Soundcheck: 'Careless' Moves Hold Up Tyga's Album Release
posted in: Features • Urban
It’s been a busy few weeks for the Young Money crew, with Weezy‘s arrest rumors, Nicki‘s GRAMMY performance and, now, Tyga‘s album recall.
Tyga’s Careless World: Rise of The Last King was scheduled to hit stores on February 21, but was pulled off the shelves due to copyright infringement. It seems Tyga used an uncleared sampling of a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the intro to his album, which caused the King estate to demand the recall.
Best Buy and Amazon were the first retailers to send out recall notices to fans who preordered the album, simply stating the album could not be sold. According to the Rack City rapper, he learned of the hold up through Twitpics sent from fans that found recall notes on store shelves where the album should have been. Despite the seriousness of the recall, he seemed to downplay the issue during a radio interview with V 103’s Greg Street, saying:
“I’m looking on my Twitter and fans are hitting me up all day like, posting pictures of [the album] and they have some in stores, but then they have a piece of paper next to them saying ‘Recalled”can’t sell.’ I’m like, ‘Yo, this is crazy.’ My fans are going crazy, like, ‘I have it in my hand, I’m thinking about just stealing it, but I wanna buy it though,’ and I’m like, ‘Nah, just go back tomorrow,’ so they’re going to get a lot shipped today [Monday, February 20], and it’ll be in stores tomorrow,” he said. While it looks like he and his label may have dodged a big bullet by pulling the album in time, it wasn’t the first issue Tyga’s had to contend with this year.
Just last month, he was arrested in Las Vegas for outstanding warrants, prompting critics to speculate that he would miss his original January 24 release date. As predicted, the album was pushed back and the label stayed mum on his arrest, likely using it to boost his street cred, without drawing attention to the laughable charges, which include registration violations and driving without a license.
Legal woes aside, Tyga’s still got plenty to smile about. His contagiously catchy hit Rack City has stayed atop the Hot 100 chart for weeks and is currently No. 6 on the rap chart. Careless World was a highly-anticipated release, and fans seem to be clamoring for the pop-rap stylings of the tattooed Tyga. While I wouldn’t put the album into the realm of hip hop per se, it’s perfectly in stride with brand of crossover rap that YMCMB has made so popular. The twenty-one-track album features Wale, Nas and Young Money’s newest member; Busta Rhymes, who Tyga calls, ˜a legend.’
“I used to watch all Busta Rhymes videos. That’s what made me want to do music. All his videos, stories and animations…To be able to work with him and be a part of the team is amazing, he told Billboard.com on GRAMMY night. “I feel like we as a label support artistry,” Tyga said. “We let the artists do what they want to do. Everybody is creative in their own way. I think that’s why we are such a big team and a big movement right now.”
The twenty-two-year-old Compton rapper kicked off his Careless World Tour last week in Salt Lake City. The tour will cross the nation hitting major cities including NYC, Boston and Atlanta and wraps in New Orleans on April 15. Check out the dates on his official Web site.