Saba

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

by

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

by

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

by
Getty Image

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’

by

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’

by

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.