The Voice Lil Durk is now the face of a brand new Beats By Dre campaign.
On Monday, Beats By Dre headphones announced that Lil Durk is joining them in a new campaign with luxury fashion company A-Cold Wall*.
Detailing the design with a two picture carousel from the Beats By Dre Instagram account, the statement read:
“Beats Studio3 Wireless, re-imagined by @acoldwall.
Featuring a utilitarian slate-and-chalk color palette with a grid pattern, a black stripe runs down each side of the headphone, and the ACW* logo is printed on the sidearms, inner arm and on the headphone case.
Through ACW*, founder @design.by.samuelross has always articulated the neutral, unassuming textures of the environment he grew up in, and given them another life through material innovation and elevated design. The limited-edition @acoldwall Beats Studio3 drops on 10/18 at 9AM PST.”
The headphones will have a limited edition release and will go for 350-dollars. A-Cold-Wall* will be selling the headphones first on October 15th before a wider launch on October 18th.
Lil Durk recently collaborated on the remix of Nardo Wick’s “Who Want Smoke,” alongside 21 Savage, and G Herbo.
After making billions from his Yeezy brand with Adidas and GAP, what other industry is left for Kanye West to dominate with his branding power? Electronics!
According to a report from TMZ, Kanye West’s company has filed a trademark application to put his latest album title and concept DONDA on a range of electronic products, including audio speakers, tablets, and surround sound systems. Ye also plans on putting the DONDA brand on smartwatches, smart glasses, and activity trackers, as well as wireless receivers in the form of jewelry and smart rings.
West drew his inspiration from one of his idols, Steve Jobs, but is also moving in the direction of Hip Hop mogul Dr. Dre by releasing “DONDA”-branded earbuds, headphones, and wireless headsets for mobile phones and tablet computers.
In August, Kanye fans got their first taste of Yeezy’s tech takeover when he released the Donda stem player less than a week before his DONDA album-hit MSPs by surprise.
The one-of-a-kind speaker device gives listeners complete control over a song’s components — including drums, vocals, bass, samples, and more — allowing them to curate their own unique listening experience and even add their creative flair to their favorite songs.
If you have yet to tap into it, social platform Riff may need to be on your radar. Three music powerhouses, Quality Control Music, Empire and Top Dawg Entertainment have invested and former a partnership with Riff. In addition, QC’s COO, Kevin “Coack K” Lee, will join Riff’s Board of Directors.
“Riff created an entirely new category – culture media,” said Coach K. “It combines the best of everything we do on social media. It was a no-brainer investment for QC.”
Riff is driven by a rapidly growing and diverse team of 75% women and persons of color with investors including the cream of the crop in Silicon Valley and the biggest artists and musicians in Hip-HOp and Country music. The platform is led CEO and Stanford engineer Kara Katz, CTO and Stanford computer scientist Steve Petersen, and EVP, Morehouse alumni and entertainment executive Brandon “BL” Lewis.
Riff blends voice and video chat with music, allowing room-based interactions between creators, friends and fans. For artists, Riff provides new revenue models and opportunities for any creator where they can live-stream and interact directly with fans, show off talents, host listening parties and drop albums and merch all inside the app.
“Tech innovation and music go hand in hand and Riff is leading the new wave for apps,” said TDE CEO Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith. “I’ve always been about reaching for the next level challenge, so I’m excited for TDE to invest in this breakthrough.”
“The Riff tech is world class,” said EMPIRE CEO / Founder Ghazi Shami. “Riff’s ability to integrate the best facets of social media is next level. EMPIRE is all in to leverage Riff on behalf of our global artist roster.”
TikTok is the first to ban the dangerous #milkcratechallenge.
TikTok is banning one the newest viral crazes after multiple reports of injuries. The ‘Milk Crate Challenge’ involves users stacking crates in a pyramid and then attempting to climb up them like stairs.
TikTok has now deleted search results for the challenge. A company spokesperson said TikTok prohibits content that promotes or glorifies dangerous acts, adding they encourage everyone to exercise caution in their behavior whether online or off.
According to Techcrunch, “TikTok prohibits content that promotes or glorifies dangerous acts, and we remove videos and redirect searches to our Community Guidelines to discourage such content. We encourage everyone to exercise caution in their behavior whether online or off.”
A search for the trend’s hashtag on the app will now bring up a “no results found” notice. The search results page notifies users that the “Milk Crate Challenge” may be associated with behavior or content that violates their guidelines.
In most videos of the dangerous trend, social media users are seen tumbling to the ground as they try to climb up and down of the makeshift pyramid.
Reportedly, the ban comes after several healthcare workers took to social media to voice their concerns.
Did you participate in the Milk Crate Challenge? See a few videos and share your thoughts below.
If you could possibly lose some income because of the imending OnlyFans ban, don’t worry because Tyga got you!
Multi-platinum artist and entrepreneur Tyga deletes his OnlyFans account amidst the headlines in the past 24 hours and prepares to launch his own innovative platform, myystar, for the current and new wave of content creators. Slated for a full release by October. As of today, users can visit www.myystar.comto apply for membership.
Tygasets out to expand his digital business portfolio and offers a new platform that allows users the creative freedom they deserve in response to OnlyFans banning sexually explicit videos come October. This new platform will only take 10% from creators’ earnings as opposed to OnlyFans 20%, and in addition to subscription content, creators will have the ability to sell NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, as well as features relevant to the music industry.
Tyga has partnered with creative director, Ryder Rippsof OKFOCUS, to lead the design of the platform. Ripps was behind the branding of VFILES, 88RISING, worked with Travis Scott at Cactus Jack, and Kanye West as a lead within Donda.
Committed to providing a platform for a wide variety of creators to monetize their content, myystaris currently featuring artwork by Dutch-Brazilian visual artist Rafaël Rozendaal, known as one of the pioneers of Internet Art.
The New York rap group says they never partnered with Royalty Exchange to auction off their first five albums as NFTs.
The group’s co-founder, Ali Shaheed Muhammad called the reports “not Frigging True,” in a long statement on Facebook.
On June 29, 2021 Billboard wrote an article that stated ‘Royalty Exchange has partnered with A Tribe Called Quest to auction off 1.5% share of the sound recording royalties from the hip-hop group’s first five studio albums.’ At the time, Billboard knew those words were not true but worded the story in a way to gain clicks. They have now changed the article. Other ‘journalistic’ publications took the original newsfeed and ran with the misleading headline.
Ali then highlighted, “No member of A Tribe Called Quest has entered into any partnership with Royalty Exchange. PERIOD!”
The partnership was said to include 1990’s People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, 1991’s The Low End Theory, 1993’s Midnight Marauders, 1996’s Beats, Rhymes and Life, and 1998’s The Love Movement.
Muhammad says that PPX Enterprises, which owned as small percentage of their royalities, sold their share to a group that partnered with Royalities Exchange. “Had we known this percentage of our art was out there we would have bought it directly from PPX Enterprises as it should have never been sold by Jive Records,” he added.
Reasonable Doubt NFT valued the highest it has ever been at 130K.
On June 24, Jay-Z announced that he’d be auctioning off his Reasonable Doubt album cover as an NFT.
Sotheby’s Auction House started the bidding war at $1,000, but the worth of the Brookly-bred album NFT cover, titled “Heir to the Throne: An NFT in Celebration of JAY-Z’s Reasonable Doubt 25th Anniversary by Derrick Adams,” skyrocketed to $138,600.
Shawn Carter [JAY-Z]; Derrick Adams [artist]. Heir to the Throne, 2021
Originally released on 25 June 1996, Reasonable Doubt, sparked every bit of success for the rapper from the Marcy Homes Projects in Brooklyn. For the 25th anniversary, Jay-Z linked with the legendary artist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, Derrick Adams, to create a one-of-one animated digital artwork that Sotheby’s auction off on its website.
This isn’t the only example of new technology bringing back a historical school of hip hop music. Just recently, legendary rap group A Tribe Called Quest auctioned off their first five albums as NFTs and made over 80k in revenue.
Do you think we will see more artist recognize the massive potential in the NFT space?
The advancement of technology has brought back ol’ school rap, literally. Because of the rising popularity of NFTs in hip hop, rappers of past eras have found a new way of profiting from their music.
Legendary rap group A Tribe Called Quest is the latest artists to regain revenue for classic music through non-fungible tokens or NFTs.
The group from Queens, New York partnered with Royalty Exchange, a music technology platform, to auction off their first five albums: People’s Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm, The Low End Theory, Midnight Marauders, Beats, Rhymes And Life, and The Love Movement.
The auction opened up at $35,000 USD, but the winning bid came in the form of crypto at 40.191 ETH, which is about $84,765 USD, from a man named Stephen F.
The winning bidder will collect royalties generated from sales, streaming, and sync fees for any of the included albums, as well as the individual singles, released by the group between 1990 to 1998.
The Royalty Exchange website revealed that holders of the NFT would have accumulated over $6,000 in royalties just last year. It also showed that “Can I Kick It?” was the highest-earning song last year, accounting for 27% of last year’s royalties for the group.
Tribe’s music also appeared in many movies and TV show properties, from Tom and Jerry to Soul to Ted Lasso and The 40-Year-Old-Version.
According to a report from Business Insider, a Canada-based online brokerage company that is backed by hometown rap hero Drake is reportedly valued at $4 billion.
Wealthsimple, the company that has other famous Canadian investors including Michael J. Fox and former pro-baseball player Dwight Powell, received over $600 million during its last funding season. According to the report, the app for the company will be the Canadian version of Robinhood.
“More than two million Canadians use Wealthsimple to grow their money, file their taxes, pay their friends, and make their financial lives better,” said CEO Mike Katchen. “This investment will fuel our growth so we can reach millions more and ensure that everyone has access to the simplest, most powerful financial products and services, no matter who they are or where they are in their financial lives.”
The announcement of Apple’s AirTag was met with a lot of positive reactions, but its best feature is seemingly its most concerning one due to a potentially dangerous loophole.
If you’re that person who always seems to misplace things like your keys, then Apple’s AirTag is the perfect investment for you because the device helps you precisely track down missing items or even your pets with the help of tracking software and your iPhone, of course.
When the tracking device was first announced, Apple made sure to address possible misuse of the AirTag in the form of potential stalking but, as with anything it does, was very vague with the details in regards to privacy protections built into the system. The issue with the AirTag is that it could be an affordable tool for abusers to keep tabs on their victims, being that one AirTag only costs $29, with a four-pack costing $99.
Now, normally if someone places an AirTag without your knowledge, your smartphone is supposed to send you an alert telling you that an active AirTag is in your area or on you. The alert is supposed to come rather quickly for iPhone users when you arrive at your home address or a location you frequently visit if you happen to have an unknown tag on you. But it could take up to three days for that same message to be sent to Android users.
FastCompanyshared concerns from a nonprofit that focuses on the issue of domestic violence.
“Technology often comes with unintended consequences, explain representatives from the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), a leading nonprofit with the goal of ending violence against women. NNEDV sits on advisory boards for Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Uber and has consulted for both Google and Apple in the past (but not on AirTags). The organization’s representatives say that while Apple AirTags are a cheap, easy-to-use product to find a lost item, they are also a worrisome surveillance tool that could be leveraged by an abuser to discreetly track a partner. An AirTag simply needs to be slipped into someone’s bag or jacket pocket to track exactly where they go.”
“So abusers who live with partners using Android can constantly pair and re-pair an AirTag so that it won’t set off an alert, a problem so core to the design of AirTags I’m skeptical it can be fixed with a software tweak.”
“Three days won’t work if you’re going home every day to the same person tracking you. . . . That’s a learning space [that] hopefully Apple will consider and work to build in protections with that threat model,” says Corbin Streett, technology safety specialist at NNEDV. “[Apple] is thinking about the threat model where it’s a stalker who is walking by someone on the street they don’t know—that stranger danger model—but what about when it is the person you come home to every day?”
It definitely sounds like something Apple needs to address immediately.
![Shawn Carter [JAY-Z]; Derrick Adams [artist]. Heir to the Throne, 2021](https://www.itshiphop.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/jay-z-to-make-over-130k-for-reasonable-doubt-nft.png)
