The RX

Don Toliver’s Stylish Third Album ‘Love Sick’ Is A Step In The Right Direction

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Don Toliver Love Sick Review
Atlantic

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.

In the leadup to the release of his third album, Love Sick, Houston rapper-singer Don Toliver said enough of the right things to make me believe that this would be the project of his that would finally tell us who he is.

“On this particular album, I really locked in on the actual story and the theme of the album and basically the tracklist is going in sequence, in motion of the actual story, of what it will be,” he said in one interview.

“I want people to listen to my music and think it’s timeless,” he echoed in another. “To think about Marvin Gaye, Sade, Jay-Z, and just listen again. All I strive for is to be in the conversation with some of the greatest of all time.”

The one thing all of those greats did, though, is put themselves into their music. When you push play on “Song Cry,” you get the impression that Jay is letting us in on a moment in his life. When Marvin Gaye made “What’s Goin’ On?” it was considered a massive creative risk, but it was a sentiment he cared about deeply enough to take that risk.

With Don Toliver, I’ve never gotten the impression that I’m learning anything about him or what he truly cares about in his music. I tend to believe that he’s the consummate aesthete – his presentation is everything, and he’s going for a look rather than a feel.

The feeling that pervaded his prior releases Heaven Or Hell and Life Of A Don is that his primary preoccupation in making them was imitating and improving upon the aesthetics of stylistic forebears like his mentor Travis Scott, Future (both of whom appear here), and Young Thug – i.e. the wounded melodic howling, eerie vocal effects, and clipped, erratic rap deliveries that made them stand out from the pack when they first broke out in the middle of the last decade.

Love Sick, on the other hand, seemed like it would be a step forward when we’d begin to see more of the artist in his work. Love, after all, is the most personal and primal of human emotions, even as it remains the most universal. If any subject could crack the facade and reveal the interiority missing from Toliver’s past projects, this would be it.

After a few listens to Love Sick, though, I still haven’t figured out who Don Toliver is.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s a polished, pleasant body of work. If nothing else, he’s upped his game with regard to developing his own artistic flourishes. Perhaps credit belongs to his expanded roster of production partners. After all, it’s hard not to notice that the Kaytranada-produced “Honeymoon” is a standout, nor is the dreamy quality of “Let Her Go,” which features James Blake.

The hyperfocus on subject matter allows Toliver much more room to play around sonically. So while there are still cavernous club 808s and bellowing synthetic bass lines aplenty – “Leave The Club” is a prime example – “Leather Club” finds a smooth, almost ‘80s adult contemporary vibe well suited to his Drake-lite lamentations of one-directional affections.

“Slow Motion” with Wizkid is a surprising dance floor banger that goes in a completely different direction than you’d expect with the Afropop star involved, “If I Had” recruits quiet storm favorite Charlie Wilson for a classic example of the genre, and Chicago heads will almost certainly figure out a few new juke steps to “Bus Stop.”

Throughout Love Sick, I get the feeling that Don Toliver is a nice guy who is really kind of a music nerd, someone collaborators really enjoy testing out new sounds with. But there’s still no sense of identity, that undefinable something that instantly lets you know when you’re hearing a song from Future, Travis Scott, or Young Thug.

The good news is that Toliver is really good at executing an idea, and that’s a step in the right direction for where he wants to be. Coming up with a concept and making music that effectively conveys those ideas is really hard – that’s why we hold such respect for artists. If Love Sick has more style than substance, that style is really charming and enjoyable.

And if Toliver hadn’t managed to at least do that much, we wouldn’t be talking about him at all. If he wants us to talk about him in the same breath as Sade Adu, he’s laid a decent foundation for that conversation to take place. But he still needs to give us something to talk about. He’s almost there.

Love Sick is out now via Cactus Jack and Atlantic Records.

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

Key Glock Takes His First Steps Out Of His Mentor’s Shadow On The Assured ‘Glockoma 2’

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key glock glockoma 2 review
Paper Route Empire

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.

Glockoma 2 is Key Glock’s first full-length album since the passing of Young Dolph. As such, it would seem that there’d be a lot of fanfare around its release, some pomp and circumstance worthy of Dolph’s standing in the Memphis rap scene and Glock’s proximity to him as his protege and frequent collaborator.

But that’d run counter to both rappers’ modus operandi, the way they eschewed big-name guests and moved in modes consistent with the gritty street narratives they unraveled in their music. Key Glock is not a flashy guy, although he does sport the usual array of chunky, diamond-encrusted necklaces common to his profession.

Instead, what we get on Glockoma 2 is a microcosm of the Paper Route Empire ethos of consistency and authenticity, with little window dressing or build-up. The album was released quietly over the weekend after only a pair of straightforward singles (“Dirt” and “Work” both of which are frontloaded here) and a tour announcement. The music included is similarly unfussy, with no featured artists and a familiar lineup of producers including BandPlay, Hitkidd, and Sledgren.

What makes it stand out among a slew of similarly-themed projects is Glock’s intense focus on improvement. He’s always been cleverer rhyme-smith than he’s perhaps been given credit for, but here, he elevates his craft impressively, stunning with subtly witty one-liners and plainspoken but deft boasts (“I just pulled up with my chopper like the Undertaker,” he barks on “2 For 1”).

Of course, the spirit of Dolph hovers over the proceedings. While Glock dodges obvious references to the tragedy that knocked his world off its axis, his mentor’s influence is clear in both his improved delivery and in overt lyrical references. On “Ratchet,” he nods to the Dolph-shaped void, “I took a couple losses, that shit there made me a winner / Boss shit, baby, yeah, I do this for Flippa.”

There isn’t much variation on these themes in Glock’s lyrics, but he keeps the content sounding fresh with a versatile selection of beats. They demand enough course correction to keep him in a variety of pockets, which helps distinguish each song and prevent his voice – the only one on the album thanks to his “F**k A Feature” mentality – from becoming monotonous. From the sauntering horns on “Randy Orton” to the Gothic trap bounce of “Money Over Hoes,” there’s enough variation in sounds to prove Glock’s adaptability.

If there’s anything missing here, it’s a more in-depth excavation of the principal’s emotional state of mind. He took a full year off after consistently releasing at least an album a year since 2016 as a result of the emotional hit he took with Dolph’s death. While maintaining his unfazed persona is likely good business – it’s what’s worked for him so far – it’d be nice to see him drop kayfabe at least here to address a traumatic experience without framing it as a temporary setback.

He similarly put off this reckoning on his late 2022 EP PRE5L, which seemed less pressing because of that project’s positioning as a warm-up of sorts for his grander return. Now that he’s made that return, it’s comforting to see him getting back on track, but a little disheartening to know that he still feels like he can’t address how he’s really been feeling. Perhaps on his next project, he’ll be more comfortable emoting a little.

However, for now, a return to form is enough – or, at least, it’ll have to be. Glock is back to big stepping, and for the first time, doing so without the support of his respected mentor. It’s nice to see him finding his footing. Dolph’s shoes likely can’t and won’t be filled – maybe they shouldn’t be. But Key Glock is walking his own path now, as assuredly as he’s able… and perhaps it’ll lead him to even greater success down the road.

Glockoma 2 is out now via Paper Route Empire.

Lil Yachty’s Measured Risks On ‘Let’s Start Here’ Are Still A Triumph

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Lil Yachty 'Let's Start Here' Review
Getty Image/Ralph Ordaz

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.

Let’s get this out of the way up front: No, Lil Yachty is not the first rapper to release an alternative project. Obviously, within the past few years, a number of artists have made swings that way: Kid Cudi, Machine Gun Kelly, and Post Malone all spring to mind.

Notably, though, Yachty’s new album, Let’s Start Here, isn’t just a departure from his own oeuvre; it also differentiates itself from its peers like Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven, Tickets To My Downfall, or Twelve Carat Toothache by tapping into a different lane in the psych-rock stylings of bands like Animal Collective, MGMT, and Tame Impala.

Yachty also took care to tap members of the modern psychedelic scene as collaborators on the album, recruiting Jacob Portrait of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Justin Raisen, known for his work with Yves Tumor and David Bowie, Patrick Wemberly from synth-pop duo Chairlift, and MGMT’s Ben Goldwasser to produce and play on it.

As Lil Boat himself put it ahead of the album’s release, “I wanted to be taken seriously as an artist, not just some SoundCloud rapper. Not some mumble rapper, not just some guy that made one hit.” While it would have been impossible to reduce him to “one hit” given he’s been directly responsible for several to date, the result of Let’s Start Here is that he’s received much praise — and criticism — for the creative risk of diverging so sharply with was thought to be his established lane.

It’s fascinating to watch the divided responses roll in. On the one hand, you’ve got those who are absolutely thrilled to see Yachty pulling from late-aughts Brooklyn barbecue staples like MGMT, evoking what’ll likely end up being the first wave of nostalgic nods to that era (right on time for the 15-year cycle, no less).

On the other hand, there are those who lived through that era who are if not perhaps a little grouchy about entering the second or third phase of internet-era nostalgia for their late teens and early twenties, then taking the same, high-handed hipster approach of being cooler than the latecomer (who was, I shouldn’t have to remind anybody, just 12 years old around the time Modest Mouse and Vampire Weekend ruled the airwaves).

There are those who undoubtedly see in Let’s Start Here echoes of the exaggerated fawning over Childish Gambino’s Funkadelic homage Awaken, My Love! Maybe they don’t want the originators, the King Gizzards and the Rain Parades, to get overshadowed by this upstart, as happens so often when imitators sometimes became the avatars of past scenes.

But then, when someone like Questlove, who’s been there for it all and is as unimpeachable as a music figure can possibly get, has such glowing things to report of the album, it’s hard to see Yachty’s creative grasp as anything less than a success for the recording industry as a whole — even if he doesn’t quite reach as far as some would have hoped.

As for myself, I land in that fourth quadrant of hoping for the best in all respects. I want this album to be the gateway for younger fans to discover the wealth of incredible art in its foundations. And I hope that it does cast Yachty in a new light, capable of besting the wobbly “Minnesota” and its spiritual successor “Poland.”

And I’m a little sad that a hip-hop artist still can’t really get his or her due operating primarily in that mode. Yachty sort of raps on a handful of tracks, like “I’ve Officially Lost Vision” and “The Alchemist.” But 50 years later, it still feels like hip-hop is an afterthought, a second cousin, a red-headed stepchild to every other genre, save for rare exceptions like the hyper-heady Kendrick Lamar or the genre shapeshifter Drake.

But I’m impressed that we’re in a place where an artist who was written off as a gimmick early in his career can rediscover himself like this. I love that the once solid walls between genres are now so fluid and hazy. The musical freedom this album exemplifies — not just for Yachty but for all artists — is heartening, especially in a world where algorithmically-generated music looms as an existential threat to the very nature of artistry.

It’s ironic that the cover of Yachty’s latest is an AI-generated monstrosity. It seems to mock the idea that the computers can do what flesh-and-blood artists can. They can take in influences from multiple sources and blend them together and spit out something approximating art. But they can’t take risks, they can’t change their minds, they can’t have the idea, and they can’t execute it in the one unique way that Yachty can. In only in proving that and nothing else, Let’s Start Here is a triumph.

Let’s Start Here is out now via Quality Control and Motown. You can get it here.

Young Dolph Pursues More Life On The Posthumous ‘Paper Route Frank’

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young dolph paper route frank review
Paper Route Empire

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.

On “Uh Uh,” the fifth song from Young Dolph’s first posthumous album, Paper Route Frank, he asserts, “You will never meet another real one like me.” Truer words, unfortunately, were never spoken.

Not to get all melodramatic, but the spooky prescience on display in that boastful bar stings all the more when contrasted with the wealth of material Dolph’s perhaps final testament offers. He wasn’t really a rapper who was obsessed with death — rather, he seems obsessed with life. For many, if not most trap rappers, the specter of death seems to haunt every bar, whether it’s a vaunted flex or hushed confession of wrongdoing. They keep all those choppers around for a reason.

It never really seemed like that with Dolph. Sure, he’d casually toss off the obligatory threats and warnings to opps or ruminate on the passing of loved ones. But throughout his catalog, he was always more concerned with living in the moment, taking it all in, and planning for the future. Practically the only time he mentions his own death here is on “Always,” and even then, he’s more concerned with the guestlist at his funeral and being casket clean than he is with the “how” and “why” he departed. It’s a gut check, nonetheless.

I’ve written before about how tricky the prospect of completing rappers’ posthumous albums can get, and I’m not interested in rehashing those arguments here. But Paper Route Frank represents perhaps the best-case scenario for such an endeavor. This sounds like Dolph, like something he’d make, from the beat choices down to the sequencing and the relatively sparse features list — which consists mainly of Paper Route Empire signees like Big Moochie Grape, Key Glock, and Big Snupe Bandz, and fellow trap elder statesmen 2 Chainz and Gucci Mane.

  1. https://youtu.be/9YdgldMKGGU
It’s easy to observe a thread of maudlin in albums finished after an artist’s death — especially sudden, violent ones like Dolph’s. Perhaps, because of Dolph’s relentlessly motivational persona, he just never recorded all that much melancholy material, or maybe the friends and family involved in this album’s creation just knew he wouldn’t have wanted such a project to get bogged down with introspection and paranoia. Still, it’s hard not to get choked up when he tag-teams with Key Glock for perhaps the last time on “That’s How” or passes the torch to his other PRE proteges on “Infatuated With Drugs.”

It’s the album closer, “Get Away,” that throws into sharpest contrast everything that Dolph really was as a rapper though. He declares that he’s “sick of rappin’,” but we all know that within months of announcing his retirement, he was right back in the studio, perhaps recording this very song. It’s when he juxtaposes being “sick of countin’ millions” with his aspiration to trade those “Ms” in for “Bs” that it becomes clear that all this moody reflection is just lyrical exercise. He’s not ready to stop just yet. He’s just ready to elevate his game and step up to a higher plateau of success.

The worst thing about closing Paper Route Frank on these contemplations is knowing he had all the tools and time in the world to see his ambition through — right up until he didn’t. The next level was right around the corner. Despite half a decade in the rap business — an eternity to many — he still had further to go. If he was stuck in a rut, it was only until the next flash of inspiration struck, energizing him for the next go-around.

Paper Route Frank is out now on Paper Route Empire.

SZA’s ‘SOS’ Is A Heartbreaking Reminder That Our Fears Never Go Away

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SZA SOS
Daniel Sannwald

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.

On her debut album, CTRL, SZA established herself as a household name by way of spellbinding melodies and relatable words. The then 20-something R&B songstress shared poignant accounts of body dysmorphia, heartbreak, loneliness, and growing older. Now, in her early 30s, the old soul we’ve come to know and love reels over a beautiful-yet-cruel existence, accepting the painful wisdom that comes with age. While SZA remains on a spiritual transformation, her new album, SOS serves as a reminder that insecurities, like the ones she sang about on CTRL will persist, no matter how far along you are on your journey. At 23 tracks, it’s not as cohesive as its predecessor, but SOS still is a vital chapter in the SZA universe.

The looseness of SOS allows the album to breathe a little more freely. It opens on its title track, on which SZA addresses plastic surgery rumors (“That ass so fat, it look natural, it’s not”), disavows trifling men (“Punk ass tried to replace me, but the stakes is too high”), and announces that she’s back, and presumably better than ever (“This ain’t no warnin’ shot, case all you hoes forgot.”) While the intro seems to establish the narrative that SZA is now a healed woman, it leads into a collection of stories which see her both regress and grow, and regress and grow again.

On SOS, SZA presents us with a unique and rather polarizing set of coping mechanisms, from tapping into feelings of codependency, fantasizing about killing her ex, and sleeping with other men, for the sole purpose of forgetting one specific man. Her journey manifests by way of expressing herself through her signature brand of R&B with a rap flow, as well as by way of showing her rap chops, spitting rhymes about blocking “your favorite rapper” and going ghost on “your favorite athlete,” as she struggles to move on.

Old habits die hard as SZA experiences the stages of grief, in no particular order. She hasn’t been linked to a significant other since CTRL, however, the overall narrative of the album seems to center around her dealing with a breakup. SZA demonstrates a raw sense of self-awareness, as she accepts blame for the relationship’s demise, but also finds herself in denial that the relationship is over, expressing desperation and longing to mend things.

Songs like “Conceited” and “Far” offer fans a glimmer of hope, as SZA appears to find solace in her own company, despite having just poured her heart out over her ex in the previous tracks. But she also quickly becomes aware of the danger of being alone with her thoughts for too long. On one of the album’s more vulnerable tracks, “Special,” she puts a laundry list of insecurities on display on what feels like a modern-age update of Radiohead’s “Creep.”

The previously released tracks, including “Shirt,” “I Hate U,” and “Good Days,” have already been known and loved by fans for almost two years. While they may feel weirdly-placed on the album, they are still vital parts to the overall narrative of grief and emotional recovery.

Despite having been released two years ago, “Good Days” makes for a solid penultimate track, expressing a hopeful outlook for the future the amid emotional turmoil she just sang of for the past hour. “All the while / I await my armored fate with a smile / I still wanna try / I still believe in good days,” SZA sings on the chorus of the therapeutic self-help anthem.

This pattern of seemingly letting go, only to tap back into feelings of insecurity continues throughout the entirety of the album, but by the end, the listener is introduced to a more affirmed, principled SZA.

SOS is SZA’s riskiest work to date. Dropping an album with 23 tracks in the age of streaming is always daunting, but SZA is never one to shy away from any emotion. Sure, the tracklist could use a slight trim, and while the album’s narrative is less structured than that of CTRL, the order of tracklist and each song’s individual message are reflective of a non-linear healing journey everyone must embark at some point in their lives.

SOS begs the question, has SZA healed since inviting us into the rocky, uncertain world of CTRL? But perhaps a better question to ask oneself may be, is anyone ever really fully healed from their traumas? It’s a painful reminder that our shortcomings and our insecurities will always make themselves known. But it also shows listeners that a now older and wiser SZA will always emerge strong through heartbreak and fear.

Metro Boomin’s ‘Heroes & Villains’ Captivates By Accentuating His Collaborators’ Best Superpowers

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Metro Boomin
Boominati Worldwide & Republic 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.

Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains arrives two years after he secured his second No. 1 album beside longtime collaborator 21 Savage with Savage Mode II. The sequel effort itself arrived four years after 2016’s Savage Mode, a body of work that helped launch 21 Savage into the mainstream spotlight (with the assistance of features alongside Drake and others). With Heroes & Villains, Metro ventures further into the darkest corners of the world. His debut album Not All Heroes Wear Capes dabbled in slight mischief more than it did deviance and malice. It was playful enough thanks to lighter moments like “Only You” with J Balvin and Wizkid as well as “Borrowed Love” with Swae Lee and Wizkid. Savage Mode II embraced the above-the-law mindset and all the mischief, but with a lot of flexing and braggadocious bars courtesy of 21 Savage’s trademark punchlines and infinite Rolodex of threats and warnings. Heroes & Villains welcomes thunder and gloom as it glorifies a world where bad not only occurs, but thrives.

On Heroes & Villains, Metro Boomin is merely trying to weather the storm – that’s at least one way to look at it. The storm in question could be the one 21 Savage and Young Nudy detail on “Umbrella.” A soul sample introduces the song before 21 and Nudy terrorize the grimacing beat. 21 threatens to make the “choppa sing like it’s Adele” while Nudy furthers the agenda by adding, “Switch on the b*tch, finna whoop me a n**** / Think I was his mama when I get done.” The thing about Heroes & Villains is you don’t necessarily know who’s the hero and who’s the villain. As Future raps about turning “into a superhero” on “Superhero,” he returns later in the album to say he “can’t save no hoe” with Don Toliver on “I Can’t Save You (Interlude).” As Metro Boomin the hero and Metro the villain shake hands on the album’s artwork, Heroes & Villains notes that we can be both in the same person. The world certainly needs saving, but from who exactly?

Aside from the album’s thunderous sonic and heroic themes, Heroes & Villains on the surface is another display of Metro’s fine and wide-ranging work. He shines as a conductor that soundtracks 21 Savage’s determined mission for retaliation on “Walk Em Down” as well as The Weeknd’s airy plead to go uninformed about possible infidelity on “Creepin.’” In totality, the flashy “Feel The Fiyaaah” with ASAP Rocky and the late Takeoff exemplifies the album’s brightest moments, while the gloom of Travis Scott and Young Thug’s “Trance” foreshadows the danger that lurks between the drums and hi-hats of Heroes & Villains.

A decade ago, Metro Boomin was a mere upstart in the hip-hop world. Now he’s a greatly respected producer who’s earned the respect of the industry thanks contribution to the career of superstars like Future, Travis Scott, and Young Thug. The beautiful thing about Metro’s rise alongside these artists, and others like 21 Savage, Gunna, and Migos, is that they continued to stay in touch and collaborate regardless of their fame. As Metro helped to soundtrack the stories of the aforementioned rappers, these same artists returned to help the chart-topping producer complete his stories. It started with Not All Heroes Wear Capes and continues with Heroes & Villains. It’s up to you to determine who the heroes and villains are, but one thing’s for sure, they sure know how to work together when needed.

Heroes & Villains is out now via Boominati Worldwide/Republic Worldwide. You can stream it here.

Ari Lennox’s ‘Age/Sex/Location’ Signs In To A World Of Romance, Heartbreak, And Growth

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Ari Lennox a/s/l review
Interscope/Dreamville

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.

If there’s one thing we know about Ari Lennox, it’s that holds on tight to her independence and freedom. The room to operate as she pleases and exist as she is has become a foundational aspect of the music she creates, and it’s received well by her listeners. “New Apartment,” from her debut album Shea Butter Baby, was championed by women all over because it perfectly encapsulated a fresh start and that moment of peak independence. Unlike the world beyond the four walls of this living space, everything that happens within them occurs at your discretion. Within them is a judgment-free zone. Ari’s quirky moments roam just as free as her soulful and confession moments.

On her second album Age/Sex/Location, Ari looks to build this same world for herself beyond those four walls. Prior to the album’s release, J. Cole shared a text message he received from Ari where she detailed what the project meant to her. In her lengthy response, she unveils her desire to block the negative she’s experienced in love and dating while allowing and accepting the positive that she very much deserves. While all of this is a working progress, something she refers to as the transitional phase to her current “eat pray love” journey, Age/Sex/Location puts those desires to work in what feels like a virtual testing ground of sorts, all before enacting them in the real world.

Right out the gate, Ari steps forth with an unforgiving authority on Age/Sex/Location. The intro track “POF,” which is sprinkled with background vocals from J. Cole, strikes as a tense and confrontational conversation over dinner at a dimly-lit fancy restaurant. Voices are low and anger is kept internally for the sake of not making a scene, but Ari’s words pierce like the knife that lays on the plate in front of her. “The audacity to lecture me about your Christianity / Then turn around and try to f*ck on me / Like it was gon’ be easy,” she sings with a dismissive layer wrapped around her words. Just a few songs later, on “Pressure,” the aforementioned tension is swapped for a gleeful double entendre that confidently instructs a man exactly what she wants. Ari yanks the tie of her love interest and pulls him close while daring him to boldly declare his bubbling desire for her.

Elsewhere on the 12-song project, she closes the door on love in some instances with the same conviction that she opens it in others. “Waste My Time” is driven by fun and lighthearted production that would be welcomed on a girl’s night out playlist. Once again, Ari dares her companion to put their words to action. “Use that mouth, blow this back out,” she quips on the record. While it’s similarly titled and contextually reminiscent of Brent Faiyaz and Drake’s “Wasting Time,” the male duo’s record lives in a bit of toxicity while Ari’s is seductive, inviting, and consenting of a no-strings-attached one-night affair.

Nonetheless, Ari isn’t a one-for-all woman and Lucky Daye is unfortunately the man who has to learn that. His slick-talk and player-esque lines on “Boy Bye” fail to do enough to earn him the same night that the individual on “Waste My Time” received. It’s not to say that Ari’s interest isn’t piqued as she gives an ear to the aftermath of Lucky’s initial cat calls, but she reads his approach as bland and formulaic. Whether it be his lack of authenticity or validity behind her claims of having a man, Ari leaves Lucky to accept that he came up short despite his efforts.

While many use the title track for their album as a moment to expand on the project’s central theme, Ari creates a skit that does just that in 37 seconds. “​​When you’re back in the game / That’s how you would greet someone, A-S-L,” she says calling back to the album’s title. “Playing on chatrooms, internet, meeting people / Like, this is dating.” Age/Sex/Location is Ari’s ideal forays into the dating world with each one beginning with the simple details of one’s age, sex, and location. While these forays can end in steamy, sweaty, and passionate bedroom magic, as detailed in “Leak It” with Chloe – a euphoric and dreamy duet that sees both singers ready to reveal (or leak) an unfiltered side of love that will only leave them leaking in satisfaction – its conclusion could also be one more aligned with “Blocking You.” Once that “a/s/l” prompt is answered, there’s no telling where things can go. With Age/Sex/Location, Ari hopes to leave with something with every roll of the dice.

On Age/Sex/Location, Ari Lennox signs into a virtual world that could easily be her reality. Where Shea Butter Baby begged and hoped for reciprocation by seeking an in-person connection as opposed to a digital one (“Facetime”), reassurance (“Speak To Me”), or a vow of continued love (“Pop”), Age/Sex/Location demands that reciprocation while promising a cease in communication and interaction without it. As she navigates the twists, turns, risky climbs, and unprotected freefalls of her current “eat pray love” journey, it’s with more discipline and increased wisdom from past missteps.

Age/Sex/Location is out now via Interscope and Dreamville. You can stream it here.

John Legend Lives Up To His Namesake On ‘Legend’ While Celebrating The Beauty Of Love And Intimacy

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John Legend 2022 Lucca Summer Festival
Getty Image/Ralph Ordaz

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.

John Legend, born John Roger Stephens, has borne that as his stage name for nearly two decades now. It was given to him by Chicago poet J. Ivy who felt that Legend’s music reminds him of “that music from the old school” and that his voice sounded “like one of the legends.” Legend was reluctant to accept that name, but once it caught on, it was only right that he at least try to live to that new last name.

Twelve Grammy awards, four Platinum-selling albums, and countless TV show and movie appearances later, it’s beyond safe to say that Legend has lived up to his namesake. However, in a continued moment of humility, it wasn’t until now that he was truly ready to bring a sharp spotlight to the name that he once was a bit hesitant to bear.

Less than two years away from the 20th anniversary of his classic debut album Get Lifted, Legend returns with his ninth album, Legend — a double album that he believes captures everything that makes him the artist we’ve come to love.

Together with its release, John Legend sat with Uproxx to speak about Legend, why he is finally comfortable with its title, and a coincidental run-in with Saweetie.

Before we get into any music, I want to congratulate you on your new baby on the way. How are feeling as time progress, as well as, about having a third child around the house?

I’m excited! I feel like we’re pretty experienced parents now. We’re very comfortable and confident in inviting a new life into our world. I think we’ve got a sense of how we want to raise our kids and we just feel more comfortable than we’ve ever been, as far as being parents and our rhythm as a family. I feel like they can handle a new baby. Of course, you know, we’ve dealt with pregnancy loss before. So it’s always a bit of cautious optimism whenever you’re pregnant and you’ve lost one before because you just never know what could happen. But we’re excited to be parents and feel like we can do a good job of parenting together when we do bring the new baby into the world.

We’re officially in a new John Legend era, but I want you to tell it: how you would define this era in terms of the type of music and overall aesthetic at hand?

When I think about the music, I don’t know if it’s like a clean break from any era because I’m always growing and evolving as a musician. Each album has had its own character and its own personality, but it’s all me, it’s all who I am and where I am in my life at that time. I worked with different people on this album, to some extent, and I worked with some of the same people too. There are some songs that will sound very familiar and that will remind people of other things that I’ve done before and then other songs that we found a bit more new and different than what I’ve done before. This is the first time we’ve ever made an album that is self-titled, the first time we’ve ever done a double album, so that’s kind of a big and new thing for me with this project.

What gave you the confidence to go with a title like Legend?

I think the fresh start with Republic. I think also writing the audiobook that I’m doing with Audible that’s coming out in September. I was talking a lot about all that went into me changing my stage name and how I wasn’t sure whether or not I was ready to change my name back then because I was like, “How can I call myself ‘John Legend’ when I haven’t even gotten a record deal yet?” So, I told that whole story, and that’ll come out around the same time as the album, and it just made me really reflect on this whole journey was my name and how I finally felt like I was ready to not only to feel like I’m living up to this aspirational name that I gave myself when I was nowhere near being a legend, but also that I was ready to embrace it as an album title.

What would you say is the overall theme or main message you aim to deliver on Legend?

I think it’s a celebration of love, sensuality, intimacy, and connection. In that way, it’s a continuation of what I’ve been all about my entire career. I think musically, we did some fun and adventurous things that are a bit different from anything I’ve done in the past, and then some things that are more familiar. I think in general, I felt comfortable calling it Legend as well because it felt really representative of who I am as a musician. All the influences that made me who I am and all of it coming together on this really robust, double album that represents all the different parts of who I am.

This project is more collaborative than Bigger Love. What pushed you to reach out to more artists to work with this time around?

I think it’s important for me to stay connected to what’s new. I’ve been in business for a long time, but it’s really inspiring for me to connect with newer artists who inspire me and keep me fresh. I think collaborating with new people keeps you out of creative ruts I think, it pushes you and inspires you.

Is there a truly unique story with any of the collaborations on the album?

Saweetie was probably the most [unique]. It was almost random that she’s on the album because I literally ran into her and her manager at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I worked with her manager many years ago; he booked me and Kanye to do an event together way back — like before Get Lifted even came out, or right around when it came out, so it was literally the beginning of my career. He came up and said what’s up to me and was telling the story of how we worked together over 15 years ago. He’s standing there with Saweetie and I was just talking about Saweetie the day before because one of her songs came on the radio and was telling my wife how much I liked the song. I was telling Saweetie this and I was like, “We should do something together!” Then her manager sat with my A&R a couple of days later. We played them “All She Wanna Do” and they were like, “This is the one.” It all came from me running into her at the Beverly Hills Hotel Restaurant. I love her part on the album. I think it just adds extra flavor and it’s kind of unexpected, but it works really well with the song.

The current landscape of R&B is often criticized by some while others praise it. How do you perceive it?

People are always saying it’s dead or it’s this or that, but I feel like there have been so many talented R&B artists to come out in the last few years. I feel like there’s been some great music. and then there’s been some not-so-great music, but I feel like that’s always the case. I think it is a challenge thinking about this era of heavy auto-tune and where there’s a little less of a premium on really good singing. I think a lot of old-school cats are probably disappointed by that development in R&B and you know, I think it does hinder people’s live shows and hinders certain aspects of what it takes to be a great all-around artist. I still think there’s a lot of great R&B being made and a lot of great young artists that I listen to and enjoy. I love Leon Bridges, I love HER, I love Jazmine [Sullivan], I love Muni [Long], I love Daniel Caesar. There are a lot of just really talented people making R&B music these days. I think there’s always gonna be stuff that we don’t love and there’s always gonna be stuff we love. I just try to focus on the stuff that I love and listen to that and not worry about the rest.

At this point in your career, eight albums in with plenty of awards to your name, what’s your driving force nowadays?

The key is that I can never assume that people are gonna love the next thing I do. So I have to prove myself worthy of their attention and worthy of their love. For any new project I do, I feel like I have to hold myself to the highest of standards and that was the approach I had with this album. That’s the approach I have with every album and every show that I do. Nothing I did before is enough to make you love something new if it’s not good on its own, you know? So I have to prove myself to my fans and to everybody else every single time I make a new album.

What do you hope Legend contributes toward your overall artistry and career?

Well, I like that it’s a double album because it’s showing the different sides of who I am and both where I am now in my life, but also looking back to some extent at where I’ve come from. I think it’s as thorough of a representation of my influences and my artistry as any other project that I’ve done. So I think that’s why I felt like this was the one to call Legend. So I’m really confident making it a double album and that’s why I’m so excited for people to hear it.

Legend is out now via Republic Records. You can stream it here.

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

JID Becomes The Best Rapper Of His Generation With ‘The Forever Story’

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jid the forever story
Dreamville

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.

A few weeks before he announced his third studio album The Forever Story, JID tweeted an intriguing statement about his burgeoning popularity. “None of my rap co-workers be tryna rap wit me dawg,” he wrote. “I think y’all n****z is scared, I’m talking to bigger rap artists.” The Forever Story presents a wealth of compelling evidence to support that theory.

In fact, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that The Forever Story is the – as in singular, as in only – best-rapped album to come out in 2022. Present your arguments for whomever and however you see fit, but the Atlanta rapper’s project has at least one song to give it an edge over its qualified competitors.

I’ll go out even further on this narrow branch and say that JID belongs in the top five contemporary rappers discussion, and has since 2018 when he dropped DiCaprio 2. Since then, he’s followed up with the folksy Spilligion alongside his Spillage Village cohorts, utterly stolen the show on two Dreamville compilations, and made me enjoy an Imagine Dragons song.

So, why hasn’t JID gotten the recognition he deserves? There are a couple of reasons that spring to mind. First of all, JID has the unfortunate timing to have made his debut in a time slightly removed from the era where super technically skilled rappers could gain a lot of traction in a relatively short amount of time.

Think about the “blog era,” which spawned such lyrically-gifted standouts as Big KRIT, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, or Wale. Being a rapper’s rapper was prized at such a time because hip-hop goes through different cycles. There’d been a long lull in the priority of bars-first traditionalism, and the massive cultural shift toward blogs and weekly freestyles allowed artists like these to grab a lot of the spotlight.

That era came to an end in the middle of the last decade, as Chance The Rapper, who is probably the last of the blog era super rappers to get on, won his Grammy for Coloring Book. Then the Soundcloud era began, and colorful characters like Travis Scott who prized “vibes” over rhymes began to take center stage. JID is decidedly not one of those, but because he made his debut during that era, fans of hyper lyrical rappers likely wrote him off as just another punk kid.

Another reason might come directly from JID’s own words. One of the biggest drivers of any new – or even established – artist’s rise to stardom is the willingness of their peers to collaborate. Consider Lil Durk, who actually appears on The Forever Story on the song “Bruddenem.” He toiled on the underground scene for nearly a decade until Drake featured him on the 2020 standout “Laugh Now Cry Later.”

Now, Durk’s considered an A-lister, a hotly-demanded feature artist in his own right with numerous No. 1 albums under his belt. No one has yet done this for JID, aside from J. Cole, who hasn’t featured the younger MC on his own albums despite working with him on the Dreamville collabs on songs like “Stick.” Even if he did, JID’s an artist on his label, and would probably be subject to the “homie write-off” effect that plagued underlings in groups like Disturbing Tha Peace, St. Lunatics, and Roc-A-Fella. There’s only so much star power to go around, and artists can get overshadowed by their more famous labelmates.

Other rappers might really be nervous to feature JID, whose sheer force of persona could potentially overpower or overwhelm the sort of mainstream-friendly tracks it would take to expose him to a wider audience more used to party anthems than aggressive battle rap tracks.

Meanwhile, any rapper who considers themselves more lyrics-forward runs the risk of being “Renegaded” – the fan term for being outrapped on your own track, as applied to Jay-Z’s 2001 song “Renegade” from The Blueprint. When Eminem’s intricate, wordy verses seemed to tower over Jay’s more laid-back, heady ones, Nas ridiculed Jay, “Eminem killed you on your own sh*t.” Nobody wants the potential embarrassment.

The last reason JID might not radiate star power like some of his peers do is that he’s so down-to-earth and humble. He’s quiet, not prone to making outrageous pronouncements or having emotional outbursts on Twitter. In the few engagements we’ve had on that platform, he always seemed more curious and willing to learn than he did defensive, boisterous, or argumentative.

Hip-hop loves a villain – or at least an antihero – someone who talks loud and seems unafraid to make enemies. Acts like Kanye West or 50 Cent seem larger than life. Hell, even Tekashi 69, whose antics were decried by hip-hop fans, remains a subject of fascination. The soft-spoken JID just isn’t going to be as sensational a character for them to latch onto.

But his rhymes are sensational. Whether he’s talking tough on “Dance Now” and “Surround Sound” or telling nostalgic stories on “Crack Sandwich,” waxing philosophical on “Better Days” or getting confessional on “Sistanem,” he shows a grasp of the artform that almost nobody in the rap business today even comes close to. So, while he might not be as universally recognized as I believe he should be, The Forever Story might well change that.

He’s got the big-name co-signs from guest stars like 21 Savage and Lil Wayne. He’s starting to talk his sh*t on Twitter. He’s got enjoyable slow burners like “Can’t Make U Change” with Ari Lennox and veteran blessings from Yasiin Bey on “Stars.” All that’s left is for listeners to finally, well, listen. The Forever Story will reward them for doing so. In turn, all they need to do is hail JID as the best rapper of his generation.

The Forever Story is out now via Dreamville/Interscope. Get it here.

Megan Thee Stallion Starts To Open Up On The Confessional ‘Traumazine’

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megan thee stallion traumazine review
Getty Image/Ralph Ordaz

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.

In the lead-up to her second album Traumazine, Megan Thee Stallion repeatedly noted that it had more emotionally-charged themes and greater vulnerability than her debut, Good News. In a June interview with Rolling Stone, she said, “I want to take you through so many different emotions. At first you was twerking, now you might be crying.”

She reiterated the sentiment in an August Q&A session on Twitter. “I wrote this album for myself,” she admitted. “I wanted to start writing in a journal but I said f*ck it I’ll put it in a song.” She also confessed that “saying certain things you’ve never said out loud before is hard.” Fans understandably presumed that this meant the Houston rapper would address the various public misfortunes that had befallen her since her Tina Snow EP rocketed her to stardom.

Traumazine delivers on Megan’s promises, but it doesn’t stray too far from her established formula. Production-wise, it runs the gamut from Thee Stallion’s preferred speaker knocking Texas trap to a very on-trend detour into Miami Bass and house, while lyrically, Megan returns to the rapid-fire freestyle form that first impressed her fans, peers, and early mentor Q-Tip. The newer, more confessional attitude peppers her hard-hitting, boastful verses with lines that hide the hurt behind defiant bluster.

On songs like “Not Nice,” Megan’s gift for storytelling comes to the fore. “I kept your bills paid. You were sick, I paid for surgery,” she reminds a disloyal acquaintance. “But I pray you boo-hoo, do me wrong, where they deserve to be.” The specificity of her examples lends weight to her jabs – for every verbal right cross, someone has crossed her. Meg’s also unafraid to drop the facade of the tough-girl rapper and bluntly state a long-standing issue. On “Anxiety,” she wishes she could “write a letter to Heaven” so she can “tell my mama that I shoulda been listenin’.” I just wan’ talk to somebody that get me,” she accepts.

But even with the more vulnerable material here, Meg shines brightest when she sticks to the brash, explicit material that defines breakout hits like “Big Ole Freak” and “WAP.” “Ms. Nasty,” which pairs a thumping bass kick with an ‘80s R&B melody, offers another worthwhile inclusion to this tradition, opening with the straightforward come-on “I want you to dog this cat out, whip it like a trap house / Stand up in that pussy, stomp the yard like a frat house.” “Pressurelicious” with Future and “Budgets” with Latto match this energy, the latter pairing working best. We need more songs with these two together.

Other guests include Rico Nasty, with whom Meg displays incredible chemistry on “Scary,” Key Glock, who gifts her a suitably spiteful verse on “Ungrateful,” and Pooh Shiesty, who makes fans feel his absence from the spotlight (he’s currently locked up on a gun charge, facing a eight-year sentence) on “Who Me.” There are also contributions from R&B singers Jhene Aiko and Lucky Daye, which have the unfortunate side effect of highlighting the weaknesses of Meg’s own singing voice. She’s at her best spitting bruising bars with her gruff Texas twang as she does alongside her Lone Star compatriots on “Southside Royalty Freestyle”; when she tries to croon her own choruses, the effect feels raw and unpolished — and not in a good way.

The pop swings are also hit-and-miss. While “Her” fits in among the Beyonce-inspired post-Renaissance wave of future ball favorites, “Sweetest Pie” with Dua Lipa sounds like Meg chasing the success of peers like Doja Cat. This misunderstands what listeners want from the two artists. Meg wins because of tracks like “Gift & Curse,” “Who Me,” and “Scary.” Give her a lush, groovy soul sample and an 808 to vent her frustrations over, you get the verses on “Flip Flop.” These are the kinds of songs at which Meg excels. The added emotional depth is a bonus, adding relatability to her aspirational boldness. This will be the formula for Meg’s future success.

Traumazine is out now on 1501 Certified/300 Entertainment. Get it here.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.