Hip-hop Buddy Comedy
New York magazine|July 15-28, 2024
An uneven album as astounding as it is annoying.
CRAIG JENKINS
Hip-hop Buddy Comedy

JAMES BLAKE and Lil Yachty are a match made in buddy-comedy heaven. The British singer-songwriter and producer has become the go-to white male vocalist selling silken hooks to the likes of Jay-Z, Ye, and Travis Scott, an unlikely outcome for the auteur, whose 2011 selftitled debut featured baroque pop and minimal dance music. Lil Yachty has a chip on his shoulder as the latest 20-something rapper dealing with unearned, unrealistic complaints about lowbrow trap music. But the purists' outrage hasn't stemmed his tide of breezy hits, guest features, and writing and production jobs with Migos and Drake. Bad Cameo, an album-length collab between Blake and Yachty, sees the duo matching wits over heady reverb-drenched hip-hop and electronic-music hybrids that nudge each artist into a more intriguing creative space.

Working with Blake pushes Lil Yachty further away from the southern and midwestern rap trends set or else savvily curated on his Lil Boat and Michigan Boy Boat mixtapes, building on the genre-spelunking of his divisive psych-rock and funk pivot, Let's Start Here. It also turns the page on a dicey stretch of news for his collaborator: Blake struggled in March to explain how Vault, a subscription service he promoted as a "nice solution" to streaming platforms' meager payouts, differs from preexisting utilities, then caught smoke in June for admitting to hating the saxophone enough to wish to delete the instrument from music history.

Bad Cameo casts him in the role of ambient- and dance-music adviser and partners him with an American foil whose commitment to whimsy can make the Brit's demure sensibilities feel refreshing.

Denne historien er fra July 15-28, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

Denne historien er fra July 15-28, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

FLERE HISTORIER FRA NEW YORK MAGAZINESe alt
Art Fall Preview - World in Motion - An Alvin Ailey retrospective sets the tone for an array of eclectic offerings from the art world this fall.
New York magazine

Art Fall Preview - World in Motion - An Alvin Ailey retrospective sets the tone for an array of eclectic offerings from the art world this fall.

An Alvin Ailey retrospective sets the tone for an array of eclectic offerings from the art world this fall. A gust of fresh air is blowing through the art world. A brand-new outfit called Ruby/Dakota has opened on the supercool strip of East 2nd Street. A whole new scene has formed around 56 Henry's two gallery spaces in Chinatown, and solo shows there by Laurie Simmons and Richard Tinkler promise to scintillate. Just north of the Whitney, Fort Gansevoort Gallery regularly showcases undiscovered artists, including, in September, 84-year-old quilt-maker extraordinaire Yvonne Wells. A gaggle of established artists are also exhibiting-Kara Walker, Simone Leigh, Nick Cave, and the still under-known Denzil Forrester among them. And the museums will have their fair share of thrilling exhibitions, too: The Whitney will feature American national treasure Alvin Ailey, MoMA will peer deep into its own brilliant bellybutton in a show about the woman who helped make the museum, and the Brooklyn Museum will give us an enormous show of artists based in its borough.

time-read
3 mins  |
August 26 - September 08, 2024
Kamala's Party - Producing Chicago The DNC covered nearly impossible ground to raise up Harris as the new hero.
New York magazine

Kamala's Party - Producing Chicago The DNC covered nearly impossible ground to raise up Harris as the new hero.

Producing Chicago The DNC covered nearly impossible ground to raise up Harris as the new hero. At a political convention, power is rendered as geography. The rank and file are stuck in the rafters of the arena; the delegates jostle on the floor. Donors and VIPs are positioned up in a ring of luxury suites, their status-conferring badges and passes flapping from their many lanyards. The staffers toil down in the bowels, harried and molelike, their eyes on their phones. But at last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, maybe the most important piece of real estate was a narrow space up metal gangway stairs at the back of the United Center, where Ricky Kirshner worked in front of a bank of a half-dozen flat-screens. The Democrats in the hall were extras in a televised event, and Kirshner was producing the show.

time-read
10 mins  |
August 26 - September 08, 2024
THE REHEARSAL
New York magazine

THE REHEARSAL

Ten performers days before their big fall shows.

time-read
7 mins  |
August 26 - September 08, 2024
Garth Greenwell's Grand Romance
New York magazine

Garth Greenwell's Grand Romance

The author explores the tender side of long-term partnership amid a health crisis in his best novel yet.

time-read
8 mins  |
August 26 - September 08, 2024
Josh Rivera Takes the Lead
New York magazine

Josh Rivera Takes the Lead

The actor plays the tortured football player Aaron Hernandez in a Ryan Murphy-produced series.

time-read
5 mins  |
August 26 - September 08, 2024
Kaytranada Owns His Influence
New York magazine

Kaytranada Owns His Influence

Once modern dance music's best-kept secret, the Canadian DJ-producer is ready to go bigger.

time-read
7 mins  |
August 26 - September 08, 2024
The Perks of Not Being a Wallflower
New York magazine

The Perks of Not Being a Wallflower

Actor Adam Pearson has his biggest role to date in a dark comedy inspired by his upbeat personality.

time-read
8 mins  |
August 26 - September 08, 2024
Nicole Scherzinger Never Stopped Dreaming
New York magazine

Nicole Scherzinger Never Stopped Dreaming

The former Pussycat Doll stages a comeback.

time-read
10+ mins  |
August 26 - September 08, 2024
Having a Ball Living in a Former Ballroom
New York magazine

Having a Ball Living in a Former Ballroom

Jack Shainman and Carlos Vega's apartment had to have space for \"big art.\"

time-read
2 mins  |
August 26 - September 08, 2024
THE ASTEROID-IN-SPRING HYPOTHESIS
New York magazine

THE ASTEROID-IN-SPRING HYPOTHESIS

It took ten days for two young paleontologists to turn on each other, each claiming to have found new evidence of the worst day in the history of life on Earth.

time-read
10+ mins  |
August 26 - September 08, 2024