Today, four-time Grammy®-nominated country artist Mickey Guyton unveiled her highly-anticipated new album House On Fire, available now on all streaming platforms via Universal Music Group Nashville. The 12-track album features a collaboration with Kane Brown and marks a significant moment in Guyton’s career, showcasing her signature blend of heartfelt storytelling and powerful, soulful vocals.
The album’s title track, “House on Fire,” takes listeners on an emotional journey, with Guyton singing, “Love and war ain’t easy after all” and asking, “If I go and set this house on fire…will you still love me?” The track sets the tone for an album that balances vulnerability with empowerment, offering a fresh yet deeply personal perspective.
In addition to the title track, House On Fire includes previously released singles like “Scary Love,” “Make It Me,” “Nothing Compares To You,” and “My Side of The Country,” highlighting Guyton’s versatility as both a vocalist and songwriter. From dancefloor anthems to introspective ballads, the album showcases her ability to deliver across genres.
House On Fire is Mickey’s first full-length album since her 2021 release Remember Her Name, which earned her three Grammy nominations and made history as the first Black female artist nominated in the country music categories.
Most recently, Guyton performed at the Democratic National Convention and ahead of the US Open Women’s Singles final. She just embarked on her first headlining tour, kicking off in Washington D.C. on September 26, with several stops across the U.S. and Canada. Tickets are available at MickeyGuyton.com.
Joe Budden once worked for Diddy, hit a couple of parties, and was even seen by his side in pictures. But he wants you to know that he is not in any of the freak-off tapes.
Speaking on his podcast, Budden cleared his name.
“For the last time, can y’all take me off the list of names that y’all think is on these tapes?” Budden asked. “Why are y’all so hell bent on putting niggas on these tapes? I ran the jokes long but I thought the joke was a joke because of who I be.
“Clearly it’s a new crop of people out there that don’t know who I be, so they like, ‘Oh he might be that.’ I ain’t. No more jokes. Even though I was a force in that world for like three weeks. They was ready to trick. They was offering vacays and shopping without an ounce of flirting.”
Leon Thomas is an imperfect man in an equally imperfect world. His sophomore album Mutt, out now, depicts him surveying the damage and debris left behind over the last year due to both life and love.
“Mutt is an example of me really perfecting that sound and just continuing to tell these stories as I’m a single guy doing my thing, trying to figure it out, trying to find love in a very interesting dating circus that we have right now,” Thomas tells Uproxx over a Zoom call.
Though this “very interesting dating circus” serves as entertainment in the form of an album, it brought forth important life lessons for Thomas thanks to his new dog. “As I started working on the album in my new home, I began to notice similarities between my dog’s behavior and my own,” Thomas noted in a press release for Mutt. “It made me think about the give and take in relationships, and the struggle for obedience.”
He added, “Even though my dog may sometimes make a mess in the house or bark loudly at the neighbors, I know he means well. This became a metaphor for not being a perfect partner but having good intentions.”
On Mutt, Thomas flips through moments of this past relationship to recall the flawed behaviors and moments by both him and his ex-partner. “Safe Place” kicks in gear with a steady drum that pedals Thomas’ infatuation with the fast life and how it may not be appealing for a companion. Thomas uses soul-stirring ballads to navigate the imbalances of love caused by either him (“I Do”) or his partner (“Yes It Is”). Then, with help from Masego (“Lucid Dreams”) and Wale (“Feelings On Silent”), comes the struggle to silence the noise and move forward.
Before the release of Mutt, Uproxx caught up with Leon Thomas to discuss his sophomore album, finding love in his current home of Los Angeles, and how fame and success affect his pursuit of love.
We’re a little over a year removed from the release of Electric Dusk. What in that time gave you the confidence and confirmation to get right back to it and craft another project?
I knew going into my deal with Motown that they wanted two albums in my first cycle with them. So, even prior to dropping Electric Dusk, I was in the studio really trying to figure out what the sound palette was going to be and how I was going to progress from the first album to the second. Touring and seeing the response to my first album really gave me a jolt of energy towards the tail end of this creative process. I went through some breakups and some turbulence that really turned into some amazing songs. It was cool to live life and express myself through music on this new project. It’s definitely a labor of love and I feel like I really found an amazing pocket to live in for this new album.
Your new album Mutt is inspired by the similarities you saw between you and your dog’s behavior and how you both make mistakes despite having the best intentions. What was the exact moment you made this realization?
This is kind of trippy, I don’t know how this works with you guys, but listen, I was doing some shrooms for a lot of this album, right? I was staring at this new painting I have in my house. I’m on the floor Indian style looking at this new painting [and] I’m kind of tripping. My cat and my dog are fighting. My cat, she’s older than my dog, so she makes sure he’s in pocket, and they were going at it. She hit him with a paw, he whimpered, and he had this face. I think because I was tripping a little bit, I just saw the similarities between the two of us just living life, [and] trying to figure things out. He had the best intention, all he wanted to do was play. It was interesting to see him in that moment.
There’s such a connection between dogs and music from Elvis to Snoop Dogg. We’ve seen this metaphor [with] Parliament-Funkadelic. It’s been a common theme because I think there’s a real element of control that we have as human beings and that dog correlation definitely makes a lot of sense. I wanted to play into it and see what happens.
There’s a lot of hip-hop-inspired production on this album. For example, you have a beat from Conductor Williams on here. For a breakup R&B album, why did you feel like that was the soundscape to have for your story?
That’s a really interesting question. After I got out of my long-term relationship, there were times when I was super inspired by everything that Alchemist was doing [and] all the Madlib tapes he did with Freddie Gibbs and a bunch of other cats. That was a huge source of inspiration for me. There was this light bulb moment of, man, I haven’t really heard a lot of R&B artists sing on tracks that have that lo-fi production. I know for a fact that as a musician, I can make some of these sample-based ideas come to life with my band and I just wanted to attack it.
I’m a huge fan of hip-hop from A Tribe Called Quest up to Pharrell, and you know, with Pharrell being a really big inspiration for me, and even Kanye [West], I see how that can turn into really classic moments. Conductor, to me, has this J Dilla sound that I’m a huge fan of. I’m just glad I was able to pair that up with my vocals and turn it into something special.
You start off the album with “How Fast,” which is, contextually, a complete change of pace from “Slow Down,” the intro to Electric Dusk. What in the past year has brought on this new perspective, and have your thoughts on the woman on “Slow Down” changed?
What’s interesting is that I just feel like [with] being on tours, moving pretty crazy, it’s so easy to move too fast and miss very important things. “How Fast” is just an example of me understanding myself more and just asking the question, “How fast till it all comes crashes down?” You want to find balance on this journey, but you gotta keep it moving. “How Fast” was me expressing myself and just talking that talk, talking my sh*t. I feel like I’m getting more confident, I’m popping out more, I’m doing my thing, and I wanted to show people on this album that I’m not afraid of the man I’m becoming. I’m just more confident these days, so I wanted to show that on a lot of these songs.
On “Feelings On Silent,” you repeat this one line multiple times throughout the song: “Don’t tell me what they say about me.” There’s a certain desire to be numb to the outside that you display here, especially with that line. Where does that come from and how did it come about?
We live in a world of communication through social media and I think it’s really just me just trying to, like you said, quiet the noise. People love to talk, they love to gossip, and all this other sh*t. For me, I’m just focused on my dreams and focused on my inner circle and my inner self. I feel like “Feelings On Silent” is just a ballad talking about how numb you have to be in order to be an artist.
One thing I love about this album is you do a great job keeping the balance of blame in the aftermath of this breakup. From the male perspective, a lot of these breakup albums are either “she did me dirty” or “I f*cked up and now I gotta win her back.” There’s a nice balance there, was it intentional for you to keep this balance?
I wish I was super intentional about that, but I think it’s just me expressing myself. I’m growing man, I’m learning [and] getting into my spiritual walk and prayer, and just knowing myself more. Accountability is a huge part of growth, so I’m just expressing that through the music without even explaining myself, just expressing myself. That comes with a little bit of a back-and-forth. There are times when people have done me wrong and there are times when I’ve done the same. I just wanted to express both sides of it because that’s the real sign of growth when you can do both.
After going through the breakup that inspired the album, as well as creating the project, what is your stance on being the perfect partner? Is it possible to be perfect?
I feel like fools chase perfection. I think it’s really important to be constantly growing and honest with yourself. You can have a partner that fits you right now, but you’re both going to evolve. So it’s just about just genuinely finding ways to grow with each other. That’s why, for me, I’m big on friendships and trying to build and cultivate them because that lasts longer than the physical attraction. A lot of that comes from just knowing yourself, but the perfect partner? I don’t think [it] exists. I think the partner that’s gonna be the best for you over time, that’s the real piece, and that’s something I’m still looking for to this day.
What would you say are your biggest frustrations with love? Songs like “Far Fetched” point to the frustrations of a materialistic woman (something I think appears in your music a lot). And despite these frustrations, what makes you keep trying at it?
I think we all deserve it, man. I think it’s an important thing to have. It’s the thing that grows the family tree. It keeps you balanced. There’s no powerful man without a powerful woman behind him — or beside him, I should say. It’s just been a journey living in LA. I feel like it’s a place where you can travel to houses with Rolls Royces and Lamborghinis and flashing lights and makeup and surgeries, and then you go like a short 10-minute trip down to Skid Row and it’s literally hell, it’s just insane, you know?
That dichotomy of intense poverty and intense wealth all in the same place really focuses a lot of people’s energy and intentions on financial gain and that bleeds into trying to find a partner and it’s tough and very frustrating. Being a black man and trying to figure things out in a world that doesn’t always cater to my growth, it can be tough to kind of trust in somebody who really just wants a check.
When you look back at this album — all the moments and just creating the music for it — what’s one memory that sticks out the most for you?
I set up my house like a musical playground. I had my living room constantly playing loads of anime at that time – the Studio Ghibli films, Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, and just vibes like that. I was kind of getting my infant child together. I had a whole studio room in the back with a live drum set and I would constantly just make music and then watch movies and kick it. It was a time where I was spending a lot of time by myself, but it’s where I came up with the concept for the album [and] finished a bunch of songs for it. I think another very important part of this creative process was meeting Rob and D. Phelps, they’re a production duo called The Doctors. They brought such an element of live musicianship, that’s how we made “Mutt” [and] we made “I Used To” working with Baby Rose and having a live band playing with us while we were recording like the old time days. [It] just brought a whole new level of musicianship to the body of music that I’m making right now.
I like to look at albums as little puzzle pieces that, in time, come together to tell a story about a musician’s artistry. How do you hope the Leon Thomas–Mutt era is remembered a year or so from now?
I don’t think much about that, but, I genuinely want people to feel like they know me better. I want them to just understand my musical palette. I explore a couple of different subgenres throughout this album and I just want to be seen as more than just a straight up-and-down R&B artist. That’s why there are hip-hop and rock themes because I feel like it’s very important for them to understand that I’m a creative who works with other artists for a reason. I am a melting pot and I’m just really looking forward for people to see me for exactly who I am – just a creative mind. I hope that they accept the fact that I create with no boundaries.
Mutt is out now via EZMNY Records/Motown Records. Find out more information here.
Today (September 27), yet another special guest verse from Young Thug hit streaming platforms, this time courtesy of Nigo’s “Dope Boy.” The track proves that Lil Uzi Vert isn’t the only rapper with endless fashion.
On the record, Young Thug shows off his eye for designer duds and extravagant jewelry, a.k.a the quintessential dope boy fly uniform.
“Dope boy Nike, spikes, they can’t spy, kid / Lawnmower service, I ain’t have to sell white-tee’s / Orange and blue Richard Mille, feel like Spike Lee / Put my daughter in Fendi blankets when she night-nighty,” raps Young Thug.
Although the song only runs for a little over a minute and a half, that’s just enough of a treat to hold Young Thug fans over. Also, it is unclear if this song is the starting point for Young Thug’s next full-length project.
If not, that doesn’t matter much, as Young Thug fans are still running up the streaming numbers on beloved his 2023 release, Business Is Business, which featured appearances by Drake, Future, 21 Savage, Travis Scott, and more.
Listen to Nigo’s new song “Dope Boy” with Young Thug above.
The music, drinks, and shared passion for creativity were flowing this weekend as UPROXX Studios and Hennessy hosted The Sound + Vision Awards, a first-of-its-kind awards show honoring the artists driving music culture forward.
Taking place at will.i.am’s FYI Campus, the event was packed with celebrity guests and music tastemakers — gathered together to celebrate the behind-the-scenes visionaries who drive music culture through music video direction, stage choreography, merch design, and so much more.
We’re talking Tino Schaedler, the creative director behind Travis Scott and SAULT’s futuristic on-stage designs; Adrian Martinez, the go-to campaign collaborator of Peso Pluma and Bad Bunny; Sean Kusanagi, the mind behind ODESZA’s stage show; Tyler, the Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw team; and Eric Haze, the artist imagining music culture’s most recognizable logos.
To kick off the event, UPROXX threw a pre-show party fueled by bespoke Hennessy cocktails, eclectic bites crafted by culinary design studio AnanasAnanas, caviar bumps, and stunning floral ice sculptures. Guests mingled while enjoying musical performances from Isaiah Collier and J. Rocc before comedian and host Reggie Watts opened the show, setting the stage for an electrifying celebration filled with surprise appearances and some inspiring storytelling that all shined a light on the often unsung creative heroes in the world of music. LL Cool J stopped by to hand out a Lifetime Achievement award to Haze while ODESZA’s live show lead, Sean Kusanagi, gushed about the privilege of getting to make art that moves people.
Dive deeper into the nominees and honorees by visiting UPROXX’s Sound + Vision platform, and stay tuned for more looks from the inaugural show.
The word “legend” gets thrown around too loosely these days — as do the epithets “G.O.A.T.” (“greatest of all time”), “icon,” and “generational talent.” All too often, they get applied to artists or athletes in the midst of a great, maybe even mind-blowing run. But they are also applied too quickly, before the true test of iconic status can really be weathered or overcome: Time. Runs end; even some of the most paradigm-shifting talents can come and go in the matter of months or just years. Perhaps they set the foundation for true greatness to stand on after them, and that should be noted, but they probably shouldn’t be remembered as pillars or exemplars of their craft.
Wednesday night at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, Usher Raymond earned — or rather, proved that he long ago already earned — all-time status with the Los Angeles stop of his aptly-titled Past Present Future Tour.
Here’s a thought exercise: Think of Usher’s contemporaries in R&B or pop music — the Justin Timberlakes, the Tevin Campbells, the myriad of quartets, trios, and boy bands to have come and gone since Usher’s debut in 1994 with his self-titled album. Stars have fallen; controversies, both fabricated and substantiated, have stalled ascensions; many have reached dizzying heights but become untethered from the craftsmanship that made them. Even beyond just smooth vocalists, Usher stands more or less alone.
Sure, Snoop Dogg has become a titan of pop culture, but his last RIAA-certified album was 2008’s Ego Trippin’. He’s better known for sports commentary than music at this point. Jay-Z? Hasn’t made a new album since 2017’s 4:44 (critically hailed though it was). And a handful of Usher’s contemporaries are so much worse off at this point — especially this year — that it’s better not to mention them at all.
But Usher, who garnered his first Hot 100 No. 1 in 1997 with “Nice & Slow,” and whose string of Hot 100 hits continues to this day with his independent album Coming Home and its lead single “Good Good,” has nearly outlasted them all. He’s retained his radio relevance while becoming the sort of towering titan of pop culture capable of headlining the Super Bowl Halftime Show, which he did this year to tremendous acclaim, reminding doubters that he’s got almost 30 years worth of hits to draw from. He did just that at BET Awards in June as he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
And he does it again on the Remy Martin-backed Past Present Future Tour, with a setlist reaching all the way back to his fresh-faced debut and running through R&B touchstones like “Burn,” “Lovers And Friends,” “My Way,” “Superstar,” “U Remind Me,” and “You Make Me Wanna…”; club classics like ““DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love” and “Yeah!”; and the sports stadium staple “OMG.”
Wednesday night, Usher also showcased the depth of his Rolodex, employing comedic chops alongside a bare-chested Kevin Hart, who teased the audience with his own rendition of “Nice & Slow” before being given the tongue-in-cheek boot by his host. Breakout star Tommy Richman put in an appearance to chirp his way through his smash “Million Dollar Baby” before Usher’s spiritual ancestor Stevie Wonder took to his piano at center stage, with the star of the evening doing duets to “Ribbon In The Sky” and more. Who else has that kind of pull, plus the generosity to cede the spotlight to his inspirations?
What impressed me the most is that I saw Usher do nearly the same setlist — albeit with a shuffled song order — at his Las Vegas residency not a full year ago. His stage at Intuit Dome struck me as being far less elaborate than the stage at Dolby Live at Park MGM — it certainly never transformed into a scale replica of his hometown’s Magic City, opting for a more (ahem) stripped-down approach — yet his performance was no less engaging. I didn’t think he’d have the room to pull off his roller skating tricks, and yet, he did. The crowd was inarguably larger than the capacity at his theater show, yet even the rafters were rollicking to “There Goes My Baby” and “Climax.”
The new venue undoubtedly helped; at some point during the show, I texted my editor to request that I only cover concerts at Intuit Dome for the rest of my tenure at Uproxx. Yes, there’s a little homerism from a lifelong Clippers fan, but the building’s design, intended to highlight the partisanship of a basketball home game, also lends itself toward amazing acoustics that complement its state-of-the-art, brand-new sound system, and terrific sight lines, as even sitting at a right angle to the stage, budged up against The Wall (inspired by college arenas), allowed a fantastic view of the stage and its recesses.
But, honestly, Usher doesn’t really need the help. Even without the massive, cutting-edge production on display, without the fleet of rigorously conditioned dancers, without the laser lights, and without the double-digit costume changes he effected throughout the night, Usher would be the consummate performer. He’s not just a once-in-a-generation talent, he’s a multigenerational one. He’s got a massive past catalog to draw from, but he’s also a modern hitmaker and superstar — and like his hero Stevie, he’s likely to remain one for generations to come.
In April of last year, Pras was found guilty of ten charges related to an alleged international conspiracy to help Malaysian businessman Jho Low and the Chinese government gain access to United States officials. He faces up to 20 years in prison for alleged conspiracy to defraud the US, witness tampering, and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. Now, according to new legal documents obtained by AllHipHop, he’s made a request for a sentencing hearing.
Reportedly, Pras and his legal team have proposed a December 20 deadline for a Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing. This is a document written by a defense attorney to convince a judge to give their client the lowest possible sentence. They also ask that the sentencing hearing itself take place on January 10, 13, or 14 of 2025.
Pras Asks For Sentencing Hearing In January Of 2025
(C) Pras Michel, (R) Lauryn Hill and (L) Wyclef Jean perform at Oakland Arena on November 07, 2023 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images)
Pras’ latest request comes just weeks after he was denied a retrial. He’d previously accused his attorney of using generative AI for his closing arguments, resulting in several errors. The program attributed some of Diddy’s song lyrics to Pras, for example, among other mistakes. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly argued that Pras failed to show how this could have impacted the outcome of the trial. “Notably, the content derived from the AI program did not relate to any evidence in the case, only general sympathetic statements and one lyrical quote,” Kollar-Kotelly said.
The request also follows Lauryn Hill’s last-minute Fugees North American tour cancelation. She attributed this to false narratives created by the media. Pras, on the other hand, blamed her “reputation” for arriving late or not at all hurting ticket sales. What do you think of Pras requesting a sentencing hearing in January of next year? Share your thoughts in the comments section down below and keep an eye on HNHH for more updates.
