Stream the Fan-Made Drake x Sufjan Stevens Mashup Album Six Swans

The gap between the worlds of Drake and Sufjan Stevens may seem glaring, but a truly peculiar Tumblr account has set out to remedy that.

Following Stevens’ live cover of “Hotline Bling” last year, the Tumblr duo known as “Riveyoncé Cuoknowles” took it upon themselves to author a 20-chapter “When Sufjan Met Drake” fan-fic series, going so far as making a star-studded wedding video for the two drastically different artists.

Now, in a slightly less bizarre move, the account has created Six Swans, the dreamy Drake x Sufjan Stevens Unblocked Sites At School mashup we never knew we needed. The 11-track album seamlessly coheres songs from various points of both artists’ discographies, with Riveyoncé Cuoknowles noting both a thank you and apology to Drake and Stevens. Stream the full weird and wonderful album below via Bandcamp.

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Meek Mill Removed His "Wanna Know" Drake Diss From Soundcloud

The Meek Mill/Drake beef had the internet on fire for a minute, but it's mostly died down now, apart from a few subliminals (from either side) here and there. Nonetheless, it was exciting while it was lasted.

The general consensus is that Drake won and Meek lost. We thought were hoping to hear another diss track from Meek, given how lacklustre "Wanna Know" was, and Meek even seemed to hint that there was more to come when he dropped a freestyle at a recent concert, but alas, nothing. Now, even more nothing: Meek has decided to seemingly withdraw his diss, removing it from his Soundcloud account last night. Drizzy's, which is becoming the song of the (end) of summer, is still alive and well (keeping the #1 on our Top 100 for some time too).

Does this move mean Meek is conceding? Does he have something better on the way? What's your theory?

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Red Lion to design products for the Drake General Store

A host of new products at the Drake General Store will soon carry a tiny “RL” brand mark on them.
The copyright-like symbol is a nod to Toronto ad agency Red Lion, which has forged a partnership with the burgeoning retailer to design products for its stores. Announced Tuesday, the new relationship will see Red Lion create products across all of the store’s categories, from fashion and accessories to housewares.

The aim, said Red Lion chief creative officer Matt Litzinger, is to grow the Drake General Store’s brand via “sticky” products that earn the retailer positive PR and buzz on social.

Rather than using traditional ads to promote the store, Litzinger said Red Lion’s goal is to make products that “advertise themselves.”

“If you have a design or a product that’s inherently ‘sticky’ to the audience you’re talking to, they all instantly recommend it to one and other. It can drive market share,” Litzinger said.

The Drake General Store does not currently work with an ad agency on traditional creative.

Red Lion’s first creation is a line of T-shirts inspired by Toronto baseball culture. The shirts are a nod to the Toronto Blue Jays with a sketch of blue jay that also bears resemblance to the logo of Toronto-bred rapper Drake’s company, October’s Very Own.


The shirt line, which is currently on sale, does not have a direct link to the team. Litzinger said he sees the line as one of several recent “fan interpretation” products that play off local baseball culture.

In the past, Red Lion has done packaging and web design. This partnership marks the firm’s first foray into creating physical products. Rather than working on a retainer, Red Lion will be paid based on the volume of sales for the products it designs.

The Drake General Store started as an offshoot of The Drake Hotel in Toronto and has since grown into a retail chain of seven locations across Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver. As a brand, The Drake Hotel has expanded greatly over the past decade. Beyond its retail expansion, the company has taken its “Drake” brand and applied it to the standalone restaurant Drake One Fifty as well as a second hotel location outside Toronto, in Ontario’s Prince Edward County.

Of The Drake General Store’s brand DNA, Litzinger said the retailer succeeds by mixing nostalgia with of-the-moment culture.

“I’m, on a personal level, a big fan of the brand,” he said. “It has that beautiful combination of feeling like it has a long standing aura of craftsmanship, but is incredibly contemporary and, it’s a horrible word to use, but ‘hip.’ It feels very much on the cusp of what is happening now.”

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Drake 'jacked my beat' for Hotline Bling, says D.R.A.M.

Drake says he was trying to recreate the reggae dancehall of many artists making a song based on one riddim

 

Drake … Fascinating riddim. Photograph: Ollie Millington/Redferns via Getty Images

Over the summer, it was accusations that he used ghostwriters for his raps that bedevilled Drake. Now it’s the claim that his latest hit, Hotline Bling, has taken its beat from another song.

D.R.A.M. performed in Drake’s home city of Toronto on Monday night and took the opportunity to note on Twitter that the experience had been “bittersweet”. Sweet, he said, because he was sharing his music; bitter because “after my performance, all I’m seeing is Cha Cha/Hotline Bling comparisons on my timeline”.

“Yeah, I feel I got jacked for my record,” he said. “But I’m GOOD.”

Drake himself has acknowledged the similarity between Hotline Bling and Cha Cha, but has said it’s just because he’s trying to do what reggae and dancehall artists have long done, and take the backing track from one song to create something new. The Fader dug out an unused quote from its recent interview with him in which he made that point.

“You know, like in Jamaica, you’ll have a riddim and it’s like, everyone has to do a song on that,” he said. “Imagine that in rap, or imagine that in R&B. Imagine if we got one beat and every single person – me, this guy, this guy, all these guys – had to do a song on that one beat. So sometimes I’ll pick a beat that’s a bit, like, sunnier, I guess is the word you used, than usual, and I just try my hand at it. And that’s kind of what Hotline Bling was. And I loved it. It’s cool. I’ve been excited by that sort of creative process.”

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Meek Mill was too late to hurt Drake with his diss track

By the time Meek Mill released Wanna Know, his comeback to diss tracks from Drake, he was already the punchline of too many internet memes

 

Unscathed … Meek swings for Drake, and misses. Photograph: Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for BET

What a rough week it’s been for Meek Mill. Before you scroll down to type out “who?” in the comment box, let me explain. He’s a Philadelphia rapper who’s recently been known first for dating Nicki Minaj and then for starting a Twitter beef with Drake – and it didn’t end well for Meek.

In fact, you could say the whole thing blew up spectacularly in his face. Meek’s been memed to within an inch of his life and mocked on just about every social network since he accused Drake of using lyrical ghostwriters. He then swiftly became the subject of two diss tracks shared four days apart.

The first, Charged Up, came out on Saturday 25 July. Meek deemed it “baby lotion soft” on Twitter, and honestly just should have left it there. By the timeDrake returned with Back to Back Freestyle, on Wednesday 29 July, it felt as though anyone who hadn’t followed Meek’s career up to that point was never going to bother. His fans could only watch on helplessly as their favourite was relentlessly trashed by one of rap’s biggest current crossover stars.

Really, to think that this started because Meek was unhappy that Drake didn’t tweet support for his recent album, Dreams Worth More than Money, makes the whole fiasco even more ridiculous. It’s petty. Meek should’ve just hit “save tweet as draft”, slept on it, and let the whole thing go.

Because now that he’s finally responded in kind, with a diss track of his own –Wanna Know – the response hasn’t been great. Truth be told, Meek had a brief window of time in which to share his rebuttal, and it definitely fell somewhere between Sunday and Tuesday. That Drake hit him with a one-two punch of two consecutive disses – written in two different styles, for the hell of it – and gave watching fans too much fodder for jokes at Meek’s expense.

Regardless of Wanna Know’s quality, the winner of this delicately passive-aggressive beef was already decided by the time Toronto city Councillor Norm Kelly had waded in on Twitter, posting a photo inspired by one of Drake’s Back to Back lyrics. Meek had lost when Drake fans swarmed Meek’s Instagram account on Sunday, posting plug, battery and arrow emojis in the comments below his pictures in homage to Drake’s Charged Up.

Likewise, Meek had lost when people started editing videos that made fun of his silence. Would you like to imagine Meek as the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, bullied by an imagined Drake posse? Now you can watch that. Or how about an edit of what Meek’s distressed reaction might have been when he first heard Back to Back? The internet has you sorted.

Meek had truly lost when news of the beef spread trended on Twitter in the UK for most of Wednesday morning, and made so much of an impact on the internet’s echo chamber that burger joints were saying their piece, too. Things really are dire when Burger King’s social media manager thinks: “Hmm, how can we turn this rapper’s public pummelling into a Twitter punchline that facilitates the sale of our product?”

In a genre where authenticity has always been king, Meek attempted to throw a hefty jab at Drake – and missed. He’s been paying the price ever since. Wanna Know isn’t entirely awful, bouncing over a Swizz Beats-produced beat and dropping in punchlines about Milli Vanilli and 50 Cent’s past beef with Ja Rule (to which Ja Rule replied on Instagram, making it clear he wasn’t impressed with the track as a whole). Meek was never going to come out on top, though, because he needlessly started an internet fight that could have been settled in private. Drake responded firmly, essentially saying, “don’t come for me unless I send for you”.

As social media brings musicians closer to their fans and further from the safe confines of statements checked and released by a team of managers and publicists, people like Meek learn the lesson that unchecked openness can easily backfire. Azealia Banks and Taylor Swift have felt that pain before him. And Drake? He’s having the last laugh.

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Drake and Kevin Hart Are Coaching the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game—and Here Are the Teams

WIREIMAGE(Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage)

Can Kevin Hart find a way to dominate the ball from the bench?

Every year, at NBA All-Star Weekend, the celebrity game ends up surprising everyone to be one of the most fun parts of the weekend's festivities. Sure, it lacks the high-wattage excitement of the slam dunk contest, and the relaxing, almost meditative joy of watching the three-point contest, and of course the pure basketball goodness that is the All-Star game itself, but it makes up for all those deficits by being weird, funny, and good enough as a basketball game to keep you hooked. This year's game in Toronto should be no exception as the Association has tapped Kevin "I dominate the ball at the celebrity game even though I'm not that great at basketball, but I'm entertaining so everybody lets me get away with it" Hart and a young upstart named Aubrey "Drake" Graham to coach the Team USA and Team Canada squads, respectively. Let's break down the current rosters (which will surely add more people in the coming weeks) and see who has the better shot of taking home the title.

TEAM USA
Michael B. Jordan
Anthony Anderson
Bryshere "Yazz" Gray
Nick Cannon
Jason Sudeikis
Marc Lasry
Chauncey Billups
Muggsy Bogues
Elena Delle Donne
COACH: Kevin Hart
Initial Impressions: That's a strong squad. Billups, Bogues, and Delle Donne are about as good as the pro players can get in the celebrity game, and Michael B. Jordan can legitimately hoop, as can Sudeikis. No idea about Yazz's ability, but I like to imagine that Hakeem from Empire was named after Hakeem Olajuwon, so that gives them points. My biggest worry with this team is Kevin Hart as the coach. I love Kevin Hart and his movies, but will the team buy into his system of firing up contested jumpers from all over the place and doing bits with the refs and the announcers? I don't know.

TEAM CANADA
Win Butler
Drew Scott
Jonathan Scott
Milos Raonic
Kris Wu
Stephan James
Tracy McGrady
Rick Fox
Natalie Achonwa
COACH: Drake
ASST COACHES: Steve Nash and Jose Bautista
Initial Impressions: Again, we have a very solid pro contingent here, though I'm not sure they quite measure up to the Team USA pros. Going to be important to consider that before betting on this game. Win Butler loves basketball more than pretty much everybody. I'm pretty sure if you put together a charity game at your local Y, Win would show up and start grabbing boards like it's no big deal. I have no idea if Drew and Jonathan Scott are good at basketball, but I do like that they're here on Team Canada, because if you watch early episodes of The Property Brothers those guys were SUPER CANADIAN and have really toned it down for American audiences. The biggest advantage Team Canada has is with their coaching staff. There are few things Drake takes more seriously than Toronto pride, so repping Canada in Toronto at the All-Star Game, he's going to have his team motivated in a way Kevin Hart won't. Plus he has two assistant coaches who are great sports minds. I don't know how Joey Bats' baseball experience will help out, but it can't hurt. It's a shame he can't lace them up (probably MLB contract rules—looking at you Aaron Boone), but as long as he flips a bat or two during a timeout, the crowd will be happy.

Prediction:
My head says Team USA just has too much talent not to take this, and I do predict a big game from MBJ, who finally will be able to have the offense run through him now that Kevin Hart has moved to the bench. But my heart says this one is going to go to Drake and Team Canada. They're on their home floor, and who knows, maybe the Property Brothers are secretly the Morris twins of the Celeb game. Put them on the same team and both of them become much, much better.

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Drake: ‘If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late’ Album Review

Growing up a pro wrestling and sports fan, I often get accustomed to runs or dynasties. In the NFL, there’s currently the controversial yet successful New England Patriots. Same can be said for the 15-time WWE Champion John Cena, who has ruled on top of the wrestling promotion with an iron fist and to the contempt of many hardcore fans. The latter applies more thoroughly to one Aubrey Graham, who for the last seven years has made a name for himself as part of Lil Wayne’s Young Money collective. Since releasing his impactful mixtape So Far Gone in 2009, Drake’s grown into one of the biggest names in rap and an international star. He also grown into becoming one of the more divisive artists that fans and critics have bickered back-and-forth about.

When it pertains to him as a rapper and singer, Drake can be as versatile as he can ever be. Every song that he drops nowadays is sporadic but built with anticipation for his latest album. It is a formula that he has been using since his Thank Me Later years that also kept him relevant with each quality B-Side that hits the airwaves. So when he drops If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late on the sixth-year anniversary of So Far Gone in the middle of NBA All-Star Weekend, a week after the Grammys, and mere seconds after a Kanye West performance and Diddy concert, it raises more questions than answers.

For those that are keeping track with the Cash Money situation, Lil Wayne has sued Brian “Birdman” Williams for $51 Million requesting his out from the label and wanting to take Nicki Minaj and Drake with him as well. Aubrey has long had previous issues with the label when it came to music royalties ever since the release of Take Care, but kept himself majorly quiet up until this point. A lot of folks have suspected whether releasing a retail mixtape was his way of getting out of his Cash Money deal or not, or purely a thank you note to the man that gave him an opportunity and made him so much money in Birdman. No matter how many perceive it to be, Drake’s latest output is one of his most visceral and revealing to date.

Not bound by the obligations of making pop hits for the Billboard charts, Drake uses If You’re Reading This as a way to flex his rapping muscles on tracks seemingly looked at as throwaway tracks in his Views From The 6 album sessions. Maybe, that’s how Drake wants it to be with his methodical approach: a number of the records feel unfinished, but the track placement is entirely cohesive. It’s not rushed as the songs weave in-and-out, letting the beat breathe, but everything still feels abrupt. It’s impeccable Drake timing, leaving more for the heart to be desired when you think you know it all.

Aubrey gets in the matter of his label issues on If You’re Reading This, battling with fame and ‘running through the 6 with his woes’ on “Know Yourself”. He keeps looking through envelopes for the checks that never come on “No Tellin’,” further emphasizing that there are problems on deck all over the Cash Money ship. It’s not all rosy in paradise for the successful and famous, as Aubrey makes note of that plenty of times on his previous records and here. Instead of sulking over women and lost strippers he was looking to save, he’s looking to save himself from all the complications that come along with his rise.

There’s little room for ballads on the 69-minute, 17-track night journey, though much of its R&B influences is sprinkled through the production. Though Drake’s right-hand men Noah “40” Shebib and Boi-1da handle a good chunk of the beats, much of its ethereal vision is propelled by the youthful appearances of OVOSound’s PARTYNEXTDOOR, SykSense, Eric Dingus, WondaGurl, and Sevn Thomas. The startling “Preach” is the only track that can really give way to radio spins, acting as a well-done sequel to “Recognize,” and the “Wednesday Night Interlude” continues to showcase Aubrey’s recruit and the sole R&B-esque track on here. As he’s mainly rapping throughout, there’s a number of samples from 100% Ginuwine and Ciara’s “Body Party” buried throughout the record if repeated listens dig in the right place.

As hefty and introspective the album comes across, it is the closing bonus track and third of his rapping vent series “6PM in New York” that becomes his most talked-about song here in the long run. From telling fellow Cash Money labelmate Tyga to “act his age and not his girl’s age” to briefly reflecting on the police brutality incidents, Drake ties themes together without it sounding forced; it’s his best lyrical display of boxing in quite some time. His songwriting and rapping ability continues to be heavily underrated, and “6PM” further exemplifies his meticulously tenacity.

It’s like every other project Drake has released since So Far Gone has raised the bar of his sound. SFG was a moody introduction that hit at his pop sensibilities, molding it to an even grander and exhaustive version of those ideas on Take Care. With If You’re Reading, it goes back to what made him so great to begin with along with the broodiness of Nothing Was The Same fleshed out. One thing, for sure, is that Drake is on the throne holding the crown, and it’s going to take a hell of a lot for him to drop it.

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