The Allegory is the eighth studio album by American rapper Royce da 5'9" . It was released through eOne Music on February 21, 2020. It features guest appearances from Benny the Butcher , Conway the Machine , KXNG Crooked , Cyhi the Prynce , DJ Premier , Eminem , Grafh , Sy Ari da Kid , T.I. , Vince Staples , Westside Gunn , and Cedric the Entertainer among others. Production was handled by Royce da 5'9" himself on all of the album's tracks, making it his first album to be entirely self-produced.
61-427: On December 11, 2019, Royce da 5'9" revealed the album's title and cover art on Instagram . The cover art is a reflection of the album's politically inspired themes, containing lyrics that focus on societal issues, similar to some of Royce's previous work such as the track "America" from his 2016 album Layers . Speaking about the album's title in an interview, Royce said "The goal was to make something that feels like
122-549: A pivot to video , introducing a new feature called "Reels". The intent was to compete with the video-sharing site TikTok . Instagram also added suggested posts in August 2020. After scrolling through posts from the past 48 hours, Instagram displays posts related to their interests from accounts they do not follow. In February 2021, Instagram began testing a new feature called Vertical Stories, said by some sources to be inspired by TikTok. The same month, they also began testing
183-522: A portmanteau of instant camera and telegram . Josh Riedel joined the company in October as Community Manager, Shayne Sweeney joined in November as an engineer, and Jessica Zollman joined as a Community Evangelist in August 2011. The first Instagram post was a photo of South Beach Harbor at Pier 38, posted by Mike Krieger at 5:26 p.m. on July 16, 2010. On October 6, 2010,
244-526: A "lightweight" version of the Explore tab. On May 11, 2016, Instagram revamped its design, adding a black-and-white flat design theme for the app's user interface , and a less skeuomorphistic , more abstract , "modern" and colorful icon. Rumors of a redesign first started circulating in April, when The Verge received a screenshot from a tipster, but at the time, an Instagram spokesperson simply told
305-474: A 2016 article in Tedium , Ernie Smith wrote: "AllMusic may have been one of the most ambitious sites of the early-internet era—and it's one that is fundamental to our understanding of pop culture. Because, the thing is, it doesn't just track reviews or albums. It tracks styles, genres, and subgenres, along with the tone of the music and the platforms on which the music is sold. It then connects that data together, in
366-502: A feed of the likes and comments made by users they follow. The change was made official in October, with head of product Vishal Shah stating that the feature was underused and that some users were "surprised" when they realized their activity was being surfaced in this manner. In October 2019, Instagram introduced a limit on the number of posts visible in page scrolling mode unless logged in. Until this point, public profiles had been available to all users, even when not logged in. Following
427-662: A good sound. But if you're listening to a Royce album it's because you want to hear the guy rap. To his credit, Royce has the rare effect of a rapper's extreme technical ability making him seem limber instead of rigid". At the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards , The Allegory received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album . Notes Instagram Instagram is an American photo and video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms . It allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters , be organized by hashtags , and be associated with
488-459: A hip-hop album, but that has a lot of layers you may not necessarily get on the first time. It's really abstract in the way that it's constructed. It goes against all the normal standard laws and shit that everybody's creating right now. 'This can't be this length... This has to be longer... This has to be shorter... That has to be that way.' It's going in a different direction. It's the anti-everything." Unlike Royce's previous album Book of Ryan ,
549-493: A lack of success in driving adoption. In March 2020, Instagram launched a new feature called "Co-Watching". The new feature allows users to share posts with each other over video calls. According to Instagram, they pushed forward the launch of Co-Watching in order to meet the demand for virtually connecting with friends and family due to social distancing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic . In August 2020, Instagram began
610-569: A line or two that I could've said on a song three songs back. I wanted everything to be very splashes of paint all over the canvas. I wanted it to sound like Quentin Tarantino directed it. I didn't want it to be anything traditional. There's no one conceptual song. There's no one song that sums up anything, but everything together creates the complete concept of the Allegory . The Allegory was Royce da 5'9"'s first self-produced album. Speaking on
671-638: A location via geographical tagging . Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users' content by tags and locations, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed . A Meta-operated image-centric social media platform, it is available on iOS , Android , Windows 10, and the web. Users can take photos and edit them using built-in filters and other tools, then share them on other social media platforms like Facebook . It supports 32 languages including English , Hindi , Spanish , French , Korean , and Japanese . Instagram
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#1732764943882732-533: A lower self-esteem in users. The pilot began in May 2019, and was extended to 6 other markets in July. The pilot was expanded worldwide in November 2019. Also in July 2019, Instagram announced that it would implement new features designed to reduce harassment and negative comments on the service. In August 2019, Instagram also began to pilot the removal of the "Following" tab from the app, which had allowed users to view
793-511: A luxury it is to have DJ Premier sitting in a room or Mr. Porter sitting in a room. To the naked eye, why would he be there? Unless he's doing something. If he wasn't doing anything, I didn't have him around this time. Like, for Book of Ryan, I'd have [Mr. Porter] around because I love his creative input. But with this album, I shied away from even having any of those guys around. Because I don't want them to hold my hand." The lead single, "Black Savage" featuring Sy Ari da Kid , White Gold, Cyhi
854-477: A mobile check-in app created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger . On March 5, 2010, Systrom closed a $ 500,000 (equivalent to $ 682,200 in 2023) seed funding round with Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz while working on Burbn. Realizing that it was too similar to Foursquare , they refocused their app on photo-sharing, which had become a popular feature among its users. They renamed it Instagram,
915-536: A new feature allowing users to browse and post GIFs in their comments. That same month, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would start selling blue "verified" badges on Instagram and Facebook. On July 5, 2023, Meta launched Threads , a social network platform connected to Instagram that allows users to make public shortform blog posts comprising text, photos, and videos, as well as to converse with other users and reblog other users' posts. Threads aims to compete with Twitter . In December 2023, Instagram launched
976-608: A plan to keep the company independently managed. Britain's Office of Fair Trading approved the deal on August 14, 2012, and on August 22, 2012, the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. closed its investigation, allowing the deal to proceed. On September 6, 2012, the deal between Instagram and Facebook officially closed with a purchase price of $ 300 million in cash and 23 million shares of stock. The deal closed just before Facebook's scheduled initial public offering according to CNN . The deal price
1037-483: A podcast titled "Close Friends Only" featuring conversations among celebrities. The first episode featured rappers Ice Spice and Doja Cat . Subsequent episodes in June and August of 2024 featured Reneé Rapp , Rachel Sennott , Megan Thee Stallion and GloRilla . In April 2022, Instagram began testing the removal of the ability to see "recent" posts from various hashtags. This change became permanent and system wide
1098-525: A private storage area, out of visibility for the public and other users. The move was seen as a way to prevent users from deleting photos that don't garner a desired number of "likes" or are deemed boring, but also as a way to limit the "emergent behavior" of deleting photos, which deprives the service of content. In August, Instagram announced that it would start organizing comments into threads, letting users more easily interact with replies. Since February 2017, up to ten pictures or videos can be included in
1159-414: A romantic interest in or view favorably, as well as its #ManCrushMonday counterpart centered on men; and #ThrowbackThursday, in which users post a photo from their past, highlighting a particular moment. In December 2017, Instagram began to allow users to follow hashtags, which display relevant highlights of the topic in their feeds. The ability to search "Recent" hashtags was temporarily disabled during
1220-416: A sequential feed, with each post accessible to others for 24 hours. As of January 2019, "stories" are used by 500 million people daily. Instagram was launched for iOS in October 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger . It rapidly gained popularity, reaching 1 million registered users in two months, 10 million in a year, and 1 billion in June 2018. In April 2012, Facebook acquired
1281-492: A single post, with the content appearing as a swipeable carousel . The feature originally limited photos to the square format, but received an update in August to enable portrait and landscape photos instead. In April 2018, Instagram launched its version of a portrait mode called "focus mode", which gently blurs the background of a photo or video while keeping the subject in focus when selected. In November, Instagram began to support Alt text to add descriptions of photos for
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#17327649438821342-586: A spoken interlude by Eminem - there's a lot to digest here. But, crucially, a lot worth digesting". RapReviews.com writer Sy Shackleford said, "While handling all of the production himself is a valiant effort, it's evident that Royce had a wobbly experience with it in that it isn't fully consistent. Even so, The Allegory is another solid effort from the Detroit rhyme sayer". In a mixed review, Jay Balfour of Pitchfork wrote: "His beats are generally chunky sample flips and simple loops, but he also has an ear for
1403-513: A square, 1:1 aspect ratio; since August 2015, the app supports portrait and widescreen aspect ratios as well. Users could formerly view a map of a user's geotagged photos. The feature was removed in September 2016, citing low usage. Since December 2016, posts can be "saved" into a private area of the app. The feature was updated in April 2017 to let users organize saved posts into named collections. Users can also "archive" their posts in
1464-454: A standalone video application. The application was shut down and removed from app stores in March 2022, citing low usage and a shift to short-form video content. On September 24, 2018, Krieger and Systrom announced in a statement they would be stepping down from Instagram. On October 1, 2018, it was announced that Adam Mosseri would be the new head of Instagram. During Facebook F8 , it
1525-569: A valuation of $ 500 million (equivalent to $ 656,100,000 in 2023). Joshua Kushner was the second largest investor in Instagram's Series B fundraising round, leading his investment firm, Thrive Capital , to double its money after the sale to Facebook. On April 3, 2012, Instagram released a version of its app for Android phones, and it was downloaded more than one million times in less than one day. The Android app has since received two significant updates: first, in March 2014, which cut
1586-507: A way that can intelligently tell you about an entire type of music, whether a massive genre like classical, or a tiny one like sadcore ." In 1996, seeking to further develop its web-based businesses, Alliance Entertainment Corp. bought All Music from Erlewine for a reported $ 3.5 million. He left the company after its sale. Alliance filed for bankruptcy in 1999, and its assets were acquired by Ron Burkle 's Yucaipa Equity Fund. In 1999, All Music relocated from Big Rapids to Ann Arbor , where
1647-502: A year later, and now hashtags can only be used to see a selection of curated content from "top" users. These changes are ostensibly an attempt to hinder the spread of misinformation, while Instagram has also repeatedly stated that hashtags do not help posts get views. In April 2024, Instagram announced that they would start testing new tools "within weeks" to fight sextortion , a form of blackmail involving intimate pictures sent online. On August 2, 2024, Turkey blocked Instagram after
1708-421: Is owned by RhythmOne . AllMusic was launched as All-Music Guide by Michael Erlewine , a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought
1769-474: Is the only free method for a user to reach past their existing followers. AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG ) is an American online music database . It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands . Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic
1830-475: The All Music Guide framework, and recruited his nephew, writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine , to develop editorial content. In 1993, Chris Woodstra joined the staff as an engineer. A "record geek" who had written for alternative weeklies and fanzines, his main qualification was an "encyclopedic knowledge of music". 1,400 subgenres of music were created, a feature that became central to the site's utility. In
1891-570: The Windows 10 Mobile app was discontinued, though the mobile website remains available as a progressive web application (PWA) with limited functionality. The app remains available on Windows 10 computers and tablets, also updated to a PWA in 2020. To comply with the GDPR regulations regarding data portability , Instagram introduced the ability for users to download an archive of their user data in April 2018. IGTV launched on June 20, 2018, as
The Allegory - Misplaced Pages Continue
1952-421: The 2020 U.S. elections, to prevent the spread of misinformation. In 2022 this was again tested on some users, and in April 2023 the ability to search recent hashtags was removed entirely. Now, users are only able to see a curated selection of "popular" posts using a given hashtag. Instagram said that this is to prevent abuse and so that hashtags do not help users gain views, but it has been noted that using hashtags
2013-501: The Butcher , was released on February 7, 2020. The music video was released the same day. The music video for "I Don't Age" was released on February 23, 2021, and was directed by Joe LeFleur. A music video for "Hero", featuring White Gold and directed by Lanfia, was released on March 4, 2021. On March 6, 2020, Royce da 5'9" announced The Allegory US Tour to promote the album, which included dates from April 21 to May 20, 2020. However,
2074-625: The Instagram iOS app was officially released through the App Store . In February 2011, it was reported that Instagram had raised $ 7 million (equivalent to $ 9,357,057 in 2023) in Series A funding from a variety of investors, including Benchmark Capital , Jack Dorsey , Chris Sacca (through Capital fund), and Adam D'Angelo . The deal valued Instagram at around $ 20 million. In April 2012, Instagram raised $ 50 million (equivalent to $ 65,610,000 in 2023) from venture capitalists with
2135-495: The Prynce , and T.I. , was released on November 15, 2019. The song was released as part of Jay-Z 's "Inspire Change" campaign, and its music video premiered on November 14, 2019. The second single, "Overcomer" featuring Westside Gunn , was released on January 17, 2020, along with a music video. The third single, "I Don't Age", was released on January 31, 2020. The album's final single, "Upside Down" featuring Ashley Sorrell and Benny
2196-437: The album did not necessarily focus on a central theme. He explained that "it's whatever it needs to be. Usually, when I do albums, there is a main theme. With [my last album] Book of Ryan , there was a main theme. That was my focus when I was making the individual songs. But this album, I didn't want any song to be a focus of a theme. I wanted it to be: you're enjoying the grassroots elements of hip-hop, then out of nowhere there's
2257-549: The app's launch it had used the Foursquare API technology to provide named location tagging. In March 2014, Instagram started to test and switch the technology to use Facebook Places . In June 2015, the desktop website user interface was redesigned to become more flat and minimalistic , but with more screen space for each photo and to resemble the layout of Instagram's mobile website. Furthermore, one row of pictures only has three instead of five photos to match
2318-501: The app. However, Instagram discontinued this version of Threads in December 2021, mainly due to most of its features being rolled out on Instagram itself, as well as low usage compared to other social media applications. Threads was not well-received among Instagram's user base. Since its launch, only approximately 220,000 users globally downloaded the app, which represented less than 0.1% of Instagram's monthly active users, indicating
2379-465: The change, after viewing a number of posts a pop-up requires the user to log in to continue viewing content. That month, Instagram launched a separate app known as Threads. Similar to Snapchat , the app allowed users to communicate through messaging and video chats. It was integrated with Instagram's "Close friends" feature, so that users could send images, photos, and texts privately to others, and also had Instagram's photo editing system embedded into
2440-687: The file size of the app by half and added performance improvements; then in April 2017, to add an offline mode that allows users to view and interact with content without an Internet connection. At the time of the announcement, it was reported that 80% of Instagram's 600 million users were located outside the U.S., and while the aforementioned functionality was live at its announcement, Instagram also announced its intention to make more features available offline, and that they were "exploring an iOS version". On April 9, 2012, Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms) bought Instagram for $ 1 billion (equivalent to $ 1,312,000,000 in 2023) in cash and stock, with
2501-418: The last song has finished". Will Lavin of NME said, "Royce's 2018 album Book of Ryan was always going to be a tough act to follow, but The Allegory stands up as an accomplished body of work, packed full of poetic intricacies and life lessons, soundtracked by the sound of Detroit ; it will likely end up on the majority of 2020 end-of-year rap lists". George Garner of Q said, "At 22 tracks - including
The Allegory - Misplaced Pages Continue
2562-431: The mobile layout. The slideshow banner on the top of profile pages, which simultaneously slide-showed seven picture tiles of pictures posted by the user, alternating at different times in a random order, has been removed. In addition, the formerly angular profile pictures became circular. In April 2016, Instagram released a Windows 10 Mobile app, after years of demand from Microsoft and the public to release an app for
2623-450: The most popular on the platform often highlight a specific day of the week to post the material on. Examples of popular trends include #SelfieSunday, in which users post a photo of their faces on Sundays; #MotivationMonday, in which users post motivational photos on Mondays; #TransformationTuesday, in which users post photos highlighting differences from the past to the present; #WomanCrushWednesday, in which users post photos of women they have
2684-487: The name of a location. Users can set their account as "private", thereby requiring that they approve any new follower requests. Users can connect their Instagram account to other social networking sites, enabling them to share uploaded photos to those sites. In September 2011, a new version of the app included new and live filters , instant tilt–shift , high-resolution photographs, optional borders, one-click rotation, and an updated icon. Photos were initially restricted to
2745-443: The platform deleted posts from users offering condolences for the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh . On November 25, 2024, Instagram announced the introduction of the ability for users to share their locations with their friends via DMs (direct messages) for up to one hour. This new feature is only available in select countries. Users can upload photographs and short videos, follow other users' feeds, and geotag images with
2806-462: The platform. The platform previously had a beta version of Instagram, first released on November 21, 2013, for Windows Phone 8 . The new app added support for videos (viewing and creating posts or stories, and viewing live streams), album posts and direct messages. Similarly, an app for Windows 10 personal computers and tablets was released in October 2016. In May, Instagram updated its mobile website to allow users to upload photos, and to add
2867-702: The problem as possibly being DNS -related. On March 17, 2022, Zuckerberg confirmed plans to add non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to the platform. In September 2022, Ireland 's Data Protection Commission fined the company $ 402 million under privacy laws recently adopted by the European Union over how it handled the privacy data of minors. After being trialled in mid-2022, Instagram introduced Notes in December 2022. This feature allows users to share updates as short text posts of up to 60 characters with certain people, who can then reply to them using messaging on Instagram. In February 2023, Instagram introduced
2928-409: The production process, he said "My integrity means everything to me. If I say I'm producing it, I want people to feel 'OK, Royce said he produced it, he produced it.' I don't want to be one of these guys, you hear about 'em later like 'oh, he didn’t really do that beat. I heard such and such did that beat.' You run the risk of that happening when you have people in the room. Because I realized how much of
2989-473: The publication that it was only a concept. On December 6, 2016, Instagram introduced comment liking. However, unlike post likes, the user who posted a comment does not receive notifications about comment likes in their notification inbox. Uploaders can optionally decide to deactivate comments on a post. The mobile website allows uploading pictures since May 4, 2017. Image filters and the ability to upload videos were not introduced then. On April 30, 2019,
3050-563: The removal of ability to share feed posts to stories. In March 2021, Instagram launched a new feature in which four people can go live at once. Instagram also announced that adults would not be allowed to message teens who don't follow them as part of a series of new child safety policies. In May 2021, Instagram began allowing users in some regions to add pronouns to their profile page. On October 4, 2021, Meta services suffered their worst outage since 2008, bringing down Instagram, Facebook , and WhatsApp . Security experts identified
3111-481: The result is the best LP yet in his 20-year-strong career". HipHopDX critic Kevin Cortez stated, "The Allegory plays out as Royce's most consolidated offering yet. A definite career high-point for a rapper whose résumé spans over 20 years". AllMusic 's Neil Z. Young said, "Intense and thrilling, The Allegory is a powerful work with uncomfortably realistic and poignant snapshots of American life that linger long after
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#17327649438823172-532: The sale, and as Rovi from 2009 until 2016). In 2012, AllMusic removed all of Bryan Adams ' info from the site per a request from the artist. In 2015, AllMusic was purchased by BlinkX, later known as RhythmOne . The AllMusic database is powered by a combination of MySQL and MongoDB . The All Media Network produced the All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide (at first released as The Experts' Guide ), which includes
3233-650: The service for approximately US$ 1 billion in cash and stock. The Android version of Instagram was released in April 2012, followed by a feature-limited desktop interface in November 2012, a Fire OS app in June 2014, and an app for Windows 10 in October 2016. Although often admired for its success and influence, Instagram has also been criticized for negatively affecting teens' mental health, its policy and interface changes, its alleged censorship , and illegal and inappropriate content uploaded by users. Instagram began development in San Francisco as Burbn ,
3294-407: The staff expanded from 12 to 100 people. By February of that year, 350,000 albums and two million tracks had been cataloged. All Music had published biographies of 30,000 artists, 120,000 record reviews and 300 essays written by "a hybrid of historians, critics and passionate collectors". In late 2007, AllMusic was purchased for $ 72 million by TiVo Corporation (known as Macrovision at the time of
3355-504: The tour was postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic . The Allegory received critical acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic , which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 79 based on seven reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Kyle Mullin of Exclaim! praised the album saying, "That's right: sonically, thematically, lyrically — on every level, Royce gives The Allegory his all. And
3416-830: The visually impaired. They are either generated automatically using object recognition (using existing Facebook technology) or manually specified by the uploader. On March 1, 2021, Instagram launched a new feature named Instagram Live Rooms, which lets four people go live together. In May 2021, Instagram announced a new accessibility feature for videos on Instagram Reels and Stories to allow creators to place closed captions on their content. In January 2011, Instagram introduced hashtags to help users discover both photos and each other. Instagram encourages users to make tags both specific and relevant, rather than tagging generic words like "photo", to make photographs stand out and to attract like-minded Instagram users. Users on Instagram have created "trends" through hashtags. The trends deemed
3477-606: Was a 1,200-page reference book, packaged with a CD-ROM, titled All Music Guide: The Best CDs, Albums & Tapes: The Expert's Guide to the Best Releases from Thousands of Artists in All Types of Music . Its first online version, in 1994, was a text-based Gopher site. It moved to the World Wide Web as web browsers became more user-friendly. Erlewine hired a database engineer, Vladimir Bogdanov , to design
3538-519: Was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard . After buying it, he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan , he founded All Music Guide with a goal to create an open-access database that included every recording "since Enrico Caruso gave the industry its first big boost". The first All Music Guide , published in 1992,
3599-576: Was announced that Instagram would, beginning in Canada, pilot the removal of publicly displayed " like " counts for content posted by other users. Like counts would only be visible to the user who originally posted the content. Mosseri stated that this was intended to have users "worry a little bit less about how many likes they're getting on Instagram and spend a bit more time connecting with the people that they care about." It has been argued that low numbers of likes in relativity to others could contribute to
3660-469: Was compared to the $ 35 million Yahoo! paid for Flickr in 2005. Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook was "committed to building and growing Instagram independently." According to Wired , the deal netted Systrom $ 400 million. In November 2012, Instagram launched website profiles, allowing anyone to see user feeds from a web browser with limited functionality, as well as a selection of badges , and web widget buttons to link to profiles. Since
3721-452: Was originally distinguished by allowing content to be framed only in a square (1:1) aspect ratio of 640 pixels to match the display width of the iPhone at the time. In 2015, this restriction was eased with an increase to 1080 pixels. It also added messaging features, the ability to include multiple images or videos in a single post, and a Stories feature—similar to its main competitor, Snapchat , which allowed users to post their content to
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