After years of releasing mixtapes, Conway The Machine shared his official debut last fall with From King To A God. Just like the rest of the Griselda members, Conway wasted no time getting back to work as he returned with another project, La Maquina, in April. The eleven-track effort was highlight by features from Ludacris, JID, 2 Chainz, El Camino along with fellow Griselda acts Benny The Butcher and Westside Gunn. Just a little over a month removed from sharing La Maquina, Conway took his talents to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform one of the album’s tracks.
Sliding through with Ludacris and JID by his side, Conway took the late-night TV stage to perform “Scatter Brain.” The track is a favorite from La Maquina and the performance itself made for the rapper’s national television debut. The trio delivered their slick-lipped rhymes while pacing around an eerie stage that contained disconnected televisions, barbed wire, and floor-grazing smoke.
During a recent interview on Apple Music, Conway shared when fans could expect his next project.
“That should be coming out this summer. Like, June or July, and I’m excited,” he said. “We had to go through the channels I had to go through a lot of the stuff that had sample issues, and we couldn’t get some stuff cleared. So, songs didn’t make it, that got put out early on other projects. We had to make other songs and stuff to make up for it. It was a process but it’s finally complete.”
Coi Leray may have blown up this year with the TikTok favorite “No More Parties,” but the 23-year-old New Jersey rapper is no greenhorn. While her appearance on The Tonight Show to perform the breakout hit on Thursday constituted her television debut, the performance itself was more polished and professional than many, with an off-camera band performing a dazzling arrangement, engaging staging that played into the theme, and the sort of swaggering confidence that comes with putting in the work to be a star.
The charisma exuded by the second-generation rap star (her dad is Benzino, the Boston rapper who famously battled with Eminem in the early 2000s) is what prompted her inclusion in Uproxx’s “Rappers To Watch Out For In 2021,” bolstered by her slick performances on mixtapes Everythingcoz and EC2.
I first caught on the wave with her 2018 video for “Huddy,” a hard-hitting thumper that showcased Coi’s quirky personality and a real gift for penning blunt witticisms. While “No More Parties” is something of a departure from the more straightforward bars and rhymes on “Huddy,” the seeming disparity between the singles actually highlights her versatility as an artist. That’s why she’s suddenly in such high demand, with features on Yung Bleu’s “Thieves In Atlanta,” DDG’s “Impatient,” and TruCarr’s “Beat It Up,” as well as a cameo in Mooski’s “Track Star” video — her star power is shining through the TikTok trending, revealing an artist who is destined to be more than just a one-hit wonder.
Watch Coi Leray’s television debut with “No More Parties” on The Tonight Show above.
In March, Justin Bieber earned his seventh No. 1 single when the Justice single “Peaches” debuted on top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The track is still doing quite well, as it is No. 3 on the Hot 100 that was revealed yesterday. Now he has put a new spin on the song by joining Jimmy Fallon and The Roots for their longstanding Tonight Show series of “classroom instruments” performances.
Bieber starts out by playing the track on a toy piano, which actually adds a charming element to the track. From there, he is joined by Fallon and The Roots, who sport instruments like shakers, bongos, xylophones, buckets, paper bags (to tear), and other things of that ilk. Giveon and Daniel Caesar, who feature on the original track, were not involved with this performance.
Justice isn’t Bieber’s latest release, as on Easter, he dropped a surprise EP, Freedom, which features collaborations with Pink Sweats, Tori Kelly, Judah Smith, Beam, Brandon Love, Chandler Moore, and Lauren Walters. He’s also fresh off appearing in Earth Day! The Musical, a Bill Nye-hosted event that also featured Jack Harlow, Maluma, Ben Platt, Charli and Dixie D’Amelio, Cody Simpson, Steve Aoki, Tori Kelly, Zac Efron, Desus Nice and The Kid Mero, and Nick Kroll.
Watch Bieber, The Roots, and Fallon perform “Peaches” above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
To be honest, Pooh Shiesty’s performance of “Back In Blood” on The Tonight Show showcases an artist who is still very raw. However, it’s hard to hold that against him; he was signed and experienced his breakout during a global music shutdown that left him very few options to build the experience needed to become a standout performer (and, for what it’s worth, there are plenty of performers who just aren’t comfortable without a crowd to draw energy from, as we’ve seen with plenty of television performances over the years).
With that being said, Shiesty makes the best of a bad situation in his pre-recorded performance, saving the bells and whistles and giving a stripped-down performance in an alley alongside the song’s guest rapper Lil Durk (an artist who is in the midst of his own breakout, after nearly 10 years in the game). We could quibble all day about his mic discipline (keep that thing in front of your face, buddy) but for a television debut, we’ve seen worse — and when we’ve seen better, it’s usually with artists who have a different scale of budget, notoriety, and production value. The important thing is that he draws attention to his debut mixtape, Shiesty Season, and “Back In Blood” is enough of a banger that we can consider that mission accomplished.
Watch Pooh Shiesty’s “Back In Blood” performance with Lil Durk above.
Pooh Shiesty is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
It’s been a strong week of firsts for Florida rapper Rod Wave. Earlier this week, Billboard confirmed his first No. 1 album, SoulFly, and Wednesday night, he made his late-night debut on The Tonight Show performing the emotive album single “Tombstone.”
The pre-recorded performance appears to take place at a boathouse on the Everglades, which provides a sparkling background as Rod and his band play a stripped-down, moody rendition of the reflective track. With just a piano and a trio of backup singers, Rod wrings every last drop of emotion from the heart-swelling single, wisely letting his voice — the true star of SoulFly — take center stage.
SoulFly — Rod’s third album after Ghetto Gospel and Pray 4 Love — reached No. 1 behind a massive streaming push, which included singles “Street Runner,” “Tombstone,” and the Polo G-featuring “Richer,” which accumulated the bulk of the streams on the album. Another likely factor was his placement on XXL’s 2020 Freshmen cover, exposing him to the wider audience that helped him make the jump from Pray 4 Love‘s No. 4 debut to SoulFly‘s chart-topping first week. One thing’s for sure: Rod Wave is now a bona fide star.
Watch Rod Wave’s “Tombstone” performance for The Tonight Show above.
In late 2008, when word broke that The Roots, the hip-hop group led by longtime friends Amir “Questlove” Thompson and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, were hired as the house band for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, the news was met with bewilderment and bemusement. The reactions online tended to be some variation of, “Wow, that is huge for Fallon,” or, as one Gawker writer put it at the time, “The Illadelph generals opening up for that stuttering mop-headed ball of suck, Jimmy Fallon? It’s kind of tragic.”
There was definite logic to the hiring. The Roots remain one of the most versatile ensembles in all of music, comfortable and talented enough to both cover U2 classics at an NAACP event honoring Bono and serve as Jay-Z’s backing band for his legendary MTV Unplugged appearance. And they helped add a whiff of cool to Fallon as he brought his wide-eyed, constantly stoked brand of comedy to late-night TV.
But even the most ardent fan of The Roots had to wonder how this was going to work in reality. The band was coming to NBC after releasing the two darkest and most politically-minded albums of their career — 2006’s Game Theory and 2008’s Rising Down — that raged against school shootings, poverty, and institutional racism. The group was also a consistent concert draw, known for marathon-length performances and welcoming guests from every corner and era of the music world.
Underlying all of this was simple curiosity. How could one of the best hip-hop groups in the game translate their attitude and their sound for network TV, and appeal to middle-of-the-road viewers tuning in for toothless political humor, fawning celebrity interviews, and viral video-ready stunts?
The answer: by The Roots proving just how versatile they could be. For the past 13 years, even as they moved with Fallon from 12:30 am to 11:30 pm after the host was hired to replace Jay Leno as the host of The Tonight Show, the band has been game for anything.
They’ve taken part in various sketches that sometimes require them to dress in drag or act foolishly. They’ve been the backbone for beloved recurring segments like “Freestylin’ With The Roots,” “Slow Jam The News,” and Fallon and Justin Timberlake’s “History of Hip-Hop” bits. And they’ve proven to be welcome comedic foils, with Questlove and Black Thought bantering with Fallon in the manner of David Letterman and Paul Shaffer.
The Roots’ quick evolution into foils for late-night comedy was, in retrospect, inevitable. In an oft-told anecdote, Questlove remembers that, in 2008 when the band and Late Night’s producers were sizing one another up, he invited Fallon to come see them play at UCLA’s Spring Fling not expecting he’d actually show. But the lanky comedian did and quickly won The Roots over.
“I was doing an interview in a trailer,” Questlove told Brooklyn magazine in 2017, “and when I walked out… the eight of them — Fallon and the seven Roots — were making a human pyramid. He was able to disarm us in seconds… And I’m looking at my manager and we just stared there shaking our heads. I was just like, we’re stuck with this guy, aren’t we? And he just looked like, I’m afraid so.” A baker’s dozen years later and they’re still stuck with each other.
By all accounts, the members of The Roots were ready for something approximating a day job. The rigors of touring were starting to weigh on them as it meant leaving behind families and relationships for long stretches of time. As Questlove commented on Okayplayer.com around the time the news broke of their Late Night deal, “I don’t know if I want to be 40 on the road and single no more… I can’t even start to go on that path ‘til a woman takes me seriously. And ain’t no one taking a man serious who is in his home for only three months out the year.”
They were also students of music history, knowing that, although they were in a good spot financially after two decades of being together, they were potentially looking at a slow slide into obscurity. It was to the point that the group was tempted to sign a deal for a residency at The Borgata in Atlantic City.
The twist is, of course, that their nightly platform on NBC has made The Roots more popular than ever before, and, as a result, they’ve become even busier than ever. When he’s not DJing at various events around the world, Questlove has written a handful of books, directed the Sundance-anointed documentary Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised), and hosts the popular Questlove Supreme podcast. Black Thought keeps popping up on mixtapes and albums by other artists and last year released his debut solo full-length that includes contributions from Killer Mike and Portugal. The Man. Both men are also likely the only hip-hop artists your grandmother would be able to easily namecheck.
What’s perhaps the most impressive part of The Roots’ move into late-night TV is how true they’ve stayed to themselves and the hip-hop culture they grew out of. As proven by the six albums they’ve released since joining up with Fallon, they’ve not lost an ounce of their fury and power. Or for a more concentrated dose, dial up the blistering 10-minute freestyle that Black Thought performed on Funkmaster Flex’s HOT 97 show back in 2017 and went viral shortly thereafter. It’s a testament to both the vaunted realms of celebrity that he and The Roots have reached and his skills as an MC that the performance was analyzed by writers at NPR and The New Yorker — and earned him a spot on the couch at The Tonight Show to talk about it.
That adherence to their personal politics did come at a cost back in 2011 when the band played on Tonight Show guest, and then-Presidential hopeful, Michelle Bachmann with a portion of Fishbone’s “Lyin’ A** B****.” The blowback was considerable and almost cost The Roots their cushy new job in network TV. But after agreeing to clear all walk-on music choices with the NBC brass ahead of time, the band was allowed to keep their spots.
Probably the most concrete example of how The Roots have moved easily into this strange land of TV celebrity while not losing an ounce of their credibility can be found in another video from the Late Night era. In it, the band is doing the job of helping get the crowd warmed up for taping an episode — playing some upbeat music to hype folks up. But for this moment, they’re joined by one of that night’s guests, rapper and actor Ice Cube, and with him, launch into a version of N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton.” It’s a blast. The Roots drill down to the core of Dr. Dre and DJ Yella’s dense production and the rappers do their best to blur out the coarse language of the original song.
The key moment, though, comes when The Roots’ guitarist Captain Kirk Douglas puts down his axe and takes a turn on the mic, rapping Eazy E’s verse. Though they knew it was coming, the whole band seems to explode at that moment, watching their buddy step outside his usual role and play the part of a smack-talking, girl-chasing gangsta MC. Even the person holding the smartphone that’s filming the clip seems to shake with excitement at what is going down. But no one is more delighted than Questlove and Black Thought. As Roberts keeps spitting, they look over at each other with wide grins and sparkling eyes, giddy at what they’re witnessing and what they’re getting away with.
Pink Sweats and Kehlani’s performance on their Pink Planet duet “At My Worst” is already gently harmonious, but the duo kicked it up a notch on The Tonight Show with a gorgeous visual component that perfectly accented the duality of the soul-stirring ballad.
Performing in a room split down the middle, each artist’s side is the perfect complement to the other’s. On Pink Sweats’ side, he wears his customary color, which contrasts nicely with the canary yellow decor. He’s backed by a female guitarist, while on the other side, Kehlani wears a yellow dress in a pink room, backed by a male guitarist. The yin-and-yang effect mirrors the complementary quality of their voices as they sing both to each other and to their respective loves (Pink Sweats recently proposed to his longtime girlfriend JL Bunny, who is a performer in her own right).
Sweats is fresh off the release of his debut album Pink Planet, which dropped last month backed by the loving single “Heaven.” Meanwhile, Kehlani has been leading the R&B resurgence with a slew of features in 2020 supporting her musical peers and her last album, It Was Good Until It Wasn’t.
Watch Pink Sweats and Kehlani’s harmonious performance of “At My Worst” above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
There’s something to be said for the hot streak Lil Durk is currently working on right now. It dates back to his May 2020 album, Just Cause Y’all Waited 2 and thanks to his succeeding releases, the Chicago rapper recently earned a chance to perform on a recent episode of The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. On his appearance, he performed a medley of “Stay Down” and “Still Trappin,” which can both be found on the deluxe release of The Voice.
Beginning with “Stay Down,” Durk delivers his verse on the song before 6lack steps on stage to sing the song’s hook as well as his verse. Once he finishes, Durk returns to centerstage and transitions into a performance of “Still Trappin.” The song features a guest verse from King Von, recorded before he was tragically killed in an Atlanta shooting back in November. Continuing to honor the rapper who he referred to as his “twin,” Durk performed the song and let Von’s verse play.
The performance after Durk released his Loyal Bros compilation with his Only The Family crew. The 23-track effort includes features from Tee Grizzley, EST Gee, Foogiano, Booka600, Memo600, and others. It also comes after he joined Coi Leray for a “No More Parties” remix and hinted at a possible joint album with Lil Baby.
