Hip-Hop Lives Here
Hip-Hop Lives Here
Jay-Z is one of the biggest legends in all of rap but that has never stopped him from embracing the artists who came after him. He's picked up the habit of curating a playlist around this time of year with some of his favorite material that came out in the past 12 months. Those paylists get shared to his Tidal platform and as expected he once again delivered one for 2023.
As you'd expect, the playlist is absolutely packed full of rap favorites from this year. Included among them are some of the biggest artists of the year like Drake with "8am In Charlotte" and Travis Scott with "FE!N." It also included some industry veterans like Jay-Z rival turned friend Nas and a song from The Alchemist's collab album with Larry June. JID, Westside Gunn, Lil Yachty, Veeze, and Ken Carson also appear. The playlist isn't all rap though. R&B critical darling Sampha is also included with the lead single form his new album "Spirit 2.0." And of course, Jay's wife Beyonce made the cut with her newest single "MY HOUSE" appearing on the playlist.
Jay-Z, Beyonce, and Blue Ivy have been celebrating the holidays by hitting the town all week. First at the start of the week Bey took to Instagram to share a series of pictures documenting a dinner date she and Jay went on. A few days later a hilarious story broke via TMZ. They found the entire family leaning into their tourist vibes and taking a bus tour of New York.
Earlier this year Jay-Z sat down for a massive interview with Gayle King. In it, he discussed the potential of releasing a new album. He didn't shut down the possibility, but explained that it had to be just right for him to actually do it. His most recent album 4:44 dropped back in 2017. He followed it up with a collaborative record alongside Beyonce the next year. What do you think of the choices Jay-Z included on his new "Best Of 2023" playlist for Tidal? Let us know in the comment section below.
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The surviving members of Canadian progressive rock outfit Rush have reflected on their final tour, sharing their regrets that the tour didn’t extend to the likes of the U.K. and Europe.
Close to ten years on from their final run of shows, Rush bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson spoke to Classic Rock magazine about the group’s last gigs, apologizing to the British and European fans who didn’t get a chance to see them perform live.
“I’d pushed really hard to get more gigs so that we could do those extra shows and I was unsuccessful,” Lee said of the band’s R40 Live Tour. “I really felt like I let our British and European fans down. It felt to me incorrect that we didn’t do it, but Neil [Peart] was adamant that he would only do thirty shows and that was it.
“That to him was a huge compromise because he didn’t want to do any shows. He didn’t want to do one show.”
Rush’s R40 Live Tour kicked off in Tulsa, OK in May 2015, and featured a total of 35 shows across the U.S. and the band’s native Canada, ending in August of that year. Ultimately, while Rush’s dedicated fanbase called out for more dates to be added, these would become the final performances from the veteran band. Despite releasing their final album, Clockwork Angels, in 2012, Rush’s dissolution wasn’t confirmed until the death of longtime drummer Neil Peart in January 2020.
While Lee would detail the band’s final tour in his 2023 memoir, My Effin’ Life, he admitted to being very cautious in regard to how he discussing Peart’s death, but strived to be as candid as he could so as to give Rush’s audience the closure they wanted about the band’s end.
“I just kind of felt I owed an explanation to them, the audience,” Lee explained. “It’s part of why I went into the detail I did about Neil’s passing in the book, was to let fans in on what went down. That it wasn’t a straight line.
“This is how complicated the whole world of Rush became since August 1 of 2015 until January 7th of 2020 when Neil passed. Those were very unusual, complicated, emotional times. Fans invested their whole being into our band and I thought they deserved a somewhat straight answer about what happened and how their favourite band came to end.”
Lifeson also expressed his disappointment about Rush being unable to tour some of their favourite markets as part of their final run, noting that while Peart’s scheduling demands and health issues made further shows impossible, an additional “dozen or so” dates may have made the surviving members “a bit more accepting”.
“There was a point where I think Neil was open to maybe extending the run and adding in a few more shows, but then he got this painful infection in one of his feet,” Lifeson added. “I mean, he could barely walk to the stage at one point. They got him a golf cart to drive him to the stage. And he played a three-hour show, at the intensity he played every single show.
“That was amazing, but I think that was the point where he decided that the tour was only going to go on until that final show in LA.”
Having formed in Toronto in 1968 by Lee, Lifeson, and original members John Rutsey and Jeff Jones, Rush began to find widespread fame throughout the ’70s, with Peart replacing Rutsey following the recording of their 1974 self-titled debut.
While much of Rush’s touring was confined to the U.S. and Canada, the U.K. was their next most popular market, with European countries such as Germany and the Netherlands following behind. Curiously, Rush rarely ventured beyond these territories, with countries such as Australia never hosting the band on their shores.
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