According to Joe, the whole thing started when Kelly casually told him that he had been “putting hands on people.” Naturally, Joe didn’t believe him at first. That’s when an engineer reportedly went and grabbed actual footage to prove Kelly wasn’t making the story up.

What Joe saw next clearly left an impression.

He recalled Kelly appearing in the footage wearing an expensive leather robe before walking into a ring to fight. Once the action started, Joe said he quickly realized Kelly knew what he was doing.

“He hit like a killer, like a real murderer,” Joe recalled. “Like a serial killer.”

According to Joe, Kelly was “knocking people out” before eventually finding himself across from an opponent who was much bigger than him. He described the challenger as being around seven feet tall and 400 pounds.

Read More: R. Kelly Under Fire As Prison Music Begins To Get Industry Push

Fat Joe Thinks R. Kelly Is Surviving Jail Just Fine

“R. Kelly is chilling in the corner before another huge seven-foot, 400-pound challenger takes the ring,” Joe explained. Despite the massive size difference, Joe claims Kelly still dominated the fight. “This n***a R. Kelly beat the brakes off this seven-foot man.”

The memory was apparently enough to convince Joe that Kelly can still handle himself physically, even while serving time in federal prison.

“I can promise you on everything in life, he has no problems in jail,” Joe said. “God forbid anyone try him, they getting blowed on another level.”

Joe even joked that Kelly’s fighting ability made him wonder just how much experience the singer actually had before those underground matches.

“The way he’s hitting them guys, he might have some bodies around in Chicago somewhere,” he joked.

Kelly is currently serving a lengthy federal prison sentence following his convictions on sex crimes and racketeering charges. While Joe wasn’t defending Kelly or addressing the crimes that landed him behind bars, he seemed certain about one thing: based on the footage he saw with his own eyes, R. Kelly apparently knows how to fight.

Read More: R. Kelly Removed From Solitary Confinement, Shown In New Prison Pic

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Hamby posted a screenshot on Aug. 24 showing a message from an unknown number that called her a “n*gger” and called her an animal. She left the phone number visible and asked her followers, “Anyone know this number?” Users quickly traced it to an Acclaro Medical employee and contacted the company, according to USA Today. Acclaro initially suspended the employee while investigating and publicly condemned the remarks. By Sept. 1, the company confirmed the person had been fired. How the sender obtained Hamby’s personal phone number has not been explained.

Read More: WNBA Suffers Third Sex Toy Throwing Incident, Indiana Fever’s Sophie Cunningham Speaks Out

The WNBA Has Already Acknowledged An Increase In Racist Abuse

The league backed Hamby after the sender was identified, saying it “stands unequivocally” with her and condemning the abuse “in the strongest possible terms.” The permanent ban also carries consequences beyond the employee’s termination. WNBA policy prohibits racist and abusive conduct, while direct threats against players can result in arena bans or referrals to law enforcement.

Hamby’s experience arrives during a season in which players have repeatedly pushed the league to take online harassment more seriously. In July, the WNBA and WNBPA publicly acknowledged a “recent increase in racist, hateful, and abusive messages directed at players” after league officials met with members of the players’ union. The WNBA committed to strengthening security resources as part of those discussions.

Chelsea Gray faced a similar incident earlier this summer when a Hilton Grand Vacations employee was fired after directing a racial slur at the Las Vegas Aces guard online. Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas has also spoken about receiving racial abuse and threats to her life. Those incidents have made player safety away from the court part of the league’s ongoing conversation about harassment.

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Dover Street Market locations in London, Ginza, Los Angeles, New York, and Paris are all confirmed. Each location’s global E-SHOP will carry it too. This marks the first outside collaboration the Air Jordan 11 has ever received.

Jordan Brand has guarded this silhouette tighter than almost any other model. No outside collaborator has ever touched it in three decades. That makes this CDG partnership a very rare moment for the sneaker world.

Branding stays understated across both pairs here. The detailing replaces the usual printed logos entirely. A redesigned tongue tag spells out “Homme Plus” in the original Air Jordan 11 typeface.

Read More: Labor Day Foot Locker Deals Include An Extra 25% Off On Jordan 1 Lows, Jordan 6, And Nike Socks

Comme des Garcons x Air Jordan 11 “White”

This colorway strips the Air Jordan 11 down to a single triple-white build. CDG swaps the model’s usual mesh for premium leather throughout. That glossy mudguard finish now extends down into the midsole too.

All-white releases have barely touched this shoe in its entire history. It’s only happened once before across three decades of colorways. Between the leather upgrade and the debossed branding, this feels closer to a luxury dress shoe than a basketball sneaker.

Comme des Garcons x Air Jordan 11 “Black”

The black colorway mirrors the white pair’s construction in reverse. Premium leather covers the upper, with that same glossy mudguard running into the midsole. Branding keeps things quiet on this one as well.

All-black is just as rare for this model as all-white. It’s shown up only once before in the Air Jordan 11’s history. Paired together, both colorways cover nearly every angle of formal versus stealth styling.

Overall, the CDG Air Jordan 11 is lining up to be one of the biggest releases of the year. An Air Jordan 11 collaboration is major news, and we’re days away from the release!

Read More: Nike GT Future “Varsity Red” Official Look Revealed

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The statement follows several shows without Watkins, with Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas carrying TLC’s portion of the tour alongside Salt-N-Pepa and En Vogue. At an Aug. 28 stop in Connecticut, Chilli told the audience that her longtime groupmate was dealing with a sickle cell episode and asked fans to help “hold her down” in her absence. A representative later confirmed to USA Today that Watkins had been hospitalized and was “recovering and regaining her strength.”

Read More: T-Boz Refutes Jermaine Dupri’s Claim That He Is Responsible For Her Voice

T-Boz Won’t Return Until She Is Medically Cleared

TLC’s latest message offers more clarity about what happens next. Chilli will continue performing each night while Watkins recovers, rather than putting the tour on hold. The group also cautioned that recovery from a sickle cell crisis can take days or weeks, making any firm return date impossible to predict. “Her health and recovery remain our highest priority,” the statement read. “Tionne looks forward to returning to the tour when she is fully recovered and medically cleared to perform.”

Watkins has lived with sickle cell disease since childhood and has spoken publicly about how severe its pain can become. The inherited blood disorder affects red blood cells and can interfere with oxygen delivery throughout the body, and some complications may require hospitalization. Watkins told PEOPLE in 2017 that the illness is something she has to manage every day, describing episodes painful enough to leave her delirious. Her current hospitalization has drawn support from fans as well as fellow artists, including Jodeci’s Dalvin DeGrate, who publicly asked for prayers earlier this week.

The timing also falls during National Sickle Cell Awareness Month, something TLC addressed directly in its update. Rather than asking fans to send Watkins well wishes only, the group encouraged people to learn more about the disease and support families living with it. At the moment, the tour remains active, and Chilli is holding down TLC’s set. Watkins’ return depends entirely on her recovery, with the group making it clear that getting her back onstage quickly is not the priority.

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A clip from The 3rd Verse Podcast circulating on X captured some of that frustration afterward. “He knows as consumers, we expected at least a new song,” one host argued, while also complaining that fans had been directed to use Stationhead to participate. The disappointment was based on expectation rather than an explicit promise from JAY-Z’s team. Coverage from 92Q before the event noted that organizers had not revealed what would be played and had never confirmed that any new material would be included.

Read More: Colin Kaepernick Has Strong Words For Jay-Z

The Mystery Around The Event Fueled Album Speculation

There was still plenty of reason for fans to read more into the announcement. Rumors about another JAY-Z album have followed him throughout 2026, particularly as the JAŸ-Z30 campaign brought him back to major stages and put renewed attention on his catalog. Pharrell added to the speculation during JAY-Z’s Yankee Stadium run when he told the crowd Hov was “getting ready to go to work.” More recently, Roc Nation dismissed one report claiming a completed album already existed as “fake news.”

The listening party also landed in the middle of a year built around revisiting JAY-Z’s past. Roc Nation launched JAŸ-Z30 as a long-form celebration of Reasonable Doubt and his larger career, with concerts and immersive installations centered on archival material. The official campaign has consistently been framed around legacy rather than a new release, something Roc Nation made clear when announcing the initiative in June.

That did not stop “listening party” from carrying a different implication for listeners already waiting for JAY-Z to make a musical move. A Reddit thread posted before the event was filled with fans debating whether the mysterious session could signal an album or at least a single, while others warned that it would probably amount to a catalog stream. The latter group turned out to be closer to the mark. JAY-Z never promised new music, but the secrecy surrounding the event gave hopeful fans enough room to convince themselves it might be coming.

Read More: Jay-Z Surprises Fans At London Pop-Up Ahead Of Tottenham Shows

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“If I was in a group that lost Trump, Musk & Nicki I’d be losing it too,” she wrote. Minaj described the trio as “one of one” figures whose presence is valuable because people instinctively believe them. She then pushed the idea further, arguing that leaders have only seconds to win a crowd and that “only the person who is operating from the truthful place can lead in this new– world order.” Minaj did not identify which particular “group” or “system” she believes lost all three.

Read More: The MAGAfication Of Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj Has Grown Increasingly Close To Trump And Musk

The message lands amid a much more observable political shift from Minaj over the past year. She appeared at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in December 2025 and later attended a White House Rose Garden event hosted by Trump in July, an appearance documented by Reuters. She is also slated to judge the Trump administration’s upcoming “Million Dollar Pitch Competition,” a small-business event offering $1 million in prizes.

Musk has received similar praise. Minaj showed up at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas in May for an attempted Starship launch and publicly praised his work there. Business Insider reported that she called the event historic and commended Musk for what he was doing for humanity.

Her newest post folds those relationships into something much grander than ordinary political support. Minaj is placing herself beside two of the most controversial figures in politics and business as a uniquely persuasive figure whose influence cannot be manufactured. The message is cryptic enough to leave plenty unexplained, but there is nothing subtle about where Minaj believes she belongs in that hierarchy.

Read More: Nicki Minaj Joins Trump Reality Show As Celebrity Judge

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During a Sept. 3 appearance on The Breakfast Club, DJ Envy asked whether Pusha was working on another solo album or a new Clipse project after recently announcing that touring was over and he was back to recording. His answer was deliberately broad. “We working on everything. Everything right now,” Pusha said. When pressed on how far along the music was, he added, “One project is done already. We working on another one.” The Breakfast Club also confirmed Pharrell remains involved in the new material.

Read More: Pharrell Gifts Pusha T A Murdered-Out Rolls-Royce Spectre Black Badge

Clipse Aren’t Treating Their Comeback Like A Victory Lap

That pace says plenty about where Clipse are after Let God Sort Em Out. Their first album together in nearly 16 years did more than reopen the catalog for a reunion tour. It earned five Grammy nominations and brought the duo their first win with “Chains & Whips,” featuring Kendrick Lamar. Instead of allowing the comeback to settle into nostalgia, Pusha is talking as though the studio momentum never stopped.

Pharrell appears to remain part of that next phase. When his name came up during the interview, Pusha made it clear that he still wanted the producer beside him. That continuity makes sense after Pharrell handled Let God Sort Em Out and helped give the reunion a sound that felt connected to Clipse’s history without simply recreating Hell Hath No Fury. Pusha has also become increasingly selective about collaborators, saying during the same conversation that he no longer feels much need to work outside the circle that already understands what he and Malice are trying to make.

There could be movement beyond another Clipse album as well. When Charlamagne Tha God floated the possibility of a Malice solo project, Pusha replied, “You might get one of those though, for sure.” He stopped short of announcing it outright, but confirmed that his brother has been working. For a duo that spent more than a decade apart, the current problem appears to be the opposite of inactivity. Clipse finished the tour and went straight back to recording, with at least one completed project already waiting somewhere in the pipeline.

The post Clipse Are Already Working On New Music With Pharrell appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

“You go everywhere, wherever the [Recording] Academy wants you to be at,” Pusha said during a Sept. 3 appearance on The Breakfast Club, according to Complex. “You have to campaign for the award.” He laughed about the process, but admitted that he wanted Clipse to sweep all five of their nominations. “We came home with one, man. Ain’t no biggie.”

That one trophy carried considerable weight. “Chains & Whips,” featuring Kendrick Lamar and Pharrell Williams, won Best Rap Performance at the 2026 Grammys, giving Clipse their first win more than two decades after their earliest Grammy recognition. Let God Sort Em Out was also nominated for Album of the Year and Best Rap Album, while “The Birds Don’t Sing” competed for Best Rap Song. “So Be It” earned a Best Music Video nomination. The Recording Academy had Clipse among the ceremony’s most anticipated Rap artists, including a performance with Pharrell during the telecast.

Read More: Kendrick Lamar Defeats Clipse For Best Rap Song At The Grammys

Politics Are A Part Of Grammy Culture

Pusha’s comments also pull back the curtain on how seriously the brothers approached an awards run that might have looked effortless from the outside. Their return with Let God Sort Em Out came nearly 16 years after Til the Casket Drops, and the project immediately put them back in major awards conversations rather than treating the reunion as nostalgia. Before nominations were even announced, Pusha had already said the album was strong enough that Clipse “need to take something home,” while Malice argued that they had already proven themselves artistically and were ready to take that work into the Grammy system.

The night ultimately belonged heavily to Kendrick, who won Best Rap Album for GNX and used his acceptance speech to salute Clipse as his “brothers.” Pusha, meanwhile, seems less interested in pretending the road to their own trophy was purely about voters hearing the record and making a decision.

The post Pusha T Says Clipse’s Grammy Win Came With Plenty Of Politics appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

It has been a particularly contentious trial thus far, as OTF Jam, OTF Vonni, and Flacka have all testified against Durk so far. They have connected the murder for hire plot directly to him, alleging on the stand that they were coerced into avenging King Von.

Lil Durk has superstar defense lawyers Drew Findling and Brian Steel working his case. As it stands, they are calling their own witnesses to the stand. This is the final step before closing arguments.

According to Michael Blackshire, the prosecution has officially rested its case.

Read More: A Guilty Verdict Still Doesn’t Bring Closure To Tupac’s Murder

Lil Durk Trial Coming To A Close

Earlier today, we reported that the jury in the Lil Durk trial was beginning to get a little restless. They were asking the clerk when the trial would be over. As the judge explained, the trial is likely to come to a close on Tuesday. That is when deliberations are expected to begin.

It is a trial that has seen quite a bit over the past few weeks. Especially with Doodie Lo shooting music videos and streaming with N3on right outside the courthouse. These kinds of antics have been criticized by the likes of DJ Akademiks and others with a vested interest in the case.

At this time, the defense continues to offer up its arguments as the trial reaches its conclusion.

Stay tuned to HNHH for the latest news and updates about the Lil Durk trial.

Read More: How Fat Joe And Michael Jordan Built One Of Hip-Hop’s Greatest Sneaker Stories

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Ultimately, it’s led to a moment that people expected would never happen: some form of justice in the cold case of Tupac Shakur’s murder. For 30 years, speculation has fueled conspiracies, conspiracies have fueled doubt, and somewhere along the line, people have argued that Tupac is actually alive in Cuba. If that were the case, it would’ve been great if he made his comeback in 2013 instead of letting Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre turn him into a hologram for Coachella. And yet, we’re here, in 2026, with a jury finding Keefe D guilty of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon, with intent to promote a criminal gang for his role in the killing.

That is a legal resolution to one of the most contentious deaths in hip-hop history. But the more interesting question is why we would expect a conviction to kill the conspiracy theories in the first place.

We just witnessed Elon Musk claim that Derek Chauvin is actually innocent, even though we saw the murder of George Floyd in HD and had plenty of evidence, court documents, autopsy reports, and witnesses that clearly pointed toward Chauvin’s guilt. That isn’t to say the circumstances surrounding Tupac’s murder are comparable to George Floyd’s. They obviously aren’t. But it does demonstrate how evidence doesn’t necessarily kill a conspiracy theory. Sometimes, it just gives people more material to work with.

The problem with Tupac’s case is that none of that evidence existed in 1996. Camera footage wasn’t widely available, street politics largely contained itself within the streets, police investigations hit dead ends more often as a result, and word of mouth became exactly how information spread. But playing telephone will mangle information by the time it gets to its third or fourth person. The reality is that people will believe what they want to believe, despite how much compelling evidence proves otherwise.

And that’s where Tupac’s murder becomes bigger than Keefe D. After three decades, we’re witnessing a courtroom try to resolve a mystery that pop culture turned into lore. The question of “Who Killed Tupac?” has formed the basis of documentaries, Hollywood movies, podcasts, and countless interviews. It might even be the best metric for understanding how someone’s mind works after questioning the narratives provided to them.

Tupac’s case, however, is almost the genesis of how hip-hop turned the underlying violence that existed within its industry into a sprawling true-crime ecosystem that, at this point, has damn near turned into an industry of its own. The conspiracies surrounding Tupac were born out of a lack of accessible information. But the modern version of that ecosystem has created the opposite problem. There is so much information available that almost anything can become evidence, and almost any connection can become a theory.

That is the important distinction between Tupac’s murder and the cases that followed it. In 1996, people were searching for information they simply couldn’t access. In 2026, people are drowning in information and trying to determine which pieces actually matter.

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Keefe D is almost the perfect transition point between those two eras. His participation became part of the mythology surrounding the crime because he spent years talking about it and was one of the few people with insight beyond hearsay. The same media ecosystem that helped turn a decades-old murder into a recurring piece of hip-hop content also helped create the paper trail that prosecutors eventually used against him.

The prosecution’s case was largely built around statements made by Keefe D himself, whether in police and FBI interviews, VladTV interviews, or his memoir, Compton Street Legend, which his defense argued was merely fiction written for entertainment purposes. Ultimately, that argument failed, even with a lack of physical evidence that pointed directly to Keefe D’s guilt. Whatever the ultimate interpretation of those statements, they demonstrate something much larger than the particulars of this case: information that once lived in the margins of hip-hop can now become permanent public record, searchable content and, eventually, potential evidence.

A lack of information created the conspiracy. Keefe D’s willingness to provide more information only gave people more material with which to construct new ones.

It feels like we’re seeing a similar phenomenon happen in real time with the D4vd case, although the circumstances are obviously very different. D4vd was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, child sexual abuse, and unlawful mutilation of human remains for the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Unlike Keefe D, D4vd wasn’t necessarily doing press runs detailing his crimes, but he also wasn’t hiding his relationship with the underage victim when they were on a livestream together or when he reportedly brought her on tour when he opened for SZA. In police interviews, he reportedly said he was unaware that she was a minor, that she lied about her age. Prosecutors allege that she was going to expose their relationship and he killed her to protect his career–her dismembered corpse was found in an abandoned Tesla registered in his name. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

But before an arrest was even made or the investigation concluded, the court of public opinion established a line of his guilt. The case became an immediate conspiracy off the rip, not necessarily because every theory is unwarranted, but because his own content helped build an ecosystem of narratives around the case before the legal proceedings had even played out.

The same machine that turned Keefe D into an online celebrity has broken down an up-and-comer’s artistry into a paper trail of potential evidence, and it’s horrifying to witness. In the same way that Elisa Lam’s disappearance became fodder for online theories, TikTok, YouTube, and social media as a whole have found lyrics, music videos, and other pieces of an artist’s public persona that can paint a far more sinister reality than simply a creative direction. What’s scary is when these theories turn into public records–court documents and the hours of internet sleuthing draw connections, some of which can’t be confirmed until a verdict is reached in court. Still, the narrative that existed before he had a chance to enter his plea plagued the public’s perception worse than if she had exposed him. Innocent until proven guilty hardly applies when there’s an abundance of information circulating that points toward one particular direction.

That issue isn’t exclusive to D4vd. It’s a common issue plaguing hip-hop journalism today, as Akademiks and Rob Markman duke it out over biases and as commentators attempt to make sense of criminal cases in real time. The issue isn’t necessarily the bias itself, but how that bias can project itself as a conclusion before we can get there.

6ix9ine leaped at the opportunity to call Lil Durk a snitch after Trap Lore Ross reported that Lil Durk’s defense blamed everything on OTF Vonnie, a cooperating witness. Without flinching, the online narrative quickly became “Lil Durk Is A Snitch,” and the people who claimed it became voyeurs within hip-hop. Unfortunately, Trap Lore Ross’s reporting in this trial has soured his credibility to some, regardless of Lil Durk asking his fans to stop harassing the media personality.

The argument shouldn’t be that anyone reporting on hip-hop’s legal issues needs to be in the streets. But accurate reporting requires understanding nuances without personal interpretations, biases, and external influences conflating with what’s happening inside the courtroom. Unfortunately, that’s often lacking when content creation and journalism turn into interchangeable terms, and the need to drive a narrative outweighs the legitimacy of connecting the dots.

That’s usually where reporting from people like Trap Lore Ross tends to show its flaws. Sometimes, the lines are blurred so well between genuine theory and rap fandom that it gets turned into fact. What’s worse is the obvious sense of voyeurism that their audiences engage in—those outside of hip-hop, outside of the streets, outside of any Black or Brown community who are enthralled by the spectacle of violence yet can’t remove their own privilege from their bias.

It’s a sick and twisted cycle of true-crime fanaticism that reinforces racial stereotypes every time a rapper gets arrested, every time a rapper gets shot, every time a rapper overdoses. Every time a rapper’s individual actions and circumstances turn into a broader assumption about their communities, the less profitable questions about the systemic conditions that surround those actions disappear.

Nipsey Hussle died in broad daylight in a plaza that he helped turn into an entrepreneurial hub that gave countless jobs to the community he grew up in. Akademiks diminished his legacy to a gangbanger who went out like one, regardless of the inspiration he brought to thousands, if not millions, across the world. The circumstances of Nipsey’s death became more useful to that particular narrative than the circumstances of his life, and that is part of the problem with an ecosystem that can make violence more profitable than context.

And yet, regardless of how Akademiks labels Nipsey Hussle, hip-hop’s true-crime economy remains just as profitable as it was when he started the War In Chiraq series.

That’s what makes Keefe D’s trial so useful to understanding the current status quo. His commentary on VladTV and his memoir became part of his celebrity long before they became part of a criminal prosecution. He volunteered the type of stories that typically aren’t documented for legal purposes, and in doing so, ensured that his version of events would remain part of the public record.

Now, those statements have helped produce a conviction. Keefe D was found guilty of Tupac’s death, even if prosecutors never accused him of pulling the trigger. But the significance of that verdict extends beyond whether it finally settles what happened in Las Vegas. It shows what happens when a decades-old mystery becomes an archive.

There will still be a subset of people who believe Tupac is hiding in Cuba or that there’s some larger conspiracy that explains what happened that night in Las Vegas. 50 Cent fanned the flames when he said he’d bet $1M that Keefe D would testify if charges were filed against Diddy–prosecutors said they would pursue charges against the mogul if new evidence emerges. Even if that never happens and Keefe D dies in jail, those theories will survive him. That’s because there has always been something more satisfying about the theory than the answer–the vindication of alternative truths, perhaps. Regardless of the lived reality, testimony turns into content; the witness is as reliable a narrator as the defendant. Hyperboles in lyrics turn into evidence, while interviews are treated like confessions. The art direction in music videos fuels rumors that ultimately feed that exact same ecosystem—the ecosystem that rarely has an incentive to end.

Tupac is dead. That’s a broadly accepted fact, yet his legacy remains plagued by rumors that he’s alive. Suge Knight Jr. once said that Tupac was living in Malaysia and was recording new music as recently as 2019 before appearing to admit the claim was merely an attempt to generate dialogue surrounding new music from the late rapper. Fast forward seven years, and he claimed that the trial is reopening old wounds. 

The conspiracy theories will ultimately continue, one way or another, if only because the true-crime economy was built around the search for answers. And that became a slippery slope in and of itself, one that spurred a rabbit hole of documentaries, TikToks, podcasts, and other forms of media surrounding Tupac’s murder case. It turned Keefe D into a celebrity and Tupac’s murder into a legend. More importantly, it created a template for the way we consume criminal cases involving rappers today, where the distinction between a lyric and an admission, an allegation and a fact, a theory and a conclusion can disappear almost instantly.

The irony is that the internet has given us more information about cases involving Lil Durk and D4vd than anyone could have imagined in 1996, but more information hasn’t necessarily made the truth easier to find. Sometimes it has simply given us more things to turn into theories. And that might be the real legacy of the Tupac murder. Not that it created the first major hip-hop conspiracy but that it helped create a culture where the search for an answer became its own form of entertainment. And as long as the search for an answer is more profitable than the answer itself, the conspiracy theories will never die.

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