Kendrick Lamar
Courtesy PhotoKendrick Lamar and Dave Free are teaming up with South Park co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker to produce a comedy film for Paramount Pictures.
The yet-untitled, live-action comedy, written by Vernon Chatman, will “depict the past and present coming to a head when a young Black man, who is interning as a slave re-enactor at a living history museum, discovers that his white girlfriend’s ancestors once owned his,” according to a press statement.
The movie marks the first feature produced under Lamar and Free’s pgLang company, which they announced in 2020. They launched pgLang as a multilingual, artist-friendly service company that’s a record label, movie studio and publishing house combined. Lamar’s younger cousin and rapper Baby Keem became the first artist signed to the pgLang label service. Stone and Parker will be producing for their Park County banner.
Production is slated to kick off this spring. A director has not yet been attached to the film. Paramount Pictures will be responsible for theatrical distribution, home entertainment and television licensing rights on the project, and Paramount Plus will acquire the streaming rights.
“On behalf of Paramount Pictures and the wider ViacomCBS family, we look forward to ushering in the first theatrical collaboration from these creative visionaries, and galvanizing audiences worldwide around a powerful storytelling experience,” said Paramount Pictures president and CEO Brian Robbins in a statement.
The 13-time Grammy-winning MC announced this past summer that he will be leaving his longtime label Top Dawg Entertainment after 17 years and that he was working on his “final TDE album.” His last solo album, the critically acclaimed DAMN from 2017, topped the Billboard 200 with 603,000 album-equivalent units in its opening week. It also won five Grammys and earned him the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Music. He curated Black Panther: The Album in 2018, which nabbed eight nominations at the Grammy Awards the following year, including best rap performance winner “King’s Dead.” Lamar gave a career-spanning live performance, his first in over two years, at the 2021 Day N Vegas music festival.
There is no question that Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out made a serious impact and continues to hold weight. The project showed that hip hop is not limited by age and proved that a long-awaited return can still land in a major way regardless of the time away.
If you need a reminder, the Virginia duo’s fourth studio album debuted comfortably within the top five of the Hot 200. It secured the number four position and moved an impressive 118,000 units in its first week.
On top of that, it picked up a win at this year’s Grammys, earning Best Rap Performance for “Chains & Whips.” The album also received four additional nominations, including Best Music Video, Rap Album, and Album of the Year.
It is hard to believe the project will officially hit its one year mark this summer on July 11. Even so, Pusha T is making it clear that both supporters and critics should not be overlooking it anytime soon.
While performing at Coachella yesterday, King Push told the crowd that LGSEO still sits at the top, regardless of genre.
He said, “‘Let God Sort Em Out’ is still the album of the motherfckin year. Whole new year, still album of the year,” per Kurrco. “Album of the motherfcking year until we drop again. We don't care who dropping. It don't matter.”
That is a strong statement for obvious reasons, especially considering the recent claims surrounding Push himself.
Over the same weekend, hip hop social media lit up after several alleged reference tracks connected to Quentin Miller and Push began circulating. Three tracks surfaced in total, but one that drew the most attention was an alleged record titled “Real Gon’ Come.” It is said to come from the DAYTONA era, around 2017 to 2018.
The situation gained traction because fans remember the past tension between Drake and Pusha T before Drake’s clash with Kendrick Lamar. During that feud, Pusha accused Drake of using ghostwriters on tracks like “Infrared,” which appears on DAYTONA. On that song, he raps, “The bigger question is how the Russians did it /
It was written like Nas, but it came from Quentin.”
Reactions have been mixed. Some people argue it is not a major issue since Miller’s alleged contributions were limited to hooks. Others point out that the songs were never officially released, so they see no real problem. Meanwhile, critics view it as clear hypocrisy on Pusha T’s part, a perspective that DJ Akademiks has also supported.