Silk Sonic

Anderson .Paak Is Thrilled About Making The Hot 100 Chart For The First Time

by
Getty Image

Over the course of his career, Anderson .Paak has been gradually climbing his way up the Billboard charts. His four albums — Venice, Malibu, Oxnard, and Ventura — have performed progressively better on the Billboard 200: .Paak’s debut didn’t chart, then the other three records peaked respectively at Nos. 79, 11, and 4. This hasn’t translated to success on the Hot 100 chart for .Paak, though, as prior to this week, he never had a song appear on the chart.

That changed this week, however, thanks to his new supergroup with Bruno Mars, Silk Sonic. The band’s debut single, “Leave The Door Open,” debuted at No. 4 on the Hot 100 chart dated March 20. Getting on the Hot 100 is a major milestone, so naturally, .Paak is pretty excited.

.Paak shared an image of the top ten spots of the chart and wrote on Instagram, “Ima stretch this goose neck to The moooon!! All I can say is thank you!!!! To have a song like this debut in the hot 100 ( my first song to ever make it up there ) is truly amazing. It can’t happen without hard work and yalls support. Thanks for pushing everyone to greatness @brunomars and showing us new heights! I’ll never come down!! let’s keep rising! We love you for this!!! Y’all gonna have me faded all damn week!!”

Revisit Mars and .Paak’s recent debut performance of the song at the 2021 Grammys here.

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

Bruno Mars And Anderson .Paak Bring Silk Sonic To The 2021 Grammys Stage With A Throwback Performance

by
CBS

During the lead-up to this year’s Grammys, Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak made it clear that they wanted their new supergroup, Silk Sonic, to perform during the broadcast. They made a big stink about it on Twitter, trying to convince the Recording Academy to give them a performance slot during the 2021 ceremony. As many surely suspected, it seemed the pair’s faux-bellyaching seemed to have been a ploy to drum up attention for their performance, which the Academy announced days later was locked in.

So, Mars and .Paak took the stage tonight and busted out a rendition of their sole single so far, “Leave The Door Open.” The duo was joined by a pair of background singers and they all made perfect use of the stage, with .Paak and Mars joining their backing cohorts towards the back of the space when they weren’t on lead vocals.

Mars has been relatively quiet over the past few years and consequently, he doesn’t have any Grammy nominations this year. .Paak has a couple of nods for 2021, though: “Lockdown” was nominated for for Best Melodic Rap Performance while that song’s visual is up for Best Music Video.

Watch Silk Sonic’s Grammy performance above and find the full list of this year’s Grammy winners and nominees here.

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

Could Anderson Paak Be Collaborating With BTS Next?

by

Although it’s his brand new collaboration with Bruno Mars that has catapulted Anderson Paak back into the news cycle — and to the Grammys stage, no less — the Silk Sonic project hasn’t taken other options for joint work off the table for Paak. He seems to be, ahem, leaving the door open for other collaborations, if they come across his desk.

In a recent interview with Esquire the R&B star talked about his love and respect for K-pop, particularly one of the biggest acts in the genre (and the world) right now, BTS. It’s actually Paak’s son, Soul, who he speaks to about the band — especially considering Soul’s mom and Paak’s wife, Jaylyn, is from South Korea.

“I tell him, ‘Yeah, K-pop is where it’s at, man,” Paak said of conversations with his son. “Make sure you keep up with your Korean’ because you could be rapping in Korean one day, and we’ll fly your ass out there, and you won’t got to worry about sh*t.’”

And as far as any plans Anderson himself might have for working with the crew, he sounds more than interested: “I’m working on trying to get that plug, man,” he told Esquire. “If you know of any way, let me know, bro.” The article notes that Paak is “mostly joking,” yet, the isn’t that far of a stretch. Paak has already worked with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, and appeared on Jazmine Sullivan’s excellent 2021 record Heaux Tales. K-pop could easily be next.

Well, it seems unlikely that journalist has the connect, but BTS if you’re reading this, please consider! Since both artists are performing at the Grammys tomorrow night, it just might be possible they’ll bump into each other backstage. Fingers crossed.

Check out Esquire‘s full profile on Anderson here and his brand new track with Bruno, “Leave The Door Open” above.

Bruno Mars And Anderson .Paak Really Want Silk Sonic To Perform At The Grammys This Year

by
Warner Records

Over the weekend, the Recording Academy announced its list of performers for this year’s Grammys ceremony, which includes Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and other big names. A pair of artists was excluded, though, and they’re not pleased about it: Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, who are now collectively known as Silk Sonic. The two were so flabbergasted by their absence from the list that they took to Twitter to vent their frustrations and rally the Academy to give them a shot.

Yesterday afternoon, .Paak shared a graphic of the performers list and tweeted, “YO @BrunoMars WHAT THE F*CK?!? Did you see this?!?! Call me back!!” Mars replied, “Wait… are you sure this is even real? where did you find this?” That was the beginning of a playful back-and-forth, which .Paak continued, “Bro it says CBS right at the top! It’s legit. What the F*CK!!?! ANSWER YOUR PHONE!!”

Mars answered, “Are you sure these are performers and not just presenters,” to which .Paak replied, “FAM STOP!!! Did they even hear the song?!? They don’t love us??” Mars then shared a revised image of the list and wrote, “See @AndersonPaak You’ve been misinformed. This is the real real bill. we’re all good!” As .Paak quickly pointed out, though, “And we’re not on this either you PRICK!!!” That elicited a simple “Oh” from Mars.

This is when .Paak got the ball rolling, tweeting, “Do we need to get a hashtag going or something??” Presumably rubbing his eyes while tweeting his response, Mars wrote, “Andy just chill. i’m still waking up.” .Paak was unrelenting, responding, “Nah f*ck that! I haven’t seen my family in months!! I need this to work, You promised me!! Everybody join in!!! I need all of Twitter to help make this trend!! Come on @RecordingAcad #LetSilkSonicThrive.” Mars answered, “I don’t think this is how u get on a show @AndersonPaak, & that’s a pretty long hashtag but i’m rockin wit you. #LetSilkSonicThrive.”

Mars then shared a letter that read:

“Dear Grammys,

If you can see it in your hearts to allow two out of work musicians to perform at your show, we would really appreciate it. We just released a song and could really use the promotion right now. We have a lot riding on this record (and the Pelicans game next week, but that’s another story). We haven’t been able to perform for a while and we just want to sing. We’ll send in an audition tape and take as many covid tests as we need to. I promise we won’t be extra. We just really want a gig again. I hope you’ll consider this request and give us the opportunity to shine. Love, Silk Sonic.”

.Paak added, “WHAT HE SAID! #LetSilkSonicThrive.” .Paak later noted that the hashtag had become a trending topic on Twitter, writing, “@RecordingAcad I know you see this!! We doing real numbers out here!! You can’t ignore the people!!!#LetSilkSonicThrive.” Mars responded, “Yo!!! @AndersonPaak It’s working! you’re a real twitter wizard! @RecordingAcad please log on and look at this!!! #LetSilkSonicThrive.” Mars added, “Wow this started with just us 2 and now we’re a whole army! There’s nothing we cant do. First the Grammys then the world! UNLIMITED POWERRR!”

Still, it would seem .Paak lost hope in the cause, as he was quick to attempt to hop on the BTS train, tweeting, “Bro the @RecordingAcad haven’t even responded… @bts_bighit do y’all need a drummer? #LetSilkSonicThrive.” Mars responded, “You’re right. I got excited we were trending for a while today. I’m sorry I let you down. I hope you & BTS go on to do great things,” to which .Paak replied, “You never let me down champ! Only disappointed me. But sh*t atleast it’s top trending! Don’t give up hope! Either The Grammys or BTS is gonna hit us Back I know it. thank you guys so much!!! #LetSilkSonicThrive.”

Mars and .Paak are certainly fit to appear on the Grammys stage, as they are both accomplished veterans of the awards: Mars has picked up 11 Grammy wins from 27 nominations, while .Paak has 3 wins from 7 nominations.

That’s where the situation stands now. It’s not clear if this is some sort of elaborate social media campaign leading up to an official announcement of Silk Sonic’s addition to the Grammy performance lineup, if this is actually how Mars and .Paak are trying to get involved, or if they’re just goofing around and getting some viral self-promotion in on Twitter. Either way, check out the tweets here or below.

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

Silk Sonic Began With Bruno Mars Calling A Drunk Anderson .Paak To The Studio On His Birthday

by
Getty Image

Anderson .Paak was one of the supporting acts on Bruno Mars’ world tour in support of his album 24K Magic, and it turns out that’s where the seed of pair’s new band, Silk Sonic, was planted. The way Mars tells it, though, things really got started with .Paak getting drunk on his 25th birthday and joining Mars in the studio.

Mars and .Paak chatted about the project and their new song “Leave The Door Open” with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. Mars explained, “There’s a song on the album that we started in 2017, that was on tour. And it was just a little phrase that we had that we were joking around going back and forth about. When we got to the studio, I actually called him on his birthday and I said, ‘I think I figured out that little hook we had. Come to the studio.’ He’s like, ‘It’s my birthday.’ So he came drunk. After every take, he was on fire.”

.Paak then chimed in, “My 25th birthday, bro, what was I going to do?”

Mars continued:

“That’s what it was. It snowballed. And it was like, well, want to come back tomorrow? And we kept coming up with music. It felt like why you fall in love with music in the first place. And jamming with your buddy… There’s no plan, just working out the parts and trying to excite each other. That’s why this wouldn’t happen if it didn’t make sense and it didn’t feel natural and organic. This was a series of events that led us to, ‘Man, why don’t we just do it?’ Starting with the tour, us creating a friendship and a bond and talking to each other and sharing the same love for music, getting into the studio, quarantine, all of these things. it was the equation to get this album and it’s… that’s God.”

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

Anderson .Paak And Bruno Mars Unite As ‘Silk Sonic’ With Their Groovy New Single, ‘Leave The Door Open’

by

Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars have both proven to be phenomenal artists in their respective fields, but sometimes, two good things are better as one, and that’s exactly what the two singers will look to show next. Anderson and Bruno announced last week that they would soon release an album together as Silk Sonic.

Outside of a confirmed appearance from Boosty Collins, details on the upcoming body of work are limited, but tonight the first single from the effort has arrived. “Leave The Door Open” is a groovy number that sees the duo promising to keep a spot in their lives open for a past lover. It comes with a match visual that finds Anderson and Bruno passionately playing the song in a studio.

The new track is the first piece of music from Anderson in a few months. The Cali-born singer was a bit busy in 2020 thanks to singles like “Jewelz,” “Cut Em In” with Rick Ross, and “Lockdown,” a track that was later remixed with help from Noname, Jay Rock, and JID.

Bruno, on the other hand, has been rather quiet for the last few years. His last album arrived in 2016 with 24K Magic, an effort that gave him six awards at the 2018 Grammys including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year. His other releases since then include “Please Me” with Cardi B and “Blow” with Ed Sheeran and Chris Stapleton. Elsewhere, he’s also set to produce and star in music-centric Disney film.

Give the new single a listen above.

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

Bruno Mars And Anderson .Paak Are Teaming Up For A Whole Album Together As Silk Sonic

by
Getty Image

Stop the presses — two of music’s most legendary groovers are collaborating.

In an unexpected Instagram post from Bruno Mars — who has been relatively quiet on the new music front since his controversially won Album Of The Year at the 2018 Grammys — revealed that he and Anderson .Paak have teamed up for what is sure to be one of the funkiest supergroups around. Dubbing themselves Silk Sonic, Mars shared that the two have already made a whole album’s worth of material together, and the first new song will be dropping next week, March 5.

“We locked in and made an album,” Bruno wrote on Instagram. The band’s called Silk Sonic. First song drops next Friday 3/5.”

This isn’t the first time .Paak has worked with another artist for an entire album. His project NxWorries is a supergroup with LA legend Knxwledge, and their 2016 album Yes Lawd! is still a fan-favorite. Bruno isn’t a stranger to working with other big names, he infamously pulled Cardi B onto “Finesse” at the height of her career, and has worked with The Police (!) already. But he hasn’t gone as far as to create an entire album with another artist, so it will be fascinating to see how this plays out. In the meantime, check in next Friday to get the first taste of Silk Sonic.