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J. Cole attends the 69th NBA All-Star Game at United Center on February 16, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois.
Billboard’s First Stream serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
This week, J. Cole gets back to work in
The Off-Season, Nicki Minaj revisits a fan favorite, and Olivia Rodrigo is ready to upend your expectations. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
J. Cole,
The Off-Season
“Platinum with no features” are four words that J. Cole has made his own, becoming the rare hip-hop superstar in the 2010s to put huge numbers on the board with projects that often eschewed major guest stars. The North Carolina MC seemed to be taking the same approach with the highly anticipated LP
Coi Leray is definitely one of Hip Hop’s early winners for the first half of 2021. The emerging star is enjoying her newfound success but being thrown into heated rap debates has her feeling uncomfortable. Benzino’s daughter fired off a couple of tweets on Friday morning (May 14) telling fans to keep her out of the female rapper conversations.
“I’m not a female rapper,” she clarified. “I’m a artist. Leave that rap competition shit for the rappers. I just want to make good music and have a good time.”
I’m not a female rapper. I’m a artist. Leave that rap competition shit for the rappers. I just want to make good music and have a good time.
Nicki Minaj made her triumphant return on Friday (May 14), putting her 2009 mixtape
Beam Me Up Scotty on streaming services for the first time. The new expanded version features a fresh track called “Seeing Green” featuring Drake and Lil Wayne, which elated her Young Money fans.
Nicki popped up on Instagram Live shortly before the project dropped, which included a surprise appearance from Drake.
The two superstar rappers talked about how the song came together and Drake admitted “it didn’t feel right” without Nicki on it, although they kept Lil Wayne’s contribution secret until the magical hour of midnight EST.
Nicki finally released her 2008 mixtape,
Beam Me Up Scotty, to streaming services but with some additions. This version features some new songs including a track with Drake and Lil Wayne titled Seeing Green, a song titled Fractions and Crocodile Tears (Remix) with Skillibeng.
Following a four-month hiatus from social media, Nicki first announced the new music was afoot on Monday (May 10), via Instagram. She posted a photo of herself seemingly nude covered by pillows that was simply captioned Friday. She s been continuously promoting the new music on social media in the days leading up to its release including an Instagram Live session in the hour before the mixtape dropped.