Music

RINI’s ‘Constellations’ Is A Love Story To Die For And One That’s Almost Too Good To Be True

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Warner/Ralph Ordaz

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

RINI deserves to be championed for the way he writes about love. The 23-year-old Australian-born singer released his official debut album, Constellations, this past Friday, three years removed from his beautiful 2018 EP, After The Sun. Both projects focus on the dealings that occur after sundown, but Constellations takes an out-of-this-world touch to RINI’s music, offering a beautiful love story that any hopeless romantic would die for 00 even though it seems far too good to be true. The young singer also receives help from Wale, a wordsmith certified to speak about the ups and downs of love, and Maeta, a newcomer who also has a fresh takes on romance to share.

Constellations leans heavily on brute honesty. RINI shows no fear, with the confidence that the woman he desires so much is the one. It’s no surprise that he lays all his cards face-up before her. “Red Lights,” the first song of the album, evokes the hair-pulling wait that occurs en route to a new flame. It’s clear that the relationship is new and fresh as his eagerness makes a routine stop at a red light far more grueling than usual. Backed by production that amplifies RINI’s lusty cries, you can feel his urge to cut corners and break rules to reach his desired destination.

Behind this song’s literal meaning comes a metaphor as well. The “red lights” RINI bemoans also signify the necessary breaks one should take as a relationship grows. RINI obeys these procedures, going from the realization of falling in love on “Over Some Wine” and “Butterflies” — so much so that it even surprises himself — to surefire commitment on “For Days” and “Craving.” RINI trusted the process and it got him all he wanted and more.

An impressive aspect of the album is RINI’s ability to spend so much time on the “cloud nine” period of love without sounding redundant. From “Butterflies” to the outro track of Constellations, RINI falls down a neverending tunnel of love. It helps that he also slightly pivots his focus through each track. “Mimosa” and “Need It” present a warm yearning for his partner’s return during their time apart while “Bedtime Story” begs to make their moments of intimacy last forever. “Talk To Me,” as on “Out Of The Blue,” seeks the reassurance to confirm he’s that he’s not the only one head-over-heels four times over in this relationship. Listeners are given just enough to understand nearly all of RINI’s feelings in romance without becoming suffocating.

It makes perfect sense that RINI named his debut Constellations. The way he presents it through the album’s 12 songs, love is as beautiful as the stars in the sky. In both cases, when you truly fall for it, you’ll crave its return throughout the day, immerse yourself in its beauty at nightfall, and dread its departure as the sun returns to begin the next day. He also believes love’s best moments occur once the sun goes down. Whether it’s the vulnerability that the darkest hours present or the inactive state of the world that allows for uninterrupted intimacy, it’s ironically the time where his romance blooms.

Constellations is out now via Warner Records. Get it here.

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

Baby Rich Delivers A Polished ‘UPROXX Sessions’ Performance Of ‘No Chances’

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In a bouncy performance of his song “No Chances” for UPROXX Sessions, Alabama-born newcomer Baby Rich switches from a smooth, staccato flow to melodic crooning and back as he details all the chances that he won’t take in a relationship. From the lyrics on the swooning chorus, Rich’s philosophy would seem to be “money before women,” while the rapid-fire verses explain exactly why he feels that way.

While he’s not a super well-established face yet, fans attending DDG‘s currently ongoing tour with Kevin Gates can catch Baby Rich as his opening act. Born in Birmingham, Baby Rich has since relocated to Los Angeles and signed with DDG, who appears on another of Rich’s singles, “Simon Says.”

Still at the outset of his career, Rich has all the potential to become a breakout star in his own right with DDG’s guidance and the increased exposure from accompanying his mentor on tour. He’s already adopted DDG’s approach of video logging his experiences on tour, sharing with fans on his YouTube channel. You can even catch a glimpse of him recording his UPROXX Sessions performance in one.

Watch Baby Rich’s UPROXX Sessions performance of “No Chances” above.

SZA’s Upcoming Concerts Are ‘Not A Tour,’ But They Include Some North American Shows This Fall

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Over the past few months, the live music industry has been crawling its way back to normal. Now, SZA is joining that push, as she just announced she has a string of shows coming up on November.

For one reason or another, she insists it’s not a proper “tour,” writing on Twitter, “Uhhh Iss not a tour but I WILL be singing songs in multiple cities at night time lmao ..COME.” While the list of dates isn’t massive — she’s playing Houston, Austin, Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake City, and the Day N Vegas Festival — they seem to be presented as a tour, under the “Good Days Fall 2021” banner.

Beyond getting these shows planned, SZA has kept busy in recent times. Last month, she dropped a video for her Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack contribution “The Anonymous Ones” and sang in Spanish on Kali Uchis’ “Fue Mejor” remix. Last week, she also linked up with James Blake for “Coming Back.”

Find the full list of SZA’s upcoming shows below and get tickets here.

11/03/2021 — Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live
11/06/2021 — Austin, TX @ Emo’s Austin
11/07/2021 — Dallas, TX @ South Side Music Hall
11/09/2021 — Denver, CO @ Fillmore Auditorium
11/11/2021 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union
11/14/2021 — Las Vegas, NV @ Day N Vegas Festival

Doja Cat Officially Surpasses Drake As The Rapper With The Most Monthly Spotify Listeners

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For the past several years, Drake has absolutely dominated streaming numbers on Spotify. Several of his songs sit at over one billion streams and he was even named the most-streamed Spotify artist of the decade along with Ed Sheeran and Post Malone. But some of his Spotify stats have recently changed, as Doja Cat has now surpassed Drake as the rapper with the most monthly listeners on the streaming platform.

As first reported by XXL, Drake has 63,302,316 monthly listeners on Spotify, whereas Doja Cat managed to slightly beat that number thanks to the success of her 2021 album Planet Her. Beating Drake’s monthly listener count by several hundred thousand, Doja Cat now boasts 63,690,597 monthly listeners.

Doja Cat’s new feat counts as another career win for the musician, but she recently revealed she was starting to feel burnt out from hustling a little too hard. In a series of since-deleted tweets earlier this month, Doja Cat went off about how she never takes breaks from constantly working. “I’m just tired and i don’t want to do anything,” she wrote. “I’m not happy. I’m done saying yes to motherf*ckers cuz I can’t even have a week to just chill. I’m never not working. I’m f*cking tired.”

Planet Her is out now via Kemosabe/RCA. Get it here.

Lil Durk Is Going Back To School To Get His High School Diploma

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Just days short of his 29th birthday, Lil Durk is quite the accomplished young man. In the 11th year of his rap career, he’s bigger than ever, thanks in part to Drake putting him on the 2020 single “Laugh Now, Cry Later.” After years of being a cult favorite, Durk has spent the months since Drake’s co-sign enjoying his status as one of rap’s go-to feature artists, lending his voice to breakout singles from Pooh Shiesty and Coi Leray, teaming up with Lil Baby for a joint album, and elevating singles from a slew both established stars and up-and-comers.

But there’s one thing he has yet to do that he’s now setting his sights on accomplishing: Finishing high school and earning his diploma. In an effort to challenge himself and expand his worldview, he announced his intention on Twitter. “I’m going to get my high school diploma,” he wrote. “I want to challenge myself on my goals and real life situations.”

His admirable intentions drew a varied response from fans, some of whom were supportive of his decisions while others ridiculed him for going back to school at the age of 28. But there’s nothing wrong with continuing your education, and it’s never too late to pursue any goal — especially one aimed at bettering yourself and setting a good example. I salute Durk’s decision and look forward to posting about his graduation, just like with Quavo last year.

Megan Thee Stallion Shares The One Thing She Relates To The Most In Anime Shows

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When she’s not on the road or collaborating with major brands like Popeyes and Revlon, Megan Thee Stallion is watching anime. She has so much love for the genre that she even partnered with anime streaming platform Crunchyroll for some eye-catching merch. Now combining her love of hot foods and anime, Megan joined an episode of Hot Ones to explain what exactly she loves so much about watching anime.

When asked about her go-to anime show on Hot Ones, Megan described the series Black Clover, which she says she’s currently watching. The rapper explains why she relates to the only character who doesn’t have magic, saying she loves proving to everyone she’s stronger than they first expected:

“My favorite character on the show is Asta because this motherf*cker is always screaming and hollering. Even if they’re in the middle of the fight, he’ll just bust out with some goofy sh*t. […] I just feel like I can relate to him, and a lot of the other characters in anime, because people will try to count you out when they feel like you ain’t sh*t or you ain’t got something yet. But you train and train, and you fight and fight, you keep proving everybody wrong and you keep beating the odds. I feel like, that’s the type of person I am.”

Watch Megan’s Hot Ones segment above.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Lil Baby Plays A ‘Squid Game’-Inspired Challenge To Try To Win Some Sneakers

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Everybody is obsessed with Squid Game, the Netflix drama in which a group of desperate people competes in children’s games for a massive payout — only to discover that elimination in the games means death. People love the show so much that they’ve begun competing in their own makeshift Squid Games in real life (minus the threat of imminent death, of course).

One such group is the high-end sneaker store Patnmoon, which invited customers to compete in the dalgona challenge from the show, in which a shape must be pieced out of a circular honeycomb toffee without breaking the shape itself. The prize is merch from the store, including Chrome Hearts apparel, Off White Nike Dunks, or a PlayStation 5.

And wouldn’t you know it, the store’s staff convinced Atlanta rapper Lil Baby to try his luck, posting a short video to TikTok. Baby always seems game to play around with TikTok-ers, previously participating in a quiz of his own lyrics (and inexplicably failing somewhat miserably). This time around we don’t get to see how he did, but considering he’s trying the umbrella — the most difficult shape to carve out, according to the show, we can assume he probably didn’t make it.

@patnmoon

Lil Baby tries squid game with patnmoon

♬ original sound – Patnmoon Moon

Of course, Baby’s got more than enough money to just purchase the expensive wares at Patnmoon, so he was probably able to laugh off any potential losses — especially since no masked, triangle-faced soldiers were hovering nearby to punish him like in the show.

Kehlani Says Her Upcoming Album Is ‘Vastly Different’ From Anything She’s Written Before

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Kehlani announced her upcoming album Blue Water Road in a highly conceptual way. She unveiled the LP’s title with an eerie trailer, which teases a winter release date. The singer’s album announcement was different from how she’s publicized projects in the past, but that’s because this LP is apparently “vastly different” from what she’s written before.

Kehlani discussed her different direction in Rolling Stone‘s Musicians On Musicians series in an interview with Alicia Keys. The singer even notes that she wouldn’t put it in the same genre as her other albums:

“I’m about to drop music that, to me, feels vastly different than anything I’ve ever created. I wouldn’t call it the same genre sonically as I’ve done before. And I’m scared about it because I’m like, ‘Y’all may receive it and just feel like Kehlani is dropping another project.’ And to me, I’m making a pivot creatively because it was something I always wanted to do with people I always wanted to do it with.”

The singer went on to note that she’s nervous to see people’s reactions to the project, but hopes to take the feedback in stride. “I guess I just be nervous, but I had to also stop psyching myself out,” she continued. “I try to look from this big bird’s-eye view of like, ‘Well, I’m probably going to drop like five more albums. I’m going to have this experience a bunch of more times, don’t freak out, be like water, let it come out. Let people think whatever they think.’ I try to always come back to the emotion that I felt when I was creating it.”

Read Rolling Stone‘s full Musicians On Musicians profile with Kehlani and Alicia Keys here.

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

Drake Reportedly Didn’t Want His ‘Degrassi’ Character Jimmy To Be In A Wheelchair

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Before Drake was an international superstar or a Certified Lover Boy, he was Aubrey Graham, an ensemble member on the Canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. This fact has been brought up as a mark against him, since the prevailing belief at the time he started his rap career was that rappers should come from hardscrabble beginnings and work their way up from nothing (this was never accurate, but try telling that to the folks who still hate Drake over it to this day).

Apparently, Drake foresaw some of this attitude even as he appeared on the show, resisting a development for his character Jimmy that came to define the role — as well as saddle Drake with one of his most enduring, demeaning nicknames, “Wheelchair Jimmy.” In a two-part season-four episode about the effects of bullying as well as touching on a new violent trend in then-current events, a character named Rick, fed up with mistreatment from his classmates, brings a gun to school and shoots Jimmy in the back as he runs away. Jimmy spends the next several seasons in a wheelchair. Drake, however, was initially adamant that his character not be paralyzed — mainly because of how he thought his rapper friends and fans might interpret the move.

In a new oral history of Degrassi for AVClub, the show’s writer James Hurst explains how the show’s staff learned of Drake’s apprehension… as well as how he convinced the burgeoning star to accept the change:

There was a letter from a law firm in Toronto, and it was from Aubrey. It was an odd letter that said, “Aubrey Graham will not return to Degrassi season six as Jimmy Brooks unless his injury is healed, and he’s out of the wheelchair.” I said, “Get him down here.” He came in and was like, “What letter? I don’t know about that.” And I said, “All right, I understand. But how do you feel about the wheelchair?” He’s like, “All my friends in the rap game say I’m soft because I’m in a wheelchair.” And I said, “Well, tell your friends in the rap game that you got shot. How much harder can you get? You got shot, and you’re in a wheelchair.” He was like, “Yeah, yeah.” He was so nice and apologetic about everything. He instantly backed down. I was very passionate about it, and I said, “Aubrey, there’s some kid somewhere in a wheelchair, who’s completely ignored, who’s never on television, never gets represented.” I need you to represent this person. You’re the coolest kid on the show, and you can say there’s nothing wrong with being in a wheelchair.”

Drake apparently got over it, and over the “Wheelchair Jimmy” appellation, eventually incorporating it as a self-deprecating sobriquet. And while he never quite shook off the “soft” designation, he learned to flip every derogatory assessment of himself from fans into a positive, becoming a one-man meme machine whose goofy sense of humor serves him in good stead to this day. Just check out his video for “Way 2 Sexy.”

You can read the full Degrassi oral history over on AV Club.