What The Hell Just Happened in Music This Week?

Tired of #mylaugh, already?

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Image via Complex Original
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Over the past month, we've seen major releases from rap's first class.

And it was exciting, exhausting, and entertaining—all in the same breath.

Things seemed to settle down a bit this week. Even as Jay-Z took to Twitter on Monday for a live Q&A with fans, and introduced his new meme, "#mylaugh." Skeptics wondered if it was TyTy or Elliott Wilson manning his account. But it was him, Jay-Z, in the flesh! Or, well, no... on our screens, in a series of 140-character blips. But still: The Holy Grail of Twitter!

Or so it seemed. Actually, according to a recent Networked Insights study, Drake is the most influential artist on social media.

Meanwhile, Justin Bieber kept wildin' out, Justin Timberlake kept releasing new music and Kanye West kept a promise he made in his lyricsAll that and more in What The Hell Just Happened in Music This Week?

RELATED: Pharrell Is Dominating 2013, and You Probably Didn't Even Notice

Jay-Z tweeted with fans for hours, and introduced #mylaugh.

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Jay-Z tweeted with fans for hours and hours.

Date: July 8

Like Rakim, Jay-Z has always understood the power of mystery. In the late '90s and early 2000s, he managed to drop five hit albums without revealing very much about his personal thoughts and feelings. (That all changed with The Blueprint). Even today, at a time when rap fans have known Jay for so long they feel perfectly comfortable referring to him as "Jay," despite the fact that are a million other rappers, and a billion other people, whose names begin with "J." Because, really, there's only one Jay. And yet, still, sometimes it feels like we don't know him at all. He's a cold fish. A king on a throne in a castle far away from where his subjects live. 

So weeks ago, when Jay went on Twitter to announce the "#newrules" that would accompany the release of Magna Carta Holy Grail he signed off by saying he wouldn't tweet again until 2014. We believed him. Jay never seemed to care much about Twitter anyway. So it was a real surprise on Monday when he logged on again and answered questions from his followers for most of the afternoon. He later told The Breakfast Club that it was like weed—he liked it so much he had to lay off it. But honestly, we kinda liked it better when we didn't know whether or not Jay even ate cereal at all. — Insanul Ahmed

RELATED: Jay-Z Is Responding To Almost Anything on Twitter Right Now 
RELATED: The Best Tweets From Jay-Z's Extended Twitter Q&A

Rap set a new record on the albums charts, and J. Cole's Born Sinner has now sold more than Kanye's Yeezus.

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Bieber wilded out. Again.

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Justin Bieber peed in a bucket.

Date: July 10

Justin Bieber is a wild boy. He's a/He's a/Wild boy! There’s that one time he threatened a photographer. Then there’s that other time when he designated Anne Frank a “Belieber.” Then there’s the time he made a member of his entourage carry around his Diet Coke while he prepped for a Saturday Night Live run through.

But the cellphone video that hit TMZ this week takes the cake. In what looks like the basement of a New York city restaurant, Biebs was caught urinating into a mop bucket. With his posse—a group of teenage boys now going by the alias “The Wild Kidz”—cheering him on, he then charges up a set of stairs, grabs a bottle of glass cleaner and sprays down a framed photo of our nation’s 42nd president. “Fuck Bill Clinton!” he shouts.

Why would he do this? New York magazine's Dan Amira had some theories.

Bieber eventually apologized to Clinton for the incident. But really, person who he should apologize to is the poor guy who had to stand there and watch him pee. This was his bodygaurd, we're guessing? That's gotta be the worst job in the world. —Edwin Ortiz

RELATED: Because You Care: Justin Bieber Says "F*** Bill Clinton" After Peeing in Restaurant Mop Bucket

Justin Timberlake released the first single from his next album. (Already!)

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KANYE TOLD PAPARAZZI NOT TO TALK TO HIM OR ANYONE HE KNOWS EVER!

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Drake was proven to be the king of social media.

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Drake was proven to be the king of social media.

Date: July 12

Every tweet sounds like Drake featuring Drake.

Every Drake lyric sounds like a Facebook status featuring Drake.

You think he didn't plan this? Seriously, go ahead and Google "Drake FB statuses" and Yahoo answers will have you covered on the best Drizzy lines to put on your profile.

You just won something? "Last name Ever, First name Greatest"

You made it Facebook official? "We do more damage apart than together."

You just had a meeting at work about being late everyday? "The part I love most is they need me more than they hate me."

You made your relationship status "It's Complicated?" "I just hope that you miss me a little when I'm gone."

Whatever, you get the point. Drake is an artist perfectly suited (intentionally geared, actually, we bet) for social media. And this week, science proved it. Researchers for a company called Networked Insights counted the number of "social conversations" about various rap stars. And it turns out Drake dominates the field. His total for the past year (46,212,641 "conversations") nearly doubles that of the runner-up (Kanye, with 25,418,362.)

Of course, social media skills have nothing to do with musical talent. But, in today's world, they're inscreasingly important in their own right. And, apparently, the OVO kingpin is unfuckwitable on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. It will be interesting to see how this might play into record sales when his new album comes out later this year. We're guessing that it's going to make it be that Nothing Was [sic] (ever) The Same on Twitter again. —Lauren Nostro

RELATED: You Underestimated Greatly: Drake Is More Popular Than Kanye West and Jay-Z Combined on Twitter 

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