not going to lie, this is like my dream, [working with] our Aboriginal princess Jess Mauboy. Often I’m like ‘I want to be an Aboriginal princess.’ I feel like she has that, but one day I hope she might pass that on to me. But she's just... You know, if you told me that when I was in high school. When I was voting for her on Australian Idol, that I could write a song with her, I would have just been so happy. She's just such a beautiful woman and she’s a beautiful songwriter. You know, she's not really... I think it’s really incredible that her and Briggs and I get to collaborate and that we get to create something like this you know, together. It's something that I have never done with Jess before and Briggs hasn't done with Jess before and it was just really special.

What was the vibe like in the studio with you mob? That would’ve been deadly.
It was hilarious because my manager who is absolutely wonderful, he's a lovely lovely gubba, he came into the studio to visit us and it was pretty loud and really.. I don't know, you know. Just like too loud for people to handle. You know when a lot of loud laughing. It was so fun. I loved it and I love collaborating and writing with Briggs. It's something we do quite often.

And what has that relationship been like? How long have you been working with Briggs for?I guess a few years now. He’s wonderful, he would pick me up from the airport when I was living in Melbourne and he would drive me home when I was too poor and couldn't afford the taxi fare. He’s had my back since the start and I think he’ll always have my back. I really love him so much.

That's what I was going to say. It’s so important for us sistagirls, working in the entertainment and arts industry. We have got solid brothas to back us. It’s so important.
I think that's something Briggs is aware of. I think it’s really important that it does go both ways and we all got each other's backs.

Yeah, deadly. If you could get a NAIDOC message out there for Aboriginal women across Australia what would it be?
Basically I would just say: I love you so frickin much. But also we're so cool, we're so deadly, we're so strong, we're so powerful. We have been through so much and we're still here.

Stop it, you nearly made me cry. That's beautiful. Things are really tough out there for young Aboriginal women coming through, trying to navigate their way through life and culture. We've got really high suicide rates, which is just horrendous. Do you have any messages or strong words of advice for any young women?
It can be so hard, it’s such a hard thing. It’s almost like, what do you really say? There is only so much.. I don't know, it breaks my heart. I have been there. I know what that feels like. I think something that really got me though was getting rid of all these toxic people in my life and surrounding myself with these really strong tiddas that I mentioned earlier. You just gotta talk to people, just try and talk to someone. There is no shame in feeling sad. We have such a long story, we have such a big story. Sadness is such a big part of it, but it’s also.. It is what it is. It proves how fucking resilient and how strong we are.

Find Thelma Plum on Instagram and Kerri-Lee on Twitter.

Check out the rest of Noisey's NAIDOC content, including an incredible new video from Mojo Juju and Nayuka Gorrie interviewing Alice Skye and Emily Wurramara, here.

Find NITV's schedule of NAIDOC programming, including fascinating new documentaries and interviews, here.

In 2012, someone uploaded a video to YouTube. It’s of a 19-year-old student, called Maya Wegerif, and she’s performing her poem ‘Why You Talk So White?’ in a New York basement. When she first gets on stage people are shuffling and giggling. By the time she’s into her second line, though, the audience have gone silent. What follows is a vivid and potent articulation on the nuances of racism; how something as simple as a question can contain a multitude of microagressions which can be traced back to its source. The video swiftly went viral – or viral-ish for 2012 at least – but that was the last we heard of her. Until recently, that is.

These days Maya Wegerif is better known as Sho Madjozi, and she’s not a poet, she’s a rapper. She may have yet to reach the upper echelons of the genre’s mainstream, but you might already know her from “Dumi Hi Phone,” a bouncing, high energy rap track set to industrial Gqom beats, or else “Huku,” in which her melodic vocal wraps itself around some intense, cold rhythms. Mostly, she raps in Xitsonga – the South African language spoken in her home province of Limpopo – and her flow is rapid and lilting, a perfect accompaniment to the icy, upbeat instrumentation. But she’s also more than that description. As you can see from that spoken word video back in 2012, and as her music videos have screamed since, Sho Madjozi is a force to be reckoned with. She has a certain magnetism, and its hard to pin down, but it’s the sort you’ll recognise when you see it.

“I never meant to be a rapper,” Sho tells me over the phone from her flat in central Johannesburg. She’s explaining how, for a long time, making music wasn’t even on her radar. She was always writing, but even that was more of a practical thing. “I felt like poetry was a way to express my political views,” she continues. “Like, with ‘Why You Talk So White?’ I wanted to challenge the notion that there’s one way of being black. When I’m asked why I talk ‘so white’, they mean British-sounding, but if you talk American-sounding, that’s just a different oppressor. I speak Xitsonga, I speak Swahili, I speak Zulu. That’s when I’m talking black.” She pauses for a moment, as if thinking back to that time. “I was actually banned from performing that poem on campus – I think it was seen as divisive – but they still wanted me to go to the event. I ended up performing it anyway. And then the video [of that poem, later recorded in New York] went viral, and my popularity grew.”

Soon after that, though, Sho found herself veering away from poetry after becoming frustrated with the scene she had become involved in. “I find those poetry circles extremely annoying and elitist,” she explains, as I imagine her rolling her eyes at the end of the line. “In the village I’m from – which is very rural – people don’t understand what the fuck I’m saying. And these poetry circles can feel like we’re just preaching to each other – but we all believe in these things, we’re all woke. And then to even enter those spaces you’re going to be privileged, so I felt disingenuous. It didn’t have the impact I needed it to have, so I left the community.... With my music now, I rap in Xitsonga, so I reach waaay more people.”

Image by Ashley Verse

One of Sho’s earliest ventures into music arrived in the shape of a few bright bars on South African rapper Okmalumkoolkat's “Ngiyashisa Bhe and Gqi,” which came out last year. It’s a hard, skeletal Gqom banger with a video shot on a smartphone, emitting the kind of DIY aesthetic and frenetic energy that might remind British kids of classic grime vids from the 2000s. But how did Sho go from leaving poetry behind, to suddenly becoming a rapper? “I knew I could write, so I wanted to be a ghostwriter,” she says, “It had never even occurred to me that I could be the person on stage, and that was just a year and a half ago. Then Okmalumkoolkat convinced me I could be a rapper in my own right. I scribbled down a few lines for him, and he was blown away. I guess because nobody had ever really thought to rap in Xitsonga in that way. Then he was like, ‘well, why don’t we record you now?’ And then it was like… I’ll just carry on.”

In some ways, it feels like Sho is almost an accidental rapper. But that’s not to say it doesn’t come with ease, because it clearly does. “The more it happens, the more it feels orchestrated because it fits in such a way that feels planned,” she considers. Since then, her profile has risen at warp speed. She’s delivered a bunch of features alongside her own tracks, and earlier this year, she flew to London to mentor young musicians as part of Nando’s music exchange, following in the footsteps of Stormzy and Little Simz. “The goal is to bring aspiring musicians from all over the world, get them to come to London and spend a week writing with each other and getting mentored,” Sho says. “I put on different sessions and listened to their songs. My particular angle was telling them about the technical side of things, and the business of it; how to make it work if you want to be a commercially successful musician.”

So what next? Like a lot of artists at this time of the year, Sho is spending the next few months playing festivals, bringing her melodic, high energy rap sound to different parts of the globe. After summer’s over, though, she’ll be releasing her debut album, in September. “It’s pretty epic because I get to do what I want to do. All of this time I’ve been on other people’s albums, but now it’s going to be like: this is Sho Madjozi, for reals.”

You can find Daisy on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey UK.

Black metal expressionists Deafheaven announced their third LP, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, with a 12-minute-long, sepia-toned song called "Honeycomb." It borrowed more from the twinkly, half-paced musings of emotionally fraught late-90s suburb-dwellers than it did from the morbid and frostbitten Scandinavians who inspire frontman George Clarke's deathly shrieks. It was, in one sense, a giant fuck you to the crowds of purists who resent the band's perceived sullying of the genre. Clarke's lyrics are always difficult to discern, and his voice is usually buried behind towers of noise anyway, but reading through his words didn't suggest that there was a cold heart behind the sonic uplift: "I'm reluctant to stay sad / Life beyond is a field / A field of flowers."

If "Honeycomb" annoyed you, then don't go and listen to Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, which is streaming in full over at NPR this morning. It's Deafheaven's most melodic, most accessible, and occasionally most sentimental album yet. It trades more in post-rock prettiness than it does in primal fury; it's more sunset than midnight. Even on "Glint," one of four songs here that top 10 minutes, when Daniel Tracy's double-kick flicks into action and Clarke's voice conjures up a storm, things still arc over a major key. The haunting Chelsea Wolfe, who turns up on "Night People," stays somewhere near the earth here. This is a black metal album that promised "jazz-inspired percussion and intricate piano melodies." This is an album lifts its title from a Graham Greene novel.

But if you want to hear an emotive, considered, occasionally melancholy rock record from a band who seem to have gleefully done away with needless conventions, go listen to the thing in full at NPR.

Follow Alex Robert Ross on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey US.

PUSHA-T has found himself in the news more than ever before over the past five weeks. From his Daytona album to his nasty rap feud with Drake, there hasn’t been a week when he’s not giving an interview or being talked about on social media. Most recently while in London, he sat down with Julie Adenuga of Beats 1 to discuss all his recent developments.

He told Adenuga that he's already working on his follow up to Daytona, though he doubts that it'll follow the same seven-song format. When asked about Kanye West's alleged 52 albums in 52 weeks project, Push laughed it off by saying “I didn’t even hear about that from him. I saw it online like you did and I ignored it the best way I could. I was like, this thing come across my radar and I’m going to act like it doesn’t even exist.”

Push also took time to acknowledge Teyana Taylor's public dissatisfaction with K.T.S.E., her debut album that dropped in late June. "T's just really passionate man," he said. "But the good part about it is, T also knows what she wants." When asked how stressful it was to be the president of G.O.O.D. Music on a scale of 1-10, he quickly answered "10!" It's completely understandable for a label that has overseen a release for all but one week since late May. Watch a clip from the conversation above.

This article originally appeared on Noisey US.

Drake is one of the most recognizable aspects of the Canadian brand. He’s like snow, both in terms of how connected he is to our national identity and by how likely he is to get served by Pusha-T. He was one of the most important people since Shania Twain to make us look cool in the United States, which is basically the greatest aspiration of any Canadian. Or at least, Drake makes us feel like we look cool. That power is translated through his music, but in truth it’s all in the face. Drake’s gloriously bearded, emotional and sometimes unfortunately decorated face is a symbol of our inflated sense of worth and remorselessly lame swagger. If his music is a religion, his face is the miracle that cures the blind and converts the non-believers. At the very least, it makes a good meme.

The cover photo for Scorpion is a black and white studio shot, brilliantly framed by photographer Norman Wong. The piece makes Drake look like a timeless monument, a statue to be revered for a thousand years, dominating Toronto’s skyline and blotting out the sun like the Views cover. I reached out to Wong to comment on the photograph, and he emailed back saying, “Love to work with you guys but unfortunately I signed a pretty hefty contract where I can not talk to any media or press.” Incredible. Drake’s face has a team of lawyers. Drake’s face is an industry.

He is so recognizable, I once found out even old people in the middle of nowhere with limited internet access know who Drake is. As someone who has tried to recreate his iconic style, I can say he is an impossible force of nature throughout the many eras, moods, beefs and albums. With Canada Day looming and the anticipated release of Scorpion, Noisey decided to celebrate by ranking Drake’s many faces. From Serious Drake to Vaping Drake to Allegedly Smoking Marijuana Drake, there are so many important Drake faces. We gathered all his faces and broke them down for their artistic, religious and scientific value. Drake opens Scorpion with the line "My Mount Rushmore is me with four different expressions" and this is that Mount Rushmore. See the many Drakes below, and perhaps find out which one is the Ultimate Drake.

Toothpick Yeehaw Drake

Drake looks like he’s about to warn a group of teens on summer vacation to watch out for the haunted farmhouse down the road.

Allegedly Weed Smoking Drake

Contrary to popular belief, Drake probably doesn’t even smoke weed. That is not the look of someone exhaling weed smoke from his mouth, that’s the Holy Spirit, AKA “God’s Plan.”

Diamond Tooth Drake

Instagram

Look real close at the left-hand side of this photo at Drake’s perfect smile. That little speck in his tooth is in fact a pink diamond implant. His head is basically a vault: it holds valuable gems and is also thicc.

Sad Boi Drake

Screencap

Honestly, he could just be farting.

Started from the Bottom Drake

Screencap

That’s the face of a man whose jacket zipper got stuck in Canadian November.

"Now We Here" Drake

Screencap

This scene from Drake’s “Started from the Bottom" video inspired retail workers everywhere to hate their jobs even more.

"Look Out Behind You" Drake

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

When you see a particularly dad tracksuit on the other side of Foot Locker.

"Where’d I Put My Protein Powder?" Drake

Instagram

This is the look you make when you’ve been lifting the culture for over a decade.

Tired Drake

Instagram

This is the look you make when you've accidentally killed the culture for over a decade.

Courtside Drake, Part One: Joy

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Look at this nerd. He deserves a wedgie. There are no jokes for this picture of Drake’s Best Face. It’s perfect. It’s angelic. He’s ready for his bust to be sculpted and put into the hallowed halls of Degrassi to sit in earnestness that you, too, can achieve zen with the correctly selected oversized sweater/glasses combo.

Courtside Drake, Part Two: Defeat

TFW you finally realize your great basketball team sucks, even though they were objectively GOOD, and that even your own proximity to LeBron James’ greatness doesn’t really make you great at all.

Sportscaster Drake

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Drake makes journalism look fun by being fabulously rich unlike an actual journalist. If all news is fake news and Drake is a fake journalist for indulging in fake interviewing, not to be confused with real interviewing, which is certainly fake, does that not make him a…………….. journalist?

Supreme Drake

Instagram

Drake 100 per cent has a streetwear blog.

Starbucks Papi

Instagram

Drake is a 17-year-old Instagram influencer trying to sell you therapeutic patchouli-scented candles. This is how you feel cashing in on those goddamn golden Starbucks Rewards points.

Sangria Drake

That’s him drinking sangria and totally NOT the blood of an up-and-coming lyricist he found on Soundcloud.

Serious Drake

GLYN KIRK/AFP/Getty Images

This is Drake when he smells that young, talented lyricist blood.

"I See Dead People" Drake

The 6ix Sense.

Turtle Neck Disdain Drake

This photo is objectively art.

Aroused Drake

Screencap

When the ghost writer pens a particularly thicc single.

Durag Drake

Instagram

Vaping in the Bathtub Drake

Over My Dead Bath & Body Works.

Way Too Lit Drake

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When you lose track of the wasp you just saw.

Trapped in Hell Drake

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This man is begging to be saved.

Fractured Drake

Screencap

When you find out Kanye collected all the Infinity Stones.

"Who Dis" Drake

When your secret kid’s IG shows he’s chilling with Pusha-T.

Is This Even Drake?

Drake has a face the world recognizes so we’re not exactly sure who this individual is or why Kevin Hart has "white power."

Would You Like a Tour? Drake

This Drake is a god.

Job Interview Drake

Cheesed Drake

Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images

Momentous Occasions Drake

“I WATCHED A CHAAAAAAAAAANGE IN YOU. LIKE YOU NEVEEEEEEEEEEEER HAD WINGS. AHHHHHHH, AHHHHHHHHH”

Actual Scorpion Drake

Wikimedia Commons

A few Drake facts: he is a predatory animal of the class Arachnida, making him cousins to spiders, mites and ticks. He has eight legs, a pair of pincers (pedipalps) and a narrow segmented tail that often curves over his back, on the end of which is a venomous stinger. Drake will shed his exoskeleton up to seven times as he grows.

Year Book Drake Who Isn’t Actually Drake but Looks Like Drake

Devin Pacholik has been inside Drake. Follow him on Twitter.
Sarah MacDonald is happy for her Scorpio prince. Follow her on Twitter.
Jabbari Weekes frankly has no idea why this happened in the first place. Follow him on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey CA.

Lil Yachty is the fifth-most important musician on his latest single, "Who Want the Smoke?" That's not necessarily a bad thing—Kanye was in the same spot on "Ultralight Beam," which worked out just fine—and it's probably what Yachty wanted. You don't bring Cardi B and Offset onto your track if you want to hog the spotlight. The trouble is that when Yachty does come through, he returns to the unconvincing tough-guy vibe that's lingered over his tracks for a while now. It neither works as a play for authenticity nor a play for giggles.

Still, "Who Want the Smoke?" has its merits. Cardi B's flow is familiar, but she owns it: "I hear shots comin' on the low from hoes I'm higher than / This attention is so flatterin' 'cause they're admirin' / Don't know what's on their mind, but it should be retirement / Get the AARP or this AR get to firin'." Blocboy JB, uncredited, punctuates the track with ad-libs, all of which sound more fun than Yachty's sophomoric impressions. Offset is on a different plane, fresher and more energetic than ever, delivering a fluent verse that'll go down as one of his best this year: "Fuck it I'm standin' at the line, shoot a free throw / Medical, I sip a couple lines of fineto / Impeccable, the Richard Mille line, man, it's see-through."

The verse works because Offset has honed a style over the past few years, powering past his missteps and realizing where his talents truly lie. Cardi displayed plenty of versatility on Invasion of Privacy too, and rarely lost her flow in the process. All of which applies less and less to Yachty, a talented guy with a unique style and shitload of promise who seems to be firing while blindfolded right now, only hitting his targets inadvertently if he hits them at all.

Follow Alex Robert Ross on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey US.

South Africa is, in many respects, in a semi-permanent state of flux. In the early 90s, the country slouched from centuries’ long anti-black rule and decades of white supremacist Apartheid into democratic rule widely referred to as the “rainbow nation”. The term, coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu after the first democratic election in 1994, was meant to capture the multiracialism and unity of the new regime. An intoxicating optimism swirled through the air.

While the “new South Africa” grew, new genre kwaito was born with it, amplifying the hopes and uncertainties of millions of young black people across the country. Kwaito – then known for its mid-tempo BPM, heavy basslines and similarity to house music – was the de facto soundtrack of a burgeoning democracy. In 1995 Arthur Mafokate, often referred to as “the king of kwaito”, released “Kaffir” – a song that lampooned white South Africa for its use of the racist slur (similar to the n-word). Three years later, kwaito outfit Boom Shaka released “Nkosi Sikelela,” which controversially subverted the country’s national anthem.

Responding to the uproar at the time, Boom Shaka band member Junior said: “We’re not dissing anything, this is our own version… [a lot of kids] don’t know the lyrics to the song. The reaction to our version has been incredible, they love it.” The move, misunderstood and derided at the time, is probably one of the best examples of what kwaito would go on to do through the years: interrogate the sacredness of the rainbow nation project, call bullshit on it when needed and define freedom on its own terms.

Kwaito was there when the rainbow nation was born. It was there when the rainbow started falling apart in the early 2000s, but what does the genre look like today? In short, it’s complicated. It’s probably worth mentioning that, in 2018, no one simply calls it kwaito anymore. It’s morphed, creating cousins such as Durban kwaito in KwaZulu Natat, skhanda (a genre pioneered by local rapper KO that blends kwaito and hip-hop) in Johannesburg, kwai-hop in Soweto and new-age kwaito in the form of acts such as Okmalumkoolkat, Cassper Nyovest and Riky Rick.

In April, I saw two of kwaito’s new contingent rip shit up in Braamfontein, the Bushwick to Gauteng province’s Johannesburg. Kid X – a rapper who used to be on skhanda-churning label Cashtime – performed his kwaito-referencing music to a heaving crowd at club Republic of 94. He employed the genre’s use of call-and-response hooks, performing tracks such as “Aunty” and “Pass ne Special.” Both songs also draw on the genre’s raspy cadence and unhurried drum work.

A stone’s throw away, at a popular pub called Kitcheners, future kwaito duo Stiff Pap played. They’re based in Cape Town, where in Rondebosch and its adjacent suburb of Observatory duo Bougie Pantsula also reinterpret kwaito. On that night, Stiff Pap’s blend of everything from gqom and kwaito to drone and industrial music blared out at an audience. Both acts, whose members study at the University of Cape Town, have spoken of how they don’t intentionally set out to make kwaito – and wouldn’t strictly refer to their music as such – but draw their influence from it. This is probably the best template of the new kwaito. It draws from its 90s predecessor – borrowing visual palettes, slang and pop culture references – and reworking it for a generation that grew up on MTV and the internet. To understand where the genre is going, you’d have to see and hear from the acts breathing life into its scene.

Stiff Pap

Think of it this way: if you were to take kwaito’s bass and cadence, then blend it with drone music, gqom and house, you’d have a little bit of an idea of what the rapper-producer duo of Stiff Pap are all about. The band have often been referred to as a future kwaito group (a label they wear reluctantly) and their profile continues to grow year by year. Their producer Jakinda crafts the sound on songs such “Jaiva Pantsula,” “Amagroovist” and “Dlala,” from their debut EP. He’s also produced kwaito songs for other acts such Mx Blouse, a non-binary rapper based in Johannesburg.

“Both of us obviously listen to kwaito” says rapper Ayema. “TKZEE, Zola and more recently KO are some of my influences. But going into studio, I’d say the influence is subliminal.”

Bougie Pantsula

“It’s actually funny how we got our name,” says Matt Ryan, producer of kwaito duo Bougie Pantsula, speaking of his work with bandmate and rapper Just Jabba. “We’re both from ekasi (the hood) but went to Model C schools and we wanted a name that spoke to that. Bougie Pantsula stands for that. Bougie speaks to us to the world we found ourselves in as black kids in predominantly white private schools and Pantsula refers to us growing up in the hood.”

Pantsula was initialy a dance form born in the early 50s in South Africa's racially segregated, majority-black townships. It developed into a form of expression that birthed a particular vernacular and fashion style still present in kwaito. The bucket hats, tsotsi-taal (slang) and the genre’s political persuasions are, in some part, owed to pantsula.

In April, the duo released their titular debut EP on Soundcloud. There are traces of hip-hop and house throughout but the soul of the songs remains distinctly kwaito. “Ungajumpisi” sees Just Jabba rapping about hooking up with a girl at a party in a combination of isiZulu and English over syrupy synths, heavy kicks and mellow chords. The second part of the song switches into a sparse hip-hop song replete with the modern rap staples of overcoming fear and haters. It’s a distinctly kwaito song moonlighting as hip-hop.

Batuk Music

Township tech extraordinaire Spoek Mathambo, and vocalist Carla Fonseca fuse kwaito and house on their Batuk Music project. Their music straddles the line between kwaito, house and electronic music but their Move! EP was the most distinctly kwaito, “much more than the rest of our catalogue," Fonseca says. "It was our tribute to 90s kwaito in a sense, particularly with ‘Dala What You Must,’ ‘Niks Mapha’ and ‘Move.’ As South Africans who grew up in the 90s, kwaito as a music genre and cultural movement has obviously been a massive influence on us both. It extends beyond just sound: it's about style and attitude, language and pride in coming from ekasi."

Darkie Fiction

Like Bougie Pantsula, the performance art and kwaito duo makes music that functions like a collusion of identities. “It’s a merger of my upbringing in the rural Eastern Cape while Yoza had more of a suburban upbringing in East London,” explains rapper Katt Daddy. For non-South Africans, what he means is that both members draw from their experiences in what you’d imagine to be places at opposite ends each other – a rural town and a sprawling city. The end result is music that celebrates their similarities.

Katt, who used to be a rapper, delivers terse, unhurried verses to their material while Yoza, sings their hooks and verses in a syrupy soul register. Visually and musically, they function as new-age kwaito Bonnie and Clyde tackling the mainstream’s insularity.

“Do you remember how easy and laidback everything was back in the day?” asks Yoza. “That’s the nostalgia our music taps into. Our debut single, ‘Selula’ is a play on words. Selula refers to a cellphone but in isiXhosa it also roughly translates to ‘when it was easy.’ So, the song’s about how cellphones have messed up everything but we’re also talking about the nostalgia of the past – how easy things were when we were kids and had nothing to worry about.”

They’ve since followed “Selula” with single “Bhoza.” With a marching drumline and smooth pads, the duo rap about overcoming your obstacles. The song will feature on their debut EP, Sobabini (the two of us), which drops next month.

Riky Rick

A lot of people may refer to Riky Rick as a rapper, but he’s always seen himself as more kwaito than anything. The Johannesburg hitmaker has always drawn his slang and some of his sartorial choices from the genre. The leather jackets, bucket hat and gold rings are as much a nod to kwaito as they are to Slick Rick.

His music is also peppered with the rubbery basslines, racing hi-hats and kicks reminiscent of the genre. Last year, he told Pause Magazine that although people consider him a rapper, he’s kwaito through and through. “I’m like a kwaito artist. Kwaito is my main genre,” he explained. Songs such as “Boss Zonke,” “Amantombazane” and “Stay Shining” – the video of which is inspired by legendary kwaito group TKZEE’s “Dlala Mapantsula” – bear testament to that fact. On "Stay Shining" he raps one of his verses in a boxing ring, just as TKZEE did in their classic video and the opening shot that features him and his family in front of a house before heading over to watch TV is reminiscent of "We Love This Place" (another TKZEE classic).

This article originally appeared on Noisey UK.

Pete Davidson does a pretty good Lil Pump impression, but a million SNL writers typing on a million MacBooks for a million years could never have written the script for the 17-year-old SoundCloud rapper's newest video. "Drug Addicts" features Pump rolling around a psychiatric ward with Charlie Sheen and a bunch of scantily-clad nurses, dishing out pills to the patients. Sheen spends the whole time looking as though he was dragged in off the street to play the role, mostly just staring at his much younger co-star and trying to bounce off of his cues. The song is second-rate at best, the premise is only really funny for 45 seconds or so, and I'm not totally sure that the middle school kids who lionize Pump were even sentient when Sheen went off the rails a few years back. But you may as well watch a little of it at the top of the page before going back and listening to the batch of great new music we've already had this morning.

Follow Alex Robert Ross on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey US.

It’s been 13 years since Rihanna released her debut single, “Pon De Replay” – a track that serviced fizzy slides across school disco floors as much as it became a mainstay of daytime radio. Fast forward another 13 years, and Rihanna is now a bona fide superstar and the epitome of Big Dick Energy. No one fucks with her – she could flip a truck over by looking at it, probably, like an X-men character.

“Work” is still the ultimate summer jam; “Bitch Better Have My Money” is still the chorus playing in the back of every freelancers mind as they pop off invoices; and tracks like “Diamonds”, “Kiss It Better”, “What’s My Name” and “Umbrella” are imprinted in the public consciousness to unavoidable degrees, as though they’re comparable to the weather in being crucial to the human experience.

Wherever you look, Rihanna is there, smoking a joint or feeding a baby monkey or creating more bangers. And never has that been more apparent than in 2018 – a year in which she has starred in the number one film in the UK box office, Ocean’s 8, and also found her way into makeup bags and underwear drawers through her Fenty Beauty and Savage x Fenty ranges.

With these successes in mind, I sought to find out if the general public believe that Rihanna possesses some sort of divine quality. Heading off to the sweltering London’s Kings Cross Station, home to the UK’s first Fenty Beauty pop-up shop, I tasked myself with finding out just how powerful and omnipresent Rihanna truly is.

Shelina, 25, Naz, 22

What do you think about Rihanna?
Naz: She’s the Queen.

The Queen?
Naz: Yeah, her fashion’s on point. Everything’s on point. She can do no wrong.
Shelina: You can literally listen to her songs when you’re wearing her makeup, and you can wear her clothes.

Basically, you can become Rihanna?
Shelina: Literally.
Naz: It’s the dream to be Rihanna.

Natasha, 20

Do you consider Rihanna to be Queen of everything?
*without hesitation*
YES

Everything?
Yes, everything in life. There’s nothing that she can’t do. Like what can she not do?!

Is there any part of your life that Rihanna isn’t part of that you think she should be?
I mean literally anything. She could literally put out toilet tissue and it would be the best toilet tissue in the world!

So, Rihanna over Andrex?
Definitely! Of course, if it has her name on it, you have to go for it because you know it’s going to be the best.

Anfisa, 19

Is Rihanna your overlord?
Well, I’ve been a fan since I was like 10, so she’s definitely my idol and a huge inspiration.

So, you stan?
Yeah! NAVY!

Would you say they’re like a second family to you?
They were when I first got into her music. Now, not so much – obviously because she didn’t release music for a while, but I feel like once she does, they will be my second family again.

Are Fenty Beauty and Savage adequate substitutes for music?
Honestly, for me, it’s not the same. I feel like she’s a singer firstly, and secondly, everything else. Obviously, everything she does is amazing, there’s no doubt about that, but I do miss her music.

Kyle, 19

Is Rihanna your Queen?
Yeah, basically.

Why is that?
Just the way she is. Her style, her confidence, her everything.

So, what sets her apart?
Her style is edgy and she’s not scared about what people think. She’s really endearing.

Is that what brought you here today?
Yeah, I own everything Fenty Beauty so I thought I might as well come here to buy some shit.

Joy, 20

Do you accept Rihanna as your Lord and Saviour?
Um, no. No, not completely. Actually, not at all. I love Rihanna, I think she’s doing great, she’s revolutionary. Now all these makeup brands want to come out and try to be diverse. I’m proud of her for doing that, I support her all day.

So, you’re not a stan then in terms of her music?
No, I don’t even really know what that means, but I am definitely a supporter. I support black businesses and black women.

Do you think she’s the queen of everything at the moment?
No. This is definitely her time and she’s taking advantage of it.

Ayinde, 20

Hey, why did you decide to come over to the pop up today?
Well, I love anything Rihanna or Fenty. I already have a lot of her makeup. I’m not from here, I’m from America, so this is my first pop up shop.

Did you come over specifically for the pop up?
No, I’m studying abroad, I’m a fashion major.

So, why Fenty Beauty?
First of all, it’s Rihanna. Second, she’s really inclusive with her shades of colours.

You say “It’s Rihanna”. What is it about her?
I mean, she’s just a role model. With me being a fashion major, I definitely look up to her style. I look forward to seeing what she wears.

Nuno, 25, Lina, 20, Sofia, 25

What is it about Rihanna that possesses such a divine quality?
Lina: Why are you both looking at me?! *pauses* I think it’s her confidence and the fact she does her own thing. She does what she wants to do and no one else does that. She’s an overall good lady.

It’s been two years since “Work” was released and we’re awaiting a new summer jam, do you guys want new Rihanna music?
All: Yes!
Lina: I watched the Graham Norton Show when she said she was in the studio, but she needs to just get it out there!

This article originally appeared on Noisey UK.

Elvis Costello has cancelled the remainder of his European tour on the advice of his doctor. In a note to fans this morning, Costello revealed that he had been diagnosed with cancer, and though he has performed shows since undergoing surgery, he has now been told to rest.

"Six weeks ago my specialist called me and said, 'You should start playing the Lotto.' He had rarely, if ever, seen such a small but very aggressive cancerous malignancy that could be defeated by a single surgery," Costello wrote on his website. Doctors recommend roughly a month's worth of recovery time after such surgery, but the singer says he had no idea how long he might have to take in his odd line of work. "It was impossible to judge how this advisory would line up with the demands on a traveling musician, playing 90-minute to two-hour plus performances on a nightly basis."

In the end, the tour took its toll. "The spirit has been more than willing but I have to now accept that it is going to take longer than I would have wished for me to recover my full strength," he writes.

He did, however, confirm that he and his band, The Imposters, will release a new album in October. "We will return at the soonest opportunity to play that music and your favorite songs that still make sense to us all."

Though Costello doesn't state what type of cancer he'd been diagnosed with, he does address one part of his note to men: "Gentlemen, do talk to your friends—you'll find you are not alone—seek your doctor's advice if you are in doubt or when it is timely and act as swiftly as you may in these matters. It may save your life. Believe me, it is better than playing roulette."

The tour was scheduled for three more UK dates before shows in Croatia, Austria, Norway, and Sweden.

Follow Alex Robert Ross on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey US.

On October 4, 2014, a classic was born. “Rabba,” by Toronto’s Halal Gang—an artist collective coming out of the city’s core—was the first piece in what would bloom into an entirely new wave coming out of the city, tinged with the religious and cultural connections that united them all. Made up of Mustafa the Poet, Puffy L’z, Mo-G, Safe, and Smoke Dawg, the friends made songs about life in the city and all that it contains, both good and bad. Soon, they’d built a buzz; not long after that, a movement. Their tag, “ahwoolay!” was shouted everywhere, dances like Mo-G’s “Ginobli” became Torontonian go-tos, from the streets to the Boy. Taking them from Regent Park—the city’s oldest housing project—to international fame, Halal Gang’s promise seemed to know no bounds, from rap to crooning to poetry to photographical documentation of the era.

But on June 30, 2018, everything changed once more. Its grill-gleaming, anthem-producing frontman, Smoke Dawg, was killed, sending the city into a weekend-long state of shocked mourning. The chat below—featuring Puffy, Mustafa, and Safe—works as a memorial of sorts: of their friend, of their ends, and of the possibilities that remain for them in their once-home of Toronto.

NOISEY: How did Halal Gang, and really all of your stories, start?
Puffy: It all started on a rainy day in Regent Park on October 4, 2014, two days before [friend] Ano passed away on the 6th of October. “Rabba” was recorded. And “Hang” and “Hot Nigga Freestyle.” C’monnn maneeee.
Safe: Hahaha...
Puffy: The rest was history. Fame came, jealousy and envy came too.

But you guys knew each other before, right? That’s just when you started making music together?
Safe: Yeah. 10 plus years.

And where did you all grow up?
Safe: I’m from the Esplanade, which is right next door to Regent Park, where Puffy, Mustafa, and Smoke are from.
Mustafa: We all met in the ends. We had to come together to protect each other, long before making music together.

Tell me about Regent Park/Esplanade... what’s the musical reputation of those neighbourhoods now?
Mustafa: Regent Park was the most revered. When you thought of Regent, you thought of success. We were the downtown hood dream. And of course, as we grew, people started to pull us down, to Loso’s point.

When did Regent get that reputation? The one of the “downtown hood dream”?
Safe: “Rabba” and “Hang.” But when Drake posted “Rabba,” obviously, that turned it to a whole thing.
Mustafa: For sure. “Rabba” but like, basketball, poetry, photography, too. We were dominating in a lot of fields—[alongside our photographer friends,] Yescene, Re.Mark. The post began a whole movement [for us].

Mustafa, when you say “we” who do you mean? Regent kids? What about Smoke, specifically?
Mustafa: Both Halal Gang and Regent. I have to say that Smokey had no criminal record, no previous offences. He wanted to grow from the shit. He was born into it, whereas a lot of people embraced the lifestyle for clout, for real.
Safe: Thank you for bringing that up, Mustafa. There was this one time me and Smoke were about to go to L.A., and they didn't let him through for no apparent reason. It broke our hearts.
Mustafa: Mannnnn, that happened multiple times to him! Profiled at the border when they had no reason to deny him.
Puffy: Trust me. Facts. More money, more problems. More clout, more problems. Quote me on that.

How did you start this wave together?
Puffy: Smokey was the first one rapping. Safe, the songsmith, made all the connections to start. Poet was the brain and heart, spiritual and motivational. Mo-G was the energy and sauce.
Safe: Yeah, Smoke was the first one, but I always used to write and keep to myself. Eventually, I recorded some songs and started sharing with people. So one day, Ano booked a studio for us and that's when it started. People in the city started finding out and it caught fire.
Puffy: Ano is the Top Mali, the heart of everything.
Safe: Yeah, Ano seen the vision before all of us. He knew it could be a real thing.
Puffy: Always happy, smiling, making sure everybody straight.

What do you want people to know about Smokey?
Puffy: Smokey was always happy, no matter what. You can’t think of him without seeing him smile.
Mustafa: Was just talking to Capo on the phone. He said he’s shocked, and [told me] how Smokey would always send him money. He spoke to [Smokey] on the phone everyday. Main Halal Gang member, can’t forget him.
Safe: Yeah.
Mustafa: [Smokey’s] smile was larger than any pressure we were undergoing. It shifted the energy. Every. Single. Time.
Puffy: Yeah.
Safe: He was the voice of the streets.
Mustafa: Can we please talk about how Smokey commanded a respect without having to muscle anyone? He had that aura without speaking too much.
Puffy: Yeah. They knew the potential he had, and that puts fear in people.

How did he feel when he started gaining a lot of success? The tour, the back-to-back songs?
Mustafa: He managed well. We went through much more trying trials. It was the envy that came in the way, as it does with artists like us who are speaking on actual truths. He would laugh it away all the time, but how many threats and words can one take as empty before they crack, you know?
Puffy: I could tell you: after the tour, the hate and jealousy came from everywhere.
Mustafa: We were trying to move out of the city.
Puffy: He managed it like a real one. There’s only so much you can take, but I salute him for everything he been through and being strong. He showed real growth and maturity. Not acting out-of-character or folding under pressure.
Mustafa: Facts, man. We were all preparing to leave because we know the poison of this city.

And he was always in the city, right?
Puffy: Yes. Never left once. And he would go everywhere with no protection or security.
Mustafa: He spent good time in L.A., but then they started denying him. He was about to go to London.
Puffy: Tuesday.
Mustafa: We felt the hate. I was going too, man. I don’t know how to go now.
Puffy: The more hate, the bigger the success. And everyone sees it.
Safe: Yeah, we were all going to meet up there.
Puffy: Our movement is the only one in the city that doesn’t do social media attention, diss anyone for clout, or be in our feelings. We grind hard and let success do the talking.

Do you wanna talk about Saturday? (Note: On Saturday, June 30, 2018, Smoke Dawg was killed in downtown Toronto.)
Mustafa: On Saturday, Safe called me and I fell apart. That’s all I remember. Screams and cries like I’ve never heard. The light of the community dimmed. You could feel the strength of the community shake. Withering away. He gathered us before—many times before. This was the gathering we never prepared for. In the last few weeks of his life, he was so warm, so present. He told us he loved us. He was looking up, in every way.

How do you want Smokey to be remembered?
Puffy: I want people to remember him in a positive light. Remember him through his smile and character. Yeah, most will always go back to the music and what it stood for, but to be honest, we ain’t from the suburbs. We rap and speak about what’s around us. What we see and the stories from past generations and so on. We don’t have much to speak about but what’s around us.
Mustafa: He was so concerned about my charges in his last few days. He called Safe and told him we were going to connect and plan around my freedom.
Puffy: Trust me. He didn’t even want it in the media, but if Poet wants it now I’ll personally put it there.
Safe: Honestly, this is heartbreaking. That we’re even discussing this.
Mustafa: Yeah, man. I don’t want to look broken for the rest of my life. I want to heal, but there’s no full healing from this.
Safe: That amount of shit we’ve been through is so wild. Like, I can’t even focus on what’s going on. I can’t think about the future. Where we come from, our lives are cut short. I’d be a fool if I thought about five years from now.
Mustafa: Holy shit. This is killing me.
Safe: I take it day-by-day. That’s all. Only these suburb ass niggas can do that shit. I’m not trying to seem like a hater but it’s just facts, ‘cause those be the people that glorify this lifestyle. I moved out the city because I can't move around freely without being noticed. There’s so much love for us in the city, but that small percentage of hate has us lost. We can’t trust nobody.
Mustafa: Noticed by people that want to try us for that 6ixbuzz clout.
Safe: Only each other.
Mustafa: Exactly. They want us to tell our little homies to put the guns down so they can lose their lives too? They want to talk about programming that’s led by people who don’t look like us, who don’t feel like us, who abandon us in the midst of all this.

Mustafa, you got your start writing about the hood and being who you are, coming from the people you come from. Do you think anyone’s listening? And do any of you see yourself living in the city again?
Mustafa: My plight and art is glorified as the next rapper. They love when I pour myself but not enough to be there when it pours down on me or us. This city is a graveyard for me. I don’t want to be here. Thankfully, Smokey is of status; he’s big and a mountain of hope and freedom. But our other friends, not offered a tear or word. None of it has healed, none of it has ended. Our mothers don’t know how to carry it. Where’s the support for them that comes in their languages? We don’t understand their homeland breakage and they don’t understand ours. So everything falls apart. There’s nowhere to put it all down.
Puffy: At night, I don’t expect to see morning. In the morning, I don’t expect to see the night. That’s life. 'Alhamdulilah' for every second.
Mustafa: We’re going to pray for him. Make 'duaa' for him. Make charity for him.
Puffy: That’s what he needs.
Safe: All we can do.
Mustafa: His impact was great. The whole world responded.

You can help donate to Smoke Dawg's family to pay for his funeral here.
You can also donate to the family of Kosi Modekwe (Koba Prime) who also passed here.

Amani is a writer from Toronto and is on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey CA.

Last night, Future surprise-released his long-teased Beast Mode sequel into this burning, inhospitable world. Though it's still too soon to definitively say if it lives up to its predecessor's lofty reputation, what's objective is that Zaytoven—the soul of Atlanta trap—is still delivering on its emotional, gospel-inspired sound. The beatmaking veteran spoke to The Fader today about Beast Mode 2, and gave some precious insight into the workflow that he and Future have developed over several years of collaboration.

According to Zay, he and Future built up a collection of "about 100 songs" over a few years before deciding which nine were most worthy to be packaged as a project. "It’s easier to digest that way," he tells The Fader, "We could’ve put 20 songs on there and it’d seem like we guessing. Like we don’t know which songs are the good ones so we just [put] ‘em all on there and let the fans pick." He elaborates on how Beast Mode 2 was originally going to be released in 2016, but the success of the Zaytoven-produced Drake and Future duet "Used to This," which was originally meant for the project, delayed things. The resulting project does indeed contain songs recorded in 2016, 2017, and this year.

Zaytoven does note that there is an overall vision that unites the disparate tracks: "It’s almost like a work of art. It’s not just a rap song, it’s art being painted to me. When I think about Beast Mode, that’s what I think about," he says. He goes on to state that "I listen to a lot of music ... but there still hasn’t been a project yet that touches me like Beast Mode has," and that he feels the sequel will kickstart another run for Future, similar to his legendary 2015 trilogy that also included Monster and 56 Nights. You can read the rest of the interview here.

Phil is on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey CA.

At its core, rock and roll has always been about mixing an attitude with a sound. The swagger of the vocalist strutting around the stage or the guitar player wielding his instrument like a battle axe has become the stuff of myth. While this myth has given way to many clichés and examples of human excess at its worst, it has also provided an escape from the soul-destroying nature of daily life. The sound of loud guitars and thundering drums act as a sort of catharsis. Montreal power-pop quartet The Sick Things understand the genre’s dual nature, and embrace it on their song “Sick Thing” off their debut album Sick Things. In case you were wondering, no, there is nothing more rock and roll than naming both an album and a song off that same album after your band.

The video and the song itself work together to form a temporal juxtaposition between different periods in a musician’s life. Scenes of a kid barely into his teens trying to amuse himself in his parent’s basement clash perfectly against scenes of the band rocking out as adults. The intertwining solos of guitar players Keith Lewtas and Cam Turin both boost Turin’s energetic lead vocals while Matt Gonzalez’s pounding drums and Patrick Bennet’s straight-to the point basslines help drive the Thin Lizzy-ish, full throttle nature of the song home. It is... well, it's pretty sick, is all we'll say. You can watch the video for "Sick Thing" below and check out our interview with the band.

Noisey: What exactly is going on in the video?
Sick Things: The idea was to portray a lonely kid, played by Markus Edwards, the nephew pf the director, who just day dreams of being in a band, kind of hiding away in the basement. We play the band in his head. I think anyone who plays in a band will admit that at some point in their lives they would fantasize about being on a stage one day. It's a tad autobiographical in that sense.

So, it’s basically Almost Famous?
When I was a teenager, my friends would compare Frances McDormand's character to my mom. The whole single mother-overly cautious, "don't take drugs" thing. I definitely identified with the music nerd loner character played by Patrick Fuget. Seems to be an attraction for us in our music, thematically speaking.

The song is so different from what most indie bands are doing these days. What inspired the pure, rock and roll vibe of the song?
We really wanted a song on the record that would make you sing our band name in the chorus. That, and we just write and play music that sounds like that because of the music we like to listen to. If the four of us got on stage and tried to mimic other, more common bands, it would come off as disingenuous. This is just the most honest presentation of ourselves.

Are guitar solos making a comeback?
God, I hope so. I don't know how to play any other instruments, so this is my only way to shine. I'm pretty happy that the punk thing to do now is to write guitar-centric pop music though.

What is the power pop scene like in Montreal these days?
There are a good crop of bands here, but I'd say its still in its infancy. The term power pop still has a lot of well informed music enthusiasts scratching their heads, so to say we have a scene is a bit of a stretch. We do however have one of the most encouraging and evolving independent music communities, so we feel very at home here doing what we're doing. Montreal has a great punk and garage rock history, too, which helps keep the embers hot even as trends change.

Lastly, given your band name, what's the sickest thing you've ever seen?
I once saw a man flying through the sky on one of the backpack fans with a glider thing attached to him. I was in a rural part of Quebec, about three hours from Montreal with some friends, high on mushrooms. We heard this weird droning noise and looked up, and saw this man flying through the sky like a b-grade Rocketeer. We screamed laughing, and he waved to us.

Daniel is on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey CA.

This summer, the smooth quiet storm of Ella Mai's "Boo'd Up" has run the airwaves along with other contenders like Cardi B's "I Like It." The song has already received an official remix featuring Nicki Minaj and Quavo spitting verses, but something was missing. Maybe you need a singer to hop on a singer's song. Someone with a sense of verve. Someone like T-Pain, who just released his own personal remix to "Boo'd Up" today.

Beginning with the accurate statement that "this shit been overdue," T-Pain's latest "T-MIX" is just as technically impressive as what he did for Kodak Black's "Roll in Peace," but features even more outlandish lines. The opening line asks "How many songs can you make about a booty?" before a harmonized choir of T-Pains responds with "LIKE A THOUSAND!" There are many beautiful, perfectly choreographed moments of absurdity like this across the two minutes that T-Pain is given to himself here. His instincts are to go for glorious soul showmanship; one cut on last year's Oblivion album is an eight-minute-long trap bossa nova/jazz fusion jam with solos for both bass guitar and drums. It is better and weirder than much of mainstream R&B, and it's great that T-Pain is allowed to provide a touch of this sensibility on big hits. Listen to the "T-MIX" of "Boo'd Up" above.

Phil is on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey CA.

At the top of 2018, Drake looked poised for a rebrand. In the face of criticism for borrowing from and pandering to Caribbean, West, and South African audiences, he started the year by considering unhappy customers and went back to the old formula. For Drake, that's always meant confidence-boosting bars and finger-pointing R&B—meat and potatoes stuff that's never fully disappeared in his genre experiments, but was nevertheless sidelined in favor of the sunny, island-informed pop music that filled More Life. This "return to form" is a classic Drake album move—when he wants to be taken seriously, he reaches back to what initially got him to the top tier of rap’s hierarchy.

In January, Drake released Scary Hours, an unexpected two-song EP which included the smash hit “God’s Plan.” Then in April, he dropped “Nice For What,” a song that flips Big Freedia’s New Orleans bounce and a sample of Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor.” Both gave slight tweaks to the formula that’s proven to work for the past decade—which for fans of conventional Drake was a glimmer of hope. This was the narrative that he—one of music's most careful arbiters of image—seemed to be crafting for himself going into his fifth studio album. But even the best-laid plans don't often account for beef, which meant that his June war-of-words with PUSHA-T—culminating with the apparent revelation that Drake was the absentee father to a baby boy—threw a wrench into his attempt at a corporate restructuring. The follow up to that scuffle is Drake’s new album Scorpion, a two-sided, 90-minute long project that sloppily revisits his comfort zone.

For an artist who was already prone to long windedness about his paranoia and the jealousy he feels from peers, a below-the-belt diss from Push only complicated what Drake’s output may have been originally. But, founder of iconic Houston rap label Rap-A-Lot Records and personal mentor J. Prince allegedly advised him to not respond directly to PUSHA-T's "The Story of Adidon," claiming it would be damaging to the careers of Drake and Kanye. But it wouldn't be like Drake to leave a series of slights unanswered.

Throughout Side A of Scorpion—the rap side—Drake lends a considerable amount of time to addressing the beef, but much like “Duppy Freestyle,” the bulk could still be read as being geared towards Kanye West. On the album’s appropriately-titled opener “Survival,” he chronicles past disputes with the likes of Meek Mill and Diddy: “I've had real Philly niggas try to write my endin'/ Takin' shots with the goat and talked about shots that we sendin'/ I've had scuffles with bad boys that wasn't pretendin’.” In that same verse he scoffs “I fell back a hundred times when I don’t get the credit,” which could also be a shot at Kanye considering that Drake is credited on TLOP’s “30 Hours” and ye’s “Yikes.”

In a recent Rolling Stone report, producers of the Scorpion track “March 14,” which offers the most details about Drake’s son to date, allege that the song started being made as early as January. Drake collaborators J. Valler and Malik Yusef suspect that the song’s title suggests Drake played a version of the song for Kanye West in Wyoming, and Kanye subsequently played the song for PUSHA-T, which gave him ammo for “The Story of Adidon.”

So, if the timeline actually unfolded that way, lines like “Lead the league in scorin', man, but look at my assists /Yes I be with Future but I like to reminisce” on Scorpion’s “Mobb Ties” and “Niggas pulling gimmicks ‘cause they scared to rap” from “Non Stop” could be directed at Kanye. On his weekly podcast, Joe Budden speculated that not only was the majority of Side A a direct response to Ye and Push, but he believes even the way Drake used “good” was a play on words for G.O.O.D. Music. Budden has been known to launch wild rap conspiracies into the online conversation, so do with that theory what you will, but the minute detail in his analysis felt like one of the few realistic scenarios for how Push even got information about Drake’s son.

In a way, all of these rebuttals do feel like a return to a classic Drake mode. He almost seems like he's in a comfort zone when there is conflict. Paranoia and rage have always suited him. But crucially, he moves into new territory when he's able to discuss his relationship with his son.

Those sentiments come together on the album’s closer “March 14.” There are some brow-raising moments on it; Drake does very little to reverse Push’s absentee father accusations (he confirms that he’d only seen his son during Christmas). He also uses the song as an opportunity to stress that he’d only been with the son’s mother twice and that she was more-or-less the result of a reality his mother tried to steer him away from in his early years. But by all accounts, it is the most vulnerable moment of the Toronto artist’s career. He spends greater portion of the song expressing his shame in recreating the long distance co-parenting he was subjected to as a child. He is open about the fear of having his son worry about which parent loved him more. It’s one of the few moments in Drake’s career where he’s seemingly forced to operate from somewhere other than his hubris, though this could just be a result of that pride being somewhat broken.

But the rest of Scorpion is nothing like that. Where parts of Views and most of More Life gave a sense that Drake saw value in extending his superstardom out to artists throughout the African diaspora with lighthearted danceable records, this new album is him just going back to what works. And, to his credit, a lot of it works really well. On the R&B-dominated Side B, which has a bit more cohesion than Side A, Drake is given the uninterrupted space to make the ballads he’s always shown the capability of making.

The Ty Dolla $ign-featuring, slow-burning “Jaded” takes on the Drake-est of Drake themes, stressing his reason for being single is so he doesn’t hurt anyone else. It’s corny, but sounds great. “Blue Tint” was made for summer night drives and features some backing vocals from Future. He unearths some unfinished-sounding vocals of Michael Jackson as a flex of his buying power (which he does throughout the album) on “Don’t Matter.” “In My Feelings,” has contributions from Miami duo City Girls and interpolates New Orleans flavor just like “Nice For What.” The ingredients make for one of the strongest candidates for a chart-topping single in his career. All of these add more polish to Drake’s unmatched ability to make easily digestible pop music that comes from a rap foundation.

On Side A, with his shots at the folks over at G.O.O.D. Music and sheer display of lyrical ability, there are plenty of songs to be excited about. The first hint that “Emotionless” is a flip of Mariah Carey’s 1991 hit “Emotions,” indicates that’ll be a standout. Couple that with some of his more seething lines on the album about witnessing former heroes act more disappointingly human than he ever imagined make it one of the album’s best. Drake scores a DJ Premier beat for “Sandra’s Rose,” a self-propping bop that pays tribute to his mother while taking hilarious shots like “Like Charlemagne, I see the light and see the darkest patches.” And though it doesn’t help the argument that they actually work well as collaborators, JAY-Z joins Drake on the DJ Paul-produced (and N.W.A. sampling) “Talk Up”—the type of hip-hop moment that we should get way more of. Like Side B does with R&B, Side A shores up his long track record of witty, but routinely catty raps.

Even with all of these highlights, the fact that Scorpion is 25 songs and 90 minutes long can’t be ignored. So much of listening to it feels like a chore once you get to the beginning of Side B, which is unfortunate because so many of the album’s best songs are past that point. Beyond the lengthis the reality that Drake’s this-and-that framing of the album runs its course early because what it offers musically doesn’t warrant how much music there actually is. It leaves the question that many had after Migos released Culture II earlier this year: how many decisions from music’s biggest stars are being made with commercialism in mind before artistic integrity? Scorpion could likely be one of Drake’s better albums if it shaved about a third of its tracklist.

Though Views suffered from the same challenges of length, the insertion of Caribbean and West African music was a skill added to his repertoire and was a way for him to connect with global artists. He took that even further on More Life which largely felt like a Drake residency in London. But now we’re back to where we were left off pre-2016. In her review of Views, writer Judnick Mayard assessed Drake’s tendency to go back to old habits after noting that halfway through, he completely abandoned the diasporic flavor of the album. “This feeling of wanting to experiment but understanding that there’s pressure to repeat past successes is familiar to many of us ‘millennials’ who know what it’s like to wait for the game to catch up to us while the old pillars fall.”

That still seems to be the case for Drake in 2018. But, how can you tell that to an artist who hasn’t experienced many chart failures for nearly a decade how to operate? Scorpion is full of great moments but its appetite for domination is hindering its chance at separating itself from the lot of already-existing Drake music.

Follow Lawrence Burney on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey US.

This article is supported by TEG Dainty, who are bringing Bon Jovi to Australia this December. Ahead of the tour, we meet an Australian super-fan.

When Jon Bon Jovi arrives in Australia this December, Alicia Privitera will be there. In the front row. Twice: once in Melbourne, again in Sydney. And she’ll be at the sound check. And at an exclusive Q&A with John Francis Bongiovi himself.

It’ll be the fourteenth time Alicia’s been face-to-face with her big-haired hero. The first was back in 1995, but with each tour, Alicia’s ardour for JBJ only grows more pronounced, and her appreciation for his songwriting chops only deepens. And her pile of Bon Jovi memorabilia only grows higher.

Noisey sat down with Alicia to discuss Sayreville, New Jersey’s favourite son.

Noisey: I have never owned a Jon Bon Jovi record.
Alicia Privitera: Okay…

Can you please explain Bon Jovi to me?
He’s someone who’s passionate about the craft of songwriting, music, and does it for the people. He doesn’t do it for the adulation. He’s a great example of passion.

What was your first experience of Bon Jovi?
‘Keep the Faith’. I would have been at home, as a 12-year old. I remember watching the ARIA awards, where Bon Jovi performed. I just thought he was wonderful. He was the first musician I really loved. And 26 years on, I still feel exactly the same.

I know some of the bands I listened to when I was a teenager, I probably wouldn’t listen to now. That passion hasn’t changed for you?
Most of the time! Probably the only time it waned would have been when I was 17 or 18. It was still there, there was just no records released, there was no social media, I didn’t really follow it on the internet. Then, in 2000, when ‘It’s My Life’ came out, it was 1992 all over again.

Then they went through periods of change, where they released This Left Feels Right, where they did different takes on their classic songs. We dealt with people saying it was rubbish and asking why they’d do that. Then they went through a country theme with Have a Nice Day, and then it just kept going.

They’ve kept recording and touring, and it’s just evolved. Anybody who knows me knows I’m into Bon Jovi. I quote lyrics, I’ve used it in job interviews, even job applications.

What did you use in a job interview?
“Luck ain’t enough, you’ve got to make your own way”.

Awesome.
I love the meaning that comes out of the songs. They’re from the heart. Everyone can resonate. You can find something that applies to you, in a positive tone. It’s just uplifting. Not only is Jon Bon Jovi a great musician, he’s a Great. He’s a fantastic person. An excellent role model—these days for his philanthropic work, and his contribution to music. He’s inspired many people to go for their dreams and get out of tough places.

Reading about him, he seems like a good dude.
There’s no trouble. He’s just a really good example.

How did you first connect with other fans?
I suppose up until 2013, it was my own little bubble. And then I paid a lot of money for a ticket in the sixth row, and found myself wandering into the pit at Etihad Stadium, and found myself looking around at all these girls who were in short skirts and barely-there tops and high heels, and feeling a little bit out of place. I was just in jeans and a t-shirt—a real fan!—and I found myself sitting among these two girls who I still keep in touch with. I’ve got this whole new circle of Bon Jovi-centric friends. My bubble has grown and expanded!

This year in May, I went to New York, and met up with a couple of girls from America who are in a Facebook group, and got to enjoy the whole concert experience at Madison Square Garden. I could not have thought of a better place. I just fulfilled a dream. Absolutely a dream.

Tell me a bit more about the fan community. What are they generally like?
I’m probably the youngest, they’re mostly forty-plus. They’re everyday people: people with kids, people who are passionate, people who love music. There’s no pretentiousness. We’re all the same.

Jon Bon Jovi isn’t in the music game for the adulation. He doesn’t care that he’s played in front of millions of women around the world, and most of them would just love to have a piece of him. But yet he puts himself out there are just a regular person. That’s how I see the people in my group.

And do you stay in touch with that crew regularly?
About three or four times a year we catch up for dinner somewhere in the city.

What do you talk about over dinner?
Oh, upcoming events. We’ve got an event on a Friday night in July. Most of us are going to Sydney and doing the Runaway package, where we’ll have the opportunity to meet Jon Bon Jovi, Tico Torres, and David Bryan, and have our photos taken, and do a question and answer—so I finally get to ask my question that I’ve had for a long time…

Which is?
I don’t want to say! Someone will steal it.

Will this be the first time you’ve met JBJ?
Yep. I’ve paid a lot of money to fulfil a dream. I probably should be using that money for other things. People would think that a girl in her 30s should be spending it wisely. I consider it as an investment in my happiness.

Any men in the fan base?
No. I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ve seen any. There are husbands that get mentioned.

How has social media changed the fandom?
It used to be just me and my little bubble. Now I share it. Before I could have sheltered myself from comments I might not have liked. But now, particularly when Richie Sambora left, people were constantly bringing that up. It’s there, and you don’t want to see it, because Jon Bon Jovi remained so professional with that situation, but other people were putting stuff out there and insinuating. You have to be a strong person to put the blinkers on.

Does that sort of stuff upset you?
Not upset, so much, it’s just disappointing. I get annoyed. But then I just remember why I love Bon Jovi as a band, and move on. It’s a mental strength.

Do you know all the lyrics?
Yeah, to the big songs. There’s stuff from the ‘80s I don’t know, I’m not familiar with 7800 degree Fahrenheit and Bon Jovi the first album. But anything post-1992, I’m good.

Are you the kind of fan who sits down with the liner notes?
Initially, yeah. And then as time goes on, I try and understand the meaning behind, or find a correlation to something in your own life. I’ve got a song that, if I ever get married, I want played.

Which is?
‘You Want to Make a Memory off Lost Highway’. About halfway though, it just breaks into music with no vocals. I just think it’s absolutely beautiful. If I ever get married, that’s the song I want played when I’m dancing.

So obviously, if you did have a husband/wife they’d have to be into Bon Jovi, right?
They’d have to at least appreciate the passion. They could be passionate about something else, that’s fine. But they’d have to be passionate about something.

Is it going to be difficult for any future partner to measure up to Bon Jovi?
No, because that’s in fantasy world. I’ve got a little Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, who I adore, and I speak about just as much as Bon Jovi. If I had to choose, it’d always be D’arcy, because she’s real.

I guess Jon Bon Jovi is a high bar to pass.
Very high.

How does the live experience differ to listening to an album at home?
I can’t believe I’m actually there. It’s a different sound. The fact you can stand there and see him looking at you, and be close enough to make eye contact with you.

How much memorabilia do you have?
I think I have… a lot. A lot of normal stuff - in terms of DVDs and CDs. Maybe the journal tips it over…

Tell me about the journal.
It came to me as part of a package in 2013, which I paid a lot for. I thought, ‘It’s a beautiful leather-bound journal but what am I going to do with it? I’ve got ticket stubs, I’ve got photos’. So I then proceeded to start writing. I thought about all the concerts I’ve been to, and I found a website that does setlists that took me straight back to 1995, my first show. I had to remember as an adult what I thought as a teenager. But all those memories were quite vivid. It just continued on, and now I feel like it’s my Bon Jovi life. It documents everything. God help me if I ever lose it.

How do you feel about being called a mega-fan?
I don’t see myself as a big Bon Jovi fan. I’m just somebody with a passion. I love that particular sound of music.

Who’s a big fan if you’re not?
Some of the girls in my group, I think they’re bigger. They’ve been to America multiple times. They sit at home and talk about it all day and constantly scour the internet. They must have some sort of setting that picks up articles. I don’t have time to do that. I’m just an ordinary person who has a passion for Bon Jovi and music. That’s how I see myself.

This article is supported by TEG Dainty, who are bringing Bon Jovi to Australia this December. The tickets are on sale now.

DJ Khaled was due to headline the last night of Wireless Festival in Finsbury Park, London, yesterday, but a "scheduling conflict," revealed by organizers at the last moment, prevented him from getting out of the swimming pool. It left Wireless searching for a headline-caliber act who would drop everything for the opportunity to stand outside a chicken shop on the Holloway Road for a couple of hours, loudly telling everyone he's about to "link up" with his "mans." Astonishingly, that search didn't last long:

Drake only played for about 20 minutes, bringing out Giggs for "KMT," performing his BlocBoy JB collaboration "Look Alive," and rolling through Scorpion hits "Nonstop," "I'm Upset," "God's Plan," and "Nice For What." In an apparent attempt to shift the blame away from Khaled, whose Snapchat videos made it seem as though he just wanted his vacation to last longer, Wireless tweeted after the show that they'd known about Khaled's potential conflicts "for a few months."

Follow Alex Robert Ross on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey US.

Del the Funky Homosapien is recovering at a hospital in Denmark after falling off stage during Gorillaz' headline set at Roskilde Festival on Saturday night. The rapper, born Teren Delvon Jones, walked on for his verse during the evening's closer, "Clint Eastwood," but lost his footing a couple of bars in.

Footage of the incident shows Jones falling before the band's lead singer, Damon Albarn, realizes the potential severity of the situation. "Thank you so much for a beautiful, beautiful night," he tells the crowd. "Unfortunately, we’ve had a… I don’t know yet."

Jones assured fans that he was alright later on. "Thank you all for the love!" he wrote on Facebook. "I’m doing alright but will be in the hospital for a bit, the care here is outstanding though. Much love to Gorillaz for having me out and I’ll be back soon yall."

"One of the Gorillaz artists, Del the Funky Homosapien, unfortunately fell from the stage during the last number of Gorillaz' concert," a translated statement Roskilde Festival's Facebook page reads. "He was seen on site by a doctor and went to the hospital for further investigation. He's conscious and talking to his team. We hope he recovers quickly."

Follow Alex Robert Ross on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey US.

Last month, Kanye West tried it. The eventful fivefold flurry of G.O.O.D. Music mini-albums produced by the MAGA Hatter himself sought to make hip-hop history at a time when advances in digital distribution have disrupted the old models that still largely existed at the start of his career. While that stunt assuredly added to his notoriety as well as his coffers, the mixed reception from both critics and the general public as to the quality of this hastily dropped material from Kid Cudi, Teyana Taylor, and others undermined the endeavor’s relevance.

When it comes to pacing projects of high caliber, Future knows a little something about a successful run. Few rappers, if any, have accomplished what he did in the roughly five month period that produced the mixtape trio of Monster, Beast Mode, and 56 Nights. The first of these arrived in October of 2014, its darkness and frankness practically an allergic reaction to the feature-laden pop tones of Honest from earlier that year. Executive produced by Metro Boomin, the engaging and often shockingly candid Monster not only reenergized Nayvadius Wilburn’s forgiving base but rather drew fresh blood into his fandom.

Yet it was the following January’s Zaytoven-helmed Beast Mode that truly heralded Future’s career comeback and ultimate rise to new heights. Recorded over an intensively productive handful of days together, the project put two of Atlanta’s trap natives together for an artful, memorable song cycle that vacillated between self-indulgent hedonism and self-deprecating despair—often on the same damn track. Zaytoven’s piano-focused productions lent greater gravity to the rapper’s oversharing, especially in the wake of his tabloid-amplified split with R&B singer Ciara.

Like most consumers of summer blockbusters, rap listeners love themselves a sequel. The pair’s long-awaited yet unexpected return, Beast Mode 2 dropped with little warning. Coming a mere week after his What A Time To Be Alive collaborator Drake got way into his feelings for the virtual double-album hard drive dump Scorpion, Future’s deliberately restrained and curated nine-song return reminds us how much better he is at treating the studio’s vocal booth as a confessional. Out of the gate, he unapologetically addresses the latest gossip surrounding him with opener “WiFi Lit” swiftly acknowledging the story told by a woman he flew to Los Angeles for what proved a cancelled tryst. And just as quickly, he moves on to familiar boasts of luxury goods and luxe lifestyles as per the status quo in contemporary hip-hop.

Apologies to DJ Khaled, nobody suffers from success quite like Nayvadius. Unlike the scores of rappers who build entire mixtapes around their sexual conquests and masculine prowess, Future has turned his fame-powered pursuit of carnal pleasure into something drably utilitarian and functional, as evidenced by the dry reveal on the otherwise lurid “31 Days.” He describes scheduling multiple back ups to his hook ups, crassly contingency planning while scarcely remembering any particular lady’s particulars. On one level, “Some More” serves as yet another entry into the stagnating canon of men distrusting women with its coarse narrative of apparent unfaithfulness escalating to concerns of outright snitching. On another, it highlights his guardedness against the prospect of finding love again, a condition likely not helped by all the lean perpetually processed by his overworked kidneys. So rather than stick with someone who’ll hold him down and look out for him, Future lines up meaningless escapades and reliable dalliances, which inadvertently compounds his woes as well as his addictions.

Though it doesn’t quite top its namesake, what sets the exemplary Beast Mode 2 apart from its predecessor is the added context of the SoundCloud rap boom that came after the first volume, a revolution that exposes just how much of an impact the elder has had on the next generation of artist. A godfather to emo rap if not directly its genetic patriarch, Future embodies the path that these pill-popping nihilistic youngins have ahead of them. Self-medication tragically did in Lil Peep, and in the similarly monikered Lil Pump’s latest single “Drug Addicts” there’s a jarring parallel to to that narcotized way of life. Lil Xan now denounces the particular pill he’s named for, but the repercussions of his past use continue to plague his well-being, if his troubling social media presence is any indication.

Several years deeper into the disconcerting blur between recreational and habitual drug consumption than the face-tattooed teens currently blowing up streaming platforms, Future makes for an unintended cautionary tale. He’s gone from rags to riches, as he recalls on “Racks Blue,” and remains deeply affected by the trauma of poverty and the weight of breaking free of it. Amid all the talk of Pateks and Porsches, he once again lays bare the flipside of trapping, contemplating the tragedy of accumulating wealth that comes at the expense of your neighbors and loved ones.

There’s no greater nor graver indication of the dark place in which Future currently resides than on “Hate The Real Me,” an unvarnished self-assessment that takes stock of his present state. In the hands of one of these SoundCloud kids, the mantra-like chorus I’m tryna get as high as I can would likely sound aspirational, a veritable turn up anthem destined for the Hot 100. But here, it’s a jarring admission of desperation in a cloud of dark thoughts. He conflates gun talk with depressive distress, deflecting with tropes about exotic women and focusing on his paper. With that Zaytoven signature sound immersing his voice, Future sings a torch song for his tortured soul, shining a light on his drug dependence while lamenting an unnamed lost love. One could speculate that he’s referring to Ciara, but no matter who he’s referencing here there’s no escaping the gut-wrenching loathing he has for himself over how things went down.

What’s truly disturbing about Beast Mode 2 is how little things seem to have changed in the three and a half years since the original dropped, both for the artist thematically as well as personally. The success of that mixtape and the two that bookended it received such a rapturous reception that now people treat just about anything Future-related (except, for some reason, that recent Superfly movie reboot and its soundtrack) as eventworthy. He’s reached greatness at great expense to his well being, with critics and fans both applauding him for the sacrifice while demanding more and more pounds of his flesh. As Zaytoven hints that this commercial release heralds the coming of another robust Future run, that prolific promise boding well for listeners but perhaps not so much for the artist spiralling down and bleeding out for our collective enjoyment.

This article originally appeared on Noisey US.

In its nearly three decades of existence, the internet has acquired a reputation for potentially off-putting weirdness thanks to the many subcultures and fandoms that have found a home online. Two of these fandoms, furries and Juggalos, have occasionally collided, but it's mostly been in passing—in viral videos, confusing fan art, and old forums where normies dare not tread. But because the web is a miraculous place where basically anything can happen, they met head on today, in a new web series by Insane Clown Posse's Violent J. Called Snake Busters, it is presumably about the ICP member and his daughter Ruby taking down bad online purchases and deals of dubious quality. It's a simple enough premise, but one that becomes much more notable considering the first episode is entirely about furries and their fursuits.

The pair of Ruby and Violent J introduce each other as a "furry Juggalo" and a "Juggalo furry" respectively (I'm sure there's an important difference of semantics at play) and then immediately get to task laying into a shoddy fursuit that Violent J bought for his daughter, who is apparently so about the furry life that she does this entire video behind another, much more expensive fursuit. "This mask was well worth the very little money my dad has. My mom says if my dad could rap better, he wouldn't be so broke," she says, which is a better anti-ICP diss than anything Eminem came up with in the early 00s. Despite the duo's enthusiasm and the very wholesome father-daughter bonding on display here, I still cannot process the fact that there is an Insane Clown Posse video about furries in the world.

Juggalos and furries embody a particular understanding of the internet, in the same category as the kind souls who draw Sonic the Hedgehog OCs. It is uncritical nerdy fandom, which seems cringe-y and strange to outsiders but can actually be a wonderful demonstration of community. Neither of these groups could have gained their current, sorta-mainstream prominence without the internet, and only the internet could have given us this long-awaited meeting of Juggalos and furries, officially sanctioned by a Juggalo head honcho and his proud furry offspring. You can watch this fucking miracle at the top of the page.

Phil is on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey CA.