According to a familiar cliché, a picture is worth a thousand words. Your favorite celebrities—including rappers—are doing less and less press, but luckily their thumbs and smartphones still work. Instagram has provided a way for them to document their lives and/or thoroughly embarrass themselves for our collective enjoyment. The beauty of it all is that you don’t even need to join Instagram, as most rappers are perfectly fine leaving their feeds open for public viewing. And if you’d rather avoid the IG life altogether, we’ve filtered through the top rapper’s pictures and videos and consolidated all the week’s events into one convenient feed.
This week, Snoop Dogg snoopifies himself and joins the Brazilian team at the World Cup, 50 Cent hosts a G-Unit BBQ, and Juelz Santana spreads some Independence Day Love. Check the rest of the week’s top Instagram posts below.
50 Cent To Mayweather: “You’re Gonna Get Shot Over This”
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50 Cent and Floyd Mayweather’s relationship might be estranged due to a difference in business matters but that doesn’t stop Fiddy from dropping some words of advice. The G-Unit frontman hopped on Instagram for a quick video PSA telling Mayweather to stop whatever he’s doing. Curtis Jackson started off his wise words with, “Champ, what the fuck are you doing?” Of course the video is semi-silly, semi-serious but gutted with truths. The caption read, “Floyd you better STOP,that is the man WIFE. LMAO this is gonna get out of control. MO took miss J not TI. #smsaudio.” Ouch. In other words, just leave T.I. alone.
Happy 4th Of July: Juelz Santana Edition
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Good ol, red, white and blue. Juelz Santana is the literal embodiment of “American Gangster.” At least in this picture. When the world was exposed to the “Dipset Anthem” music video, all eyes shifted to Juelz Santana as soon as the song switched to the Just Blaze-produced classic “I Really Mean It.” That’s when Santana’s fit transformed into the American flag. Funny thing is on the album, Diplomatic Immunity, along with “Dipset Anthem” and “I Really Mean It,” there’s a song titled “I Love You” with a highly controversial time-sensitive (and censored) line by Juelz that “praises” 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Omar Atta “for his courage behind of the plane.” Juelz Santana defended his lyric, saying that it was misinterpreted. Then, later wore the flag from head to toe on a day that was not 4th of July and reminded us of his Dipset patriotism.
Nicki Minaj’s Smile Before The Shade
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“No, no, no shade,” said Nicki Minaj with a sly smile on her face as she accepted the Best Female Hip Hop Artist award for her fifth year in a row at the BET Awards. The “shade” she was referring to was the huge umbrella she was holding over female rappers who don’t write their own material. This is how the “beef” with Iggy Azalea came to life. She said, “What I want the world to know about Nicki Minaj is, that when you hear Nicki Minaj spit, Nicki Minaj wrote it… I hope BET continues to honor authenticity.” And that’s how the war was started.
No I.D. & Common At Common’s Listening Party
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Old friends producer No I.D. and Chicago’s own Common are completely comfortable making music together and sitting on a stage together talking about the music they made together. This picture was snapped during a listening session for Common’s Nobody’s Smiling, executive produced by No I.D. The rapper and the producer have a long history together. No I.D.’s produced Common’s first three albums and now, Common is releasing his 10th studio album under No I.D.’s label ARTium Records/Def Jam. I mean, if it works, you stick the formula. Common and No I.D. are doing just that.
#TBT: A-Trak & Kanye West’s Hair Designs
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Remember when hair designs were in? Back when it was popular to get the Bape logo artfully shaved into your scalp to prove that you know what was cool and trendy. A-Trak shared a picture from the good ol’ days of him and Kanye West showing off their freshly cut mane. He wrote, “#tbt when Yeezy & I used to both get designs.” The picture was probably taken back in the days when A-Trak toured with Kanye West during the The College Dropout era. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, feel free to watch some behind-the-scenes footage of the tour, shot by A-Trak.
Happy 4th Of July: OutKast Edition
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If you’re not following Jonathan Mannion on Instagram, you’re missing out. (Click here to see his profile). The photographer has outtake after outtake of photographs from classic shoots he’s done over the years. Because it was the 4th of July, Mannion released an photo from the vault of OutKast standing in front of the United States’ flag. The shot was for the cover of FADER and shot in Atlanta, Georgie and Stankonia Studios. Mannion wrote, “It’s hard to resist sending this epic moment out there into the world on this day that celebrates our independence as a country. Today, I raise a glass to each and every one of you in celebration of our individuality. However, never lose sight of the fact that we’re stronger united.” He also raised his glass to Big Boi and Andre 3000 for being leaders in the industry.
Iggy Azalea “Unbothered” By Reported Nicki Minaj Diss
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Despite what you’ve heard, July has been nice to Iggy Azalea. The Australian emcee broke another record on the Billboard charts by being the newly crowned female rapper with the longest-leading No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100. The last rapper who held this honor was Lil Kim, who spent five weeks at No. 1 with the all-star collaboration “Lady Marmalade.” Iggy Azalea hit six weeks with “Fancy” on top. Still, the reported “beef” with Nicki Minaj trumps any good news Azalea has to share. In a recent Instagram post, Iggy shared her thoughts on the matter and told her fans that she was “unbothered by anything that ‘happened’ at the BET Awards.” She also told her supporters “let go” of things that don’t matter. What “beef”?
A$AP Mob In GQ Magazine
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GQ recognizes good style when they see it. In GQ feature “Harlem Reshuffled,” A$AP Rocky, A$AP Ferg and the rest of the A$AP Mob, along with fellow Harlemite Cam’ron, appear in dapper fashion. A$AP Mob is dubbed the “hottest crew in Harlem” in the feature and it lists what each member of the clan is wearing from tailored blazer to shoes. “Harlem has always been known for its swagger and pizzazz,” said the stylish leader A$AP Rocky in the article. “I get my high-end look downtown, but my street style comes from uptown.” Check out the mob and the rest of “Harlem Reshuffled,” here.
Snoop Dogg Snoopifies World Cup 2014
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Snoop Dogg has been a true fan of the World Cup since it began it last June. He actually became a fan of soccer over a decade ago when his Madden NFL video game was scratched and a buddy of his picked up a copy of FIFA to hold them over while on tour in Europe. He fell in love with it. True story. He also helped promote FIFA 13 when it was launched in late 2012. Now, he’s using his own app to insert his face all over the World Cup and to run with Neymar (injury update: he’s out for the rest of the tournament) as the Brazilian team proceeds to the semi-finals. Notice the girl and guy with the buff bodies standing sidelines? You can get all that and more on Snoopify.
50 Cent Hosts G-Unit BBQ
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This is all the dialogue you need to know: “Buck, what the fuck are you doing?” -50 Cent. “Making punch. *smiles*” -Young Buck. 50 Cent hosted a G-Unit BBQ (for his birthday, I believe) and it truly was a G-Unit BBQ. Lloyd Banks and Young Buck were on kitchen duty while the rest of the guys were either sleeping on the couch or kicking people out. Of course, Fiddy was there to capture it all on Instagram. He provides a closeup of Banks’ almost-ready shish kabobs (which look delicious) and pans to Buck carefully stirring the most important drink of any barbeque, the punch. Team work makes the dream work.
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