What The Hell Just Happened in Music This Week?

Beyonce dropped a new ad/song, for starters.

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Image via Complex Original
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This week was a big one for Rick Ross, in that he mostly stayed on the right side of public opinion for a nice change of pace. Where last week, Ross was disappointing his corporate overlords, Beyonce likely pleased hers, combining one thing everyone loves—the video trailer—with another undeniably beloved (no, really) part of culture—the commercial. 

In a slow news week, it's also never a bad idea to keep up with what artists who peaked creatively in the 1990s are up to—Lauryn Hill and Snoop Lion got the Lion's share of press, ya smell us?

The younger kids got a lil cocky. The Rent Is Too Damn High Guy returned out of nowhere, thankfully his trademark facial hair is still looking fresh to death. We mocked people who pretend to know about artists who don't actually exist. And Tyler, The Creator caught crabs from someone on our staff, we're pretty sure. All this and more, in this week's edition of What The Hell Just Happened In Music This Week?

Joey Bada$$ Will Not Perform Under Trinidad Jame$, Pau$e

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Joey Bada$$ Will Not Perform Under Trinidad Jame$, Pau$e

Date: April 22

Drake's "Started From The Bottom" is everyone's motto. It's yours, it's your friend's, it's your friend's cousin's godson's. However, one of the people that might not 100 percent buy into the mantra is Joey Bada$$. In his interview with us a while back, he said he was mad at the fact that he liked the Young Money crew before he blew up. But honestly, who really regrets listening to "Bedrock"?

Anyways, Wiz Khalifa and A$AP Rocky announced their "Under the Influence of Music" tour and revealed their supporting acts: B.o.B, Trinidad James and Joey Bada$$ & Pro Era. What's wrong with that sentence? For one, no Oxford comma. Secondly, if you're a Joey Bada$$ fan, it's the fact he's listed last; specifically, he's listed under Trinidad James, which is a no-no for Joey. He tweeted, "If I'm under Trinidad James I'm not doing the Under The Influence Tour. Straight." He followed it up by saying, "no disrespect to the man on gold. but I just don't like seeing myself at the bottom. APEX." They apparently squashed it with Joey tweeting a shoutout to Trinidad and saying he was being "childish and disrespectful." 

Still, seems like starting from the bottom to still be at the bottom just ain't a good look for Joey. —Brian Josephs

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Ciara Repeats the Same Routine She Did With Bow Wow, Making Future the Future Bow Wow

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Ciara Repeats the Same Routine She Did With Bow Wow, Making Future the Future Bow Wow 

Date: April 22

There's a lot to say about Ciara's "Body Party" video. First off, Joseline and Stevie J from Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta make an appearance. Second, Ciara basically mimics the strip scene from True Lies. And finally, the world is formally introduced to CiCi and Future as a couple. The Mike WiLL Made It-produced track coupled with Ciara's dance moves and all that lingerie makes for a phenomenal video.

Except one thing.

She's already done the whole real-life-boyfriend-acting-as-fictional-boyfriend-in-scripted-music-video thing with Bow Wow in "Like You." Sure, it wasn't as sexy as this (it involved Bow Wow, how could it be?). And it didn't give us any insight into how the two got together (we know that Future approached her at a party telling her that she would be his). But the clips are eerily similar. Ciara's dance moves are still mesmerizing, we watch Future eye up CiCi's striptease without his sunglasses on, and it's all pretty damn beautiful.

So...Future is now the Ghost of Bow Wows past? Or Bow Wow was the future Future in a previous life? Our flux capacitor just crashed.

We're still not sure about that whole "He reads" part, but maybe Rembert Browne can figure it out for you. —Lauren Nostro

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Rocko Is Intent On Ruining His Own Song With Endless Remixes

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The Enlightened and Peaceful Snoop Lion Says He Would've Smacked The Shit Outta Bunny Wailer

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The Enlightened and Peaceful Snoop Lion Says He Would've Smacked the Shit Outta Bunny Wailer 

Date: April 24

The Rapper Formerly Known As Snoop Dogg's media charm offensive has been almost universally embraced; it is definitely a time of great antipathy for guns, and Snoop's 180 on them (spoiler: he's now against) makes it difficult to say the guy hasn't turned a new leaf.

Many aging rappers seem to have embraced a "maturity" of sorts, although how much this is about old attitudes softening (as opposed to corporations being less gangster-friendly) is a bit of a fuzzy line in 2013. In the Twitter era, it's a lot harder for rappers to get away with some of the advertisement-unfriendly behavior they'd managed in the past.

The strange contradiction for aging street rappers reached a boiling point in a recent interview with rapper-turnt-reggae-sanga Snoop Lion. Bunny Wailer criticized Snoop's alleged co-option of rastafari culture, and Snoop replied with a dash of schizophrenic logic. One moment: "I'm not gonna speak nothing negative because I love him too much." A minute later: "In the nineties,  he could have never tried that because I'd have slapped the dog shit out of his old ass...You wasn't the shit in the Wailers. You was just one of them: Bob, Peter Tosh, then you. They dead mean more than you do alive." One love!—David Drake

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The Rent Is Too Damn High Guy Dropped A Rap Video, Which Is Maybe The Best 'Conscious Rap' Video Ever

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The Rent Is Too Damn High Guy Dropped A Rap Video, Which Is Maybe The Best "Conscious Rap" Video Ever

Date: April 24

If you live in New York, you've at least heard of Jimmy McMillan, the oddly-overbearded man who campaigns under his platform/party/campaign motto of "The Rent Is Too Damn High." You might not have ever heard anything about his platform, or even seen him in action, but you know that this oddly amusing cult figure shows up every year to turn New York's political races into circuses, like one of the American Idol rejects you don't know whether to pity for their obliviousness or adore for their moxie. But this week, Jimmy McMillan took a new approach: Viral success. As such, McMillan released a rap video. In the event you haven't seen it, you might want to.

In an era of #StruggleRappers and an abundance of #StruggleVideos, McMillan sticks out for being able to capture your attention for the full two minutes he's asking for it. The tape starts to roll, and horns blare. The bass kicks in. And there's the man himself, rapping—chanting, Def Campaign Jamming, whatever—in front of the World's Fair Globe in Queens, a la Craig Mack. Rolling around...in a Honda CR-V. His relatively attractive campaign manager (or who we can only presume is someone cast as a campaign manager) is with him. At one point, she's holding a ghetto blaster that may or may not be an Ikea prop. He's doing karate kicks. He's pointing at Yankee Stadium. He's among the people on...St. Marks and 2nd. The entire thing is like this weird amalgamation of The Roots "What They Do" video and Soviet propaganda as directed by a Hype Williams intern. It may not get Jimmy McMillan elected, but it could get him in The New Museum. That said: It does make him a far more compelling candidate than anyone else running for mayor so far. Also, it's hard to disagree with the guy, especially when he's doing those karate kicks. —Foster Kamer

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Tyler, The Creator Offers To Guest Edit Nick Cannon Feature For Complex

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Tyler, The Creator Offers to Guest Edit Nick Cannon Feature for Complex

Date: April 24

There’s always a lot of work to do at Complex, and sometimes we could really use some help. Thankfully, we discovered that the world’s youngest sock mogul, Tyler, the Creator, has come up with some creative input for the magazine.

The Village Voice writes, on his interview with Elliott Wilson:

Complex, a magazing [sic]/website Tyler loathes so much he "hopes all their employees get a new kind of STD" for the "bullshit lists" they come up with. 'Like, ummm, 'Top Ten Dicks Nick Cannon Has Sucked' or some dumb shit."

It’s not a bad idea. If you could get a first draft back to us by this Friday, Tyler, that would be great. But know this, Nicholas “Mr. Mimi” Cannon does not play around with his dignity.

As to the diseases Tyler wishes on our staff, that’s not really how you want to go about starting your editorial career with us, is it? Talk about an awkward first day in the office. As much as we’d all love to be quarantined together, like we said, there’s a lot of work to do, and we can't all live off of sock extortion profits. —Alexander Gleckman

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Conspiracy Theorists Unite: Were Coachella Attendees Tricked By The Evil Jimmy Kimmel?

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Coming to Theaters Near You: Lauryn Hill Has Two Weeks to Make a Record...or She's Going to Jail

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Beyoncé Drops New Ad/Song Sponsored by Proctor & Gamble, Words From Pepsi, Lighting by Home Depot, Production by Miramax

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Beyoncé Drops New Ad/Song Sponsored by Filene's Basement, Words From Pets.com, Lighting by Ace Hardware, Driven by Edsel

Date: April 25

Girls love Beyoncé. Well, Drake understands so we're not sure why Beyoncé doesn't. Or maybe she does, and she's just trolling all of us—but we want new music. We don't want another advertisement. We don't want another teaser. Like to drink Pepsi? Same, but please drop the cola and start dancing/singing/releasing new music.

Props to Bey for her endorsements, she's got a family to support, but enough is enough. Earlier this month, she teased us with a snippet of "Grown Woman" in a Pepsi ad and this week, she did the same for "Standing In The Sun" in an H&M commercial. Alright Bey, we get it, you can make the Internet lose its shit for a snippet but think of how many people ran out and bought the collection you're advertising for H&M. Think of them, and think of your music. Drop a full song already.

Plus, H&M directors obviously took a page out of Destiny's Child's "Survivor" video. Bey rolling in the sand? Just put her in front of a mic and sing, girl.—Lauren Nostro

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