The Internet, a band that features Syd and Steve Lacy, seems to be teasing their return. The group’s last album, Hive Mind, dropped back in 2018, and fans have been waiting to see what would be next. However, since then, the members have stepped out to pursue their solo careers as well.
Starting the new year off strong, The Internet recently shared a post on their Instagram account, which has fans extremely excited. The photo slideshow finds the group working in the studio. “mutha’ f*ck the wagon, come join the band,” the caption reads.
Back in 2022, Syd did an interview with NME where she shared that there would be a “next” album from The Internet. The band later clarified that it would not be their last, just the final one in a label contract.
Besides that, not much else is known about the new music that will (seemingly) be coming from The Internet. But, as one user put it, “2024 is saved,” if they do drop an album this year. A few other users have speculated if they’d be playing Coachella.
The first time I saw Syd Tha Kyd in the flesh, she had to wait patiently to jump into the crowd. It was 2011, the height of Odd Future’s pop culture influence (and infamy) and the kids of Dublin, Ireland had turned up to their show in force to chant “Kill people, burn sh*t, f*ck school” without consequence.
Perched behind the decks in her role as DJ, Syd watched on as members of the Los Angeles collective did about 12 stage dives each — only at the end of the show was she afforded the opportunity to make the awesome leap. Though the only girl in a group of unruly boys, Syd’s tight trim and muscle tops meant she blended into the crew with ease. More importantly, she bent the knee at the same N*E*R*D altar as group archdeacon Tyler The Creator, and her musicality and counsel was crucial to building the rap group into a pop culture phenom — a lot of their early stuff was, in fact, recorded at Syd’s parents’ house.
Yet Odd Future’s success didn’t make her happy. Out on the road, Syd struggled with depression and feelings of disconnect from her family and girlfriend. “I wasn’t in a good place then and so I don’t really reminisce on those moments,” she told NME earlier this year.
A decade later, Syd’s a solo star on a seemingly unbreakable upward flight path. Her most recent album, Broken Hearts Club, is one of the year’s finest and most striking pop records, an electrifying shock of retro-futurist soul and cyber-funk explorations. Nowadays, she doesn’t have to wait for anyone to take her turn.
Sydney Loren Bennett comes from musical stock. Her Jamaica-based uncle Mikey Bennett is one of the songwriters and producers behind Shabba Ranks’ still-great 1991 chart reggae classic “Mr. Loverman.” As a kid, she’d spend family vacations hanging out in the studio and observing her uncle at work. At 16, Syd’s parents let her turn their guesthouse into her own studio. The budding music-maker’s vocation became playing piano and creating beats.
Syd expressed herself by crafting instrumentals for Odd Future, but a more rounded portrayal of her proclivities was coaxed out by her band The Internet. Originally a component piece of Odd Future that Syd later took in her divorce from the group, The Internet flourished from her musical kinship with background OF member Matt Martians. The very Google-incompatible name of the project actually started out as a joke: In 2011, a journalist interviewing Odd Future asked one member, Left Brain, where he was from. “He was like: ‘I hate when people ask me that,’” Syd later remembered. “‘I’m going to start saying I’m from the internet.’”
No joke, The Internet — with Syd on vocals, backed by Martians and Odd Future touring members Patrick Paige, Christopher Smith, and Tay Walker — made serious cosmic funk odysseys and sci-fi soul tunes, with The Neptunes’ influence very palpable: “Dontcha” could be one of Chad and Pharrell’s early Justin Timberlake productions. The band’s first two albums were low-budget efforts laid down in Syd’s home studio, but after a few line-up changes that included the addition of guitarist Steve Lacy, third album Ego Death proved a breakthrough, earning a Grammy nomination and providing a hit in the slinky Kaytranada-produced single “Girl.”
Syd embarked on further explorations on her 2017 solo debut, Fin, crafting a set of foggy, state-of-the-art alt-R&B tunes — The Weeknd and Miguel-type stuff — with flair and focus. She twinned this contemporary sound with confident declarations of her impending supremacy: On the stuttering electro-slap of “Shake Em Off,” Syd accelerates away from “drowning in doubt and frustration” to announce herself a “young star in the making.”
Now, we have Broken Hearts Club, her most pop-minded album yet, the kind of record an artist seeking to reach the highest peaks of musical stardom would make. As with Fin, Syd produces or co-produces a number of tracks, with external beatmakers drafted in too. Besotted with 1980s pomp productions, throwback drum machines and mammoth synth loops complement the catchy choruses. Prince mimicry comes in the form of the obvious “Little Red Corvette” analog “Fast Car,” while “Control” shoots forward a decade to draw strength from Aaliyah’s music with Timbaland, though it is actually produced by none other than Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins. In other words, Broken Hearts Club is the future as envisioned by pop stars of yesteryear; a retro-futuristic art installation that sounds fresh and vital.
Yet it is primarily about the most rudimentary pop subject matter: a breakup. The 13 songs veer from being written before and after the dissolution of a relationship, accidentally scripting the tragedy of lost love. So you get an opener like “CYBAH,” a collaboration with Lucky Daye, the title serving as an acronym for a serious question posed throughout the song: “Could you break a heart?” Syd, no longer a Kyd (she hit the big 3-0 in the middle of the year), quizzes a potential new love interest with the kind of bluntness only possible if you’ve old traumas of the heart to bear.
Syd is no tub-thumping vocalist, instead her cool, broken-hearted voice amalgamates with the icy-heat generated from the funky, futurist machine dreams. But that coo really slithers on turn-the-lights-off slow jams like “No Way.” “Don’t know what you’ll have arranged / We’ll be gone, missing for days,” she sings, evoking the sentiment of loverman Maxwell on his classic “Til the Cops Come Knockin’.” And there’s further retro goodness with the sweetly plucked strings of “Right Track” recalling a strand of ’00s chart R&B — think Kandi Burress’s “Don’t Think I’m Not.”
The album reaches its emotional apex on the home straight. “BMHWDY” (“Break my heart, why don’t ya?”) is a desperate yearning, while the pillow-soft “Goodbye My Love” sounds like acceptance. But if those two songs feel fueled by raw emotion, closer “Missing Out” is the full relationship post-mortem. “As far as I can see, you and me could never be,” sings Syd. “‘Cause we didn’t spend the proper time tryna work it out.” Her final realization on this emotional journey is that it’s her ex-girlfriend who’s lost out in this breakup.
Having bore witness to Syd from her artistic inception, it feels like she is reaching maximum speed in what is bound to be a long race. Take it from Beyoncé, who tapped Syd to produce funky ditty “Plastic Off The Sofa,” the most romantic joint on Bey’s new album Renaissance. When you realize that it’s not a dissimilar song to “Heartfelt Freestyle,” a minor number from Broken Hearts Club, it becomes evident that Beyoncé is just as besotted with Syd’s style as her most dedicated disciples. No wonder nobody can say anything to her anymore. When asked by NME if she still seeks the validation of others, Syd shook off the question. “I don’t think I care anymore,” she said. “I know I’m a genius.”
Broken Hearts Club is now via Syd Solo/Columbia. Get it here.
Beginning his career in alternative R&B, Lacy shifted to an indie rock-influenced sound with his breakout single, “Bad Habit.” When asked by journalist Shaad D’Souza about this genre blending, Lacy replied, “I’ve always loved doing that — if I have a rocky beat, putting a soulful melody on it. Like ‘Dark Red’ and all those types of songs. It’s a way to play and introduce new ideas into things that we know already.”
He later added, “Growing up playing [the video game] Guitar Hero put me on to a lot of rock and guitar music. As I got older, artists such as Paramore raised me. Mac DeMarco, Dirty Projectors, Vampire Weekend. Even Weezer’s ‘Undone’ is one of my favorite songs ever.”
The singer did not hold back from gushing about Paramore’sHayley Williams, sharing, “Hayley’s voice and melodies are crazy because she takes the rock thing and makes it soulful.”
As for what he loves about Weezer, Lacy said, “With Weezer, I love the wit and humor. The dissonance of the chord progression of ‘Undone’ is truly just weird. For something like that to exist was super important for me in my musical journey, to be, like: ‘Oh, wow, you can make this sound fun and dope.’”
Other muses of Lacy include late musical icons Prince and Jimi Hendrix. “When I make music, I take a small piece of everything that I love – I’ll take certain melodic approaches from Prince, but I’ll play it as if someone else was mimicking Prince, like if Jimi Hendrix tried to be Prince,” he said. “But I like to mix different approaches together. It happens naturally. I’m never doing it all purposely. It’s just inside of me.”
Lacy concluded his inspiration list by shouting out about indie act Faye Webster, calling her “dope.”
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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That’s the main conclusion I received from our interview about her sophomore solo album Broken Hearts Club. The project arrives five years after her debut solo album Fin, and since then, a lot has happened for her. Her band, The Internet, released their fourth album Hive Mind, and the group’s respective members, just like Syd herself, released solo projects of their own. She’s endured the highs and lows of love, and just like the rest of us, Syd battled to adjust to the new normal that the pandemic forced on us.
Broken Hearts Club is Syd’s real-life account of a head-over-heels love story that took place for her during the pandemic. The initial butterflies, the truly heartfelt confessions of love that came later, and everything in between are present for the first two-thirds of the album – and then everything comes crashing down. Syd is left to pick up the pieces of her heart, one she thought that she gave away for good, all while figuring out how to move on. Furthermore, there was also an album, which was initially made to celebrate this joyous relationship, to finish.
Somehow, someway though, Syd did it. Fresh off the release of Broken Hearts Club, Syd sat down with Uproxx to tell us about how it all came together, how she’s grown from the situation, and more.
What would you say are the biggest differences between Broken Hearts Club and your first solo project Fin.
The vulnerability. I think on Fin, I tapped into a little bit of vulnerability toward the end of that album, but for the most part, I was flexing really hard. It was definitely me at the time, but when I came down to writing this album and trying to bring some of that same energy, it just didn’t feel natural at the time. I think I had a lot to prove on Fin as a songwriter mostly. I wrote Fin with a lot of other artists in mind. Fin, for me, was like, “Okay, if I could just write songs, who would I write for? What would I write?” It was a lot of experimentation. So some of those songs I listen to now and I’m like, “That doesn’t sound like me,” Okay because that sounds like who I had in mind when I wrote it. It turned out great because it was all me and my boy Nick [Green]. I love how the album came out and I still love it to this day, even though some of the songs don’t sound like me anymore, I still love it. I’m like, “Wow, I was going ham, I was flexing on everybody,” and I’m appreciative of that time and who knows? Maybe I’ll get back in my bag next go around. This time, I had to just like kind of be real about what I’ve been through in between the projects.
In terms of The Internet, you said that Fin was somewhat of an itch to scratch and a way to explore interests outside of the band. Is that the same with Broken Hearts Club?
This one’s a little different. Going into Fin, and all The Internet solo projects, we had started making another Internet project before we actually started Hive Mind and it just wasn’t sounding good. We were making beats and it just sounded really weird. I felt that it was because we all wanted to do different things and I felt like we had to do those different things before we could come back together. This time around is different because we took a conscious and deliberate break. Matt [Martians] adopted a puppy a couple of years ago, and was like, “I want to take a year off and raise my dog,” he’s been living in Georgia. Patrick [Paige II] put out a solo album, Steve [Lacy’s] been working on a solo album, almost done with it, he signed a deal, and Chris [Smith] just started a solo project. So this time around, it was more geared toward the future. We were looking more at ourselves as the supergroup that we are and less as just a band. Like, let’s take this time to really take advantage of what we set up for ourselves and we’ll get back to it when it happens naturally.
Because the story on this album is so personal, I assume that it only made sense to have this be a solo album for yourself. If not for these events, was there another direction you had for this project?
I like to look at every album as a snapshot into my life at the time, so it just depends on where I’m at. As of right now, whatever I start working on for the next project and the couple of songs I do have already for the next project, they’re kinda more me talking my sh*t, a little bit flexy, talking about enjoying the fruits of my labor a little bit more. On Fin, I was talking about the future fruits of my labor [and] what I had hoped to accomplish. On the next one, I think it’ll be more about what I have accomplished. I don’t know, also, in the process of making and finishing this album, I’ve come to like a place of contentment with my life, where I’m like, “Wow, okay, cool. I have what I need and I don’t really want anything.” I finally hit that point where I’m like, “Damn, I’m good! I’m set.” As long as these royalties keep coming in the way they have been, I think I’ll be okay.
Is there a song from Broken Hearts Club that was easier or more difficult than usual to write?
“Goodbye My Love” was really hard to sing, actually. When I wrote it, I was sobbing, I wasn’t over it, it just happened maybe a week prior. I was in the midst of my grief, sitting at my parent’s dining room table. I was listening to that sh*t just sobbing and writing it in my head. It was initially going to be for a producer album, and I told bro straight up, “I can’t seem to sing this sh*t without crying, so I’m not gonna make your deadline, I’m sorry.” He was like, “Aw sh*t, well hey man, don’t rush it. I’m sure it’ll come when it’s supposed to.” By the time it came together, he had already put his project out and I was like, “Yo, can I have this?” and he was like yeah. So that was probably the one, that one was hard. It was easy to write, but it was really hard to record. By the time I recorded it, it worked out and it came together pretty quickly, but it took me a really long time to be able to sing it without crying. It’s so short and simple! But that’s probably why (laughs).
You have guest appearances from Lucky Daye, Smino, and Kehlani here. What made them fitting artists to you to tell such a personal story?
So I picked Kehlani just because we had been meaning to work together for so long and we just needed the right couple of songs. That’s one of my friends like in real life, we’re like finsta friends, so we always know what each other is doing and it was just like why haven’t we gotten in the studio for real? That was her saying that, she was like, “Can we make a project together or something?” I was like sh*t, I got a couple of songs we could start with. Smino, I’ve known him for a few years now and we’ve been meaning to work for a while. We actually did get in the studio once back in the day, but it just didn’t come together organically, but this time it did. I had written the song and I just texted it to him. I was like, “Yooo,” and he sent it back the next day and those are always the best features to me. The ones that come back the next day or the next week are usually the best. Lucky Daye was a similar situation we had actually never met or even spoken before. I just slid in his DMs and was like, yo, I got a song, and he was like, “BET. Where we at? Where you at?” He came to the studio, it was real quick, real easy, like it was super natural. After he left, I remember thinking and saying, “Yo, he’s hella cool man, he’s one of us.”
The major transitional points on the album for me are the “heart” songs: “CYBAH,” “Heartfelt Freestyle,” and “BMHWDY.” Through these, we see that a major pain point with love is reciprocation and maintaining it. For you personally, what do you think is the scariest part about love?
Oh, for sure, just giving someone the power to hurt you. That’s definitely the scariest part for me. I’m not like afraid of commitment. I think we’re all just afraid of pain. For me, with this particular heartbreak, it was unexpected. I thought I was just going to breeze through life without ever experiencing a real one. I’ve had my heart broken before, or whatever, but I bounced back so fast off of those. This one let me know that those weren’t what I thought they were. Honestly, I think I was so ignorant before that I wasn’t afraid of that. I didn’t know what there was to be afraid of anyway. I hadn’t experienced that depth of pain before. Now that I have been through it, I can say I’m probably less afraid ironically. I know that’s like, “…what?” but now I know what to expect. I think fear of the unknown is also very real and not knowing what that pain could be like is also scary. So now I know that I could get through it. Honestly, now I know more about who I am because I learned a lot in that process. I’m less afraid these days.
Have you found comfort or a silver lining in being in the Broken Hearts Club?
Yes, yes! I have a newfound respect for all the homies who have been there (laughs). I don’t know about you, but when I was going through it, I had so many homies pat me on the back in spirit like, “I know bro, I know. You’re gonna get through this. I’ve been there.” Yeah, I got a newfound respect for all of those homies man, for sure.
In a past interview, you said that continuing the process of making this album after the heartbreak was hard because the music you were making at that time was so bitter. Now that it’s done, what would credit towards making this album in the way you wanted to, despite all the emotions you had?
This book The Power Of Now. It just taught me how to be present. What ended up happening was, I wrote a couple of songs, I thought I was going to take this heartbreak and channel it, and it just didn’t come out right. It sounded nasty and I was like, “Okay nah, I think I need to heal first.” So in order to do that, I read hella books, and the first one that I read was The Power Of Now, ironically, a suggestion from the girl who broke up with me. She read it right before she dumped me, so I was like, “What the f*ck did this book tell this b*tch? What was in here that made her leave my ass?? (laughs)” I read it and it really helped me to be present, to not run away from the feelings, but to actually go into it headfirst so that I know I’ve dealt with it, that I’ve released it, and that I’m not bottling nothing. I don’t want nothing popping up on me a year from now, you know, leftover pain and grief. So between that book, a good therapist, and space and time that the pandemic kind of allowed us.
What would you call this chapter of your career?
I have no idea and it’s really scary. It’s almost like a crossroads. It feels like it could go either way right now. One thing that I have to remind myself is that you can always start again because I’ve seen it, but when you’re being present, it’s hard to think like that. Sometimes, you can’t help but think like, “Damn, what if this is it for you girl? What if this is album is whatever to people and I don’t get another chance?” Thankfully, I’ve really gotten better at seeking validation from within. I’ve always been confident, but I haven’t always been sure of myself and now I feel very sure of myself and that’s a game-changer. Now, no one can tell me who I am and nobody could say, “Just trust me, just trust me. You’re gonna look great.” N****, I’m 30. You’re not about to tell me how I’m gonna look! You not bout to tell me that imma like this more than anything else I’ve ever been in. I fell for the okey-doke before. I’m just happy that when you Google me, new pictures pop up because boy… those first 5-10 years of my career? I wasn’t sure enough of myself to say “no.” Now I am, now I’m grown. I’m 30, can’t tell me bout me (laughs). And that feels really good.
Now that your solo project is done, is a return to music with The Internet in order?
I think we’ll be doing another Internet album before I do another solo project. Initially, in September, when me and Matt were talking about what we wanted to discuss [on the project], it was a little more about what was happening in the world, like this Internet perspective of the world right now and everybody going crazy. But when we talked about it at Smokin Grooves, he was like, “You know what? Let’s just have fun on this next record. If we want to talk about something serious, let’s have fun with it. Let’s just go back to some good times” So I think on the next one, I’ll probably be talking about all my trucks a lot (laughs), probably getting on people’s nerves.
Broken Hearts Club is out now via Columbia Records. You can stream it here.
In just a few days, Syd will release her sophomore album Broken Hearts Club. It’s her first solo release since 2017’s Fin and Always Never Home. Aside from that, the album will be the first musical project she’s been a part of since The Internet’s 2018 album Hive Mind. The project was a strong follow-up to their 2015 Grammy-nominated album Ego Death. The Internet got its start as a band in late 2011, and after almost 11 years together, it seems like their time together will come to an end soon. At least, that’s what Syd says.
During a recent profile with NME, Syd made a surprising announcement about The Internet’s future. “The next Internet album will also be our last,” she said. “I have no idea what’s next. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll create an Internet label. We talked about that – just signing ourselves.” It could mean more solo projects from the band’s remembers like Syd’s upcoming sophomore release.
Broken Hearts Club is led by singles like “Could You Break A Heart,” “Fast Car,” and “Right Track.” The project, which will arrive with 13 songs, will also include guest appearances from Lucky Daye, Smino, and Kehlani.
Syd returns with her much-anticipated second studio album Broken Hearts Clubthis month. Ahead of the album’s release, the “CYBAH” singer spoke with NME about the creation of her new project and the events leading up to it.
Looking back at her days in Odd Future — the hip-hop collective comprised of the likes Tyler The Creator, Frank Ocean, and Earl Sweatshirt — Syd admitted she doesn’t think about those moments fondly.
“It feels like a lifetime ago,” Syd said. “I don’t have any real memories of that time. I was just floating through it. I wasn’t in a good place then and so I don’t really reminisce on those moments.”
In the early 2010s, Odd Future became infamous for their homophobic and misogynistic lyrics. While the men of the group were revered for their craft, Syd, then known as Syd Tha Kid, was often the one held accountable by the public for the group’s behavior. The openly queer singer left Odd Future in 2016 and released her solo debut album, Fin, the following year.
Earlier in the interview, Syd, who is also the lead vocalist of The Internet said, “The next Internet album will also be our last. I have no idea what’s next. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll create an Internet label. We talked about that — just signing ourselves.”
Broken Hearts Club is out 4/8 via Columbia. Pre-save it here.
Seeing the 2022 Smokin’ Grooves lineup was the first time I felt real anxiety about catching everything at a music festival I wanted to. From top to bottom, the flyer was stacked with names I had a real investment in, from artists Uproxx currently covers such as Jhene Aiko, Kamasi Washington, Miguel, and The Roots to nostalgic faves like Angie Stone, Bilal, Macy Gray, and Musiq Soulchild. Needless to say, some executive decisions had to be made; about halfway through the fest, I gave up on the “nostalgic faves” portion of the proceedings after rushing back and forth between the two stages set up at LA’s State Historic Park became untenable. By the time TDE singer SiR hit the Smokin’ Grooves stage, I was pretty much parked there for the duration.
To be fair, this is a great problem for most festivals to have, and as an (ahem) older attendee with investments in many of the newer/younger acts like Uproxx cover star Foushee, I’ll admit my predicament was probably unique among festival-goers, who would usually only have a burning need to see a handful of acts and check out the rest out of curiosity. But Smokin’ Grooves was unique among festivals in that it was really the first time I legitimately wanted to see nearly every act on the bill, which speaks to the focus with which the fest’s organizers put that bill together. While suitably eclectic and diverse covering the breadth of hip-hop, R&B, jazz, and soul, the lineup found that distinctive pocket where all those things co-exist.
Unfortunately, that means that the lineup, jam-packed with back-to-back sets requiring full band setups, was a little crowded, and that caused some fraying at the seams holding everything together. Early in the show, a number of acts on the Smokin’ Grooves stage had microphones cut mid-song as they went over their time. The Jupiter stage seemed to handle the transitions more gracefully, allowing bands to play off as the stage turntable wheeled them around to bring the next act on. Even with these measures in place — and to be clear, I love the use of the turntable to get bands set up and onstage in time for their sets — minor delays built up over the course of the festival, resulting in the headliner Erykah Badu‘s set being cut in half due to sound curfew.
Look, I understand the logistics of putting on such a big event, let alone trying to turn a profit, but having any artists getting cut off is a bad look — especially the headliner. Granted, artists can be… let’s just say “stubborn” about the whole “sticking to their time” thing, as well as the whole “showing up on time” thing. It’s an issue that has existed as long as the recording industry has and will likely exist until it collapses. Since we all know this, though, it might be worth festival organizers looking at and eventually accepting the possibility of putting fewer acts on the bill in hopes of allowing more time for the logistical snags that will pop up no matter how well you plan. Artists also hold some responsibility, as well. If the city sends a citation because you couldn’t be bothered to leave the house 20 minutes early, that’s on you. Finally, and this is more of a personal quibble, it’d be nice if festivals brought back hosts who could keep things moving along and cut down on confusion between sets, even when they’re back-to-back.
But these were minor issues in the grand scheme of things. Smokin’ Grooves wound up being my favorite festival since the return of live events, based almost solely on the lineup and the venue. Aside from some of the less experienced artists, nearly every set was put on by veteran performers who knocked it out of the proverbial park. From Blu and Exile, who smartly stuck to mostly Below The Heavens selections, to Jhene Aiko, who graciously paused her set a few times to help distressed fans in the crowd, the vibes throughout the day were immaculate. So was the sequencing of the main stage; part of the reason I decided to stay there was the incredible build after SiR’s set, with Smino, Thundercat, The Internet, Aiko, The Roots, and Miguel, taking the stage and cranking up the energy with each new act.
Sure, it would have been nice to continue bouncing back and forth to the Jupiter stage — and easy, thanks to the simple, picture-perfect layout of the venue (I know it’s a smaller fest, but I sure would like to see way more events at this park). Slum Village and Dead Prez were truly meaningful to me in high school, while Roy Ayers is a legend and Toro Y Moi always puts on a great show. But as I made my way to the rideshare pick-up zone — a bit of a walk, to be sure, one of the only minor drawbacks to the venue — I could still hear the strains of Kamasi Washington’s sax lulling me back. Even too much of a good thing, it turns, can sometimes leave you wanting more.
