Music

Anderson .Paak Calls Bruno Mars ‘One Of The Greatest Vocalists I’ve Ever Worked With’

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After months of build-up, Silk Sonic finally released An Evening With Silk Sonic. The album was preceded by a trio of great singles, “Leave The Door Open,” which topped the singles chart, “Skate,” and “Smokin’ Out The Window.” So far, the reception has been positive. Shortly after it was released, Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak stopped by Apple Music to speak about the album.

“Everybody told me the cheat code is linking up with this dude,” .Paak said about Bruno. “Get Bruno on your side, and yeah, it’s dope.” He added, “I tell him all the time I have a lot of trust in him and that felt good too. I felt like a large part of my career I’ve done collabs and everything but it felt good to be able to trust a dude to try it like this – great vocal producer, one of the greatest vocalists I’ve ever worked with and just pushing me to a different level.”

Bruno also spoke about the album’s concept. “We needed this to work,” Bruno said. “We just wanted it to feel like… feel special. Instead of trying to get too cute with the concept.” He added, “It’s like, man, what’s more special than Anderson Paak behind a drum set singing a song and me having his back when it’s my turn, you know? And the band moving in the same direction, it was just like… it’s like a musician’s dream, being in the studio recording a song like that.”

You can watch Silk Sonic’s interview on Apple Music above.

An Evening With Silk Sonic is out now via Atlantic/Aftermath. Get it here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Kaytranada Is ‘Intimidated’ On His Upcoming EP With HER, Thundercat, And More

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It’s been nearly two years since Kaytranada released his sophomore album Bubba, which featured Sir, Goildlink, Tinashe, VanJess, Masego, and more, gave the Canadian producer his first Grammy awards for Best Dance Recording, thanks to “10%” with Kali Uchis, and Best Dance/Electronic Album. Just as he did in 2019, Kaytranada is gearing up to end this year on a high note, as he announced a new EP, entitled Intimated, will arrive next week. He also shared the features listeners can expect on it.

The EP only has three songs, one featuring HER, another with Thundercat, and the last one with rapper Mach-Hommy. Kaytranada confirmed that Intimidated will arrive on November 19. The track with HER, titled “Intimidated,” will make for their second collaboration, after they previously joined forces for “Bloody Waters” from HER’s debut album Back Of My Mind. It’s also a song that featured Thundercat, which makes “Be Careful,” from the upcoming EP, his and Kaytranada’s second collaboration. Lastly, “$PayForHaiti” is Kaytranada and Mach-Hommy’s first track together.

As for what’s next, Kaytranada is set to headline Lightning In A Bottle’s 2022 festival. He joins a guest list that includes Glass Animals, Purity Ring, Little Simz, Empress Of, and more for a festival that stretches over five days.

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony And Three 6 Mafia Will Face Off In An Upcoming ‘Verzuz’

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For the past few months, Verzuz has been keeping their hip-hop battles in New York. There was an exciting matchup between The LOX and Dipset, Fat Joe and Ja Rule had a battle of their own, and most recently, Big Daddy Kane and KRS-One took things back to the genre’s golden era. Now Verzuz is ready to leave the Big Apple. The platform announced that their next event will be a matchup between two L.A. crews: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Three 6 Mafia.

The event will take place on December 2 live from Los Angeles. Verzuz promised additional information about the battle is en route, but that didn’t stop people from getting excited about it. On Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s end, viewers can expect to hear classics like “The Crossroads,” “Thuggish Ruggish Bone,” and “1st Od Tha Month” from their 1990s albums Creepin On Ah Come Up and E. 1999 Eternal. As for Three 6 Mafia, their hits include “Stay Fly,” “Sippin Some Syrup,” and “Poppin’ My Collar” from their Most Known Unknown and When The Smoke Clears albums, which arrived during the 2000s.

The announcement comes after Verzuz took a step into the gaming world thanks to a “Bigs Vs. Lils”Call Of Duty: Vanguard tournament. Big Sean and Big Boi faced off against Lil Tecca and Lil Jon in a multi-round tournament hosted by T-Pain with a performance from Migos.

Big Sean And Hit-Boy Live Amongst ‘Chaos’ In Their Hectic New Video

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Just a year after Big Sean released his fifth album Detroit 2, which is executive produced by Hit-Boy, the duo reconnected once more. The pair dropped their EP What You Expect at the end of last month, and they’ve been promoting it heavily. Their run continues with a new video for “Chaos,” which finds them in the midst of chaos as people run hectically around them and in and out of buildings. The chaos continues throughout the video as fights break out and a number of items get destroyed.

What You Expect, which features Bryson Tiller, 42 Dugg, Babyface Ray, and Lil Durk, is Sean’s first project on his newly-launched label FF To Def Entertainment. He recently tweeted about the new imprint and his departure from Ye’s GOOD Music. “By the way this the first project where I’m on my own label as well,” he wrote. “No more lil dawg sh*t!!!! I bossed up!” After a fan asked if he was still signed to GOOD Music, he replied, “That’s a forever brotherhood, but business-wise, I had to start getting a bigger cut! I worked my way out that deal.”

Ye later threw that relationship into the wind by saying the worst thing he ever did was sign Sean to GOOD Music.

You can watch the video for “Chaos” above.

What You Expect is out now via FF To Def Entertainment/Def Jam. Get it here.

42 Dugg is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Kendrick Lamar Hints At A Return ‘Very Soon’ During Day N Vegas Performance

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For the first time in two years, Kendrick Lamar returned to the stage. On Friday, the rapper delivered a performance at the Day N Vegas festival, which was also the last venue he performed at, back in 2019. His set was a special one, as it found him performing a number of songs from his debut album Section.80 for the first time in nearly a decade. These include “F*ck Your Ethnicity,” “HiiiPoWeR,” “Chapter Ten.” and “Ronald Reagan Era (His Evils).” He also performed songs from Good Kid, M.a.a.d City, To Pimp A Butterfly, and DAMN. He then hinted at a proper, full return “very soon.”

After performing “Family Ties” and “Range Brothers” with Baby Keem, Kendrick shared a promising message with the crowd. “Vegas till next time,” he said. “And when I say next time I mean very soon.” This could mean that the rapper’s highly-anticipated fifth album is on the way, which will most likely be paired with an exciting tour.

Kendrick’s comments come after he gave an update on his upcoming fifth album, revealing it would be his last with Top Dawg Entertainment, a label he’d been signed to since 2005. “As I produce my final TDE album, I feel joy to have been a part of such a cultural imprint after 17 years,” he wrote in a statement. “The Struggles. The Success. And most importantly, the Brotherhood. May the Most High continue to use Top Dawg as a vessel for candid creators. As I continue to pursue my life’s calling.”

You can view clips from Kendrick’s Day N Vegas performance below.

J Balvin And Sech Connect For An Epic Warehouse Party In The ‘Una Nota’ Video

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J Balvin has been on a hot streak for quite some time now, and his latest video does not disappoint. Along with Panamanian artist Sech, he’s debuting a new video off his latest album, JOSE, that’s stuffed to the brim with feel-good reggaeton vibes and plenty of partying. The two connect in a warehouse party that’s full of dancing women and characters who promise a very entertaining evening.

With every new release, though, Balvin just continues to prove that he can’t be boxed in. From last year’s brand collaboration with McDonalds, to his stranglehold on the Latin music charts, to his Tiny Desk concert near the New York’s east river, his range is always on display. And even when he does have a misstep, like his recent “Perra” video which faced criticism for its portrayal of Black women, he immediately apologizes and owns up to his mistakes.

After a powerhouse collaboration with the likes of Skepta and his recent reinvention of Metallica’s “Wherever I May Roam” as a reggaeton song, he’s made it more than clear that he’s just going to keep taking on unexpected ventures and expanding the world’s expectations. Check out the new video with Sech up above and keep your eyes peeled for whatever he may be up to next.

A Certain Oscar-Nominated Actor Is ‘Casually Cruel’ In Taylor Swift’s Stunning ‘All Too Well: The Short Film’

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“All Too Well,” Taylor Swift‘s most beloved (and best) song, is rumored to be about her relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal. “Rumored” as she never names the actor in the Track Five (because nothing rhymes with “Gyllenhaal”?), but come on. There’s a reason he’s public enemy No. 1 among Swifties on the day that Red (Taylor’s Version) came out — “All Too Well: The Short Film” probably isn’t going to win him any fans, either.

The 13-minute video of the 10-minute song premiered on Friday at New York City’s Lincoln Center 13, where Swift also performed the song live for the first time. Now, the short film can be enjoyed by everyone — except Jake and Maggie, presumably — as it’s available on YouTube. The emotional part-music video, part-domestic drama tracks the relationship between Stranger Things standout (and Swift mega-fan) Sadie Sink as Not-Taylor and Dylan O’Brien as Not-Jake; there’s also a surprise cameo at the end.

Swift, who directed the short, told Seth Meyers that if Sink had said no to the role, “I don’t think I would’ve made it. I don’t think I would’ve made the film. I think I would’ve just been like, this is a sign.” You can watch “All Too Well: The Short Film” above.

Saweetie Drops The Full Version Of ‘Get It Girl,’ Which Appears On The New ‘Insecure’ Soundtrack

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When Saweetie’s “Get It Girl” was teased in a Beats By Dre ad earlier this month, many assumed it would be a part of her upcoming album. Well, the full song was shared today and it turns out that it’s actually appearing on the upcoming soundtrack album for the fifth and final season of Issa Rae’s HBO series Insecure.

Rae recently told Billboard of the important role music plays in the show, “From the beginning, music has played an integral part in Insecure. The music itself is a character — it’s a friend, it’s a familiar voice and that’s always been the intention. Music has a way of taking us back to a specific memory or moment in time and I think a lot of people can relate to that when they hear a song on the show. When it came to developing the final soundtrack, I knew [Insecure music supervisor Kier Lehman] and [Rae’s record label Raedio] could capture that feeling and leave our fans with something they can always return to, while also providing a platform for emerging artists to have their voices heard on an international scale.”

Benoni Tagoe, Raedio president and Rae’s longtime business partner, also noted, “Insecure and the Insecure soundtrack acts as a tool to break artists or at least introduce people to artists. [Rae has] told me there’s times when she may have picked a song, and she feels like if she watches a cut of Insecure and the song doesn’t fit, it really ruins it for her.”

Meanwhile, Saweetie is getting ready for a major step in career, as she’s set to make her first appearance as a Saturday Night Live musical guest on November 20.

Listen to “Get It Girl” above.

Insecure: Music From The HBO Original Series, Season 5 is out 12/3 via Raedio/Atlantic Records/HBO.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Silk Sonic Connects With Thundercat And Bootsy Collins On The Chill And Funky ‘After Last Night’

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At last, Bruno Mars and Anderson. Paak’s new Silk Sonic album, An Evening With Silk Sonic, is finally out. With Mars and .Paak at the helm, there’s not much need for featured guests, but they packed a couple into one track: Bootsy Collins (who also serves as the album’s narrator) and Thundercat join the fun on the smooth and funky “After Last Night.”

Mars told Apple Music of the song, “That one got a lot of Bootsy on it. And my boy Thundercat came in and blessed us. It’s just one of them songs — everything was built to be played live, so that song is one of those we can keep going for 10 minutes.”

In an interview from March, Mars said of working with Collins, “He represents what a superstar is, from the whole package, everything. From the silhouette, the glasses, and we grew up listening to that. He’s got that iconic voice, so when me and Andy put this project together, I said, ‘It’d be cool to have Bootsy narrate this thing and thread all these songs together.’” .Paak added, “We put the setlist of doom together, you know, and we needed somebody, a real OG, to host it and guide everything along.

Meanwhile, Thundercat has been doing some tweeting about the album. Late last night, he shared a photo of himself with .Paak and Mars, and this morning, he revealed he apparently got a gift from Collins, as he posted a photo of a pair of flashy glasses and wrote, “Thank you uncle @Bootsy_Collins you have made me who I am & I love you so much. Blastin off into some good vibrations!!!”

Listen to “After Last Night” above.

An Evening With Silk Sonic is out now via Atlantic Records. Get it here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

After Ye’s Infamous Taylor Swift VMAs Moment, He Did An ‘Exile’ To Japan Because ‘America Hated’ Him

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It goes without saying, but Ye (formerly Kanye West) and Taylor Swift have had a famously contentious relationship since the infamous stage-crashing incident at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Now, Ye has revealed that the situation really impacted him, so much so that during the aftermath, he fled to Japan.

The second part of Ye’s recent Drink Champs interview is out now, and in it, he revealed (as Pitchfork notes) that after the VMAs, he “did a personal exile” with Virgil Abloh in Japan because “all of America hated” him. He also said, “Everyone was like, ‘You wrong for this one, you won’t win this,’ by telling me, ‘You shouldn’t have ran on stage, you were rude,’ God forbid.”

He also addressed the VMAs in the previously released first part of the interview, saying, “I was actually talked in to going to the awards show. At that time, it was [my manager] Don C.’s job to talk me into stuff. They find new people whose job would be to talk me into doing something that I don’t want to do — influencers, people around you. So that night, I said, ‘Man, I’m not going to this awards show. I’m not sitting through this no more.’ And the very first award, they sit me in the front row. You got [Beyoncé’s] ‘Single Ladies’ video… this is one of the best videos in history. So it’s not that it’s just for her when the artist does something that’s that compelling and incredible. We got to respect it.”

Watch the new Drink Champs episode below.