The British are coming. Well, more specifically, the 2024 BRIT Awards. On March 2, the annual showcase of the UK’s biggest names went down. As usual, the televised performances were elaborately over-the-top. But what did shake things up, at least for the viewing audience at home and abroad, was the winner’s list.
“Flip A Switch” singer RAYE absolutely dominated the night, taking home a grand total of 6 awards (British Album Of The Year, British Artist Of The Year, New Artist, Song Of The Year, R&B Act, and Songwriter Of The Year). SZA took home the trophy for International Artist.
In addition to performing her single, “Training Season,” Dua Lipa snagged the award for Pop Act. As a surprise to no one, Miley Cyrus’ hit “Flowers” won for International Song. The Global Icon Award was bestowed on Kylie Minogue. While the Rising Star Award was given to The Last Dinner Party. Continue below for the complete list of winners.
British Album Of The Year
Blur – The Ballad of Darren
J Hus – Beautiful and Brutal Yard
Little Simz – No Thank You Raye – My 21st Century Blues
Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy
British Artist Of The Year
Arlo Parks
Central Cee
Dave
Dua Lipa
Fred Again
J Hus
Jessie Ware
Little Simz
Olivia Dean Raye
British Group
Blur
Chase & Status
Headie One & K-Trap Jungle
Young Fathers
New Artist
Mahalia
Olivia Dean
PinkPantheress Raye
Yussef Dayes
Song Of The Year
Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding – “Miracle”
Cassö, Raye and D-Block Europe – “Prada”
Central Cee – “Let Go”
Central Cee and Dave – “Sprinter”
Dua Lipa – “Dance the Night”
Ed Sheeran – “Eyes Closed”
J Hus – “Who Told You”
Kenya Grace – “Strangers”
Lewis Capaldi – “Wish You the Best”
PinkPantheress – “Boy’s a Liar” Raye – “Escapism”
Rudimental, Charlotte Plank and Vibe Chemistry – “Dancing Is Healing”
Stormzy and Debbie – “Firebabe”
Switch Disco and Ella Henderson – “React”
Venbee and Goddard – “Messy in Heaven”
International Artist
Asake
Burna Boy
Caroline Polachek
CMAT
Kylie Minogue
Lana Del Rey
Miley Cyrus
Olivia Rodrigo SZA
Taylor Swift
With only two studio albums under her belt, SZA has quickly become a legend within R&B music. As the public patiently awaits her Lana project, SOS continues to dominate the charts in record-breaking fashion. But to the “Saturn” singer, chart placement, touring numbers, and multiple Grammy Awards are nothing compared to her latest accomplishment.
Yesterday (March 1), she took to X (formerly Twitter) to tease her forthcoming appearance on Sesame Street, fulfilling one of her lifetime wishes. The photo featured several residents of the beloved block. “God’s timing,” she wrote. “Follow your dreams and say them out loud. Never give up. Anything is possible. I believe in you. ”
To add to the already adorable moment, SZA snagged a selfie video with everyone’s favorite monster, Elmo, during her giddy trip. In the clip, the two gush about the great day they had with one another.
SZA fulfilled one of her long-sought-after dreams as a musician and celebrity: having the honor of gracing the Sesame Street community. Moreover, she recently shared some clips and pictures on social media of her time at the kids’ television program. Not only that, but the TDE superstar also shared an old tweet of hers from 2017 on Instagram, in which she asks her followers how to get on the enduring classic show. As such, she now joins a long list of A-listers who’ve joined Elmo and the gang on the show, a crew that Lizzo also joined. She played a cookie flute on the series back in February of 2023.
In fact, this is kind of a notable addition to the Sesame Street canon because SZA and Lizzo are actually very good friends. Furthermore, it’s nice that they can bond over not just being two incredibly talented musicians and businesswomen, but also over their experience on the program. While anyone reading this probably isn’t in the demographic of Oscar the Grouch fans, it’s always nice to see these kinds of crossovers. After all, it at least gives folks hope that their kids can still be hip and learn a lot on this show.
However, this is far from the only thing that SZA had to celebrate and promote this week. She, along with the likes of Vince Staples and James Blake, will headline Jack Harlow’s Gazebo Music Festival in Louisville, Kentucky’s Waterfront Park for Memorial Day Weekend (May 25-26). Given all of the St. Louis native’s great performances in the past couple of years, this should be fantastic business as usual. It’s actually a really solid lineup, so if you want to see her and a slew of versatile and talented artists, give it a look.
Meanwhile, the “Saturn” songwriter probably has a lot more in store for fans this year. With the Lana deluxe of SOS still on the cards, we might just get another huge record to carry us through the year. Will we get that Bert and Ernie feature? Time will tell. For more news and the latest updates on SZA, keep checking in with HNHH.
Rapper Jack Harlow has announced the inaugural Gazebo Festival in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. Over the course of two days (May 25 & 26), fans will be able to see performances from 26 acts on two different stages at Louisville’s Waterfront Park. On the bill are SZA, Omar Apollo, Vince Staples, PinkPantheress, Harlow himself, and more.
“We are beyond excited to support our city’s hometown hero, Jack Harlow, as he launches a new music festival at Louisville’s Waterfront Park,” said Cleo Battle, President and CEO of Louisville Tourism, in a statement. “In addition to great music, festival goers will get a taste of this city’s iconic attractions, renowned heritage and global culinary scene.”
As tickets are set to go on sale soon, we’ve put together a nifty price guide for fans hoping to get their hands on passes for this hotly-anticipated festival.
How much are tickets for the 2024 Gazebo Festival?
Tickets for Gazebo Festival go on sale Wednesday, March 6, 2024, at 10 a.m. EST as part of a special fan pre-sale. General on-sale will begin Friday, March 8, 2024, at 10 a.m. EST. Fans will be able to purchase tickets via the festival’s website.
According to a press release, general admission tickets for the entire weekend will begin at $255. Prices for VIP passes have not yet been listed.
You can see the full line-up below.
Some of the artists mentioned here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Jack Harlow announced that he’s giving back to his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky in another very special way. Today (February 28), the rapper announced that he will be hosting the first-ever Gazebo Festival there on May 25 and 26. And for the festival’s debut year, Harlow is bringing a killer lineup of performers along with him.
Harlow and SZA are set as the headliners. They will also be joined by James Blake (DJ set), Omar Apollo, PinkPantheress, Vince Staples, Amaarae, Channel Tres, Majid Jordan, Slum Village, Veeze, Dahi, Jordan Ward, Ravyn Lenae, Rich Homie Quan, BNYX, James Savage, Karrahbooo, and Malcolm Todd.
For those looking to go to Gazebo Festival, here’s what to know about securing tickets.
How To Buy Tickets For Gazebo Festival 2024
Right now, there is a presale sign-up open for Gazebo Festival, with the sale taking place on Wednesday, March 6 at 10 a.m. ET. Passes will then open to the public for the general sale on Friday, March 8 at the same time. The two-day General Admission pass is $255, with a portion of the proceeds from each ticket sale going to the Jack Harlow Foundation.
Additional information about Gazebo Festival 2024, including about the presale registration, can be found on their website.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Some artist-led festivals have made big names for themselves, like Pharrell’s Something In The Water, The Roots’ Roots Picnic, and most notably, Lollapalooza, originally launched by Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction. Now, Jack Harlow is getting into the festival game, too: Today (February 28), he announced Gazebo Festival, a two-day event that runs from May 25 to 26 at Louisville, Kentucky’s Waterfront Park.
This first edition of the fest, which shares its name with Harlow’s 2017 mixtape Gazebo and will feature two stages, will be headlined by SZA and Harlow himself. Beyond them, the full lineup features James Blake (doing a DJ set), Omar Apollo, PinkPantheress, Vince Staples, Amaarae, Channel Tres, Majid Jordan, Slum Village, Veeze, Dahi, Jordan Ward, Ravyn Lenae, Rich Homie Quan, BNYX, James Savage, Karrahbooo, and Malcolm Todd.
Tickets go on sale on March 8 at 10 a.m. ET, with general admission tickets starting at $255. There’s also a pre-sale starting March 6 at 10 a.m. ET. More information about tickets can be found on the festival website. A portion of proceeds from every ticket will benefit the Jack Harlow Foundation.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg says of the event, “Jack Harlow is an extraordinary Louisvillian who continues to give back to his hometown. This is yet another way Jack is showing up for our city and I can’t wait to see the excitement this festival creates. I am so grateful for his commitment to making first class things happen for Louisville and our people.”
Gazebo Festival 2024 Lineup Poster
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Look up the term “genre” in regards to music, and you’re likely to land on a straightforward definition. Merriam-Webster refers to it as a category of artistic musical or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content — a description that leaves little to the imagination. When it comes to the reality of genre in the overall music landscape, however, the connotation is a bit more complicated.
Back when popular music first hit radio airwaves, “genre” quickly became more than just a simple characteristic of sound. Instead, it became a way to determine what listeners of certain frequencies might want to listen to, often based on which personal characteristics of the musicians programmers thought they’d relate to. That marketing of music placed artists into neat little boxes, some based on racist categorization of artists, with little thought to the style, form, or content of their music. One example of these musical microaggressions was Tina Turner’s 1966 song, “River Deep — Mountain High.” The seismic pop number was pushed out of radio play because — as her ex-partner and producer Ike Turner revealed in the HBO documentary Tina — it was “too white for Black jockeys and too Black for white jockeys.”
Unfortunately, five decades later, as seen in the 2024 Grammys ceremony, that problem reared its head again. This time. SZA, an artist whose sound falls into alternative, pop, and R&B categories depending on the track, scooped up multiple wins in the R&B category, snagging Best R&B Song for “Snooze” and Best R&B Album for SOS. The same juxtaposition of hip-hop-inspired lyrical delivery with melodic harmonies is present in another album track, “Ghost In The Machine” featuring indie genius Phoebe Bridgers, but that song was relocated to a “pop” category and picked up the Grammy Award Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Does one alternative rock artist plus one R&B artist equal a pop duo? What was it about that song in comparison to every other song on SZA’s SOS that relegated it to pop?
The categorization confusion hasn’t been lost on SZA, who told Alternative Press last year that the lack of R&B sounds on her latest album initially confused fans. “I definitely felt like half of the people [were] like, ‘I wish this was R&B, and it’s not, and I hate it.’ And I was like, ‘Aww, I’m sorry, but also I don’t know…’ It is what it is,” she said, adding, “Sometimes you can’t fault people for putting you in a box if you don’t at least show them, and I definitely had to take responsibility for showing people who I was.”
She also told Consequence in 2022, that she was “so tired of being pegged as [an] R&B artist.” “I feel like that’s super disrespectful because people are just like, ‘Oh, ’cause you’re Black, this is what you have to be’ — like, put in a box. And I hate that,” she added. She went on to say that she found the label “lazy” and that although she loved making “Black music, period,” that didn’t mean that Black music unequivocally meant R&B. “We started rock ‘n’ roll,” she said. “Why can’t we just be expansive and not reductive?” SOS debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, proving that fans, even the ones who may have been surprised by her direction, could handle an album that traveled into gospel, grunge, pop-punk, and rap soundscapes fearlessly.
There’s an energy in the industry that does seem to be moving in diverse, expansive, and less reductive directions. Take, for instance, women sweeping most wins in major categories at the Grammys this year or Paramore becoming the first female-fronted band to win the award for Best Rock Album. There were also the predictions of SZA making history with SOS and hopes that she’d pick up the Best Album of The Year award, making her the first Black woman in 25 years to do so. All the signs were there: a record-breaking, 10-week No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 (marking the longest-running No. 1 album released by a woman in nearly seven years), 11 billion streams (and counting), and groundbreaking moments like her No. 1 hit “Kill Bill.” Fellow record-breaker Taylor Swift took home the ultimate win that night with her album Midnights, which also nabbed her the win for Best Pop Vocal Album. Despite Swift getting her start in country music, she’s had little issue shifting her category of genre, and with it, the associated radio stations and Grammy categorizations. Is this something allotted to all artists? What is it about SZA’s sound that doesn’t allow the same level of sonic shapeshifting?
Speaking of country and sonic shapeshifting, Beyoncé is currently ramping up to release an album filled with so much twang, so much aesthetically oversized cowboy paraphernalia, that it’s hard to keep a straight face while saying the album will be pop and not country. In fact, many fans, catching wind of the R&B, hip-hop, and definitely pop superstar being pushed off of country radio play called into stations, asking why the star’s two tracks “Texas Hold ‘Em’” and “16 Carriages” weren’t hitting the airwaves. When Oklahoma’s country music station KYKC decided not to play Beyoncé’s new songs, one fan who reached out received the response that the station wouldn’t be playing the track because “we are a country music station.” But when the Beyhive reached out to the station, they added it to the rotation. Now, both tracks are dominating the Hot Country Songs chart with “Texas Hold ‘Em” at No. 1 and “16 Carriages” at No. 9.
The idea of genre as an appropriate categorization of music is being challenged with each passing release week. Still, non-Black artists can move into new sonic territory with an ease not given to their Black counterparts. It’s an unfair limitation that impacts sales, accolades, and promotions, barring these artists from access to larger, more diverse audiences. It also denies those fans the opportunity to be exposed to groundbreaking artists.
So maybe the issue of genre categorization based on race could be solved by an outpouring of disgruntled fans like the Beyhive calling it out or an artist like SZA blatantly stating the obvious when it comes to the alternative leanings of their sound. Perhaps it’s something that can be dismantled as we shine a light on the issue itself, and demand better fitting alternatives.
Or maybe genre itself has become an archaic way of describing music, limiting multi-faceted artists who’ve already pushed past the limitations forced on them from marketing and categorization, because much like SZA recently said herself via X, “I’m complicated and aware it can be annoying. So grateful for those that take time to learn me love me and accept me.” Maybe we all just have more learning to do.
There’s not a lot to cover on our R&B Season playlist update this week, but we still rounded up our absolute favorite drops this week for your convenience and pleasure. Leading the way is the brand-new track from SZA, “Saturn,” which she had previewed at the 2024 Grammy Awards and then released in multiple versions (sped-up, acapella, instrumental, etc.). With bright synth piano keys, a crisp and echoed percussive pattern, and the St. Louis native’s trademark buttery vocals, this song puts you in a trance very quickly. Although SOS dominated 2023, we’ll never complain about new Solana material to keep us under her spell, of which there should be more very soon.
In addition, we wanted to shout out the new single from Justin Timberlake, “Drown,” on our R&B Season playlist update. Whereas the pop star’s most famous material might be more bombastic and club-ready in many’s eyes (or ears, rather), this new song proves that some of his greatest strengths have always been in charismatic melodic performances, woozier tempos, and more intoxicating additions to a sonic atmosphere. Minimal drums, airy synth chords, and a measured but nevertheless engaging vocal performance make this a relatively dreamy cut. It does sound very clean and sanitized, but its adherence to R&B tropes and production, plus a nice beat variation, keep us listening.
Finally, we wanted to give the TDE crew special props on R&B Season, as label mates SiR and Isaiah Rashad dropped off another hazy track with “Karma.” This is another single for the former’s upcoming project, which is shaping up to be a low-key but well-crafted and highly compelling offering. With this new record, the two artists show off a lot of chemistry while lyrically diving into the concepts of karma and riding a dry but stankface-inducing drum beat with ease. We can’t wait for what’s next!
On that note, what was your favorite R&B Season cut this week? What else did we miss? Drop your thoughts in the comments down below and check out the playlist above. Also, as always, stick around on HNHH for the latest great music drops around the clock.
It’s been an incredible month for SZA. At this year’s Grammys, the “Snooze” hitmaker took home three awards, delivered a killer performance of two of her SOS fan favorites, and launched an environmentally conscious partnership with Mastercard. As part of the launch, she premiered a new commercial, which contained a preview of a new song, “Saturn,” from her upcoming SOS reissue, LANA.
Today (February 22), SZA finally released “Saturn” on streaming platforms.
On “Saturn,” SZA finds herself questioning the meaning of life, and wondering if the condition of the world around her is currently as good as it’s going to get.
“Sick of this head of mine / Intrusive thoughts, they paralyze / Thе fun is not as advertised / Therе’s got to be more, been here before,” SZA sings on the song’s hook.
According to a press release which accompanied the initial launch of SZA’s Mastercard campaign, “Saturn” will appear on LANA, however, she has not shared an official release date for the project. The audio bundle for “Saturn” comes with the standard version of the song, a live version which was featured in the Mastercard campaign, an instrumental, a sped-up version, and an acapella version.
You can listen to “Saturn” above and stream the audio bundle here.