Young Thug Maintains That He & Lil Wayne Have No Problems

Young Thug says he has nothing but admiration for Lil Wayne. Young Thug is the subject of Jon Caramanica's New York Times profile, and as usual, he is a man of few words. While it only contains three or four short quotes from the rapper, the piece illustrates Young Thug's daily routine and the genius of his writing process quite well, and when he does get to talking, he's not afraid to answer the hard questions. The standout quote from the interview comes when the Lil Wayne bus shooting in Atlanta -- an incident which Thug's name has been loosely attached to -- is brought up. “I got millions to get, I’m not running around shooting no damn bus,” he said, once again enforcing that he and Wayne are not beefing in any way. “I’m not just being lame or trying to do something smooth. I told the whole world you my idol, and whenever you stop I’m gonna keep going... Both of us grew up the same thing, the same gang man — Y.M.C.M.B. Why should you ever in your life even feel like we against each other? The last we heard from Wayne, he had similar feelings about the "feud". Can we now finally put things to rest?

Young Thug Doesn't Mind Being Called Gay

Young Thug: "I like everything people say about me." In the States, it's hard to get a word out of Young Thug in an interview, but he has been much more revealing to the press while in Europe, giving highly entertaining interviews to Tim Westwood as well as the French online magazine Clique. Thugger is now the subject of an editorial profile in The Guardian, and it, too, features some memorable quotes from the unique Atlanta slime. The interview doesn't touch on Birdman, Lil Wayne, or Thugger's affiliation with either of them, as Thug's publicist disallowed the interviewer from breaching those topics -- take from that what you will. Instead, Thug discusses how his career has changed since the raw bedroom recordings of I Came From Nothing to his recent playful feature on the indie dance anthem, "Good Times," by U.K. producer Jamie xx. "I mean, we still do it the same way, but it's less gangster, you know what I'm saying? More white motherfuckers and important motherfuckers. There's less gangsters, less drugs. I have a girlfriend now, so no girls. I think all of those things make me more of an artist, though. If I didn't have a girlfriend, I'd have 10 girls at the studio and they would make me not rap. I'd be chilling and getting stoned." He also spoke on the widespread hate, mostly via angry commenters on social media, he's received for his experimental approach to both fashion and music. As he's clarified before, it doesn't bother him -- the opposite, even: "I like everything that people say. No matter what they say. You gay, you a punk. You got a nice girlfriend, you're ugly, you can't rap, you're the hardest." As for why he's so beloved in Europe: "Because you're from Atlanta, Georgia, and you're dressed like a fucking European. Of course," said Thug.

Released 20 Years Ago, GZA's "Liquid Swords" Finally Goes Platinum

"Liquid Swords" just became the first Wu-Tang album in 11 years to go platinum. It took twenty years, but GZA's magnum opus Liquid Swords has finally gone platinum. In the September edition of their monthly gold/platinum announcement flyer, the RIAA announced that the album officially crossed the threshold of one million units sold on September 15th. LS dropped on November 7, 1995. Produced entirely by RZA, Liquid Swords is widely considered to be one of the best solo members from a Wu-Tang member, along with Raekwon's Only Built For Cuban Linx... -- also released in 1995. I guess now we're just waiting on that to go platinum too. It is the first Wu-Tang album to go platinum since Ghostface Killah’s Ironman, in 2004. Congrats to GZA and the rest of the Wu.

Vince Staples & Mac Miller Discuss White Rappers & How They Fit Into Hip-Hop

Vince Staples and Mac Miller take on the great white rap debate. With the emergence of Macklemore, Iggy Azalea, and most recently, Slim Jesus and Post Malone, the topic of white rappers has been a common argument within the hip-hop community. It's a complicated and divisive issue, so the FADER decided to get the equally hilarious and on-point Vince Staples and real live white rapper Mac Miller (or is he just a white dude that raps? More on that later) to discuss the subject. The two went through a whole lot, including Staples' realization that Paul Wall wasn't Puerto Rican and the "Lyrical miracle spiritual" brand of early aughts white rappers. Eventually, Mac got into genre of "white rap" he accidentally helped create, and later escaped. "It’s funny because, when [my 2011 album] Blue Slide Park happened, there was a surge of all these kids, and we were able to sell 10,000 units on iTunes just out of nowhere," he said. "I remember touring and doing shows, and I was the first rap show ever in all these colleges. Six thousand kids, and I’m the first hip-hop show because I’m white-college-friendly. That was always a demon for me. It was hard to sit here and know that, because I was a white dude, I was able to sell easier and be more marketable. That wasn’t tight to me. I wanted to go through the same shit that everyone else did. But I did that shit, and that shit was huge for me. Recently, I’ve grown up. This is my job, and I’m going to do it. It used to be so difficult for me being a white rapper, but now, it doesn’t eat at me as much." Later on, Staples argued that ensuring sources of inspiration get proper credit is more important than policing white participation in hip-hop. "When it comes to giving credit and showing appreciation, that’s a different conversation," said Staples "If we’re talking about origins of music, if you’re talking about rock & roll, you have to give credit to Chuck Berry. He invented it; Elvis stole some shit; it’s fine. When you talk about rap, you have to give credit to the South Bronx and that whole community and Afrika Bambaataa. You have to give credit to where it’s due. If we talking about basketball, you gotta give credit to Dr. Naismith. There are people that created things, and who made things, but if we’re talking about someone’s ability to participate in something, then the color of a person should not be in the conversation, period." Vince then went on to suggest the success of some white rappers is the fact that they are relatable figures to certain audiences, comparing the lyrical concepts of Macklemore and Migos. "In general, more people can connect to things in music that are said by white people because white people aren’t as harsh," he said. "Not everybody can relate to being in the fucking ghetto and living on welfare and having to kill somebody and having to sell drugs. But they listen to, I want to shop right now, I only got 30 dollars in my pocket. It’s like, you know what, I’ve had 30 dollars in my pocket before. “Same Love,” you know what, I want people to love each other too. Rather than Hannah Montana, Hannah Montana/ I got molly, I got white. I know I don’t have that."

Rihanna's New Album Title & Cover Art Revealed

Rihanna's "ANTI" is coming soon. Rihanna gathered media and fans at an L.A. gallery tonight to unveil details of her new album, and the title has now been confirmed. As some guessed early on in the night, the tentatively titled R8 is now called ANTI, and has some pretty awesome artwork to go along with it. The cover is designed by contemporary artist Roy Nachum, who worked on the concept with RiRi. So far, the release date has not been revealed, but we assume it's on its way. We're thinking it's either tonight or Friday, but we'll have to wait and see.

Iggy Azalea Announces Sophomore Album Title

Iggy Azalea reveals the title to her upcoming sophomore album. After scrapping 6-months of work to start over from scratch, Iggy Azalea is finally ready to make her comeback in to the public eye and share the follow up to her debut album The New Classic. On Tuesday night, Iggy was interacting with fans on twitter when she revealed some important info about her sophomore album, including its now-announced title Digital Distortion. She also said that fans can expect to hear the first single sometime this month. While we still don’t have a release date for the album, Iggy did announce last week that the project was being entirely produced by the production collective D.R.U.G.S., which consists of producers Ty Dolla $ign, DJ Dahi, Fuego, Buddah, James Koo, Nate 3D, and more. Iggy reportedly just shot the cover for the album on Tuesday as well.

Curren$y & Dame Dash Settle $3 Million Dollar Lawsuit

Curren$y & Dame Dash have settled their $3 million dollar legal battle out of court. It looks like Currensy & Dame Dash’s on-going legal battle has finally come to an end. According to The Jasmine Brand, the two have finally settled their $3 million dollar lawsuit out of court for an undisclosed amount. To bring you up to speed, back in 2012 Currensy filed a lawsuit against Dame Dash for releasing two of his projects, Pilot Talk & Pilot Talk II, without his permission after their business deal didn’t work out together and he was with Warner Bros. Music. Spitta claims Dash didn’t have the rights to his music nor gave him his permission, meanwhile Dash says the opposite and says he did have permission. So with Dame releasing that music, Currensy claimed that his deal with Warner Bros. was negatively impacted and that he wanted $1.5 million in damages. With Dame refusing to pay up, Currensy again took the former Roc-A-Fella boss to court in 2014, where this time he asked for $2.9 million in damages and $95,000 for lawyer’s fees.