The RX

Mahalia Is Putting Herself First In Music And ‘In Real Life’

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Mahalia 2023 press image
Atlantic Records

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

For someone whose debut album is titled Love And Compromise, there isn’t much compromising on Mahalia’s second album IRL (In Real Life). The British singer laughs as I make note of this during our Zoom call as she heads to LAX for a flight back home after a month in the States.

It’s been four years since Mahalia released Love And Compromise, and since that album’s release, the singer and the rest of the world have gone through a lot. In credit to things like the obvious effects of the pandemic as well as more personal experiences, Mahalia, now 25 years old, is far removed from the 21-year-old woman who released that breakthrough collection.

Growing up is just one of the things that allowed her to make IRL. “Therapy got me here for sure,” she adds. “Therapy was probably the biggest catalyst for me. I think it was the one thing that really allowed me to understand myself. That’s why making this album was so interesting because I really felt like I was reflecting the whole time.”

Throughout the 13 songs that make up IRL, Mahalia couldn’t be more aware of herself and her surroundings and both the good and bad within them. She’s so deeply in love with Stormzy on “November” that she fears missing a moment of this romance by blinking or dozing off into sleep. “Isn’t It Strange” highlights the contradicting moments in her behavior but she blankets it with nonchalance as to do nothing more than acknowledge its existence. It’s a level of honesty and bluntness that emphasizes the “real” aspect of the album title. “I think that’s why this album maybe means so much to me because I think it actually does feel like diary entries,” she says.

Elsewhere, we meet the new Mahalia, the one who refuses to compromise for the things she wants. The one who lays down “Terms And Conditions” for love and warns that a potential lover will have to endure a vetting process conducted by her closest girls. The same who one found the courage to say “It’s Not Me, It’s You” to a man who made her wrongly believe that she was insufficient for a relationship. Despite this, Mahalia admits that often slips back to her old ways. “Even sometimes, now I find myself compromising on things and going, ‘what the f*ck am I doing?” Mahalia notes. “Like this is not what I’ve agreed with myself.”

Mahalia doesn’t attempt to hide the moments she goes against her own terms and conditions on IRL, and it’s that authenticity that adds to the album. After four years without an album, the British singer could have presented herself as a flawless woman who learned from her past to conquer anything her future threw her way. Instead, we get the very real back-and-forth moments of laying firm rules on “Terms And Conditions” all to hopefully bend them on “In My Head” with Joyce Wrice. “Wassup” with Kojey Radical celebrates freedom from an insufficient lover with a fun night on the town all for “Lose Lose” to follow and present Mahalia’s reluctance to put herself first and end a relationship that is riddled with too many problems. Through these instances, you may think that Mahalia is a bit fearful of change, but it was quite the opposite for her.

“My partner and I have now been together for coming up on three years,” she says. “Before that, I only made it to about 10 or 11 months, three times. When I got to that point with my partner, I remember having an internal freakout because I was like I don’t think I can go past that point or I’m feeling like I need to change and feeling like I need to alter something so that I can grow artistically.”

That feeling didn’t last too long as Mahalia admits that she’s “very scared of change now.” She is currently working towards splitting her time between homes in New York and London, a transition that she admits “freaked” her out at its start. “As you get older and figure out your comfort and the things that make you bounce, I think you don’t really want to change that because it’s taken you 25 years to find that sweet spot.”

This relationship has also allowed Mahalia, for the first time in her career, to create an album from the perspective of someone in a stable relationship. Staying on the topic of change, it’s been quite an adjustment for her to write from this new point of view. “I’m so used to just writing about the guys that do the sh*tty things and the guys that leave,” she says. “This was the time to be able to talk about all the intricacies of long-term relationships. They are just as crazy as being single and dating and being in the streets.” It’s a change that Mahalia not only fully embraced, but enjoyed as well. “The process itself was really, genuinely fun. Like, just really fun,” she admits. “I laughed [and] cried a lot while I was writing and creating, and I think that’s maybe why I’m so proud of it.”

During an interview with Evening Standard earlier this year, Mahalia admitted that she “probably wouldn’t have written this same album” if not for the pandemic. It’s an unsurprising note from the singer for a few reasons. First, the pandemic change a lot of things in a lot of areas for people all over the world, changes that were temporary and others that were permanent. Secondly, Mahalia’s almost three-year relationship means that it began in the heart of the pandemic, so who knows how it would’ve existed, if at all, if not for this time that forced the world to come to a standstill. These points aside, Mahalia also credits the “post”-pandemic moments for helping her find a direction for her sophomore album.

“Through the pandemic, we obviously couldn’t go into studios and stuff,” she recalls. “So when, when that time was over, I was working with loads of different people. I wasn’t really taking the time to sit and think, ‘This is my second album, what do I want to say?’ So after that immediate rush of being outside again, I decided that I kind of wanted that. I missed that feeling, I missed the four walls, I miss seeing the same people every single day.”

What came out of that was the decision to work with a small circle of three people to create IRL, and through that, comes an album that she feels is more cohesive than her debut. “[Without that], I would have just been going in the studio with everyone and just making a bunch of music which is kind of how Love & Compromise felt to me,” she admits. “I love that record and I always will because it was my first, but it definitely felt disjointed to me because I wasn’t learning with people and I wasn’t creating with people in that way. I was just creating to create.”

So what is it that Mahalia wants to say on IRL? Through all the changes she’s experienced in her life (multiple managers, boyfriends, and friends), Mahalia wanted to showcase her newfound independence and the benefits that come from it. “I really wanted people to get a sense of independence from this record,” she says. “Even though there are moments when I talk about relationships and people that I do depend on, I think you can really hear that I am depending on myself to get through this life and human experience.” She later adds, “I’m in that phase of my life where I’m like, I can do this sh*t on my own.”

Compromise is a thing of the past for Mahalia. Now, she’s putting herself first, both in her music and in real life.

IRL is out now via Atlantic Records. Find out more information about it here.

Killer Mike Paints A Compelling Self-Portrait — Flaws And All — With ‘Michael’

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killer mike michael review
Loma Vista/Derrick Rossignol

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

For two-plus decades, Killer Mike has existed at the periphery of the mainstream’s perception of Atlanta rap, despite being widely acknowledged by fans within the culture as one of the scene’s most talented members. There was Mike’s association with Outkast, the forebears of Atlanta’s rise to national prominence, and his tag-team duo, Run The Jewels with El-P, opening a whole new market of festival appearances and hipster blogger love.

He was even given one of rap’s ultimate blessings; on Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 To Pimp A Butterfly standout “Hood Politics,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning Comptonite throws Mike a lyrical shout-out while denouncing the hypocritical elitism within the hip-hop community. “Critics want to mention that they miss when hip-hop was rappin’,” he rails. “Motherfucker, if you did, then Killer Mike’d be platinum.”

To hear Mike himself tell it, though, there’s another reason behind the lack of hardware denoting his sales achievements. “My first record deal damaged me,” he told Spin in an interview this year promoting Michael, his first solo album in over a decade. “It made me afraid, it pulled me back. I hadn’t done terribly on the major. I just, you know, I came out the same year as 50 [Cent] selling 10 million f*cking records. I sold, you know, 500,000.”

While going gold with your debut album (2003’s Monster, which features the millennial-era sex-rap favorite “A.D.I.D.A.S.”) is no small accomplishment, Mike became convinced he belonged on the underground circuit, where his rap prowess could lead to all the critical acclaim that pursuing greater sales goals might cost him. So, he became a bit trapped between the two worlds; a charismatic would-be star content to grind it out below the radar where his talents might be better appreciated.

In all of this, he admits, it seems he never quite got around to introducing the audience to Michael Render, the man behind the Killer Mike persona — and maybe that’s why he never connected with audiences the same way that Kendrick Lamar would, despite sharing his fiery resolve and unapologetic outlook toward presenting his unvarnished view of the world around him. And so, Michael, released Friday via Via Loma after Mike spent half-a-million dollars of his own money recording and producing it, attempts to do that, explaining how and why Killer Mike came to be, and what he’s truly capable of when not relegated to a sidekick or partner role.

First of all, Mike’s Dungeon Family DNA runs throughout the project; it opens with an appearance from CeeLo Green in “Down By Law” and flourishes on “Scientists & Engineers” with features from the elusive André 3000 and fellow wayward Dungeon cousin Future. The album also embraces Mike’s more recent forays into the chaotic doom funk of his longtime production partner El-P on “Two Days.” But the prevailing musical thread that ties Michael together is the gospel of his youth.

Beginning with the ferocious “Shed Tears” and continuing through the defiant “Run,” picking up in the maudlin “Motherless” and piercing through the production of the album in its haunting use of organs and clips of passionate sermons from Malcolm X, the influence of the South’s church-steeped culture undergirds Mike’s tearful reflections and assertive remonstrations as he recounts his evolution from nihilistic drug dealer to community leader and unofficial poet laureate of Atlanta.

There are slip-ups, of course. A questionable reference to Brokeback Mountain on “Talk’n That Sh*t” undermines Mike’s coalition rhetoric (hard to form a coalition if you’re still so committed to dehumanizing at least 10 percent of any group of people working toward a supposedly common goal; as a resident of the city with one of the largest LGBTQ populations in the nation, Mike should know better), and occasionally, his real-life actions, however well-intentioned, come off as contradictory of the revolutionary bars he rattles off on nearly every song.

But if you’re going to paint a picture of a person, their flaws are necessarily going to be part and parcel of the completed image. That Mike refuses to shy away from even the most unflattering self-portrayals are a huge reason why he’s got so much support from the artistic community and from critics. He’s showing us just who Michael Render is, even if that’s just something we’ve all always known.

Michael is out now on Loma Vista Records.

Kiana Ledé Named Her ‘Grudges’ To Move Forward As A Hopeful Romantic

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Kiana Lede RX Press photo
Katia Temkin

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Inconsistency, inconsideration, and indecisiveness. Kiana Ledé names those as her “biggest pet peeves” during an interview with Uproxx ahead of her second album Grudges. Throughout the album’s 17 songs, Ledé journeys through past relationships that left her to deal with those bad qualities. However, it doesn’t stop there. Ledé also lists the grudges she has against men overall and herself as well. “I’m naming my grudges and calling them out so that I can move forward with my life,” she says.

Grudges is Ledé’s first album since her 2020 debut Kiki. That project presented a young adult who sought a fairy tale love story and believed that it could exist for her. Even the album’s low moments amounted to nothing but a brief bump in the road as it concludes with “Separation” and “No Takebacks,” which proved that Lede’s hopes and dreams were reasonable and not the result of youthful naivety. Three years later, things are much different for her. The novelty behind romance has lost its shine a bit and the frustration that she can’t have this thing that so many other people can indulge in is more present than ever.

“As a mature young woman, if I seem to be in a relationship with someone, I’m agreeing to meet in the middle, not compromise, but meet in the middle,” Ledé says. “So when you’re not helping me help us or help you, I can’t have that and I don’t like things that are out of my control. So yes, it frustrates me when I don’t know what someone’s thinking.”

These frustrations make for the foundation of “Irresponsible” and “Gemini Slander” on the album. The former blends anger and disappointment for a message penned directly to an unnamed lover who failed to live up to the adult task of being transparent, mature, and honest in love. “Gemini Slander” places Ledé in the driver’s seat as she walks away from a man who lacks the consistency and decisiveness required for love. Through a listen of Grudges, it’s clear that Ledé’s pains in love weren’t a brief or occasional occurrence. She has enough stories to tell because she’s been through it.

“I went through a breakup actually, during COVID I went through two breakups, so I don’t know if I got the world record for modern relationships you can have in quarantine,” Ledé recalls with a laugh. “Was in both of them, and clearly they did not go so great, but it’s okay. It left me with great music.” Though it wasn’t immediately that Ledé knew these songs would become what we now know as Grudges.

“Maybe [after] a year, a year and a half of making the album we were just like, these are grudges,” she says. “It wasn’t just about me having a grudge about my [exes], it really just created this perfect headline of the grudges I hold against the world and everything that it encompasses.”

Kiana Ledé’s growth from her early days helped her reach this point of vulnerable and sheer honesty about herself and others. Even throughout Grudges, there isn’t a point where she is spiteful toward those who contributed to qualms in love. It comes from a level of accountability that exists in these situations, especially ones that the singer herself had a hand in creating.

“I think as I’ve gotten older, no matter how big my role was, in those relationships, and this way, I can acknowledge and accept the part that I played,” she notes. “Too Far” is a perfect example of this as she acknowledges the effects of crossing the friendship barrier to explore the once-forbidden fruit of intimacy.

Though spite and retaliation were absent, a loss of faith in love, people, and trust took its place for some time as she details on the album’s title track. “I went through so much and was put through so much pain by the people that I thought loved me the most,” she remembers. “When that sort of betrayal happens, it’s really hard to think – like if these people were supposed to love me, how will this person that I met on Tuesday that I think is a good person and could be a good friend, how are they not gonna screw me over?” In naming and eventually freeing her grudges, Kiana also found it necessary to do the same to overcome doubts.

“I realized that you can build a good community by just trying,” she says. “I had to accept that with love of any kind, is going to come pain, and we can’t escape loss. That’s just a part of life.” Here, Ledé speaks of having hope, hope that tomorrow will be better, hope that you’ll receive what you prayed would be eventually, and hope that it’ll all be okay. “My friends and my mom are like you just are hopeful,” she says. “I just hope that people are who they say they are. There’s gonna be that one in a million that really is, so there is some hope and love somewhere.”

Despite all that she goes through on Grudges, this hope comes alive to conclude the album with “Magic.” It plays a role similar to that of “No Takebacks” on Kiki, a record that pours out the hopes for a forever romance, and while “Magic” looks to do the same for Grudges, it does so with a new sense of reality.

I label Ledé as a bit of a hopeless romantic, a title she fully accepts and credits for her ability to hold a grudge so well. However, when Grudges comes to a close, we’re left with the feeling that Ledé wants to be more of a hopeful romantic – optimistic about love’s potential while being a bit more practical about its arrival. Look no further than “Where You Go” with Khalid for evidence of this transition Ledé wants to make in the future. Though that record is certainly romantic on the surface, underneath that is the reminder of an unhealthy codependence that Ledé used to have in a previous relationship.

“I do hold a grudge against my younger self that was codependent with people that I was in a relationship with,” she admits. “It feels so good to be able to rely on someone right? But once it gets a little too codependent, like ‘I go where you go,’ it can be a lot.” Simply put, recognizing your faults is the first step in eventually correcting them.

At the end of the day, Grudges is Ledé’s moment of self-reflection and self-work and the pressures of getting it all done to overcome the past and reach what is destined for you. We see this through the intricate and well-thought-out artwork for Grudges. “The mirrors are a representation of a self-reflection, looking at yourself, and also who you are presently in that moment,” Ledé says. “The cameras are a representation of there being a lot of pressure while you’re looking at yourself, everyone else is looking at you, while you’re just trying to figure it out.” Overall, it’s a “clusterf*ck of sh*t around you” that hones in on the overwhelming feeling of working on yourself as the world watches and expects you to show up and simultaneously meet their own expectations.

In these moments, as Kiana Ledé has proven, the best thing you can do with flaws (and grudges) is to name them, acknowledge them, and set them free. But whatever you do, try your best to not hold on to them.

Grudges is out now via The Heavy Group/Republic Records. Find out more information here.

Janelle Monáe’s ‘The Age Of Pleasure’ Channels Freedom and Euphoria As Acts Of Resistance

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Janelle Monae
Atlantic

Over the last five years, Janelle Monáe’s brand as a creative force to be reckoned with hasn’t gone unnoticed. However, after dipping her toes into new experiences like acting and writing, she’s getting back to her musical roots. Much like the Kansas City-bred, ATL-cultivated musician herself, The Age Of Pleasure (which clocks in at just over 32 minutes) is sweet and petite. Yet, despite its length, her fourth studio-album serves as a jam-packed, Pan-African-spanning ode to finding pleasure in everyday moments.

Released June 9, The Age Of Pleasure creates a comforting space for Monáe and her beloved “Fandroids” to live out loud. Crafted in response to the pandemic and influenced by “Everyday People,” a globally-recognized cultural gathering and love letter to the Black community, the project showcases the 37-year-old’s evolution as a “free-ass motherf*cker.” Pleasure’s varied yet succinct production traverses the Black diaspora across 14 songs — Afrobeats, Ampiano, Lover’s Rock reggae, and trap-infused tunes showcase the artist’s creative license to do whatever the hell she feels like doing, in the name of artistic and individual gratification.

Though lyrics were crucial to Pleasure’s predecessor, 2018’s Grammy-nominated Dirty Computer, they don’t demand the spotlight here. Instead, the music — and the communal energy it ultimately stands for — speaks volumes. While outside ears may have felt that Dirty Computer’s content wasn’t “for them” for whatever reason, Pleasure makes it clear that anyone — regardless of gender identity or affirmation — is welcome to toast to life’s delights and concede to the rhythms. (“I want all of us (Black and Brown people, specifically) to have a soundtrack to this lifestyle,” Monáe told Angie Martinez in May.)

But this is not to say that Pleasure is devoid of queer moments, which should not come as a surprise considering the mechanisms of Monáe’s catalog and personal life. (The artist uses she/they pronouns, and identifies as non-binary.) For instance, the “Vivrant Thing”-interpolating “The Rush” featuring Amaarae and Nia Long is a call-out to the “pretty girl” who’s caught her eye. The runway-ready “Haute” nods to gender-fluidity. (“A bitch look pretty, a bitch look handsome,” Monáe says.)

The island-tinged single “Lipstick Lover” celebrates queer Black bodies, and the buzz surrounding its “controversial” music video (which showcases those bodies and much more) ultimately forced the multihyphenate to create a censored version for virgin eyes. Despite the new visual’s slight deviation from full-out freedom, the point still stands firm through Pleasure’s music. Monáe urges listeners to give in to enjoyment of self and with others, whether it’s emotionally or sexually.

This could be through Issa Rae-in-the-mirror-style affirmations (“I’m looking at a thousand versions of myself, and we’re all fine as f*ck,” she states in “Phenomenal,” which features TDE’s Doechii), or through commemorations of personal growth. The album opener “Float” finds the artist applauding her wins over an infectious trap beat created by Nate Wonder and Nana Kwabena, and horns provided by Seun Kuti and his band, Egypt 80. (Pleasure largely feels Fela Kuti-esque through grandiose instrumentation, so the sonic support from the legend’s son feels especially apropos.) And obviously, pleasure can also be found through physical self-exploration. (“If I could f*ck me right here, right now, I would do that,” Monáe admits on the aquatic, autoerotic “Water Slide.”)

But The Age Of Pleasure is best represented through songs illustrating the importance of community — the hallmark of “Everyday People” bashes. Monáe has been open about her past experiences living with a perfectionist complex. Through healing, she’s learning to enjoy the present without edits or filters, and she encourages others to do the same. (“I’m working on the balance of knowing that some things are just beyond your control and you’ve got to be in the moment and roll with the punches,” she said of her journey back in 2018.)

The dropping of this shield is most evident during The Age Of Pleasure’s trifecta of tracks: the CKay-assisted “Know Better” (which samples a hip-hop favorite: “Darkest Light” by the Lafayette Afro Rock Band), the bouncy “Paid In Pleasure,” and “Only Have Eyes 42,” a cheeky nod to polyamory that concludes with a euphoric string outro. This particular trio amplifies the notion of loosened inhibitions, forcing us to surrender to the moment and just have fun soaking up the company of others.

Given the internet discourse surrounding Monáe’s expression of her autonomy after years of donning (and shedding) her iconic tuxedo uniform, the growth of her individual freedom and self-understanding feels affirmed through The Age Of Pleasure. It can be anxiety-provoking to let your guard down, let people in, or to show up completely as yourself, but it can also be liberating to be exactly who you want to be in a world that doesn’t want you to do so.

The album captures what we all aim to experience at the end of the day. In this mid-to-post-pandemic era, it amplifies a new definition of freedom for many. The attacks on Black, Brown, and queer Americans is a daily concern. (A centuries-long one for all, but especially within the last several years.) Considering the constant diversions from the real national issues at hand, art celebrating the euphoria of authentic humanity, even with the threat of Right-winged erasure congregating in the distance, is resistance at its finest.

Throughout history’s most unsavory moments, music has always been there for minorities in particular to feel safe and seen. As someone who has never been a stranger to creating art reflective of The Times™, Janelle Monáe’s The Age Of Pleasure maintains the musician’s crusade of using her work to allow any and all “dirty computers” to remember that there is indeed a place for them in the world, and on the dancefloor.

Janelle Monáe is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Metro Boomin’s ‘Across The Spider-Verse’ Soundtrack Lives Up To The Incredible Film

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metro boomin across the spider verse soundtrack
Boominati/Republic/Freepik/Derrick Rossignol

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Five years ago, I reviewed the soundtrack from Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, a film that blew my mind and instantly became ingrained as not just one of my favorite Spider-Man or Marvel or superhero films but one of my favorite films, period. Five days ago, I watched that film’s sequel, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, and now, as I write this, I’m still buzzing from the high of watching it again just hours ago.

The sequel isn’t so much a continuation of the first story as it is its own evolved organism. Like how life started with aquatic creatures and eventually became the wildly diverse array of species and body plans we see today. There’s shared DNA, but you can see how things have adapted and changed and grown into much more complex lifeforms — not necessarily, better, per se, but totally different in endlessly fascinating new ways.

Here’s what I wrote about the first soundtrack: “Like the Black Panther soundtrack before it, the film understands its cultural relevance, the moment it speaks to, and the world it must represent, and does so, making it one of the best hip-hop-oriented film soundtracks ever created.” With that in mind, writing about the second soundtrack, which was produced and curated by St. Louis superproducer Metro Boomin, begs for the sort of reinvention and deconstruction that the second film does.

Fortunately, the new soundtrack offers the perfect opportunity for it. Unlike the first Spider-Verse soundtrack, Metro Boomin Presents Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse plays as more of a straightforward album than its predecessor. While the original presented a diverse slate of artists and styles reflecting and deepening the themes of the movie, listening to the second, you might forget that it’s a soundtrack at all. Nobody mentions Spider-Man, the character, or says the word “superhero” across its 13 tracks (19 on the deluxe version released just days later).

But while each of those tracks slots perfectly into its respective needle-drop moment in the film, here, there’s a sense of cohesion that the first one lacked — for certain, a product of having a single producer curating tracks with his favorite collaborators. Where the first featured a number of rising stars who might not be instantly recognizable — one breakout song, “What’s Up Danger,” was performed by Blackway, who isn’t exactly a marquee star — this one is littered with A-list talent, from 21 Savage and ASAP Rocky to James Blake and Nas.

Fittingly, though, there is some continuity: Coi Leray returns here for the reflective “Self Love.” She’s seen a similar rise in popularity since the first movie, just like the franchise itself (the first film opened at $35.4 million for the weekend; the new one grossed $120.7 million in the same span). Metro also wisely expands his own range, continuing the first soundtrack’s nods to the multi-cultural Brooklyn setting of the film with forays into dancehall (“Silk & Cologne” with Ei8ht and Offset), Afrobeats (“Link Up” with Don Toliver and Wizkid), and alt-pop (the standout “Hummingbird” with James Blake).

And where the first film dazzled with entirely new animation techniques and novel production design, the second, without the element of surprise that the first one had, deepened and expanded its use of these elements to enrich the visual storytelling (in Spider-Gwen’s world, the watercolor backgrounds shapeshift to reflect the characters’ emotional conflicts — strong stuff). Likewise, Across The Spider-Verse‘s soundtrack doesn’t get to blow us away with a “Sunflower,” the Post Malone and Swae Lee collab that went 18 times platinum while becoming a soundtrack earworm on the scale of “Don’t You Forget About Me” or “Danger Zone.”

So, instead, Metro and friends spread the inescapable catchiness across the tracklist as a whole. In the past seven days, I have been stuck, alternately, on ASAP Rocky and Roisee’s “Am I Dreaming,” whose strings pulsate with emotion; Swae Lee, Nav, and A Boogie wit da Hoodie’s “Calling,” which may mark my first time actually enjoying a Nav song; and Dominic Fike’s deluxe edition addition “Mona Lisa,” the very definition of a bop. My neighbors are undoubtedly sick of all three by now, but I’ve considerately varied the playlist with Future and Lil Uzi Vert’s “All The Way Live,” Offset and JID’s (!!) “Danger (Spider),” and “Silk & Cologne.”

Throughout the album, it’s clear that Metro, like the Sony Pictures Animation studio, stepped up his game tremendously. We’re well used to his thumping 808s and haunting samples by now; this time, he adds soaring strings, blaring, superheroic horns, subtle synths, and sprinkles of dialogue from the film to his formula, crafting candy-coated musical concoctions that sit as easily aside each other as they do the frenetic animation and heartfelt scenes on the screen.

If Enter The Spider-Verse produced one of my favorite superhero film soundtracks, Across The Spider-Verse presents one of the best — no caveats or categories needed. It may not feel as groundbreaking as its predecessor, but it is an album that compels repeat listening and rewards it every time. Tasked with producing a soundtrack worthy of the mighty leap forward the sequel has made, the artist whose oeuvre includes not just one superhero-themed album but two (with another on the way) proves himself up to the Herculean task and, like the film itself, leaves listeners desperate for more.

Metro Boomin Presents Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is out now on Boominati/Republic.

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

Aminé And Kaytranada’s Effervescent ‘Kaytraminé’ Is The Summer

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kaytramine rx
Amine / Kaytranada

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

The other day, a DJ friend of mine posted a thread on Twitter pointing out how modern hip-hop isn’t really made for dancing. Somewhere along the way, the prevalent vibe for hip-hop songs became either the murky, muddy, drugged-out sound first popularized by Future or the boisterous, triumphant, standing-on-couches style best exemplified by Rick Ross. You can flex, you can jump up and down, or you can zone out to it, but mostly, folks in the club just stand around looking at their phones or filming other people standing around looking at their phones. Sometimes, there’s twerking.

Fortunately, Aminé and Kaytranada are here to save the day. I immediately forwarded my DJ friend the cover of their new album Kaytraminé (which doubles as the duo’s collective soubriquet), which by the group’s own estimation on Twitter is not just the album of the summer, but the literal soundtrack of it. I’m inclined to agree.

As soon as you press play on “Who He Iz,” the album’s opener, the first voice you hear demands that listeners leave their “cool” at the door. As Kaytranada provides a slinky beat reminiscent of Busta Rhymes’ masterful 1997 solo debut “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See,” Aminé spits rapid-fire, boastful verses in the same vein. It’s hard to resist the urge to shoulder shimmy — again, see the video for the above-mentioned Busta Rhymes classic — and they’re just getting started.

Across the album’s 11 tracks, Kaytraminé gets straight to the point: this is music that they want you to dance to. The star of the show in that regard is, of course, Kaytranada’s effervescent, up-tempo beats. The producer has earned a reputation over the past few years as the bridge between dance music, hip-hop, and R&B, adopting a production style equally influenced by house music pioneers as it is by RZA and The Neptunes.

Speaking of The Neptunes, Pharrell Williams makes an appearance here on the bouncy single “4Eva,” lending Kaytraminé the legitimacy of his legacy as the 2000s’ premier dance floor filler. Kaytranada’s impression of his production idol is beyond adroit; that he transforms the beat-making style of the maestro into a distinctive concoction recognizable as a Kaytra original with Pharrell on the song is an impressive feat, marking Kaytranada as a worthwhile successor. “Eye” is another successful effort in this vein, accented by sound effects from Sonic The Hedgehog and featuring frequent Pharrell Phriend Snoop Dogg.

What’s even more impressive: it’s not all champagne fizz and tropical vibes, yet Kaytraminé never loses the vibe of a consummate summertime album. “Westside,” despite channeling the ambiance of one of Ross’s lumbering, barrel-chested anthems, retains a thread of focus on moving the lower anatomy as much as mean-mugging the haters. “Rebuke,” a mellow, top-down cruiser, is as sure to provoke a two-step when listeners reach their destination.

And look, just because Kaytranada’s beats are the highlight doesn’t mean Aminé is out here slouching on the rhymes. If anything, it’s probably harder to write a good party song — let alone eleven of them — that suits the hip-swinging tempos offered here. Think about what kinds of songs have always gotten toes tapping at day parties and nightclubs throughout the warm months. They’re not often specifically about partying. Take, for instance, Snoop and Pharrell’s slew of collabs. They run the gamut from slick-talking gangsta funk to sensual flirtations with the sort of woman you’d meet at a summertime social gathering, directly addressed to enemies or admirers.

In this, Aminé is also a worthy successor. Whether putting down would-be rivals on “Master P,” preaching self-validation on “K&A,” or lamenting lost love on “Rebuke,” he’s good for winking punchlines and adept vibe-setting. The tightrope act between relatable and aspirational is one he’s long mastered, and he puts it to effective use here. By turns, Kaytraminé evokes the atmosphere of a warm night on the coast with a cloudless sky, a packed, small-room venue with free-flowing drinks and vibrant energy, and a pool party where people actually get in the pool. If that ain’t summer, I don’t know what is.

Kaytraminé is out now via Venice Music.

Rap Needs More Artists Like Deante’ Hitchcock And His Earnest Album, ‘Once Upon A Time’

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Deante’ Hitchcock
RCA

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Atlanta rapper Deante’ Hitchcock‘s second album, Once Upon A Time, offers a prime example of what rap needs more of. It’s got a clear, well-executed concept, head-nodding, instantly engaging production, and most importantly, the sort of earnest passion that denotes a serious artist who doesn’t take himself too seriously — i.e., one who’ll stick around and grow with the game long after “cooler” contemporaries have burned out or been exposed as lightweights.

There are some in my line of work for whom the above traits are ridiculous, deserving of derision and mockery. Just look at the reception to Chance The Rapper’s debut album, The Big Day, or the very existence of the term “dad rap.” The idea of maturity in hip-hop music would seem like anathema to an outsider, who might think the entire point of the genre was either aimless rebellion, ostentatious braggadocio, or mindless physical movement.

But from Deante Hitchcock’s 2020 debut album Better, the 30-year-old rapper always radiated self-possession and that above-mentioned maturity (I remarked about it in my review). He’s been likened to a combination of hometown hero T.I. and early benefactor J. Cole, and while there are those who might not consider that a good thing, there’s a reason both of those names ring bells in the wider hip-hop community. Commitment to craftsmanship and easygoing, relatable charisma shouldn’t be considered flaws.

In fact, the artists who’ve proven the most resilient have always had these qualities in abundance. In a genre where the average career peak only spans about five years and hitmakers can turn into has-beens seemingly overnight, the stalwarts who’ve outlasted rap fans’ minuscule attention spans and rapid attrition as hyperactive teens age into responsible adults tend to be those who are most passionate about the craft. The ones who can wrangle a concept, who make you root for them even when they don’t fit into the archetypes of the gangster, the pimp, the scumbag, or one of the other toxic molds rap marketing departments have come up with.

In other words, Deante’ Hitchcock should remind you of names like T.I. and J. Cole, as well as other Atlanta mainstays like Big Boi and Killer Mike, and deeply rooted grown-man rappers such as Common and Phonte Coleman. His peers are names like Denzel Curry and Big KRIT, who appears here on “Callin’” alongside Westside Boogie, another rapper who taps into his emotional growth and sharp-eyed environmental observations to flourish. And yes, he’s got the charm of an early Chance The Rapper, who despite being semi-written off by fans, deserves more respect for both his technical skills and business success.

Once Upon A Time, which tracks Hitchcock’s growth from club-crawling player to committed family man, is the prime example of why he belongs in such esteemed company. From the party-ready “Woah!” to the introspective “U Were Right I Was Wrong,” Hitchcock deconstructs and expands on what mid-2000s-era rap writers would have called the “for the ladies” track. While each song prescribes a different mood and premise, they are all unified by the context of the sort of song that would have represented a brief break in the gun talk to baldly — and occasionally, badly — appeal to any potential female fans.

That Hitchcock avoids dipping too deeply into the saccharine schmaltz of that subgenre of songs — save on “Drunk AF,” which sounds like something Chris Brown would have done around 2010 — is an impressive indicator of his talent and how earnestly he’s considered the subject matter.

When I interviewed Deante’ last summer, he said of this project, “If you look at the legends, the Drakes, the Jay-Z’s, the Waynes, all of them guys, the thing that separates them – because all of them are technically inclined, they’re skilled at what they do, all of them can rap their ass off, get crazy with it – but they also have songs that the world can sing. And I mean, being a rapper, a lot of people will hit me up and be like, ‘Bro, you be rapping your ass off.’ I’m very appreciative of that. Because that’s the skillset I’ve honed for years. But bro, I want hits.”

There are plenty of songs here that could be considered hits — “Zodiac,” “Thinking ‘Bout You,” “Late Night” — but the fact that the quieter, more thoughtful moments — “2 Special,” “Royal” — are just as sticky testify to the effort Hitchcock made, and the growth he’s experienced since Better. And that sort of authenticity and passion is just what hip-hop needs. With the genre being increasingly infiltrated by soulless AI creations, algorithmically-written bids for TikTok viral hits, and disaffected, cynical interests more focused on sucking the culture dry for profit, that there are artists like Hitchcock still making this kind of effort is heartening. The rap business needs more like him.

Once Upon A Time is out now on ByStorm Entertainment and RCA Records.

IDK Breaks Boundaries On The Eclectic, Jazz- And Racing-Themed ‘F65’

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IDK F65 Review RX
IDK

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

IDK is one of the most creative rappers working today. But more importantly, he knows how to apply that creativity to his new album F65. The follow-up to 2022’s Simple expands the sonic palette but retains the incisive focus, pairing IDK’s unique outlooks with experimental production that pushes the boundaries of the familiar.

F65 feels like an evolution of IDK’s 2021 album USEE4YOURSELF, which now seems as though it was a dry run for the kind of eclecticism the Maryland rapper wanted to embrace then, but only recently mastered his impressive well of creativity enough to grasp. While he may never truly shake some of the most common criticisms against him (I mean, he can’t change his voice, but he can certainly use it better than his doppelganger Kanye), he certainly transcends them here.

The binding theme of F65, as you could probably guess from the cover, is Formula 1 racing. However, there’s also an unexpected thread throughout: IDK’s burgeoning appreciation for classic jazz. As he explains in the interlude “Champs-Élysées,” this stems from his grounding practice of “driving fast” playing jazz. The unusual pairing of energies is perfect for IDK, whose entire life and career have been shaped by the pairing of paradoxes.

Contrasting truths and the tension between them are the core of IDK’s personality. He’s a self-declared middle-class kid who embraced the streets in an effort to live up to social expectations of Black masculinity. While he details that experience on his debut album IWasVeryBad, he reiterates and distills those motivations here in the thundering “Paperchaser.”

He also attacks the question of the friction between the above-mentioned expectations of Black masculinity and the fear of femininity on “Pinot Noir,” ceding his spotlight to Saucy Santana and Jucee Froot. This is a duo I’d love to hear more of; Santana defies conventions by being a loudly-out gay man while embracing many of the dynamics of gangsta rap. Yes, he carries a purse, but he also carries a gun in that purse. Watch your tone.

While IDK is far from what you’d consider a “conscious” rapper, he shows his awareness of systemic and social problems in far subtler ways. The F1-themed interludes focus on commentary revolving around Lewis Hamilton, a champion driver who nonetheless feels the strain of being one of the only Black drivers on the circuit. He’s faced discrimination in spite – or perhaps because of – his success, while carrying the weight common to all pioneers in traditionally white spaces.

That isn’t to say that IDK doesn’t address the tribulations of Black life head-on when he needs to, though. “Mr. Police” is a prime example, borrowing the familiar refrain coined by NWA decades ago; in typical IDK fashion, however, he turns the song into a jazzy deflection of the more casual racism involved in his interactions with the law – the most common kind, the ones that don’t end in bloodshed, but cost Black folks in other ways.

If there’s a thesis here, it’s in IDK’s love of his Blackness. From dipping his toes into a dizzying variety of Black musical genres – Afrobeats, Jersey club, the aforementioned jazz – to sampling a cluster of classics from Black canon – Michael Jackson’s “Can’t Help It,” Carl Thomas’ “I Wish” – IDK gives a musical lesson in Black history. He talks up his love for Black women on “Still Your Man” and “Superwoman,” receiving advice on life and love from no less an authority than Snoop Dogg. By the final song, “Freetown,” a four-minute jazz instrumental, the message is clear: It’s all Black, and we shouldn’t be limiting ourselves to any one genre or interest. We are many things.

F65 is out now on Clue No Clue / Warner Records.

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

Jack Harlow Goes Back To His Old Ways With Newfound Wisdom On ‘Jackman’

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jack harlow jackman review
Atlantic Records

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Maybe it was the lukewarm reception to his last album, Come Home The Kids Miss You, or maybe it was the backlash to his casting in a remake of White Men Can’t Jump, but Jack Harlow seems fed up. On his newest album, Jackman, he goes back to the old Jack, only this time, with a chip on his shoulder and more to say than ever. Oddly enough, this more combative stance suits him, positioning him perfectly to address some of his recent controversies and distance himself from one of the most common complaints about him.

In a recent trailer for the FX show Dave, the show’s protagonist Lil Dicky engages in a tense (but comedic) confrontation with fellow white rapper Jack Harlow. While the episode itself hasn’t aired yet, it’s the origin of their on-screen beef is, like most things in the show, inspired by real life. The two men, both white rappers with oodles of curly hair and off-kilter senses of humor, are often compared, and Harlow especially seems to bristle at such connections.

That’s probably because, unlike Dicky, Jack has taken rap seriously from the beginning. At least, at the outset of Dicky’s career, it seemed that the elder rapper treated hip-hop — and his presence in it — as something of a joke. And while Dicky captured the public’s hearts with his obviously dedicated flow and sharp wit, Harlow never approached hip-hop as though he were an outsider. But the two entertainers have ended up at a similar place, albeit from disparate paths.

Rap fans seem to regard both with an equal measure of curiosity and skepticism. Although he’d been independently releasing mixtapes for several years before “What’s Poppin” took over the charts in 2020, most fans were introduced to him by that song. And, as so often happens in the post-blog rap era, many of those fans apparently regard him as an interloping, overnight success. In short, they sort of see him as Lil Dicky 2.0, just using rap to get over until he can move on to bigger, “better” things.

Jack’s resentment of this assessment is no clearer than in “It Can’t Be,” which tackles those accusations head-on. “It can’t be that I simply make ear candy,” he muses. “Especially when the industry could just plant me / Especially when I didn’t grow up on Brandy” — a nod to the non-controversy last year in which it was revealed he didn’t know R&B singers Brandy and Ray J were siblings, another mark against him in the eyes of fans who view him more as a cultural tourist than a hip-hop purist.

Likewise, Jack employs his observational gifts to highlight and subtly satirize the sizable and growing portion of the fan base that actually is engaging in the tourism, appropriation, and exploitation of hip-hop in the album’s intro, “Common Ground.” While the song stops short of outright judgment, it is lightly antagonistic, the way a good journalist should be when interrogating a subject (Jack has plenty to say on that count here). While this isn’t his first time addressing this disconnect, it’s done more bluntly — and more deftly — here.

Unlike Dicky, these were always tools that Harlow had in his bag. But, to tease — or torture — the metaphor a little, there was one other element that Jack needed to put these tools to good use. Any carpenter who wants to acquire their license must first complete an apprenticeship and put in their hours as a journeyman. In short, what Jack Harlow needed was experience and time to make full use of his technical skills, to hone them to the point that a Jackman would be possible.

“Gang Gang Gang” highlights this. A concept track which the rapper poses as a series of conversations catching up with friends back home, he’s horrified to learn that some of his closest friends have turned out to be bad eggs. It’s effective because he doesn’t pull back to make any larger political points, he keeps the focus on the discomfort and disbelief he feels and his internal struggle to reconcile the kids he knew with the monsters they grew up to be — and how to let them go. It’s a conversation more of us should be having with ourselves if we’re honest.

The glitzy, Neptunes-inspired production of Come Home — which was timely in its own right, but rubbed day-one fans and newbies the wrong way — is gone, replaced by the earthy, soul-looped backpack rap of Harlow’s youth. (An interesting catch-22 is that, had this been his second album after the success of That’s What They All Say, he’d have been undoubtedly written off as a self-serious, one-note backpacker. He had to release the glossy, celebratory Come Home in order to be taken seriously). Instead of R&B hooks and flashy features, Jackman is just 10 two-minute songs, each digging deeper into subjects he’s always touched on but with more maturity and insight than we’ve previously seen.

The funny thing is, he’s always had this in him. Jackman is, after all, his full first name. Little has changed but the circumstances. Harlow is now just a little more weathered. He’s grown into himself more as a man (it’s easy to forget, he’s just 25 years old; his brain is literally still not finished cooking from a biological standpoint). Jackman, the album, is Jackman, the person, completing his journeymanship. He knows what he’s doing now and maybe now, we’ll trust that. He may not ever shake the Lil Dicky comparisons, but now even those listeners who only scratch the surface will know he’s no joke.

Jackman is out now on Generation Now/Atlantic. Get it here.

Skyzoo Gets Into ‘The Mind Of A Saint’ With His Masterful Concept Album Inspired By ‘Snowfall’

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Skyzoo snowfall rx
Skyzoo

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Last night, the series finale of Snowfall aired, bringing the winding six-year epic to an ironic conclusion. The finale also brought the story of LA drug kingpin Franklin Saint full circle, ending the narrative much as it began – albeit with its protagonist in a much different state, ten years later. (It’s also a full circle moment for yours truly; I quit my old job to work at Uproxx full-time in order to shoot some sponsored content for Snowfall back when it debuted in 2017.)

That story fascinated Brooklyn rapper Skyzoo so much, he wrote a whole album about it. The Mind Of A Saint came out back in January, but much like the show itself, I didn’t get around to engaging with it until much later. With the overload of content coming out on a seemingly daily basis, the project got lost in the rush.

Fortunately, thanks to the series finale airing this week, I had the perfect opportunity to revisit the project – and I’m so glad I did. On The Mind Of A Saint, Sky plants himself into Franklin’s Converse All-Stars to deliver what he believes is the album that Franklin himself would make if he pulled an Eazy-E and switched from the drug business to the music one.

And unsurprisingly, it works extremely well. Sure, Skyzoo’s got that whole brusque New Yorker demeanor – not to mention an accent that marks him as a native of the Big Apple far more than a hard-R-slinging South LA resident – but aside from the modern quirks of his densely-packed delivery and modern rap mannerisms (as opposed to the more straightforward flows adopted by Angelenos in the ‘80s), his unique storytelling style captures the essence of the series perfectly.

Across the 10 tracks, Skyzoo channels his love of sports and pop culture references into the show’s 1980s setting, only using metaphors he knows the protagonist would use. This includes nods to geopolitical happenings like the Iran-Contra scandal on “Eminent Domain” and local sports heroes like the Lakers’ Norm Nixon on “Straight Drop.”

Meanwhile, tracks like “Bodies!” and “Apologies In Order” recount events from the show itself, like a rap recap. Sky litters the former with the names of the characters in the series who meet their demises from Franklin’s machinations, all while detailing the kingpin’s mindstate: “Manboy deserved it, Khadijah deserved it / Tyana shouldn’t have been in that car, that wasn’t worth it / Andre deserved it / I mean, in the beginning, he didn’t but then he went and got all this pretend purpose.”

Even more impressively, though, Skyzoo indirectly uses this conceptual approach to the album to turn the lens onto the ills of society that continue to create the conditions for this criminal mindset to this day. “Picture opportunity skipping over who you be,” he mourns on “Eminent Domain.”

Then, “Views From The Valley” presents the stark contrast between LA’s various enclaves and how seeing wealth just out of reach can make someone desperate to change their fortunes: “Never blink, and turn all this shit into more than I could ever think /Not a stereotype to let me sink, let me link / Between where I’m from to where I’m placed at /And pray over this blizzard I’ma whip up on my way back.”

When he pulls back for a bird’s-eye view on “Panthers & Powder,” it doesn’t feel like a betrayal of the concept. Instead, it reads like something Franklin knows implicitly, even if he wouldn’t know how to articulate it out loud – at least, until he decided to dedicate himself to a craft like rap, in which case those connections might become clearer.

The most impressive moment on the album, though, comes near its own conclusion (which, unfortunately, was written before the final season of the show even aired, leaving Sky’s interpretation of those events unwritten). On “Purity,” Sky imagines Franklin’s fateful meeting with a young Nipsey Hussle and his older brother Blacc Sam as toddlers. By this point in the show, it’s 1986, so it would be entirely possible for a real-life Franklin to have met the boys’ father.

It’s a clever way to double down on the album’s (and the show’s) themes; that for every action, there’s a reaction, that the consequences of a scheme often far outweigh the merits, that legacies are built and destroyed by the mundane encounters we have every day, and that a system that fails its most vulnerable will stay failing everyone within it.

Nip, like Sky’s imaginary Franklin, found his way out of the hustler’s lifestyle through rap; like the show’s Franklin, though, he couldn’t really escape the realities of the twisted social structure of America, which has determined that some lives have more value than others – even when they traffic in the same immoral industry (just watch the show, you’ll get it).

Like the show that inspired it, The Mind Of A Saint is a fascinating glimpse at the realities of the drug trade and its impacts on the community around it, without the glamorizing that comes from other, similar examples of trap and gangster rap. Because Sky posits from the outset that this is a fictional character’s narrative, he can get intimately close but remain artistically distant.

It’s an example of hip-hop at its highest form, a literary work worth digging into to exegete heady themes and an entertaining display of smart, surprising wordplay. It’s what KRS-One set out to make with Criminal Minded and an extension of Jay-Z accomplished with American Gangster. It’s a concept album that actually sticks the landing – something that is so rarely accomplished in any genre. And, with the final season finally out in the world, there’s still some story left to tell – a perfect excuse for Skyzoo to drop a deluxe.

The Mind Of A Saint is out now. Get it here.