Saba

Saba Announces His Third Album, ‘Few Good Things,’ And Confirms It’s ‘Coming Soon’

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Saba Capitol Hill Block Party 2019
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Saba has been involved in some quality projects over his career, including his first two albums, 2016’s Bucket List Project and 2018’s Care For Me. He also spearheaded Pivot Gang’s 2019 compilation You Can’t Sit With Us. However, for the past couple of years, Saba’s releases have been scarce, having delivered just a few singles since his last album. Thankfully, that’s about to change. On Wednesday he officially announced his third album, Few Good Things, is “coming soon,” and he showed his gratitude to his supporters in a string of tweets.

“Thank you to everyone who waited,” he wrote. “I can’t believe I’m writing this right now but i’m ready. With everything going on, it gets hard to take your time. It’s something I find valuable in my own art. But y’all have grown with me through years of this sh*t now. And I’m extremely grateful.”

He added, “I’ve both lost so much and gained so much since the last go round. These last few years have been eternities for me. This next one is special to me. If you’ve ever been a supporter of me and Pivot in anyway, RT my next tweet.” In the following next post, Saba announced the album and promised a new single would arrive on Thursday.

This comes after Pivot Gang producer Squeak was shot and killed back in August. Squeak produced a number of songs for Saba and other Pivot Gang members prior to his tragic death.

Lute’s Long-Awaited Album ‘Gold Mouf’ Features JID, Little Brother, Saba And More

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Dreamville fans have been waiting for Lute’s album Gold Mouf for a longer time than originally anticipated after a global pandemic set back its release last year. In February of 2020, Lute started the hype train rolling with his “GED” video and a related web series, only to see the entire music industry shut down as a result of COVID-19 safety protocols. In the meantime, though, he collected his platinum plaques from the Revenge Of The Dreamers III compilation.

Now, though, the industry is once again humming, venues across the nation have reopened, and Lute finally has a release date for Gold Mouf, the follow-up to his well-received 2017 debut album West1996 Pt. 2: October 4. Today, he revealed the release date and the feature-filled tracklist, which contains nods to both his Dreamville family and his North Carolina roots. Fellow Dreamvillians Ari Lennox, Cozz, and JID appear on three separate tracks, while out-of-town assistance comes in the form of features from BJ The Chicago Kid, Blakk Soul, Devn, Saba, and Westside Boogie.

But North Carolina natives and fans of the sort of soulful throwback hip-hop embodied by much of Dreamville’s roster will likely be most excited to see the pioneering rap group Little Brother included. Considered inspirations to many of today’s top rappers, including Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and Dreamville’s own J. Cole, the NC-based Little Brother eventually spawned the Grammy-winning efforts of former producer/DJ 9th Wonder and the multi-talented, do-it-all industry expanse of Phonte Coleman. Little Brother recently reunited as a duo featuring Phonte and Big Pooh with the blessing of 9th Wonder, making the occasion one to be truly excited for.

Gold Mouf is due 10/4 via Dreamville. Check out the tracklist below.

Pivot Gang Producer Squeak Has Reportedly Died At The Age Of 26

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MFNMelo and Squeak (front)
Michael Salisbury

Chicago indie rap crew Pivot Gang mourns the loss of their producer and friend Squeak, who has died of as-yet-unknown causes at 26, as confirmed by Pitchfork through the group’s representative. Squeak was one of the group’s three producers along with Daedae and Daoud, crafting beats for the group’s first group album You Can’t Sit With Us in 2019, as well as for its individual members Frsh Waters, Joseph Chilliams, MFnMelo, and Saba. Most recently, he and MFnMelo released En Route, an eight-song EP featuring Rexx Life Raj, in June.

Squeak also doubled as DJ for the group’s live shows, including their 2019 John Walt Day concert in Chicago in honor of another of the group’s fallen members who was killed in February of 2017. Squeak also engineered for the group, recording the offerings that allowed them to go from an upstart crew of rap freshmen at the tail end of the blog era to a fixture of Chicago’s flourishing rap scene.

Squeak’s passing drew a wave of appreciative and sorrowful tweets from that scene, as well as many from outside it, as friends, fans, and peers mourned his loss. Among the well-wishers was Chance The Rapper, who came up alongside Pivot member Saba in a student creative group in high school and recorded with him on his 2016 mixtape Coloring Book. Rest in peace, Squeak. You’ll be missed.

Saba Assists R&B Rising Star Cautious Clay In His Nintendo-Inspired ‘Strange Love’ Video

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As a longtime passenger/oft-times driver of the Saba fan bandwagon, I am extremely here for the Chicago rapper doing more features lately. After joining Audrey Nuna for the introspective “Top Again” video, Saba contributes a verse to rising R&B star Cautious Clay’s Nintendo-inspired, animated video for “Strange Love.” The video follows a CGI version of Clay as he shops a store full of Strange Love plushies. However, after being hypnotized by one of the strange heart-shaped products, he gets addicted, shoveling more and more of them into his shopping cart until he creates a monster.

The metaphor seems pretty obvious here and watching the animated protagonist try to dodge the toxic monster he’s accidentally created (a la the No Face scene in Spirited Away) might dredge up some memories for viewers. The video ends on an ambiguous cliffhanger, evoking the video-gamey graphics by leaving our hero with a choice to accept or reject his monster’s offer of another heart plushy.

The Cleveland, Ohio-born Cautious Clay has been rolling out his self-released debut album Deadpan Love over the past several weeks with a release date set for June 25. You can watch the “Strange Love” video above and pre-order the album here.

Audrey Nuna And Saba Get Reflective In The Surreal ‘Top Again’ Video

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Korean-American singer Audrey Nuna teams up with Chicago rapper Saba on her newest single, “Top Again.” The video, which released concurrently with the new track, is a surreal affair that finds Nuna subtly commenting on the artifice of the entertainment industry, then wandering through an eerie hospital. Saba makes his appearance inside an ambulance, then roaming the hospital’s halls as he raps a serpentine verse picking up the threads laid down by Audrey’s introspective lyrics.

Nuna, who released her debut album A Liquid Breakfast today, has been an exciting voice in the pop-R&B realm over the past year thanks to singles “Damn Right” and “Comic Sans,” as well as the recently released “Blossom,” on which she displays a gift for rapping as well as singing. As a genre-bending experimentalist, Nuna’s rhymes are often personal but universal, with quirky non-sequiturs that give way to smart observations on the state of things in both her world and the world at large.

Meanwhile, Saba has been slowly poking his head above the surface as fans eagerly await the follow-up to his 2018 star vehicle Care For Me, putting out a vinyl version of the project with VMP and sharing videos for “Ziplock/Rich Don’t Stop” and “Lifetime” with Femdot earlier this year.

Watch Audrey Nuna’s “Top Again” video featuring Saba.

The New Jersey singer’s album, A Liquid Breakfast, is out now on Arista Records. Stream it here.

Vinyl Me, Please Celebrates A Milestone With ‘VMP 100’ Editions Of Albums By Outkast, Gorillaz, And More

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For years now, Vinyl Me, Please has been one of the premiere ways to get a regular flow of exclusive and lovingly presented vinyl rereleases of terrific albums. Now they are celebrating their 100th Essential Record Of The Month with “VMP 100,” a series of reissues of sought-after albums.

The albums that will be re-released as part of the series are Gorillaz’s Demon Days; Phoenix’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix; Outkast’s Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik; Queens Of The Stone Age’s Songs For The Deaf; Queen’s A Night At The Opera; Outkast’s Stankonia; Spiritualized’s Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space; Saba’s Care For Me; Al Green’s Call Me; and Miles Davis & John Coltrane’s The Final Tour: Paris, March 21, 1960.

Vinyl Me, Please CEO Cameron Schaefer says, “Exploring music together is at the heart of VMP and is the driving force behind the last eight years of monthly releases. VMP Essentials is our flagship subscription, the OG, and is the most clear representation of the evolution and growth of our company and community. While it feels like we’ve reached the top of a mountain in a sense with VMP 100, the reality is there’s so much more to explore. It’s truly just the beginning.”

Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips, who have albums re-issued through VMP but are not included in the “VMP 100” rereleases, offered a statement, saying, “Being selected by VMP and having them present our music and packaging to their collected followers is like having one of the world’s great art museums show your stuff; or should I say, it’s like a great art museum that you’ve been to that you love and admire, and then one day you go to the museum and they have YOUR art hanging in it. It’s like being welcomed and accepted into a sacred church where records are God.”

Learn more about “VMP 100” here.

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

Saba Balances Reflection And Optimism In His Video For ‘Ziplock/Rich Don’t Stop’

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Saba wowed the hip-hop world in 2018 with his sophomore album Care For Me. The 10-track effort was labeled by many as one of the best hip-hop projects from that year, but after its release, the Chicago native would go more than two years without a solo release. That all changed last September with the arrival of not one but two singles: “Mrs. Whoever” and “Something In The Water.” Their release launched a string of drops that brings us to his latest singles, “Ziplock” and “Rich Don’t Stop,” which were released on Wednesday.

The Care For Me rapper turned the two songs into a medley for their music video. In it, he can be found on the roof of what appears to be a fairly tall building as he raps the bars of his “Ziplock” track. The reflective single transitions into a much more upbeat effort with “Rich Don’t Stop,” which finds the rapper looking ahead to brighter days. The video also served as a fundraiser for the John Walt Foundation, which was made in honor of Saba’s late cousin, who helped co-found the Pivot Gang collective of which Saba is also a part

After dropping “Mrs. Whoever” and “Something In The Water,” Saba closed out 2020 with “So And So” and “Areyoudown? Pt. 2.” He also connected with Amine and Femdot for the tracks “Talk” and “Lifetime.”

You can watch the video for “Ziplock/Rich Don’t Stop” above.

Saba And Femdot Seek Longevity In Their Optimistic Video For ‘Lifetime’

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Chicago rapper Femdot earned his first big moment in the spotlight in 2019 thanks to his album ’94 Camry Music. Soon enough, his name started to appear more often, appearing on collaborations with Taylor Bennet, Pivot Gang, and more. Femdot returned last November with the tracks “Back Home” and “Lifetime,” featuring Saba. More than three months after sharing the two songs, Femdot and Saba reconnect in a video for the latter.

The rappers’ “Lifetime” collaboration details their hope for career longevity. Together, the Chicago rappers make it clear that want more than fifteen minutes of fame, and in the video they come together in a quiet field to look out to the horizon with the hope that their wishes become a reality.

The new video is the latest piece of content to arrive from Saba in what we hope leads to a new album. After going more than a year without a solo release, the rapper returned towards the end of 2019 with “Mrs. Whoever” and “Something In The Water” alongside Denzel Curry. Two months later, he returned with more music thanks to “So And So” and “Areyoudown? Pt. 2.” So who knows, maybe there will be more.

You can watch the video for “Lifetime” above.