Drake is in a tough spot. He spent the weekend getting bombed on by Kendrick Lamar via multiple diss tracks. He responded with "The Heart Part 6," but the general consensus is that he's losing the battle (if he hasn't already). Metro Boomin is rubbing salt in the wound. He was the one who started the battle in the first place, when he asked Lamar to hop on "Like That." Now, he's taking a page out of the Drake playbook and trolling the Canadian rapper on social media. He's even using the rapper's own lyrics.
Metro and Future are riding high off the release of their joint albums WE DON'T LIKE YOU and WE STILL DON'T LIKE YOU. They are the current dynamic duo in hip-hop, and Metro commemorated this with pics of him and Pluto throughout the years. The caption on the Instagram post read: "Never turn my back on FBG, God forbid." It doesn't mean much out of context, but fans of the Drake and Future single "Life Is Good" know that Drizzy says this during his verse. "FBG" is a reference to Future's label Freebandz.
Metro is effectively dissing Drake on two different levels here. Firstly, he's using these words to express his loyalty to Future and Freebandz. Secondly, he's bringing this line back up to make fans realize that it's no longer true from Drake's perspective. Drake and the Freebandz crew are no longer cool, and based on the way things are going, they probably never will be again.
Metro Boomin has also been clowning Drake on the musical end of things. He released a beat called "BBL Drizzy" on Soundcloud, which, as one can guess, is a riff on Drake's surgery rumors. Metro said that whoever makes the best song over it will get $10K and a free beat. This has led to the "BBL Drizzy" beat going viral, with rappers and musicians from all over the world taking a crack at rhyming over it. There have even been interpretive dances and guitar solos set to it.
Drake might have gotten Metro with "make some drums" line on "Push Ups," but the producer may just get the last laugh.
NEWS
Steve Albini‘s bands Shellac and Big Black now have their catalogues available for listening on Spotify.
Albini passed away aged 61 earlier this month due to a heart attack. He was well known for being the producer of major albums such as Nirvana’s ‘In Utero‘, Pixies’ ‘Surfer Rosa’, PJ Harvey’s ‘Rid of Me’, Manic Street Preachers‘ ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’ and more.
Back in 2022, the late producer took his music off the streaming platform. He had previously criticised the company for platforming anti-vaxxers such as Joe Rogan, and tweeted later that they were a “terrible company”, adding: “I don’t want to be part of their business”.
He later told Attack Magazine that Spotify was “one of the few places outside of record stores where recorded music can earn anything at all, and for bands [with] more generous, honest relationships with independent labels not part of the ownership trust, then the payments from Spotify, though meager per-play, can add up to a viable income stream. Nobody’s getting rich, but it could pay for the groceries.”
Now, it appears that Albini’s work with his bands Shellac and Big Black are now available to stream on Spotify. This include’s Shellac’s final album ‘To All Trains’, which was announced shortly before Albini’s death and was released last Friday (May 17).
Tributes have poured in for the legendary producer since the announcement of his death. Our NME obituary hailed him as “a lone voice of anti-industry punk scene ethics, even as he worked with major labels on some of the biggest names in alternative rock.”
Meanwhile, Foo Fighters dedicated a rendition of ‘My Hero’ to the late producer in Charlotte, North Carolina last week.
“Tonight I’d like to dedicate this song to a friend that we lost the other day, who I’ve known a long, long time,” Foos frontman Dave Grohl told the crowd. “He left us much too soon. He’s touched all of your lives, I’m sure. I’m talking about Steve Albini. For those of you who know, you know. For those of you who don’t know, just remember that name: Steve Albini. Let’s sing this one for him.”
PJ Harvey also said he “changed the course of my life” during sessions for her 1993 LP ‘Rid Of Me’., and Joanna Newsom dedicated a version of her song ‘Cosmia’ to him, who engineered her 2006 album ‘Ys’. See further tributes here.
Elsewhere, Yourcodenameis:milo spoke to NME about how the 20th anniversary of their LP ‘All Roads To Fault’ was made all the more profound by the passing of Albini, who engineered the album.
Remembering their time with the punk and production legend, Lockey said: “We paid attention, saw everything he did, asked questions that he would gladly spend ages answering”.
“He once stopped the session and proceeded to give us a lecture on how the peanut built America. He schooled us in billiards, then showed us his favourite cooking shows that he’d recorded. It was all so natural and encouraging, we could do what the fuck we wanted and he’d capture it. That’s the deal, and we fucking loved it.”
