What The Hell Just Happened in Music This Week?

Image via Complex Original

Date: September 3

Ariana Grande is refreshing.

This week, her debut album, Yours Truly, came out. We'd heard "The Way" with Mac Miller and "Right There" with Big Sean. But finally, her entire album has arrived, and it's a beautifully cohesive work of R&B, pop and doo-wop, all delivered in really, really amazing vocals. (Oh, and don't worry. Ariana proves she doesn't need a high-profile guest rapper to make powerful hip-hop flavored music—song like "Baby I" knock just fine without one.)

What is it that seems so special about Ariana Grande? Why does she feels so perfect for this moment? It may just be that the lane is completely open for her. There are other young artists, like Justin Bieber, who seem to be following the path laid out by Justin Timberlake—as strong as their singing is, they're first-and-foremost entertainers. Ariana Grande needs nothing more than a microphone (and sometimes hardly that.) That's why she's been getting comparisons to Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. She is a singer first, more than an entertainer. (Though, coming out of Disney's television division, she surely knows the optical elements of holding an audience.)

With Ariana Grande, like Guru said, it's mostly the voice. Hers is a voice so astounding that you don't even mind it singing such silly lyrics as, "'Cause you give me chills/Everytime we chill..."

As long those words are coming out sounding so strong and pure, so crystaline in shape and tone, nothing else really matters. Everything is okay. —Lauren Nostro

RELATED: Who Is Ariana Grande?

Date: September 4

Look, nobody feels great about making fun of #StruggleRappers. They are, after all, trying to achieve their dreams. And who are we, the writers of Just Another Internet Destination, to shit on anyone's dreams? (Lest they point out that we are effectively paid to do just that. And ask us, "How do we feel about that?" And learn that the answer is: a little torn.)

But sometimes, we just can't help ourselves. Especially when the struggle rapper in question happens to be dating LeBron James's mother. (An already-sensitive topic in the James family—just ask Delonte West.) Especially when said rapper is 30 years old, or, two years older than LeBron. Especially when he's posting Instagram after Instagram of his #YachtLife, interspersed with photos of himself with Drake and Dwayne Wade. Especially when his rapper name is "Lambo." And especially when the entirety of his rap output sounds like the worst parts of Rick Ross combined with the worst parts of Lil Reese. Never mind that dude has a legal rap sheet longer than the wingspan of Birdman (the basketball-player one.) Someone so persistent about showing off their newfound riches, riches they have found, primarily, by dating a substantially older woman who just happens to be the mother of the most famous athelete in the world is just ripe for, at the very least, discovering. And discover him we did.

Since being discovered, he's mostly gone quiet. And are we so cynical as to discount the possibility of true love here? We are not. We wish the very best for anyone in the department of love—and rap, for that matter. But we will be watching, and enjoying the show, the show that Lambo so obviously wanted to put on for someone, before he realized anybody could quite bear to watch. —Foster Kamer

RELATED: Fun with Lambo, the Rapper Boyfriend of LeBron's Mom: Mugshots and Drake

Date: September 5

Excuse us for one minute while a white person weighs in on a white person weighing in on a white person's relationship with black culture. If you are tired of reading this sort of thing (and we can't blame you if you are) feel free to move on to the next slide.

Amy Heidemann and Nick Noonan, a husband-and-wife pop duo known collectively as "Karmin," whose music is awful to listen to*, have a very (writer pauses; slides glasses up nose)... interesting relationship with black culture. In that they make winking covers of music by black artists, covers which seem to rely heavily on the coy friction of "regular" white people—as in, middle-class, not-heavily-tattooed, mainstream white people—attempting note-for-note duplications of the hits in more "humble" surroundings. Sort of a stripping-showbiz-of-its-showbiz thing. There's a cloying cutesiness to Karmin's music that has made it difficult for this writer to really think too hard about what exactly it is about it that annoys him about it so much. Is it the "jazzy" theatricality? The milquetoast overearnestness? It could be lots of different things. If one forces oneself to marinate long enough on the subject, more political, philosophical reasons will surely emerge. (It's a pretty base attempt to recontextualize black culture for profit.) But again, more than that, they don't seem worth getting too worked up over. 

A recent interview Karmin granted Vibe magazine suggested they feel similarly about about Miley Cyrus's music. After hemming and hawing, Amy finally comes out and says: "There's something that doesn't feel authentic about it. Maybe it's just going to take time. Maybe we're going to have to watch more of those [Miley Cyrus videos] before we get it. It just doesn't feel honest."

What makes Karmin's interaction with black culture more "honest"? Why is transitioning contemporary black culture into the musical forms of older black culture a more culturally-acceptable way to interact with black culture? And push that further—what makes writing about black culture an acceptable way of interacting with black culture? Is this writer off the hook? There are certainly lines that we can collectively agree shouldn't be crossed: The use of the word "nigga" by a white person, such as, say, V-Nasty, on a national stage, is innarguably objectionable. But it's easy for things to get complicated when the discussion reaches grey areas. When the matter of class, for example, starts to effect people's ideas of who can appropriate, and who is appropriate to appropriate from, and how. Or when gender biases—folks calling Miley a "slut," say—start undermining otherwise legitimate concerns. The debate surrounding Miley Cyrus is complicated. There are some very real and legitimate criticisms of her act. There's also a sense that (spoiler alert!) "A country that commodifies blackness compromises its ability to judge those who try to buy in."

Personally, Miley's summer jam "We Can't Stop" fails to resonate with me, although it's much more within my aesthetic wheelhouse than anything Karmin has ever done. [I'm a big fan of songs like "Pour It Up" and "Bandz a Make Her Dance," which were producer by Miley's friend and "We Can't Stop" collaborator, Mike Will Made It.] I think about how much more invested in defending this music I would be if I actually liked Miley's new songs. So while I share Karmin's confusion and hesitancy to lay a verdict at her door, there's a definite "people in glass houses..." attitude that I've found useful, and that Karmin might be wise to pick up on. The harsher your judgement, the more it can feel like the narcissism of small differences. (Now watch as the snake eats its own tail.)

*Fact. —David Drake

RELATED: Interview: Karmin Talks 'Pulses' LP, Miley Cyrus' Twerking And Advice From Kanye

Date: September 5

According to Drake and his main producer 40, we can expect Nothing Was The Same to represent a new, "meaner" direction for the Toronto rapper. But what exactly that means is open to interpretation. Things have definitely changed. Now that we have the tracklist for the album, we can begin to piece the story together. Shit's gonna be like a movie.

1. "Tuscan Leather: We open on a veranda. It's early evening, and polite company in cocktail attire are gathered around a table, sitting on custom-made Tom Ford wicker chairs, drinking wine. In the distance, a rider approaches on horseback. As he draws nearer, we see it is Drake. When he arrives and dismounts, we see he is wearing riding boots made of Tuscan leather. Incidentally, he smells like a brick of cocaine.

2. "Furthest Thing." Tonight, Drake is whipping around the bends of the Pacific Coast Highway in his Aston Martin. The top of the car is down, and the warm ocean air washes over him like a drug, mingling with the scent of flowers on the mountainside above. Inside, Drake feels an eerie calm, the resolution of someone who is driving without purpose, driving only to drive, only to escape. If he were to close his eyes, the text message—the one he can't unsee, the one he noticed as he casually glanced down at her phone on his nightstand—would float across his his mind's-eye vision. Tonight, he won't sleep. He will park, at a secluded cliffside turn-off, and sit, watching the stars reflect in the pounding waves below, contemplating the vast unpredictability of the universe, waiting for the first rays of sunlight to spread out, flimsily, over the infinite gray expanse.

3. "Started From The Bottom." Rising from behind his long mahogany desk in a magnificently appointed office, Drake turns and looks out the window of this nameless building in this faceless city, glancing at the movements of the people toiling impossibly far below. Although he says nothing, the international power brokers sitting at his back squirm in their chairs, sweat in their suits. Wordlessly, attendants approach from either side, stiffly grabbing the arms of these men in suits, whispering in their ears something that sounds like "no new friends," escorting them out. Drake is not-smiling so hard the glass in front of him cracks. He is wearing every single chain. On his desk, a digital picture frame rotates through pictures of his childhood, his acting days, the default screen setting of a Key West sunset.

4. "Wu-Tang Forever." Drake, 17, is standing outside a rundown Toronto rap club. His palms are sweaty. He thinks back on his dinner from earlier tonight: angel hair pasta. Inside, the dull thud of a subwoofer can be heard. He's mumbling the raps he wrote earlier that day. He imagines himself as his favorite rapper, Masta Killah of Wu-Tang Clan, unsheathing his lyrical sword and chopping off the heads of his hypothetical opponents, unleashing swarms of killa bees on their wack butts. This is real hip-hop, he thinks.

5. "Own It." A montage of experience showers.

6. "Worst Behavior." We're back at the house with the veranda, but inside now, where a catering team is clearing the table after dinner, the main course of which was salmon glazed in a pickled ramp seed vinaigrette and accompanied by braised Swiss chard. The conversation, between men in perfectly tailored suits and women in minimalist dresses, is politely quiet, and one seat is empty. In the hall outside, Drake is running his fingers down the arm of one of the servers, whispering softly into her ear. He's wearing a leather tank top. She's wearing her uniform. In the morning, he says, he's going to Dubai. Would she like to come?

7. "From Time." Drake stares down at the shattered fragments of his phone on the dark pavement, not quite able to comprehend what he's just done. Moonlight glints off the broken glass while, in the distance, the soft strains of Cher's "Believe" are faintly audible. He kicks the pieces of the phone across the starkly lit gas station parking lot and yanks open the door of his GMC truck. He's done hurting. He's done hurting others.

8. "Hold On, We're Going Home" (f/ Majid Jordan). Drake smiles over at the girl in the passenger seat, then turns up the satellite radio. It's him, singing. He smiles over at her again.

9. "Connect." It's the server from before, but she's sitting sliently in a dimly-lit holding cell. Suddenly, the door opens, splashing sunlight across the room. A guard lifts her to her feet and escorts her out. A glass panel is separating her from Drake, the one who got her into this mess, his deep brown eyes swelling apologetically. She extends her hand toward that glass panel. He kisses his hand and extends it, too. Zoom in on the fingertips of the two hands almost coming together, but separated by the glass panel. Drake abruptly turns and walks away.

10. "The Language." It's early morning in the studio. Drake's bodyguards are asleep on the couches, while 40 is curled up, snoring lightly on a Versace bean bag chair. Drake is at the computer, clicking through slides in Rosetta Stone, working on his Arabic. He sounds out the phrase for "say my name," nodding to himself.

11. "305 To My City" (f/ Detail). An aerial shot of Miami. Cut to Drake, on a jet-ski. Cut to YMCMB singer Detail, also on a jet ski. Cut to Rick Ross, floundering on one of those inflatable rafts. Just kidding. Cut to Rick Ross, sitting on a boat with a large pile of money on one side of him and a large pile of crabs on the other. He's shelling the crabs and eating them. Drake calmly jet-skis up to the side of the yacht and climbs aboard, wearing a pair of Versace swim trunks. He puts on a white linen shirt. He takes one tentatively offered crab leg. "I'm going home," he says. Cut to Drake in a private jet, staring out the window. In the clouds, he sees an apparition of his own face. It's him as a baby, but it's slowly aging, turning into him as his current day self, then, into him as an old man.

12. "Too Much." Drake sits Indian-style on the plush-rugged living room floor of his L.A. mansion, surrounded by carefully kept financial ledgers and an equal number of neatly annotated scrapbooks. In front of him, a fire blazes in the hearth. Stoically, he looks at each of these mementoes, sipping on a glass of white wine as the fire melts the ice cubes. Suddenly, he throws the glass into the fireplace, shattering it. As the wet, electically-powered ceramic logs hiss, he sweeps the books in after it. He walks out in his yard and takes out his phone, places a call.

13. "Pound Cake" (f/ Jay Z) / "Paris Morton Music 2." Jay Z and Drake are sitting at a quiet table near the back of the room at New York restaurant Per Se. Jay Z is having the lobster with a cilantro and apricot-Riesling emulsion, while Drake is enjoying veal accompanied by braised fennel shoots. Between them is a bottle of 1993 Domaine Georges Roumier—a refined, restrained red for a refined, restrained evening. As the meal comes to its conclusion, Jay slides an unmarked envelope across the table. Drake opens it, looks inside without removing the contents, nods. They order pound cake for dessert. Later, historians will speculate about what transpired at that dinner. Experts will point to it as the moment when everything changed.

Deluxe Edition

14. "Come Thru." In this behind-the-scenes DVD extra, Drake is seen having a relaxed night in with the guys. As they throw back a few glasses of Cabernet while watching WorldStar videos projected on the 12-foot home theater screen, Drake sneaks out onto the balcony to text that girl he met at the yacht dealership last weekend. The camera zooms in on his text exchange: he's written "nm, chillin with the guys. come thru."

15. "All Me" (f/ Big Sean & 2 Chainz). In the post-credits blooper reel, 2 Chainz is seen attempting to go through a metal detector at the airport. Cue laugh track. —Kyle Kramer 

RELATED: Drake Reveals the Tracklist For "Nothing Was The Same"

Date: September 5

2013 is gonna go down as the year of the InstaMeme. Sure, memes have been a part of the Internet for a long time now. Everything from Confused Fry to Grumpy Cat to College Freshman. But we're entering a new era, one wherein a photo pops up and turns into a meme in minutes. It's hilarious for a day or two, but then it's totally played out. Jay Z's unfortunate pool dive follows Drake's Dada and Miguel's Legdrop in this trend. Soon as you saw this photo of Jay jumping into the water with his pot belly, you knew the Internets were gonna have a field day with it—to try to ruin his vacation. No one wants Jay to have to a nice vacation. 

In the future, everything you'll experience will be second hand. You won't ever see the original image of Jay jumping into the pool. (Only the most dilligent Internet slueths will be able to find that kind of original source material. And even when they do, it will be a filtered image. Most likely X-Pro II or Lo-Fi; those are the best filters.) Instead, you'll just see an endless stream of photo-shopped collages, made up of dozens, hundreds, thousands of versions of the same image. They'll flash on the screen for a brief moment, a billboard-sized screen in Times Square. Oh yeah, in the future, every major city will have a "Times Square" full of billboard-sized screens that play "content," or "commercials," to distract people like you—overworked, overfed, data-entry peasants, and keep them (you) from thinking about more important things like human dignity or global warming or war... Hey look! Twenty-five percent off on this Memory Foam pillow you could really use because you keep waking up at three o'clock in the morning, screaming from the recurring nightmare you keep having about not being able to find your iPhone recharger cord. When your Google-glass contact lenses finally sort through and process all the images of this complex slideshow flickering before your eyes, they will compute the appropriate response and issue you your reply: "LOL."

Like Jay once said, "I'm afraid of the future." —Insanul Ahmed

RELATED: Jay Z Jumped In A Pool and Now Everyone Is Making Fun of Him

Date: September 6

And just like that, The Throne reveals plans to travel around the world, rapping at you from various gigantic stages. Just separately this time. In a series of events reminscent of the marketing-campaign one-upsmanship that preceded this summer's two highest-profile album releases, Yeezus and Magna Carta Holy Grail, just an hour after Kanye announced his tour dates, Jay announced his own.

Kanye gave us a little more to think about. How do we interpret his choosing Kendrick Lamar as an opener? Consider how calculating Kanye is, down to the slightest visual detail. Then think about how small Kendrick Lamar's name appears on the (absolutely fantastic-looking) promotional image. 'Ye is taking the man who many people (including MTV) would call the hottest rapper in the game along for his solo tour, and it is difficult not to see it as a power move. Keep in mind, Kendrick's album went platinum recently. If numbers decided everything, Kanye would be opening for Kendrick.

It is interesting that Kanye chose to have an opening act at all. And interesting to think of all other artists he might have chosen. 

If this was the Kanye that puts Miley Cyrus on a "Black Skinhead" remix, or the Kanye that puts Chief Keef on a song with Auto-Tune Justin Vernon (actually this is all the same Kanye), he might have done some crazy shit like bring out Katie Got Bandz to perform "Pop Out" at the beginning, middle, and end of every single one of his tour stops. Or like, he could have brought the entirety of One Direction and all of their immediate family members out to read some of his old Def Poetry Jam poetry out loud. Just a couple ideas...

Perhaps the best way to contextualize his Kendrick decision is that it is his "Control" response. "I wasn't mentioned?" he thinks. "Fine. I'll hire Kendrick to come out and rap in front of my audiences over the course of a three-month-long tour."

It's a game of thrones all right. And that was a power move.—Alexander Gleckman

RELATED: Kanye West Announces the "Yeezus" Tour With Kendrick Lamar
RELATED: Jay Z Announces North American Dates For "Magna Carta World Tour"

Date: September 5-7

Meek Mill has been having a tough year. His debut album, Dreams And Nightmares, underperformed sales wise and was generally considered a disappointment. He has been trying to reignite his buzz by releasing songs off his upcoming Dreamchasers 3 mixtape, but interest seemed to be waning. He has been hearing criticism that his aggressive flow that stood out on songs like “2Pac Back” and “I’ma Boss” has yielded to a lazy tendency to just yell over beats. Worst of all, back in June, his protégé, and Dreamchasers Records signee Lil Snupe was shot and killed.

It looks like Kendrick Lamar’s “Control” verse was exactly what Meek needed to reignite that competitive spark in him.

Towards the end of the week, Meek let off a pair of diss records, reasserting himself as a force to be reckoned with. It started with “Kendrick You Next,” a blistering attack, recorded over a series of classic instrumental tracks, directed towards a longtime enemy, fellow Philladelphian, Cassidy. Sure enough, the next day, Meek went after Kendrick himself. Rhyming over a remix of the “Forgot About Dre” instrumental, “Ooh Kill Em" (named after the hit series of Vine videos starring the six-year-old wunderkind, Terio) paints the self-proclaimed “King of New York” as an inexperienced backpack rapper—Meek even made fun of the way Kendrick makes gunshot noises. He definitely scored himself some points by rapping 

Apparently, criticism and frustration and tragedy have served to sharpen Meek’s lyrical sword. He sounds hungrier than he’s sounded in a long time, and his voice has actually dropped a few decibels as he switches up his flows more. “Ooh Kill Em” may not be a modern-day “Ether,” but it is likely the strongest response towards Kendrick to come out so far. And now, with Dreamchasers 3 just a few weeks away, people are talking about Meek once again.

Just last night, Cassidy responded to “Kendrick You Next” with his own eight-minute diss record called “Catch A Body.” Cassidy sounds tired and lackluster and outside of a couple of below-the-belt moments (he claims that Meek is responsible for Lil Snupe’s death) there isn’t much notable. Except the song's length: Eight minutes is waaaaaay too long. 

Speaking of things that seem like they never end, earlier this week Papoose tried to jump into the diss record fervor by going after Big Sean over the “First Chain” instrumental. The result was a snoozefest. The source of his beef with Sean? That the Detroit native didn’t know who he was to begin with. Headlining Summer Jam certainly revived Pap’s career somewhat, but it looks like the train has already left the building. On the bright side, Remy Ma is almost home from prison. —Dharmic X

RELATED: Meek Mill Releases Cassidy Diss Record "Kendrick You Next"
RELATED: Papoose Responds To Big Sean Not Knowing Who He Is