It’s only June and the number of albums released this year have been genius and anticipated and some I didn’t care for or listen to. Breaking it down Month by Month, here’s the album releases up until June:
January:
Migos- Culture 2
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Dave East- Paranoia 2
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February:
Kendrick Lamar- Black Panther Soundtrack
npr.org
Money Bagg Yo- Heartless 2
genius.com
Nipsey Hussle- Victory Lap
hotnewhiphop.com
March:
Tory Lanez: Memories Don’t Die
hotnewhiphop.com
Jeremih- The Chocolate Box
pitchfork.com
The Weeknd: My Dear Melancholy
albumoftheyear.com
XXXTentacion : ?
April:
Cardi B- Invasion of Privacy
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J. Cole- KOD
genius.com
Janelle Monae- Dirty Computer
albumoftheyear.com
May:
Rae Sremmurd- SR3MMlife 3
genius.com
Wale- Self Promotion EP
RAP-UP.COM
ASAP ROCKY- Testing
DJBOOTH.NET
Pusha T- Daytona
PITCHFORK.COM
June:
Kanye West: Ye
pitchfork.com
Kids See Ghosts- Kids See Ghosts (Kanye & Kid Cudi)
Coachella was the talk of social media this past weekend ESPECIALLY Beyonce. She stole the show for the WHOLE WEEKEND, with her HBCU band, her reunion with Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams from Destinys Child and bringing her sister Solange on stage to kill it with her. Beyonce has the whole Beehive wanting to pledge Beta Delta Kappa, which is the sweatshirt she wore in the second picture. Fans drew the conclusion that Beyonce was a sorority and they wanted to pledge. The letters B-A-K were on her sweatshirt and it could mean B-Beyonce, A-symbolizing Delta, but could also be related to the Roc Nation sign, and the K-for Knowles.
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*the above images are from Beyonce’s instagram*
Our fav Cardi B performed “Best Life” with Chance the Rapper, “She Bad” with YG, “Bartier Cardi” with 21 Savage, “Ring” with Kehlani and even “No Limit” with G Eazy. Her attire with full blown Left Eye vines with the all white and even the ponytails.
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Bae SZA took stage and performed “Drew Barrymore” then she brought out K-Dot (Kendrick Lamar) for “Doves in the Wind” “All the Stars”.
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Migos even took the stage and performed some of their old hits like “Fight Night”
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Of course there were more performance, but these were just the highlights. Make sure you check out my next post about the Coachella Fashion looks over the weekend.
The past few days have been magical for Cardi B. She has been killing music game for the past few months and now it came to a full circle this past weekend.
credit: Cardi B IG
On Friday, she released her first album titled Invasion of Privacy, and guess what?? It went GOLD in the same DAY. By gold, that means she’s sold or “moved” 500,000 units of her album, but there is a slight catch to that. According to Forbes, her single “Bodak Yellow” went certified 5x-multi platinum in September, which we all heard, but just on the strength on Bodak Yellow’s success, she’s moved 500,000 units of her album already!! PLUS “Bartier Cardi” her second single just earned platinum certification as well, which is 1 Million units. So Cardi’s album won’t be shy of a plaque at all, even without the her singles booming on the charts. I’ve listened to the album at least 5 times PLUS the radio stations have been playing her whole album too; so if her album sales aren’t out of the roof, IMMA BE PISSED!
Now let’s talk about the album…DOPE. DOPE. DOPE. And I’m not just saying that because I love her. Honestly, I was getting tired of her putting out all these songs and featuring on songs WITHOUT an album coming, but she made the wait worth it. She starts out her album with the song “Get Up 10” which was a Meek Mill “Dreams & Nightmares” vibe with the storytelling lyrics. She then has a song with Migos of course, with the song “Drip”, another banga! FEATURES FEATURES FEATURES. Cardi’s features on this album were “BRAZY”. Besides Migos, she got with Chance The Rapper for the song “Best Life” which is a more positive upbeat song. Then, she got my girl Kehlani on a song called “Ring”. She also collaborated with YG for the song “She Bad”, and last but not least….”I Do” featuring SZA, another dope record. I love the sense of women getting together and sticking together, especially with the constant competition and negativity that everyone wants to bring with it.
Cardi sampled a couple of records and made them sound just as fire as the original song. Starting off the first sample on the album, “Bickenhead”, this was sample from Project Pat “Chickenhead” which I definitely remember as kid. Another sample was “I like it” from the original song “I Like It Like That” by Pete Rodriguez, which is a Latin song that she channeled her roots in, being Dominican of course. Then, as stated before, she took the flow of Meek Mill “Dreams & Nightmares” on her first song on the albums.
Now, rumors have been circulating with her being pregnant over the past few months. She FINALLY showed off her belly during her performance on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. A video circulated of her came out of her after her performance on SNL, of her saying “I’m finally free.” By that, she’s free from hiding her pregnancy and she can finally embrace it instead of hiding it in shame. She’s been compared to Lauryn Hill because she had a baby in the middle of her career and of course she was the first female rapper to top the billboards with no features with ‘That Thing (Doo Woop) and here we are, years later, Cardi did the same thing with Bodak Yellow. Ironic ehh.
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Many other artists have congratualed on her pregnancy and album release including 50Cent, Rihanna, EVEN OPRAH!
All in all, I’m sooooooooooo proud of her. From the strip club to being Instagram famous, to Love & Hip Hop New York, to being number 1 on the billboard chart to having a dope ass album! I love it and I love how her success has soared.
2017 was a good year for some artists, from high record sales, to mega revenue coming through on their end. I can only image the their net worth by the end of this year. As I said in my blog post [Album Releases of 2017 ] this was a great year for music. It’s been so great, that a few of these artist probably had the year out of them all, musically. Check out these artist below.
Photo credit: GQ
Migos; as a whole the trio has been winning, starting from the beginning of the year when in January, Donald Glover gave them a shout out at the Golden Globes award show, for their song “Bad & Boujee” the recognition, Bad and Boujee rose up on the charts and became number 1 on the Billboard awards. Migos as a group have released four singles and currently 1 “Motorsport” is in the top 10 on the billboards. Quavo was the most successful member outside of the group, featuring in four songs including “Congratulations” by Post Malone, “You the One” by Dj Khaled, “Good Drank” by 2 Chainz and “Strip That” by Liam Payne and many more. They even got more attention for their live interview with Joe Budden and the Everyday Struggle cast, that went terribly wrong.
Cardi B; she went from the strip club, to Love and HipHop for two season, to her first big single number 1 on the top 100 chart. More recently, she was recognized for having three hit songs on the billboard chart at one time with her single; “Bodak Yellow”,” No Limit”, and “Motorsport.” Bodak Yellow sold 3 million units, making the single certified 3x Platinum, per the RIAA standards. She also graced mazaginr covers such as Fader and New York Mag AND she even got proposed to by Offset from Migos. Talk about a lit year!
Next, there’s my girl SZA, (whom I saw in concert on December 19, and it was awesome). She’s been out since 2014 and featured on Wale’s album The Album About Nothing, singing the chorus on “The Need To Know.” She was also on featured on Rihanna’s album Anti, singing on “Consideration.” She’s released three EP’s but Her first album titled CTRL is what got her her mega fan base. Her first single “Love Galore”, received her a platinum plague, selling one million units, per RIAA. Her song “The Weekend” wasn’t even released as a single it received a platinum plague. She also received FIVE Grammy nominations for the 2018 awards. WOOT WOOT, GO SZA!
Switching focus to Rihanna and her selling her Fenty Beauty make up line. She earned $72 million in sales in just ONE MONTH of selling the product. Rihanna debuted the make up in September, starting out with 40 shades and 9 highlighters and other makeup products; she also has a partnership with Puma.
photo credit: vogue
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Lastly, I’m gonna add Chris Brown to this list. He put on a 45 track album, Heartbreak On A Full Moon, and it sold over 64,000 units in a week. (Check out my blog post about Chris Brown Album Review)– But he is the first artist to successfully release an album that long and be very success with it. ALL of his albums have been in the top 10 on the charts; and two were number 1.
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So the question I have for y’all is: who would you say had the best year out of the five artists? Comment your thoughts below!
