Quick chart news. Congrats to Trey Songz for having the number one album in the country, Trigga. He also ranks #1 on both R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and R&B Albums charts. To see who else ranked within the top 10 of the Billboard 200, click here and for my Trigga album review, click here. 
Iggy Azalea is still atop the Hot 100 with ‘Fancy’ for the 7th week, putting her in fifth place above Adele (‘Rolling In The Deep’, 2011) for longest reign on the Hot 100 this past decade. Holding the #1 spot is Rihanna’s, ‘We Found Love’, (2011-12). With another month a top the charts and she can set a record. Only time will tell. Iggy also released the cover art to her Rita Ora assisted track, ‘Black Widow’, one of my favorites from her album The New Classic. CLICK HERE for my review.
In other music news, I’ve mentioned in a post before that Drake and Lil Wayne would be heading on tour titled, Drake vs. Lil Wayne. In an interview with MTV, Lil Wayne discussed just how the show would go down:
“Since, thank God we’ve been so successful, we’ll just be going back and forth with our hits and getting the crowd to go crazy, then just finally hittin’ the stage together.”
What better way to feed off the name of the tour than with an actual battle. That should be interesting. The tour will run from August 8th to September 27th.
In other Drake news, his ‘beef’ with Chris Brown must have been ceased because the two have been photo’d in the studio together. I know I’m not the only one who wants to her a Drizzy/Breezy collab. Let’s see how long it takes to surface.
It will have been 20 years since Usher released his debut, ,and it’s been 10 years since the release of his infamous album, Confessions. It has been confirmed that he will be opening this years MTV VMAs airing LIVE August 24th. He hasn’t performed at the VMAs since his 2010 performance of ‘DJ Got Us Falling In Love’ and ‘OMG’. Currently he has, ‘Good Kisser’ out and a new Pharrell Produced and Nicki Minaj featured track titled, ‘She Came To Give It To You’. He already did a medley at the BET Awards so who knows what he’s doing for MTV. Two other performers have been announced for the VMAs, Ariana Grande and 5 Seconds of Summer. Stay tuned to future posts for updates.
Backtracking to the Usher/Nicki collab, I did not like it upon first listen, but it has grown on me. It reminds me so much of Earth, Wind & Fire. I guess I didn’t like it because the sound was not what I was expecting with Nicki Minaj being featured on the track. Being that she’s a rapper I was expecting something more ‘club’ oriented. Nicki did great on this beat and this just adds more to her versatility. I’m interested to seeing how this does on the radio. Take a listen below:
If you were questioning if Yaya Decosta was rightly casted to play Whitney Houston in the upcoming Lifetime biopic, this picture should speak for itself. The photo is a recreation of Whitney Houston’s 1987 album, Whitney. The Angela Bassett directed film will be focusing on Houston’s relationship with Bobby Brown and will not address her untimely death. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Angela Bassett stated:
“I want you to fall into the world of Whitney and Bobby. And I don’t want to stop you at the gate with maybe the image of something familiar, someone you’ve seen from something else. Yaya was far and above the only choice.”
Lastly in music news, Beyoncé and Jay Z are heading to HBO.Their ‘On The Run’ tour will be the next installment for the Carters featured on the network. For full details, click here.
Moving on to new music, Omarion and Bow Wow have teamed up for a new track, ‘Need That Love’. I’m sorry, Omarion and Shad Moss. I’m not sure why he dropped Bow Wow, but whatever. The track does sample Michael Jackson’s, ‘Lady In My Life‘ which most people might know as LL Cool J’s, ‘Hey Lover’. As for the track it isn’t horrible. If this is the direction Omarion is going for his upcoming album he’ll be sampling a lot as he sampled DeBarge on his track, ‘You Like It’. I could hear this on the radio. Take a listen below.
B.o.B released a mixtape, No Genre Pt.2. CLICK HERE to download that. Not sure when or if I’ll be listening to it. Elle Varner has released her official second single for her upcoming album titled, ‘Don’t Wanna Dance’, and features A$AP Ferg. The vibe of the track reminds me of ‘I Don’t Care’ from her debut, Perfectly Imperfect. I like it though and from what she’s put out so far I can’t wait to hear her album. Take a listen below: