We’ve Got A File On You features interviews in which artists share the stories behind the extracurricular activities that dot their careers: acting gigs, guest appearances, random internet ephemera, etc.

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.

The new Black Keys album Ohio Players is out today, which means we get to hear “Paper Crown,” their song with Beck and Juicy J. They also made a video for Noel Gallagher co-write “On The Game” checking in on Derrick Tuggle, the star of their 2011 “Lonely Boy” video. Tony Hawk also makes a brief appearance, joining Tuggle to reprise the famous dance sequence.

Last year, the influential Florida rapper Denzel Curry released his very good album Melt My Eyez, See Your Future. Right now, Curry is teasing the impending release of 3LOOD 1N + 13LOOD OUT RELOADED the sequel to his 2020 EP 13LOOD 1N + 13LOOD OUT. It sure looks like Curry is going back to his energetic, chaotic underground-rap roots on this one.

The rising Memphis rap star GloRilla made a huge impact when she showed up on the national scene last year. After exploding out of nowhere with singles like “FNF (Let’s Go)” and “Tomorrow 2,” GloRilla ended the year with the release of Anyways, Life’s Great…, her debut EP. Since then, GloRilla’s gotten herself booked at just about every major festival, and she’s released “Internet Trolls” and the Moneybagg Yo collab “On Wat U On.” Now, she’s got a deeply horny new single.

Buffalo rap monster Conway The Machine releases a lot of music, but his full-on albums are where you’ll hear him at his most focused. Last year, for instance, Conway released his great Shady Records debut God Don’t Make Mistakes, and that record stands out more than any EPs or collaborations that Conway dropped in the same 12-month period. Today, Conway follows God Don’t Make Mistakes with his new self-released opus Won’t He Do It.

The tough, hardbitten Buffalo rapper Conway The Machine releases a lot of music. Last year, Conway came out with the excellent LP God Don’t Make Mistakes, and he also dropped loose projects like the EP Organized Grime 2 and What Has Been Blessed Cannot Be Cursed, his latest in a series of full-length collaborations with producer Big Ghost LTD. Now, Conway has announced plans to release his new album Won’t He Do It next month, and he’s teamed up with a pair of Southern stars on a new single.

In 2010, around the time that legendary Memphis rap group Three 6 Mafia broke up, co-founder Juicy J teamed up with surging Virginia beatmaker Lex Luger to release the mixtape Rubba Band Business. That mixtape and its 2011 sequel Rubba Band Business 2 revived Juicy’s career, turning him into a viable solo star and introducing his whole hedonistic stomp-rap style to a whole new generation. That was great timing! Now, Juicy J and Lex Luger have reunited to release a new album called Crypto Business. Once again, perfect timing.

The current #1 song in America isn’t Memphis rap, but it wants to be Memphis rap so badly. Drake’s new album Honestly, Nevermind is mostly a full-length exploration of house and club music styles, but it ends with “Jimmy Cooks,” the LP’s one full-on rap song. “Jimmy Cooks” opens with an echoing, repeating sample of “Just Awaken Shaken,” a ghostly seven-minute dirge that stands as a classic of the Memphis underground. Local hero Playa Fly, a man who’s only been intermittently active in recent years, released “Just Awaken Shaken” in 1995 — the same year that he left Three 6 Mafia and the same year that he turned 18. When “Just Awaken Shaken” came out, it couldn’t have been any further from the pop charts. Now, it serves as the spine of a straight-up chart-topping hit.

Memphis rap legend Juicy J started off as his career as half of the production duo behind the great Three 6 Mafia, and his production work for that group and its various offshoots still casts a huge shadow over rap, both in its underground and arena-level forms. But Juicy has also had some serious success when teaming up with other producers. Juicy really kicked off his post-Three 6 solo career with 2010’s Rubba Band Business and 2011’s Rubba Band Business 2, the two mixtapes that he recorded with producer Lex Luger. On a forthcoming album, Juicy will team up with another big-deal rap producer.

The fight wasn’t really a fight. On Thursday night, Three 6 Mafia and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, two revered and influential rap groups with long histories, went up against one another in a live Verzuz battle, and things got chaotic quickly. About half an hour into the show, Bizzy Bone, the most erratic member of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, got fired up and started spouting off at Three 6: “You ugly motherfuckers ain’t finna be mocking me while I’m on motherfuckin’ stage!” When Juicy J barked back, Bizzy Bone threw a bottle, and a whole mob of people ran out onstage to puff their chests up at each other.

It finally happened. A Verzuz battle finally descended, however briefly, into an actual fistfight. There have been tense moments at previous Verzuz events, but they have never broken out into full-on throwdowns. Last night in Los Angeles, two legendary crews, Memphis’ Three 6 Mafia and Cleveland’s Bone Thugs-N-Harmony faced off against one another, and things fell apart quickly.

Vin Diesel and his familia are returning next week in F9, the ninth installment of the Fast & Furious film franchise. The movie’s cast includes both Cardi B and Ozuna, and the soundtrack, officially out now, features a lot of rap and urbano music. Among it is “Lane Switcha,” a new star-studded collaboration between Skepta, the late Pop Smoke, A$AP Rocky, Juicy J, and Project Pat, with production from Taz Taylor, Cxdy, and OK Tanner of Internet Money. Listen below.

The rap albums that stick with me the most — the ones that really impress me — aren’t always the ones that push the genre forward. Just as often, they’re the albums that take the sounds of the moment and execute those sounds about as well as they can be executed. Those albums deal with all the same limitations that all big centrist rap albums deal with — the pandering singles, the of-the-moment guests, the all-over-the-map stylistic shifts — and they still find ways to resonate. I’m talking about Life After Death. Capital Punishment. Vol. 3: The Life & Times Of S. Carter. Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101. Tha Carter 2. Teflon Don. Pluto. My Krazy Life. SremmLife. Culture. Invasion Of Privacy. Drip Harder. Polo G’s Hall Of Fame is one of those.

Last year, the Memphis rap overlord Juicy J, perhaps the greatest partied-out drunk uncle currently operating in rap music, released his album The Hustle Continues. The LP wasn’t a huge deal or anything, but Juicy has just announced plans to release a deluxe edition, with the gloriously redundant title The Hustle Still Continues. The new version of the album will include collaborations with people like Pooh Shiesty, Kaash Paige, and Juicy’s brother Project Pat, and it’s also have at least one new banger on it. We know that because Juicy just shared that banger today.

When rappers pile up a little bit of money, they move to California. It's a smart thing to do. If you've got yourself and your family installed in a rented Calabasas McMansion, then you've effectively removed yourself from all the people back home who might want something from you. For someone like Polo G or NBA YoungBoy -- baby rap stars who are still relatively new to fame -- the California move makes sense from a self-preservation standpoint. Rappers who move to LA and its environs have access to much of the industry, and they have insulation from people who might want to use them or do them harm. (It doesn't always work out. Pop Smoke was murdered out there earlier this year.)

Ming died last February. He was 19. At the time of his death, Ming, a Bengal tiger, was living at an animal sanctuary in Ohio. Before that, Ming lived in a five-bedroom apartment in a Harlem housing project. One of his roommates was an alligator named Al. Another was Antoine Yates, the part-time cabdriver who bought the infant Ming from a Minnesota animal park. Apparently, Yates' neighbors had just gotten used to the idea that a tiger lived in their building.

Juicy J has released a new song called "Hella Fuckin' Trauma" on which he addresses police brutality and this last week of protests. "I don't need no reparations, bitch, just gimme back what's mine/ You know I keep the peace, but the peace is a nine," he raps on it. "Freedom of speech, I got rich off of beats/ I can get you impeached, you ain't outta my reach."

There are many, many bad things about the current global fucking crisis: The sudden economic apocalypse, the loneliness and cabin fever, the general overwhelming sense of fear and uncertainty that we'll never leave our houses again and that our loved ones are not safe. There is also the "Imagine" video. Yesterday, some famous people had the damn fool idea to film themselves singing John Lennon's "Imagine," projecting dangerous levels of self-satisfaction and cluelessness out into the internet void, blissfully immune to whatever backlash they might deservedly spur. It's the worst fucking shit.

Juicy J slammed his record label...and then took it all back. Variety reports that the rapper and Three 6 Mafia member tweeted “Fuck @Columbia Records I’m gonna leak my whole album stay tuned" before dropping a diss track -- called "Fuk Columbia Records," naturally -- on SoundCloud.

Three 6 Mafia are coming back. As The Fader reports, Juicy J has announced that he and co-founding member DJ Paul are reuniting for a tour that they're calling the Return Of Three 6 Mafia. Or, as he put it in the caption of his post on Instagram: "THREE 6 MAFIA REUNION TOUR!"

Apparently, we're still doing stuff like this. We're still taking beloved old scraps of kids' culture, degrading them, and acting like this whole act is in any way subversive. This whole approach is not played out at all. Good to know. This week's picks are below.

There's an old joke about a lost-dog poster: "LOST: Male dog. One eye. Mangled ear. Paralyzed hind leg. Crooked tail. Answers to the name 'Lucky.'" The Chicago rapper Lucki, formerly Lucky Eck$, was not joking when he settled on his rap name. Lucki's rap name is his real name; he was born Lucki Camel, Jr. But if you spend enough time listening to Lucki's music, you'll hear that stark irony returning. Lucki does not sound lucky. He doesn't sound happy, either. He sounds numb, reduced, defeated. His songs sound like front-line transmissions from a battle that he already knows he's lost.

A$AP Rocky released his new album Testing earlier this year, and he's slowly been coming through with music videos for its tracks. Now, following striking videos for "A$AP Forever," the Skepta-featuring "Praise The Lord (Da Shine)," the FKA Twigs collab "Fukk Sleep," and the Tame Impala-sampling non-album track "Sundress," he's shared a new video for "Gunz N Butter" featuring Juicy J.

I have been writing this column for more than six years now. And even if you haven't been reading for that whole time -- even if you're just idly clicking for the first time today -- you deserve to know something. And that is this: You are reading a music-video column for someone who liked the thunderingly dumb new Lil Dicky/Chris Brown comedy-skit video much, much more than the portentous, satirical new 15-minute Arcade Fire short film with the Oscar-nominated actress. Adjust your opinions of my opinions accordingly. This week's picks are below.

Rae Sremmurd videos are exhilarating. The two Mississippi brothers in the chart-conquering rap duo owe at least some of their success to their track record in the music-video world, where a goofy concept -- a night out at a cowboy bar, a day out on a golf course -- can, paired with an energetic and charismatic on-camera persona, lead to magic. And right now, the best thing about Rae Sremmurd's slightly dubious new-album rollout is their brand-new "Powerglide" video.

At some point this year, the young Mississippi rap duo Rae Sremmurd intend to release Sr3mmLife, their third album. Mike Will Made-It, their producer and label boss, has said that it'll be a triple album: One full album from the duo, as well as one solo album apiece from members Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi. This seems like an insane idea! And yet it's apparently happening! After sharing the early single "T'd Up," Rae Sremmurd have now shared three new songs, including two solo songs from each member.

Streaming changed things. 2017 was the year that rap once again reaffirmed its stranglehold on the collective imagination of America's youth. Like the moment when Billboard first started using Soundscan and inadvertently proved the massive popularity of N.W.A, the streaming services of the world showed just how powerful this music remains. Rap dominated streaming charts. Kendrick Lamar and Cardi B and Migos and Post Malone and DJ Khaled scored #1 singles. Chance The Rapper headlined practically every festival this summer and then hosted SNL. A new wave of raw, scrappy, lo-fi SoundCloud rappers rose up, and even they managed to score pop hits. And a few rappers even made some really, really good albums.

The first wave of UK punk was a big, loud, obnoxious negation of almost everything that had come before, of all the tasteful '70s stuff that had been in the air. Johnny Rotten famously wore an "I hate Pink Floyd" shirt to his Sex Pistols audition, and the entire movement existed in direct opposition to the prevailing winds of rock history. But those punk kids didn't hate every band that had come before. Certain stars got a pass. In David Bowie and Iggy Pop and Hawkwind and Slade, the punks heard kindred spirits, people whose motivations were the same as their own. The current SoundCloud-rap boom is not the fucking same thing as punk rock. It's too small, too referential, frankly too dumb to resonate the same way. But there's something similar in its energy, in its willful assholery, and in its near-total rejection of all the finery of what's come before. But as with punk rock, there are exceptions. There are older artists who exist as beacons to those kids, guiding lights who were showing the same fuck-everything impulses years before the rest of the world caught up. And of the exceptions, nobody looms taller than Three 6 Mafia.

We were only there for three or four songs. It was enough. Last Thursday was one of those rare nights when Chris DeVille and I, the two Stereogum staffers who refuse to live in New York, were in the city anyway, splitting a hotel room the night before we jumped on a train up to the Basilica Soundscape Festival. We'd been at another show, and we'd left early. I'd read something about MHD, the French rapper who happened to be in town that night, and I'd gotten myself on the guest list for his show at the Playstation Theater, a neon-lit, personality-devoid Times Square venue. But we just walked right in. Nobody checked any lists for our names. It didn't matter. The venue was mostly empty, just a few hundred people crowded near the stage. But those people were fired up -- crowding around the stage, bellowing along with French lyrics, waving flags. The energy in the room wasn't a New York rap-show energy, or at least it wasn't anything like the energy at any of the New York rap shows I've been to over the years. Instead, it was a dancehall or soca energy -- people from distant lands coming together in this city, celebrating each other, celebrating life. It was a beautiful thing to witness.

It may only be Monday, but Memphis rap wildman Juicy J is already getting Highly Intoxicated. His new mixtape features guest appearances from Rick Ross, Wiz Khalifa, A$AP Rocky, Cardi B, XXXTentacion, Slim Jxmmi, Project Pat, and Smokepurpp and production by Mike WiLL Made-It, Key Wane, TM-88, Crazy Mike, Southside, $uicide Boy$. Listen to the whole thing below or download it for free here.

All around the world, there are groups of kids working on music. They're developing their own aesthetics, their own secret languages, working on those things in isolation and coming up with whatever they can to keep each other entertained. They're all trying to impress each other, to subtly compete with each other, and they're bringing the best out of each other in the process. Most of them will stay in obscurity forever. We'll never hear of them. Maybe, in your town right now, there's one or two groups of kids like that, and maybe you'll enthuse about them to your out-of-town friends, who will never check them out. It happens. It happens everywhere. But there's something special about the moment that one of those groups bubbles up out of nowhere, catching our collective ear and suddenly, blessedly, reminding us what it's like to be excited about something in music. I got that feeling the first time I heard grime -- these London kids with thick accents rapping in clustered blurts over backfiring-drum-machine beats. I got it when I first encountered Odd Future, the Los Angeles skate rats rapping about chopping you into pieces and missing their fathers, building entire mythologies out of nothing. And I'm getting it right now with Brockhampton, the internet-reared LA-via-Texas crew who completely blindsided me with their "Gummy" video a couple of weeks ago.

Vince Staples brought his Big Fish Theory promotional onslaught to Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night. He performed quasi-title-track "Big Fish" with Juicy J in tow to rap the hook and shower the audience with money -- so not only did they get to see a great performance, several of them went home richer. Watch footage below via HNHH.

Juicy J, the veteran Memphis rap libertine and former Three 6 Mafia co-leader, has made a lot of music in the past few years, and not all of it has been good. His Gas Face mixtape is just a few months old, and it was fine, but it didn't set the world on fire. But with that said, Juicy's new single "Flood Watch" is very much worth your time. The track finds Juicy and guest Migo offset in fine form, but the real interesting thing about it is that producer TM88 puts the two of them over some dramatic Elton John-style pianos, which sounds way cooler than it should. Listen to it below.

Vince Staples' new album Big Fish Theory will be out at the end of this coming week. We've already heard a few tracks from it, including "BagBak," "Big Fish," and the Ty Dolla $ign-featuring "Rain Come Down," and now the LP's full credits have materialized on iTunes. Thanks to Zane Lowe, we already suspected that the album would have an insane list of guests, and now it's confirmed: Justin Vernon, Kendrick Lamar, Damon Albarn, A$AP Rocky, and Rick Ross all make appearances, and SOPHIE and Flume provide production. Check out the full tracklist and credits below.

As one half of the Three 6 Mafia production braintrust, Juicy J helped invent the dark, swirling crunk sound that eventually evolved into the currently-dominant crunk sound. And more than 20 years later, Juicy is maintaining something like relevance, adapting effortlessly to that trap sound that owes him so much. Today, as The FADER points out, Juicy release Gas Face, a brief and nasty 10-track mixtape. (Imagine any other current rapper naming a mixtape after a 3rd Bass song.) The new tape features appearances from Quavo, Lil Wayne, and Chris Brown, and production from people like Murda Beatz, Southside, Sonny Digital, TM88, and Juicy himself. Check out the whole thing below.

Today, the euphoric Virginia sing-rapper D.R.A.M. releases "Gilligan," his first single since he gave us the great debut album Big Baby D.R.A.M. last year. The track features verses from A$AP Rocky and legendary Three 6 Mafia libertine Juicy J. (Rocky debuted it at a Coachella afterparty earlier this week.) D.R.A.M. and Juicy produced it together, and it's got some of the same sinister crawl as lot of Juicy's classic Three 6 productions. Unfortunately, though, that hugely likable holy-shit-I'm-famous-now feeling that D.R.A.M. radiates so beautifully is nowhere to be found here. Check the track out below.