Officially, there’s still 19 days of summer left. But Labor Day weekend just passed, so for all intents and purposes, this summer…she’s over. Where does hip-hop stand with the season having now concluded? Let’s take a look at some of the winners and losers from the last three months in the rap world:
THE WINNERS:
Jay Z
Why Jay Z you ask? First off, Jay always wins. Period. If you haven’t learned that by now, there isn’t much hope for you as a rap fan. While rumors of an alleged split between he and his Queen Bey have ruled the internet the last several weeks, Jay still managed to keep his union together long enough to rake in a cool $100 million on the Carter family’s “On The Run Tour”. While its cost of overhead is unknown, the tour, which concludes September 13th in Paris, is set to be second all-time in gross sales per show, according to Forbes.com.
If that weren’t enough, Hov’s appearance with Blue Ivy and Beyoncé on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards last week was a huge public relations win and should help keep the twitter trolls in check and his Q rating in a comfortable place. To take it a step further, a separation between hip-hop’s first couple (regardless of the reasoning) would result in “The Beyhive” turning on Mr. Carter and laying waste in ways never before seen. And if there’s one thing YOU DO NOT DO, it’s piss off “The Beyhive”!
DO NOT PISS OFF THE BEYHIVE! YOU MIGHT LOSE YOUR LIFE!
Sidebar: Or at the very least, they’ll have you deported.
Roc Nation
This is an extension of Jay Z’s Midas touch. On the Roc Nation Sports side of things, Kevin Durant — one of Jay’s prized assets — just received an endorsement offer from Under Armour north of $265 million, which was subsequently matched and exceeded by Nike to the tune of $300 million. That was not a misprint…$300 MILLION! KD stock is at an all-time high and It’s all under the Roc Nation umbrella. And what’s good for the goose is good for Jay Z.
Iggy Azalea
She’s practically a household name now, which seemed pretty unfathomable 18 months ago. But having one of the top rap songs of the season with massive crossover appeal and a cool video parodying the movie Clueless will do that for you.
“Fancy” has taken on a life of it’s own— even ?uestlove referred to it as “a game-changer” for hip-hop. That, coupled with the success of “Black Widow” featuring Rita Ora, has opened up all sorts of lanes for Iggy. Now she’s making hit records with Ariana Grande. Even in spite of falling of stage in hilarious fashion a few weeks back, Iggy is definitely a “problem” out here.
Nicki Minaj
Her new video for the single “Anaconda” broke VEVO records, and her performance at the MTV Awards — complete with a “fake” wardrobe malfunction, had everybody talking. Fellas, if you haven’t seen this video, I highly suggest you take a look. Ladies, if you haven’t seen this video, watch it, and then tell all your guy friends to watch it. It’s pretty safe to say they’ll thank you for it.
You see it.
The Pinkprint is due to drop on Black Friday.
Bobby Shmurda
The 20-year-old Brooklynite, who looks 17, set the streets ablaze with the song “Hot Nigga”. The track is accompanied by a recycled jig known as the “Shmoney Dance“, which also took the streets by storm (I recently heard a story about this song playing from a car at an intersection in NYC and everybody got out their cars and did this dance in the street…I believe it). The dance has been cosigned by the aforementioned Jay Z & Beyoncé, and rappers like T.I., Jeezy and others have taken a stab at freestyling over it. It’s officially the song of the summer in hip-hop.
Mr. Shmurda (government name Ackquille Pollard) is currently facing a felony weapons charge stemming from a June arrest. But provided his lawyer can eat the case, Bobby may be in line for a nice little run. You know, the one Trinidad James was supposed to have.
My advice: follow the Soulja Boy blueprint. Stay young, keep dancing, and if you never learn how to seriously rhyme, keep some dope beats in the stash. Or better yet, learn to produce some yourself. It’s the DeAndre Way!
Jahlil Beats
Responsible for producing “Hot Nigga”.
Jeezy
In a year that has largely disappointed on the album front, The Snowman is quietly receiving “album of the year” buzz for his latest LP Seen It All: The Autobiography, which dropped yesterday. Jeezy’s seventh solo album appears to be setting him up for a major comeback after the unorganized TM: 103 flopped (by Jeezy standards).
Jeezy also caught a weapons charge last week after the boys in blue found an AK on his tour bus, for which nobody in his crew took the wrap. Police are allegedly attempting to connect the weapons on his bus to the murder of a man backstage at a Wiz Khalifa concert two days before. Jeezy spent four nights in jail and posted a $1 million bond.
If Jeezy ultimately is forced to do time for this, we’ll retroactively move him to the losers column. But until then, you can’t ban The Snowman, provided Seen It All lives up to the hype.
Lil Boosie & Remy Ma
Speaking of jail time, Boosie & Remy came home!
Upon her release after doing a six year bid for shooting a woman in the stomach, Papoose’s wife got out early and went straight to the studio. She recorded a record with French Montana, Jadakiss and Swizz Beatz, and a mixtape is supposed to be dropping any day now. Remy has also made several public appearances, including interviews on The Breakfast Club and 106 & Park.
Honestly, Remy never got this much attention when she was out before. Absence clearly makes the heart grow fonder.
Boosie also made his rounds on the interview circuit this summer. One of his verses made it onto Jeezy’s new album and his own solo project, Touchdown 2 Cause Hell, is set for release later this month. Hopefully it isn’t pushed back a second time.
Sidebar: Shouts to Beanie Sigel who also recently came home.
Murda Mook
Drake v Mook: Who you got?
He bodied Loaded Lux at Total Slaughter. Now he’s apparently received a face-to-face challenge to battle Drizzy himself. Yes, that Drizzy! Regardless of the outcome, that’s a W for Mook. If we learned anything from Total Slaughter, it’s that your typical song-making rappers won’t always transition smoothly into the battle rap arena.
Wiz Khalifa
Historically, his albums haven’t been in the same stratosphere as his mixtapes, but the pride of Taylor Allderdice High School currently has the #1 album in the country.
THE LOSERS:
Lloyd Banks
You might not be aware of this, but Banks was first to rap over the “Hot Nigga” instrumental produces by Jahlil Beats. He dropped his record called “Jackpot” two years ago that didn’t really make any waves. However Banks never officially purchased the beat, so when Shmurda found it on YouTube, it quickly morphed into a “get in where you fit in” situation.
Banks is left looking kinda silly because he couldn’t do much with the same beat that an unknown kid from BK used to launch his career.
Maybach Music Group
On the surface, you might not look at MMG as losers. But if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find…
Rick Ross
Everybody forgot that Mastermind was at one point the number one album in the country, which is a problem if you’re Rick Ross. Granted, the project came out in early March, so it’s not exactly a shock that it lost significant momentum by the summer. Still, in a year void of any major releases in its first six to eight months, Ross had a real opportunity to DOMINATE hip-hop had he dropped an album that was fire.
An LP with several heaters would’ve easily carried him through the spring and well into the summer months. Unfortunately, Rozay came up a little short this time.
Ahh well, nothing that trip to Wing Stop can’t cure.
Meek Mill
Juuuust good enough lyrically to keep the purest off his case, definitely hood enough to give the streets what they need, yet still mainstream enough to get his records played on the radio; not long ago, Meek’s ceiling seemed limitless. And it still might be. But after getting locked up for a parole violation over the summer, Meek is now forced to promote his new album from a 6 X 8 cell block.
Meek was denied an early release in August and will likely remain on lockdown for another month or two. His label though has, as of now, made no plans to push the album back. And it’s due out next week!
Meek also lost points for his (what we can only assume is brief) falling out with labelmate…
Wale
If you had three stars on your squad in Miami, chances are you didn’t sleep much this summer.
Meek says Wale didn’t support his album. Wale writes a lengthy middle-schoolish (it beats them actually shooting at each other though)/semi-cryptic response on IG, and Ross was left to clean up the mess.
Too much public feuding, not enough family business. It looks like the “misunderstanding” has been squashed, but when the smoke cleared, nobody on MMG looked good.
Folarin also left Jay’s Roc Nation management team this summer after five successful years. This may not necessarily be a “loser” move, but he is now entrusting his career to 77 North Management run by Rich Paul, Leonard Brooks and Maverick Carter. Those names may sound familiar to you— they also represent LeBron James.
It could work out well for him, but breaking any relationship with the über successful Shawn Corey always seems like risky business.
Sidebar: Thus concludes the MMG portion of the “Losers” section.
Lil Kim
She seems to have an issue with every female rapper that gets more shine than her, completely oblivious to the fact that she first had the spotlight 18 years ago. Although Kim appears to be on good terms with Iggy for now, her beef with Nicki Minaj is longstanding. And every time she shades Nicki, people seem to care less and less.
Joe Budden
Some thought Budden was robbed at Total Slaughter. But his punchlines weren’t that vicious, he repeatedly interrupt himself with “stop my time” after each sub-par bar and in the third round he put the mic down, which is unacceptable in the battle rap world.
Even that wouldn’t have been so bad, but then he got knocked for assaulting and robbing his ex-girlfriend after he saw her dancing with other dudes on Instagram, which if true, can only be described as the runaway bitch-move of the summer. Ironically, this is exactly what Hollow Da Don called him out for at Total Slaughter.
Ab-Soul
His third studio album These Days… has received decent marks from a critical standpoint from most outlets, however it debuted at #11 on the Billboard charts when released in fourth week of June, selling less than 22,000 copies. There was no discernible song from this album that would be allowed within 500 yards of any radio station, thus killing any momentum Black Hippy/Top Dawg Entertainment had in regards to creating hip-hop’s next dominant super-group…at least for now.
Soul has talent, but on what was easily the most highly-anticipated release of his young career, nobody cared. It’s very possible Soul himself was not the problem and he was simply failed by his executive producers and TDE.
Suge Knight
Suge took six shots less than two weeks ago at Chris Brown’s pre-VMA party. It’s amazing how many enemies this guy has made over the years, and to that end, that he’s even still alive.
While Suge might actually be a winner for still being able to breathe, he’s the everyday life version of Mike Tyson. He was once the most feared man in hip-hop. But over the years, he’s taken one L after another; whether it’s being shot, catching a fade from a random civilian or catching another fade from a random civilian. Each loss he’s taken has slowly chipped away at that rugged aura of invincibility he once had— now everybody in the street thinks they can try him.
In summation, Jigga always wins, MMG took a spill, the ladies quietly stole the show and the entire internet was doing the Shmoney Dance in the summer of 2014. And then there are those stuck in limbo, like 50 Cent. Perpetually making headlines, but hardly ever for his music.
Was anyone erroneously omitted from this list? Let us know in the comment section below!