The Renaissance Rundown: Heat 10
We’ve reached 10 newsletters!
What’s good y’all?
Wow, we’ve already reached 10 of these! Might be minor to some but it’s major to me. Also…it’s November *gasp*
[TL;DR — We got a verse from Kendrick, the BET Cyphers were fire af and Juwan has something political to share that’s worth reading.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
- We’re still here to give you advice or rather — RapVice, if you need it.
- The Best of 2020 Lists will start popping up soon…we’ll probably contribute to the conversation in one way or another.
ARTICLES
Here’s what we published recently:
Lil Wayne, JAY-Z, other hip hop stars considered for Trump admin’s celebrity-studded HHS political ads by Juwan J. Holmes
Juwan really goes in with nothing but the facts on how the narrative of celebrity political endorsement is still being pushed and this piece just shows a few of the many reasons this needs to stop.
This is what (we believe) Kristen Welker’s pre-debate playlist looked like by Juwan J. Holmes
Juwan takes a humorous approach to a serious matter and offers 12 songs that would make a great playlist. We assume you’ve heard of all of them but I don’t think you can blame us for that…
COMING UP
Here’s what’s coming up from The Renaissance:
Reconsidered: [REDACTED]— Juwan and Paul will be linking to reevaluate another release from the past and no we won’t tell you what it is yet.
NEWS
The BET Hip Hop Awards aired last week and it was another opportunity for black women to showcase how dope they are. There was a cypher that featured all R&B artists including Teyana Taylor, H.E.R, Brandy and Erykah Badu. This quartet rapped over the “I Wanna Be Down” instrumental which of course was helmed by Brandy. We also got a politically focused cypher that had verses from Rapsody and Chika along with Polo G, Flawless Real Talk and Jack Harlow. The instrumental for this one was (naturally) “F*ck Tha Police” by N.W.A.
Kendrick Lamar has signed a deal with Universal Music Publishing Group and that means they will be publishing and distributing and releasing new music from him soon…right? Also, BONES, head of TeamSESH has returned to his cryptic trademark promo style by tweeting “10 DAYS” on October 28th. This means we’ll be getting either a song, video or project once we get through those days.
In the meantime we did get a verse from Kendrick on the Busta Rhymes track “Look Over Your Shoulder” from the latter’s album Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God. And yes — due to the verses, flows and SAMPLE — it is a song of the year contender. The Outkast classic Stankonia also got a re-release for its 20th Anniversary with a few bonus tracks that you may have heard before if you’re a big fan. Rage Against The Machine dropped The Battle of Mexico City (Live) which captures the audio from the live show from the city during The Battle of Los Angeles era. This was released on DVD in 2001 and arrived on streaming platforms for the first time ever this year. Nyck Caution linked with fellow Pro Era member Joey Bada$$ for a track called “How You Live It” whose video features cameos from Jewcie (of Flatbush Zombies), Powers Pleasant and Denzel Curry.
RECOMMENDED SONGS …for some reason, all the reasons, no reasons
