Prior to heading out on her highly anticipated age/sex/location tour, Ari Lennox gave her fans a treat in the form of her “Waste My Time” music video. The must-hear track previously made its debut on her sophomore album. We have to admit, it’s been stuck in our heads ever since. As she performs all across the country over the next few weeks, the R&B starlet’s surprises keep coming.
On Monday (February 27), yet another visual landed from Lennox. This one brings her recent collaboration with Babyface, “Liquor” to life in a big way. The producer plays the role of a bartender, and the vocalist channels a glamorous patron of his bar. The song first arrived on his Girls Night Out project last year and quickly became a favourite amongst listeners.
Ari’s Vocals Amaze Fans on Tour
Singer Ari Lennox performs onstage during her “age/sex/location” tour at Coca-Cola Roxy on February 26, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Prince Williams/Wireimage)
“I wanna feel like I’m wasted, from the lips that I tasted / I want our love to be agin’ with time,” the Dreamville artist’s sultry lyrics set the tone of the first verse. “More vintage than wine, so smooth / I like it rough around the edges, picture perfect with no edits,” she continues to croon. On the chorus, both Lennox and Babyface’s beautiful voices come together to create a stunning soundscape. They specifically sing about taking two shots of “Liquor” with no chaser over the groovy beat.
It’s been several months since Girls Night Out first landed on DSPs, but Babyface recently kept the hype around the record going with the arrival of the extended edition. All 13 original titles remain on the tracklist, which boasts guest features from the likes of Muni Long, Doechii, and Sevyn Streeter. Additionally, he’s added two new songs – “Sometimes” with Jenevieve and “If You Knew How” with BJRNCK.
Check out Ari Lennox’s appearance in the “Liquor” music video on YouTube above. Afterward, tell us your thoughts on the sultry song and visual in the comments. If you’re in need of more release recommendations, find them on our weekly R&B Season update here.
Coco Jones is finally blossoming into the multi-talented star she should have been a decade ago. Cut from the Disney cloth that also produced fan favorites like Raven Symone, Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, and Zendaya, Jones was destined for that same success. For her, however, Disney quickly went from the stepping stone it should’ve been and was for the aforementioned names, to a roadblock that eventually detoured her from achieving her dreams. Promised TV shows and movies were nixed and a record deal arrived and departed all while attempting to make the Tennessee-raised actress and singer something she wasn’t. They say good things come to those who wait, but for Coco Jones, her wait was actually an example of the entertainment industry’s mistreatment of dark-skin women.
The bright side is that the lows that Jones spent years hoping she would finally be able to climb out of are finally behind her. She stars in Bel-Air, Peacock’s reimagined version of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, as Hilary, a role she thrived in from the show’s start in February 2022. A month after the season one premiere, Jones signed a record deal with High Standardz and Def Jam Recordings, and in November of that year, she released her major label debut EP What I Didn’t Tell You which is highlighted by standout records like “Caliber” and “ICU.” It shouldn’t have taken this long for Jones to be granted her moment, and though she’ll certainly agree, she’s found her silver lining through it all. “I think what helped me to overall just take a breath and let things be is understanding that my journey has never worked out in the specific ways that I wanted it to — always better,” she tells me over a Zoom call. “Better in ways that I would have never known to pray for.”
Some of these ways include the opportunities to work with some of the industry’s most gifted names. She collaborated with Babyface on “Simple” from his Girls Night Out album and Teyana Taylor, under the moniker Spike Tey, directed Jones’ sultry and enticing video for “Caliber.” Despite these bright moments, Jones describes the flowers she’s received from the industry over the past year as “bittersweet,” and it’s for a reason you can’t really blame her for. “It’s kind of hard to describe,” she admits. “One part of me kind of feels like, ‘Oh wow, this is amazing.’ But then the other part of me is like, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been doing this. I tried to wake y’all up literally years ago!’” Still, whether it be Babyface, Teyana Taylor, or Janet Jackson, Jones is appreciative of the love they’ve shown her as there was once a time that it didn’t come her way from them and others. “She posted my whole performance of her song, ‘I Get Lonely,’ and that was crazy,” Jones said about Jackson. “That’s a legend. That’s somebody that I learned from.”
Coco Jones has been waking up the entertainment world for a little over two years now. In the fall of 2020, she took to YouTube to detail the negative experiences, much of which were in relation to colorism, that she had in the industry in response to a fan who asked, “What happened to Coco Jones?” Since then, she’s been honest about the trials and tribulations she faced in her career, re-introducing them to her God-given gifts that now have people diving into an open verse TikTok challenge to “ICU,” and highlighting the other pieces of the puzzle that make Coco, Coco. Slowly but surely, they finally acknowledged the alarm she’s been ringing. What I Didn’t Tell You spent its first week at No. 1 on Apple Music’s US R&B/Soul Chart, an accomplishment that Jones manifested prior to the EP’s release. “I was literally crying because I had edited a picture to make it look like it was my album that went No. 1, and I put that on my vision board,” she says. “So to see that in real life… like all I had to do a screenshot it.” It was a reaffirming moment for Jones, who admits to sometimes putting a ceiling on her aspirations to cushion an anticipated fall from an industry that’s knocked her down too many times. “Because I’ve had so many rejections, I get scared to have big expectations sometimes. So even seeing that [it’s like], Courtney, you really need to tap back into the nine-year-old you who was like, I’m literally going to take over the world.” In her words, this takeover could very well include a Coco Jones theme park, Coco Jones french fries, and/or the Coco Jones chicken nuggets she joked about during over conversation. “Whatever it’s going to be, it will be.”
The next instance of Coco Jones continuously waking up her past doubters begins next month as season two of Bel-Air returns on February 23. The actress is expectedly tight-lipped about what we can expect for season two, but she confirms love is in the air for her character Hilary. “You can expect Hillary to be in love. Her and Jazz are definitely boo’d up, and without spoiling too much, someone from her past comes into play and shakes things up.” The similarities between Jones and her character Hilary are hard to ignore. Just like Jones, Hilary possesses the Gen-Z quality that makes us equipped to never settle for less than what we think if rightfully ours. “If I didn’t really love what I was doing, I would have given up [one of] the first 17 times I wanted to give up,” she notes. “I think for me, it was more like what if I go back home and start a completely different life and one day regret it? What if I was literally almost there? Now, I actually am almost to the place where I’ve always seen myself since I was nine years old.”
When I ask Jones what advice she’d give a young Black girl who was to ever find herself in a period of doubt like she was once in, she recalled something she was told during a conversation she had with SZA. “It was something about having this delusion, about how things are just going to work out,” she says. “Just live in your own world, where these things that you want for yourself will happen.” Jones continues, “Move and speak and think as if this is your world, and you can have anything […] and maybe sometimes it’s gonna look delusional, because the timeline is taking longer, and people on the outside who live in fear are like, ‘Girl maybe it’s time to give it on up and cash in your chips,’ but they don’t live in your world. They live in theirs.” To SZA’s point, there’s a moment where this delusion becomes something real and attainable. So after collaborating with Teyana Taylor and the legendary Babyface, it’s no surprise that Coco Jones is aiming higher and wider. She hopes to one day make records with Brandy, Bad Bunny, Wizkid, Burna Boy, Tems, gospel artists like Cece Winans, and even country artists. She also aspires to have a career that can be most compared to Rihanna’s. The world is Coco Jones’ and she’s coming after everything she’s owed and then some.
What I Didn’t Tell You is out now via High Standardz/Def Jam Recordings. You can stream it here.
Babyface and Sheryl Lee Ralph will kick off the Super Bowl on Feb. 12. Babyface will perform “America, The Beautiful,” and Ralph will sing “Lift Every Voice And Sing.” Rihanna will perform at halftime. Babyface and Tony Award winner Sheryl Lee Ralph will perform before the Super Bowl this year in Arizona on Feb. 12, […]
With just a few weeks until Super Bowl LVII, R&B legend Babyface, along with Abbot Elementary star Sheryl Lee Ralph and Chris Stapleton were announced as the acts for the Super Bowl pre-show. Babyface revealed shortly after that he intends to pay tribute to his late mother during his performance.
Babyface talked with TMZ where he said he was shocked that he was chosen and that he won’t be taking the opportunity “lightly.”
“I can safely say that I never saw this one coming. It’s great. It’s an honor to do it. I was honored that I got the call and that everybody was supportive at the NFL and Roc Nation as well.
“I’ll be completely rattled when this happens,” he continued. “As much as I’m going to try to be comfortable with it, I know I’m going to be nervous because you think about how many people you’re actually performing for and what that moment means, and I won’t take that moment lightly because it is an honor. And no matter what anyone thinks, to have this moment at this point in my life as well, it’s very special so I’m gonna treat it with respect.”
The R&B legend then spoke about his late mother and late brother and said how he will be paying tribute to them during his performance. Babyface says that he partnered with a company to make hoodies for the performance and will donate the proceeds to an organization that supports people with Alzheimer’s that his mother was involved in.
“For these past few years ever since my mom passed away, I’ve always been always kind of pushing myself to go do things that would be either out of my comfort zone or things that I hadn’t done before,” Babyface said. “And so now here I am on the Super Bowl and I could just imagine what she would think at this particular point. And even my brother Marvin who’s not here with us either, he’d be jumping up and down.”
“Because this is important to me, I ended up teaming up with this company called Shine The Light On. They do t-shirts and hoodies, and so we’re going to do some hoodies together and I’m going to be able to donate some of those proceeds to Keep Memory Alive – which was something that my mom did which deals with Alzheimer’s patients. It’s a full thing that makes it all make sense. It was supposed to happen.”
Babyface is set to sing “America the Beautiful,” while Ralph is set to perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and Stapleton will perform “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Babyface, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Chris Stapleton have been announced as pregame entertainment for Super Bowl LVII. The game is set for Sunday, Feb. 12 and will be broadcast on Fox.
Babyface, a music artist, composer, and producer with twelve Grammy Awards, will perform “America the Beautiful.” 44 No. 1 R&B hits and 16 No. 1 pop hits are among the 125 Top 10 hits that Babyface has produced and written.
Sheryl Lee Ralph, an Emmy-winning actress, will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” In addition, Ralph has won the Independent Spirit Award and been nominated for a Critics’ Choice Award, a Tony Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a Golden Globe. She presently appears in the wildly popular comedy series “Abbott Elementary.”
Chris Stapleton, a 15-time Country Music Association, 10-time Academy of Country Music, and eight-time Grammy winner, will perform the national anthem.
The Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show, which will be produced by DPS with Roc Nation and Jesse Collins serving as executive producers and Hamish Hamilton serving as director, will include international icon Rihanna as its headlining performer, the NFL recently revealed.
Future football Hall of Famer Tom Brady and his Tampa Bay Buccaneers may be out of the runnings, but that hasn’t slowed down the hype around Super Bowl LVII. The teams playing in the final game are still unknown at this time, with four teams still fighting it out in their respective conference championships. However, at this moment, what we do know is this year’s featured entertainment.
Last year’s halftime show featured an all-star medley performance by rappers Eminem, Snoop Dogg, and 50 Cent alongside singer Mary J. Blige, and producer Dr. Dre featuring their chart-topping hits. This year, Oscar-nominated singer Rihanna is slated to up the mantle. The “Lift Me Up” singer has remained tight-lipped about her upcoming set, leaving fans to speculate what she has up her sleeve.
Now, further details are being released about this year’s pre-game festivities. The national anthem (“The Star-Spangled Banner”) will be sung by country music star Chris Stapleton.
Legendary R&B singer and producer Babyface will sing “America the Beautiful,” while multi-hyphenated Emmy Award-winning actress and singer Sheryl Lee Ralph will sing the Black National Anthem (“Lift Every Voice and Sing”).
Super Bowl LVII will take place on February 12 at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
It has appeared that Baby Tate is set for a huge breakout for some time and with no less a music industry titan than Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds backing her, that eventuality is looking closer than ever. Both Babies stopped by The Tonight Show to perform Babyface’s new single “Don’t Even Think About It,” which prominently features Baby Tate. She straight-up steals the show, standing front-and-center in a floor-length aquamarine feather boa jacket with her face beat to the gawds, rapping and showing off her impressive singing chops backed by Babyface and The Roots.
The timing is impressive as well. While the duo is ostensibly there to promote Babyface’s upcoming 11th(!) studio album Girls’ Night Out, with the longtime R&B legend ceding the spotlight to Baby Tate, fans will undoubtedly find themselves encountering her own mixtape, Mani/Pedi, which drops this Friday, September 30 on Warner Records. It could very well be the catalyst to that expected breakout after she spent over a year promoting it with singles like “Pedi,” “S.L.O. (Slut Him Out),” “Dancing Queen,” and “Ain’t No Love” with 2 Chainz. Fellow Atlanta native Kali is also set to appear on the project, which features 14 tracks and follows Tate’s 2020 EP After The Rain.
Baby Tate is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Leon Thomas has never been too far away from the spotlight. His early days were spent heavily in the acting world as he spent time on Broadway before moving to a big role on Nickelodeon’s Victorious. Both experiences gave Thomas the motivation to pursue a career in music, and after Victorious came to an end, that’s exactly what he did. Over the years, he’s written for the likes of Ariana Grande, Rick Ross, Kehlani, Post Malone, and Drake.
While his talents as a songwriter and producer are undeniable, so are his as a singer himself. Back in 2018, Thomas released his debut EP Genesis, which was spotlighted by “Favorite” with Buddy and “Beg” with Elle Varner. Four years later, Thomas is ready to share new and unheard stories about himself with the world through his upcoming debut album. This project will also be released under a new imprint as Thomas recently signed a deal with Ty Dolla Sign’s EZMNY Records imprint.
Fresh off the music video release for “Love Jones” with Ty Dolla Sign, Uproxx spoke with Thomas about his new releases, his upcoming album, the state of R&B, and more.
What would you say your identity and even influences are when it comes to you being an overall entertainer and creative?
Music is a huge part of my foundation. Most of the roles that I’ve been featured in over the years, from a kid until now, have had aspects of music woven into them in very real ways. Starting on Broadway really taught me my work ethic. Nobody’s really babying you on Broadway, you gotta show up, get it done, hit those rehearsals, and perform every night for everybody who’s paying those really expensive tickets to sit in and escape into this world. So that’s a real big part of my foundation. Showing up prepared, I think preparation is a huge part of all of it.
My family, they’re also very involved in music. My mom and my stepdad had a band that performed and opened up for people like Chaka Khan and [other] really big artists. My stepdad used to play for BB King, Salt N Pepa, [and] Missy Elliott. I just feel like growing up around amazing musicians has always helped me fall in love with music from the aspect of people who really spent time perfecting their craft and coming through with a unique ability.
You released “X-Rated” with Benny The Butcher, your first solo song in a few years, back in May. What made it the perfect time to get back into the swing of things and why that song to start?
First and foremost, “X-Rated” lives in such a very specific place that is really only attributed to my music right now and the next album that I’m about to release. I think seeing what Griselda was doing was super inspiring. I’m from New York, I feel like culturally when you’re being reintroduced to an artist or introduced to an artist for the first time, it’s really important to kind of understand culturally where they’re from. “X-Rated” to me had a lot of that boom-bap attached to it, and adding in Benny The Butcher really, really took it over to the top into that ’90s and nostalgic place. I wanted to really pinpoint that as the through line for what we were doing sound-wise for the rest of the album.
That direction you’re talking about continues with “Love Jones” featuring Ty Dolla Sign. What was the inspiration for that song?
A part of my process when I’m writing and producing records, is I always have a movie on in the background. While we were creating that song, I had Love Jones on. It’s one of my favorite films, I love the cinematography, I just love the vibe of it, it just feels good. I wasn’t able to actually use the scene that I originally had in the intro, but that intro kind of inspired a lot of what I was doing lyrically. Love Jones is about falling in love with somebody who has a passion, who’s artistic. If you think about the movie, Nina and Larenz Tate’s characters both had artistic passions, from him being a poet and her being an amazing photographer, they were able to fall in love in multiple ways at once. That’s an experience that I’ve also gone through personally living in California. Everybody’s got a dream and they’re chasing something more than just a white picket fence and a family. I feel like sometimes you can fall in love with somebody’s passion for the art just as much as you can fall in love with their physical and emotional attributes. “Love Jones” is all about that.
Both “X-Rated” and “Love Jones” sound a bit more slowed down and dimmed from the brighter and more upbeat records we heard on Genesis. What can you say about the total direction of your next project?
For me, it was really important to put it into music and find ways to really document my story and to give people more of a real look into my story as a human being. Outside of chasing charts, I felt like it was important for people to finally get a chance to really have that musical conversation with me and really get into my head and see some of the things that I’ve been going through as a human being. Sometimes I feel like it’s easier to tell stories like that super fast, in your face, and doing all types of stuff. I also co-produced on a lot of his music as well, just as I did on Genesis, but I felt like it was very important for me to express that sonically just as much as I did lyrically. There are certain sounds that bring that out of me and we used all of them on this one.
You did an interview last fall, and in it, you mentioned that you’re okay with being known, respected, and heralded by those behind the scenes more so than wanting all the flashy materialistic things from fame. With your upcoming releases, how would you define them being a success in your eyes?
I think success to me is really being able to genuinely touch the people that genuinely care about the music. Obviously, numbers are beautiful and we strive for greatness, but I feel like genuinely building a brand, that’s breaking a mold that’s been used for a very long time, takes time. I’m personally feeling very patient and I’m ready to just build this brick by brick. I want the same kind of love that J. Cole gets from his fans who are able to really ride with him through being true to himself throughout each and every project that he dropped and released, regardless of what the trends were doing at that time. I really respect him a lot. Even when I was in the Bahamas working with Drake, J. Cole was also out there and we had probably like a four-hour conversation in the studio just kicking it. Seeing the way that guy’s mind works just kind of showed me a lot of the similarities and the places that I like to go. At one point in my life, after I finished up all the work that I’m doing with EZMNY, I would love to have a Dreamville of my own one day or an EZMNY of my own one day, that’s the true idea of success.
What’s a collaboration, a crazy coincidence, or anything in general from your life that without it, you wouldn’t be the artist you are today?
My mom was doing a show and she took me to the rehearsal. A friend of hers was like, “He’s a charismatic kid, he should audition for The Lion King.” I always think about if I would have said no to that opportunity as a kid. Would I be sitting here speaking to you right now? I feel like that was the spark that brought me through an entire snowball of a career that I don’t think anybody expected to be as long and as fruitful as it has been. Even in my adult years, really having huge giants like Babyface open up their studios to me, like opening up that door and saying, “This huge, multimillion-dollar studio is free, and you can just do your thing, you’re good.” To have access to some of the best instruments on Earth, the best equipment on Earth to hone in on my skills, and watch his process a lot with huge artists, really put me in a position to create things for myself that I probably wouldn’t have been able to create as an artist who was reliant on a producer or writer to create for me. For the third one, at a certain point, I felt like I had hit a bit of a glass ceiling. Drake opening up the opportunity for me to work with him as well, became this huge snowball effect of notoriety and people noticing what I’m doing in music in different ways.
What artists can we expect to hear you work with in the coming future? And who’s someone on your bucket list that you can’t wait to work it?
I got some really cool record dropping man. I’ve been working with Snoh Aalegra and 6lack a lot. I’ve been working with Chloe Bailey, I have something with her too, she’s really awesome. We’ll see when they end up dropping all of their projects, but those are three amazing artists that I’ve been able to tap in with who are doing amazing things in the world of R&B. In hip-hop, I took a bit of a backseat because I was doing a lot of stuff in R&B for myself, but I’m really looking forward to working with a lot of the artists killing it right now. I feel like over time, it’s just gonna all come together, it’s gonna work out.
Scroll up to check out the new “Love Jones” video.
Babyface and Ella Mai unveil the official video for their new single “Keeps On Fallin’.”
The modern R&B track’s opulent romantic visual grabs its inspiration from Regency-era courtship rituals. Starring Emmy and GRAMMY winning actress/comedian Tiffany Haddish as the queen mother and Kendrick Sampson (Miss Juneteenth, “Insecure“) as the handsome prince who is courting Ella Mai. Babyface, who plays a duke, joins them for an extravagant meal as a string quartet plays while the bubbly flows.
“Keeps On Fallin’” is the first single from Babyface’s new project, Girls Night Out, set to be released by Capitol Records on October 21.
Described as a sonic journey through love, heartbreak and all of the emotions in between, Girls Night Out will give classic Babyface with a modern R&B twist. The album features the iconic hitmaker collaborations with some of today’s most sought after female R&B stars, including Ari Lennox, Queen Naija, Doechii, Kehlani and more.
Take a look at the new visual from Babyface featuring Ella Mai shot at the historic Malibu estate Villa De Leon by director/cinematographer Ava Rikki.
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Kehlani dropped her latest album, Blue Water Road, in April and is currently crossing the country on the Blue Water Road Tour. But that’s not stopping her from putting out new music. Earlier this week, the “Nights Like This” singer was featured on Ali Gatie’s new track, “The Look” and today, Babyface has just released the new single “Seamless,” with Kehlani on lead vocals.
The track, which will appear on Babyface’s upcoming album, Girls Night Out, is a sultry R&B jam about trying to get back to that point in a relationship when things are flowing smoothly. Kehlani owns the track and Babyface adds god-mode backing vocals. He explained in a statement what it meant to have Kehlani on “Seamless”:
“I worked with Kehlani many years ago and I am just so proud of who she has become as an artist and also how well she knows herself and her fans. I am really honored to have her collaborate with me many years later for such a special project and I love the song we created. Kehlani is one of one and a true superstar.”
Listen to “Seamless” above.
Girls Night Out is out on 10/21 via Capitol Records.
Kehlani is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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