What The Hell Just Happened in Music This Week?

I'm from where the calendars are hung. And the weeks always come. And they just keep coming and coming, and then going and going, and you can never put your calendar away and say you'll look at it tomorrow because the days after will be Sunday, and we'll be saying, "Damn, I was just with that week yesterday."

How real is this? It's already mid-October! My kid just hang a bunch of orange and black spider-webby stuff out front of my house, and this horrible skeleton-ghoul type guy that's already scaring my wife and I every time we come home after dark. Halloween's practically here, then it'll be Thanksgiving, and then the abject misery of holiday season. (Jesus, I wish someone would just start a "War on Christmas" already and end this farce once and for all!) What I'm saying is, time marches inexorably on. There's nothing we can do about it. Except listen to rap music and read stories about celebrities on our computers. (You know, we're not promised tomorrow. Every day could be our last one at this planet. So it's important to carpe diem.)

But while we listen and read, we here at Complex also take it upon ourselves to document the hip-hop happenings of our time. So the aliens will be able to learn about what it was like to live on Earth in the early 21st century, and who was the best MC, Biggie, Jay-Z or Nas? When the aliens visit the planet that will have been left barren and lifeless after the robot wars, of course.

Okay. Lots of stuff happened this week. Kanye West and Jimmy Kimmel sat down for a really interesting talk on TV, Pusha T proved he can still rap about cocaine better than just about all the other people who try to rap about selling cocaine, and Game has apparently joined Paris Hilton and Limp Biskit on Cash Money Records. All this and more in What The Hell Just Happened In Music This Week?

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Date: October 7

When it comes to classic NYC boom-bap, few names resonate more powerfully than DJ Premier on the beats and Nasty Nas on the mic. From "N.Y. State of Mind" and "I Gave You Power" to "Nas Is Like," Primo has been responsible for some of Nas's greatest records. But the pair have never joined forces for more than three joints on any one project. No wonder then that one of the most cherished hip-hop fantasies is the prospect of DJ Premier producing an entire album for Nas. (It would probably sound even better than that DJ Finesse mixtape of Primo and Biggie).

Over the years the flames of hope have been fanned by numerous media reports, most recently a wobbly video interview with Primo in which he told Phenom Black that Nas just has one more album to fulfill his deal with Def Jam, then he'll be free to do whatever with whomever he pleases. Let's just hope this one doesn't go the way of that whole album Timbaland was supposedly going to produce for Jay Z. "Nas is in charge," as Premier points out. "I'm just the producer." — Rob Kenner

RELATED: DJ Premier Says a Joint Album with Nas is Forthcoming

Date: October 7

The honeymoon is over: after reaffirming their vows onstage at Drake's OVO Festival earlier this year, M-A-Dollar-Sign-E and the D to the I to the D-D-Y appear to be back on the outs, after Diddy jumped on DJ Khaled's new song "I Feel Like Pac/I Feel Like Biggie." Ma$e (who had a big week after Pusha released a full-song-long Ma$e homage on his My Name Is My Name album) took to Instagram: "Niggas sold u out BIG," he wrote. "I hate the way your legacy has been watered down. I don't have to be from Bk. Let him rest. #respect." — David Drake

RELATED: Ma$e Calls Out Diddy Over DJ Khaled's New Single

Date: October 7

Birdman surprised more than a few people earlier this year when he announced that Paris Hilton would be joining the YMCMB family. With Limp Bizkit becoming part of the Cash Money roster last year, and Lil Wayne aiming for what seems like the lowest common denominator in many of the verses he's offered up in recent months, the company game plan has felt at times like its making up for Wayne's lost Mountain Dew sponsorship by churning out its own brand of junk food.

Then again, maybe that's the plan. Maybe it's a brilliant plan.

For anyone who thinks of Paris Hilton as shallow, plastic and talentless (i.e. "most people"), the professional rich person/singer's first release on her new label, "Good Time," and its accompanying video will do nothing to change their minds. The video unapologetically uses Paris as a sex object, posing her in and alongside multiple pools and having her dance in a stilted way that's clearly trying to be sensual. Her voice sounds robotic, and her eyes look dead. The lyrics are the kind of monumentally stupid thing that gets brought up in tired arguments about why pop sucks ("I came here just to party/Don't you hate on me, yeah/Got my sexy girls with me/Oh I love it").

But if you're still worrying about whether or not Paris is fake, you're barking up the wrong tree, and you don't deserve the fun that the fantastically shameless mess of "Good Time" can provide. Look, this kind of pulsating house music works best with listless vocals like Paris's on it. She's finally found her genre! This song clicks because it is so blatantly lazy and half-felt. Its video is alluring because it feels so fake and shallow. Few objects of art succeed so well in capturing the sultry blend of fun, sex and utter pointlessness of partying. There is no better stand-in for all of these ideas than Paris Hilton. Except for Paris Hilton singing over a song that could potentially kill in the club.

As for the Cash Money connection? Well, obviously the bald-faced materialism at work here could rake in tons of money. Almost by, like, just speaking it into existance. This song is capitalism incarnate, which happens to be the specialty of a label literally named after money. Lil Wayne gets it: There's nothing better for Lil Wayne to sing on a Paris Hilton song than "Mo' money mo' problems/Mo' money would solve them..." Except, of course, his preceding line: "I'm all in, I'm all in."

With Paris, you have to commit to the idea. But if you do, the payoff is there. — Kyle Kramer

RELATED: Video: Paris Hilton f/ Lil Wayne "Good Time"

Date: October 7

R. Kelly is decadent and depraved, word to Hunter S. Thompson.

The depraved part? Yes.

The decadent part? There's this: He released the aforementioned song about cookies, Oreos to be exact, and, yes, it was about splitting Oreos and licking their middle, a delicious methaphor for oral sex. There's other sex/food lines as well ("Break your back, crack it open like a lobster"), which leads us to believe Robert is eating just as good as he's fucking. (A lobster bake with Oreos and cunnilingus for desert = a very good night.) But that's not even the most decadent part of "Cookie." That? "Let's wake up, it's dinnertime." Seems like R. Kelly's the kind of American to live on Spanish time, a.k.a. dinner at 9 after a wake up call from siesta at, like, 7:30. It doesn't even have to be the freakin' weekend to have fun like that. — Jack Erwin

RELATED: Listen: R. Kelly "Cookie"

Date: October 8

Just when we were starting to lose all faith in Nipsey Hussle, thinking that the major label machine had ruined another talented artist's career, he managed to become one of the most talked about rappers this week.

Nipsey dropped his Crenshaw mixtape and sold it on his website IAmProud2Pay.com, and at a pop-up shop in L.A., for $100. That's right, ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS. The mixtape—which was also available for free on DatPiff—had only 1,000 physical copies pressed up, all signed by Nipsey and individually numbered, and the ones sold at the pop-up shop also came with tickets to an upcoming secret concert. The release was so well received that even Jay Z went so far as to buy 100 copies of the CD himself. Jay's purchase means Nipsey netted $10,000 from the Brooklyn rapper alone. Reportedly, all 1,000 copies sold out within 24 hours at the pop-up shop, which means he earned a cool $100,000.

After cheering his deal with Epic Records a few years back, but then seeing his career get mired in the mud of the music industry, we're happy for Nipsey! (Even if he's pissed at us.) He was always a talented artist and we're glad he found a way to cut out the middle man and win on his own terms. Here's to hoping more artists do the same in the future. — Insanul Ahmed

RELATED: Mixtape: Nipsey Hussle "Crenshaw"

Date: October 8

Here's a thought, in the week that Kanye West explains to everyone what it is be a creative genius—about how angry he gets when he feels hemmed in by categories, when he feels like people aren't taking him seriously because they think of his talents as lying only in music. "I've got ideas that can mean something," he said, of working in fashion, movies, and efforts to make the world a more enjoyable place for people in general, "if I put the proper production around them."

The thought is: Is the 21st century artist going to be of a different sort than we've become used to? Is the idea that an artist is a person who is born with a special talent in one certain area (and not others, perhaps even at the expense of others) outmoded? Is the 21st century artist going to be someone who flits around and goes back and forth between different fields, excelling at some things at some point, others at another? Are we coming into an era that will be dominated by a new kind of renaissance man?

Watch Tyler, the Creator's new video. Here's a person who became famous for making music. But while his music has been inspiring fewer and fewer accolades lately, can you think of anyone with a surer-handed grasp of what might be described as the style of today's youth? Of how to make a video that's fun to watch on the internet? I mean, just the colors of the thing. The way they "pop!" And all the clever little ideas that make you smile. ("Due to the graphic nature of this film, I was forced to blur because people aren't ready to have intelligent conversations before they judge," says text written over one blurred-out scene. "But this shit is allowed," it says over the next one, which depicts Tyler bouncing on the jiggling buttucks of a sunbather like her tush is a trampoline.)

All the various imagery and costumes and decor. All of a certain tone, all in line with a singular vision, one that (even if if you find it gross or puerile or whatever) makes sense when you see it all strung together. "Tamale," it says in the beginning. "A visual interpretation of Tyler's mind."

This is a person with ideas that can mean something with the proper production put around them. This is, quite clearly, a genius at work. A musical genius? Maybe not. Or, maybe not at the moment. Maybe that was two years ago, when "Yonkers" came out. Maybe this very young person's flighty talents have found a different perch for the moment. But they're still vividly on display. — Dave Bry

RELATED: Video: Tyler, The Creator "Tamale"

Date: October 8

Pusha T's debut solo album had been delayed over and over again. Several mixtapes were released to keep the buzz going. Interviews were conducted at a continual rate. Announcements were stretched out over the course of three years, singles released and disappeared, and the title of his second album was even announced. When the real thing finally came out earlier this week, expectations were hopeful, but not the strongest. "New God Flow" was over a year old. So was "I Don't Like (Remix)." This year's single, "Numbers On the Board," didn't put any numbers on the board. Pusha wasn't even on the charts; sophomore slump records from 2 Chainz and Big Sean at least had singles in rotation on the radio.

Then the projections came in... and, lo and behold, it looks like Pusha might outsell his more buzz-worthy G.O.O.D. Music affiliates. Sure, he had a Kanye cosign. But for an aging gangster rap artist to drop a record and actually move units more than a decade after his commercial peak? He might not sell millions of copies of this record. He most probably won't. But at the very least, Pusha has proven there is a market for the kind of music he makes, and that skittish labels might want to find more long-term prospects worth investing in. And that's a good thing. — David Drake

RELATED: Pusha T's "My Name Is My Name" and the Street Value of Lyrics in Rap

Date: October 9

And by "everyone," we mean, "everyone who read it," which really, you should. Not only do you learn exactly who the hitmaker is behind some of the biggest pop smashes of the last five years—from Katy Perry to Miley Cyrus to Kelly Clarkson to Juicy J—and how he works, but you also learn: (1) That he lost a bet to Miley Cyrus over whether or not "Wrecking Ball" would be a no. 1 hit, and that he now owes her a $10,000 toilet, (2) His friends from summer camp founded Rawkus Records, and that he used to make backpack-rap beats for them before becoming one of the most successful record producers of our time, (3) That most Rawkus rappers weren't crazy about his beats, but (4) Alchemist knew he'd be important, and (5) He got his name from, of all people, Mos Def.

That's just a few of the tidbits that you can learn from the piece, which, for anyone who works in, wants to work in, or simply loves music, is one of the best things you'll read all year. — Foster Kamer

RELATED: Dr. Luke and Miley Cyrus Bet a $10,000 Toilet Over "Wrecking Ball" (and Miley Won)

Date: October 10

2013 has become the year of the Kanye Interview. This week, when he buried the hatchet and stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live!, it was his fourth time this year that just his sitting down and talking to someone for a little while became a major news story. The other three were his New York Times Q&A, his appearance on Kris Jenner's show, and his Zane Lowe interview. Each time it felt like he had to go on a rant to clarify his previous rant. Though he has uttered an endless array of quotables in all these interviews, the most enlightening (though rarely celebrated) one might have been during the NYT piece when he said, "My message isn't perfectly defined." That quote is important to keep in mind while watching his Kimmel interview.

The interview is an exercise in trying to keep up with a train of throught travelling through a labyrinthine map of neural connections at the speed of light. (Feeling like you running it, huh?) Even as he makes a series of very solid points—intelligent, even profound—it's hard to remember how he even segues from one throught to another. One minute it's something about Kimmel then the paparazzi then the fashion industry and then whoever controls the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Maybe it is ridiculous that Kim Kardashian doesn't haven't a star on there, but it's also pretty ridiculous to care so much about something like that, right?) It's as exhausting as it is exhilerating.

His less-than perfectly defined message often gets convuluted in self-contradiction. Like, when Kanye talking about the snobbery of old money, he keeps a straight face and says, "People who still spend $5,000 on this bag, or $10,000 on this to say ... 'Oh we're better than you...'" This just a short year and a half after rhyming, "Six thousand dollar pair of shoes/I made it to the Paris news/Don't talk about style 'cause I'll embarrass you..." I mean, sure, I imagine there are words left out in these rants, because his brain is moving so fast, that would likely clear up the confusion. But to be honest, the main thing I've learned from this recent string of Kanye interviews is something I long presumed: People in the fashion world are dicks. — Insanul Ahmed

RELATED: Kanye West Shares Thoughts on Celebrity, Being Respected, Being a Genius on "Jimmy Kimmel Live"

Date: October 10

Finally, the day of Miley Recknoning was upon us, and get this: We made it through together, you guys. The former Disney Channel star-turned-apostate and her (supposedly, or arguably, or ostensibly) culturally-appropriating ways did nothing to destory the capital-c Culture, as evidenced by the fact that it's still here, today, among and around us. And no, it is neither a revolution in pop music nor the worst thing you will hear this year. It's not even that "ratchet," as it were. The truth of the matter is that Miley Cyrus is just a pop star. Much like many pop stars who've come before her.

The album isn't destructive, it's not a "movement." It's an ambitious but overly calculated call for attention that's just okay, mostly because it refuses to really double down on anything other than the mid-level becoming more mid-level. It is, as Douglas Adams once wrote of our planet's connection to the rest of the universe, mostly harmless.

It's not going to destroy sales records, but it's not going to be a no-show on the charts, either: Industry math nerds have calculated something like 250,000 albums sold in her first week, give or take a few Twerk Team halftime orange slices she stole out of the mouths of those who came before her. NO COME ON WE'RE KIDDING (we all know Miley can't actually Twerk.)

All of this is to say that there are no real victims or gamechanging consequences of Miley's melee attack on pop culture other than those experienced by a lone foam finger, one that's still tucked away in some Barclays Center basement locker, still curled in the fetal position, waiting for a kinder hand to come along and wear it. As for the rest of us, like a collective and conclusive "amen" from those congregated in the pews of pop culture, let us sigh rightfully and together: "Meh." — Foster Kamer

RELATED: If You Like Miley Cyrus' "Bangerz" You'll Love...

Date: October 12

There's been talk of Game signing to Cash Money for years. When we spoke to Birdman last year, he told us that he'd love to sign the L.A. rap star after he completed his five-album deal with Interscope. On last year's "The City," Game rhymed, "Either I'm crazy, or the black Slim Shady/Or could that be the reason that Baby said he would pay me more?/But I still owe Jimmy one more album..." With last year's Jesus Piece making five, Game went free agent. And, according to some tweets exchanged between Game and Birdman, it looks like Game is now on Cash Money Records. What will that mean for his career? We're not sure. But we hope Paris Hilton isn't on his next album. — Insanul Ahmed

RELATED: Birdman Tweets About Game Joining Cash Money Records