Bakar continues to deliver timeless classics. Tonight (September 22), the British singer-songwriter has dropped his sophomore album, Halo. But day-one Bakar fans may notice that the album’s tracklist boasts a familiar fan-favorite.
On the album is a remix of “Hell N Back,” a track that was originally featured on his 2019 EP, Will You Be My Yellow?. On this special updated version is Summer Walker, who, in her special way, revives the song, carrying its way through the treacherous love Bakar first depicted in the Yellow cut.
Bakar’s first verse remains the same as that of the 2019 original, but Walker’s verse continues the story, as the two sail on toward love.
“Life been lifin’ lately, so I save you if you save me / I was up and out, I had enough, then I found you / I was no doubt, stressed out without you / All we got is us, when nobody does, I got you,” she sings on her verse.
While the original song is over four years old, its jazzy production and fresh new remix give the song an evergreen feel.
You can listen to the “Hell N Back” remix above.
Halo is out now via Epic Records. Find more information here.
In less than two months, Beyoncé and her crew will head out to amaze audiences with her long-awaited RENAISSANCE tour. While jokes about the mother of three practicing vocal runs while sprinting on the treadmill in heels, and exclusively consuming almonds and water to keep her figure right have been circulating on social media, her album continues to speak for itself by breaking more records. Most recently, one of her newer songs beat out an old fan favourite as her longest-charting solo song of all time.
Twitter account @PopBase shared the news on Monday (March 27) evening, that Beyoncé’s 2008 hit, “Halo,” has officially been surpassed by “CUFF IT” on the Billboard Hot 100 in terms of total weeks charting. The former song arrived on the Houston native’s I Am… Sasha Fierce album, and has an undeniably ethereal, feel-good vibe to it. The latter, of course, is on the RENAISSANCE project and has since seen incredible remixes from Blxst and Bey herself.
“CUFF IT” Continues to Break Records
‘CUFF IT’ has surpassed ‘Halo’ as Beyoncé’s longest-charting solo song of all time on the Billboard Hot 100. pic.twitter.com/GO1AbNb6Go
While “CUFF IT” is undeniably a fan favourite, other popular titles from the 16-song tracklist include “BREAK MY SOUL,” “ALIEN SUPERSTAR,” and “ENERGY” featuring Beam. Shortly after unveiling RENAISSANCE to the world last summer, Beyoncé hinted that the project was part of a trilogy, though it remains unclear when the next two albums will be arriving. As for her tour, it’s due to begin on May 10 in Stockholm, before the vocalist takes over stages in various other cities around the world. Ahead of the big premiere, fans got a preview of what’s to come when Beyoncé made a grand return in Dubai earlier this year.
At the time, she was helping to celebrate the opening of a new hotel in the luxurious country, and celebrity friends like Kendall Jenner, Chloe and Halle Bailey, and her husband, Jay-Z were all in attendance. A strict no-phones policy was enforced ahead of the performance, though some attendees still managed to capture clips and leak them online. While what we saw of that show was undeniably impressive, it’s likely that the upcoming RENAISSANCE shows will only be better thanks to the Virgo superstar’s incredible work ethic. Revisit “CUFF IT” below, and check back later for more music news updates.
Sueco is a rising star in music. It’s hard to describe a sound that can be associated with him right now, because a big part of his appeal is his willingness to try different sounding music. After releasing hits like “fast,” “paralyzed,” and “Sober/Hungover,” he’s quickly making himself into an even bigger name.
It turns out that music isn’t his only passion — Sueco is also a big gamer. His passion for video games goes all the way back to his first-ever console, the Sega Dreamcast. These days, he’s gaming on a PC, and it’s this passion that made him a perfect choice for the launch of The Greenroom, an innovative music, gaming, and sports crossover event series presented in partnership with gaming giants VaynerSports, eFuse, and Aim Lab. This event will feature Sueco against other major stars like Bankrol Hayden, Juju Smith-Schuster, and Bugha, as they all play Halo Infinite for a prize of $10,000 in cash and a custom championship ring.
We got a chance to talk to Sueco about how he thinks he’ll fare in the upcoming event, what games he’s been into playing lately, and more.
What made you want to involve yourself with the launch of the Green Room series?
Well, I’ve always been a gamer, especially when I was a kid. I’m starting to really get back into it a lot. With this first tournament, the Halo tournament, Halo 3, when I was growing up, was a big part of who I was. I spent so much damn time playing Halo when I was a little kid. When I saw they were rebooting the franchise and whatnot, I was just stoked that I was able to be a part of anything related to it because it’s just a really nostalgic feeling for me. Then it’s funny, when I downloaded the game, I was crossing my fingers, hoping that it didn’t suck. But it’s sick and it seems like a lot of people love it. I don’t know. It’s cool. I’m just glad to be a part of it.
Have you had much of a chance to play it? Or was it just a little bit of time to mess around with it?
Not even that much time. Maybe about three or four hours so far. Just enough to get all the basics down. But then I just got on Aim Lab, so now I’m training. Now I’m going to play like a pro. So everybody, get ready for the tournament because I’m coming in strong.
You said you played a lot of games growing up?
Yeah. I was always playing a lot of the weirder games, to be honest. I played World at War and Modern Warfare and Zombies and shit with the homies. But I was more into games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and KOTOR 2, and sh*t like Civilization and Portal. More strategy and puzzle-based games. Also, one of my favorite games was this platformer named Psychonauts. They just dropped the sequel. It was sick because, again, it was one of those things where I was just hoping, please don’t be bad, please don’t be bad. And it was f*cking sick. After 12 years, they finally dropped the sequel.
What were your thoughts (on Psychonauts 2)?
Storyline-wise, I was a little confused. I’m going to be honest. But I enjoyed it. There are not really that many platformers anymore. Obviously, there’s some, but I feel like platforms used to be a way bigger thing. It’s nice to find a good platformer. You feel what I’m saying?
Yeah. When we were growing up it was like, we got Mario, we got our Sonics. We got all that stuff and those were the main games everyone played. But now Psychonauts is the niche game as opposed to when it was the main type of game.
Yeah, exactly. I haven’t played the new Ratchet and Clank, but everyone says that’s sick. Have you played it?
I haven’t, but I want to. I’ve been hearing the same thing, that it’s sick. Especially because I heard it’s one of those games where you can just go into a different world almost instantly. It’s like, oh this is the type of thing you can only do on a NextGen console kind of thing.
Facts. I need to get myself a f*cking PS5 and play that sh*t.
I was going to ask if you had one yet. It’s been impossible to get one.
I don’t even have a console. I just have a PC set up.
Are you a PC gamer then?
Yeah. I play everything on PC. I’m not even going to tell you that I have the most kickass PC because it’s a prebuilt. But it gets the job done.
You did a song with Wiz Khalifa for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie a while back. What was that like working with him and everyone else there?
Working with all those people was sick. Wiz, all of them, really, they’re all legends. That was sick for me to be able to be on a song with them. But also, my first game ever was Sonic Adventure 2 on the Dreamcast. That was when I was maybe four or five years old. So the fact that I was a part of the official franchise was nuts to me. It was super cool. It was funny, I remember they didn’t have the red carpet, they had the blue carpet because it was Sonic, right? IGN came up to me and asked me for an interview, and I just lost my mind. I was like, oh my God, IGN is interviewing me. And they were like, whoa, that’s the first reaction we’ve got like that.
I was going to say, for you, was it more exciting … when you started gaining fame and popularity, was it more exciting to be talking to IGN as opposed to Hollywood Reporter or those types?
Oh, yeah! To me, like I said, because that was just something I grew up reading and being a part of. So it was just like, oh my God, is this really happening? It was sick. That was a good time.
Sueco is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Beyonce has a handful of No. 1 singles to her name, but what is perhaps her biggest song isn’t actually one of them: “Halo,” which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2009, recently became Beyonce’s first song to eclipse a billion streams on Spotify. One of the song’s co-writers is OneRepublic leader and songwriter extraordinaire Ryan Tedder, who guested on The Tonight Show yesterday. While there, he spoke about how he and co-writer E. Kidd Bogart were able to pen “Halo” in just three hours.
Tedder told Jimmy Fallon:
“I had a three-hour gap in the middle of the day. My wife was gone, I called a friend [Bogart], and I said, ‘Hey, get over here, Beyonce wants me to write a song, let’s do it together.’ He had written a big No. 1 for Rihanna [‘SOS’]. I turned the keyboard on and — I wish every session went like this, but they don’t — the first sound that happened to play on the keyboard was the opening sound of the song. It sounded like angels and I was like, ‘Why don’t we do a song about angels, like her guardian angel, like Jay-Z is her guardian angel?’ Two minutes later, it evolved into, ‘Ooh, ‘Halo,’ that’s such a cool title, let’s go with ‘Halo.” Three hours later, the song was done, and then like 12 months later, the song came out, and it was that simple.”
Meanwhile, OneRepublic performed “Someday” on the show, so check that out below.
