Outside of popping out to the occasional fashion show, Brent Faiyaz has kept a pretty low profile. Since dropping his 2022 album Wasteland, we haven’t heard much from the toxic R&B star. Last summer Brent Faiyaz had the game eating out the palm of his hand. From songs with Drake and Tyler The Creator to acting appearances on shows like Rap Shit, this guy is everywhere. It’s no secret that Brent has hit pay dirt with his sound that makes one reminisce of 90s R&B and sounds from that golden era. However, many were wondering when we would see the singer on the road.
Earlier today, Brent Faiyaz announced on his Instagram that he would be heading back on the road with a world tour called F*ck The World It’s A WASTELAND Tour. During this tour, he will be doing songs from his 2019 EP F*ck The World (great tape) and his new album this summer. Brent’s kicking off the summer with a bang. Since the news has come out, many fans have been spazzin’ in the comments trying to figure out all the details. Haven’t seen this many people scramble for a tour since Drake and Beyoncé dropped their tour dates (this is special). While nobody knows what to expect from this tour, one guarantee is there will be good music to listen to for these shows.
Furthermore, fans haven’t been able to experience a full tour from Faiyaz. Since dropping F*ck The World, it was extremely hard for artists to do shows, thus causing many album tours to fall to the wayside. Many artists such as Don Toliver have fallen victim to this. Where they dropped more than one project during the heat of the pandemic and couldn’t tour due to restrictions. Thankfully, our favorite artists are able to tour again with loads more music tucked away in the stash.
Brent Faiyaz is no exception to this. As the summer creeps around the corner, more tours are being announced leaving fans to feverishly pick what shows they’re going to attend. Are you stoked for Brent Faiyaz’s new tour? Are you going? Let us know who’s tour you’re checking for this summer in comments below!
Still riding the highs of his sophomore album, Wasteland, which has proven to be one of the year’s most talked about albums, Brent Faiyaz has shared the visual for album cut, “Loose Change.”
In the visual, Faiyaz arrives to a theatrical adaptation of Wasteland, as performed by a group of ballerinas. Crowds fill up the theater in anticipation of witnessing dancers to bring new life to the project. Olympic gymnast Nastasya Generalova joins Faiyaz in the audience, although tension between the two is evident.
Although starring in a music video may be a new feat for Generalova, she revealed in an interview with C-Heads that she lives in a constant state of performance, so certainly, this new feat was nothing daunting for her.
“Being a rhythmic gymnast on the U.S. team, you are constantly performing,” she said. “I perform not only for the intent for the audience and judges to remember who I was and my personality, but I perform for myself as well. The best feeling is when you know you are alone with just your apparatus and it is as if you are dancing with a partner. Everything blurs out and you forget you are performing in front of thousands of people.”
“Oftentimes, records that are real personal will come from a place where I know where it came from and I can pinpoint that to an exact situation that really happened in my life. It can get hard to listen to, and especially hard to perform. Some songs, I’ve been performing, and I’m just like, ‘Man, that’s just a lot; I can’t perform this sh*t right now.’”
About being called labeled a “toxic” R&B singer, he said, “I don’t really think about it, to be honest. I don’t, like, wake up and go to sleep thinking about the state of R&B. Anything that somebody else is making, that’s on them. Any opinions that somebody got on what I make, that’s just how they perceive it.”
He added, “During the process, I write what I write and make what I make. We have to drop it under some category, so we put it under R&B. I don’t really be thinking about it like that.”
Earlier this month, Brent Faiyaz released his long-awaited second album Wasteland. While the project was his first official album since 2017’s Sonder Son, it was also Brent’s first body of work since 2020’s F*ck The World. Wasteland arrived with 19 songs and features from Drake, Tyler The Creator, Alicia Keys, Joony, and Tre’ Amani, however, there was a point where many thought the project would be released under a different title: Make It Out Alive. During a recent sit-down with Complex’s Jordan Rose, Brent explained that his second album did not undergo a name change, but rather a separate body of work was created.
“I still have a project I want to put out called Make It Out Alive,” Brent said during the conversation. “That’s still in the works—it’s just not this one, because I love the title Wasteland and I love what it represents.” He continued, “I have an idea in my head of what I want Make It Out Alive to be, but all of the songs that I have been making up until this point didn’t fit that title. I wasn’t in the headspace to put that body of work out.”
For what it’s worth, Make It Out Alive seems like the perfect transition from the events that conclude Wasteland. So, if the project does end up being Brent’s third album, it would be interesting to see where he takes things after the success of Wasteland.
You can read Brent’s full interview with Complexhere.
Wasteland is out now via Lost Kids LLC. You can stream it here.
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Life as Brent Faiyaz knew it changed by the time summer arrived in 2017. His guest appearance on GoldLink’s “Crew” with Shy Glizzy, which dropped in December 2016, shot him into the spotlight thanks to the perfect hook he provided for the song. While that record is certainly the most impactful towards his upward trajectory, there’s another one that came out two months prior that best speaks to the man we hear today. Sonder, Brent Faiyaz’s group with producers Dpat and Atu, released a record called “Too Fast” which Brent uses to respond to those who “say I drive too fast, move too fast, live too fast.” Little did we know this line would foreshadow Brent’s demise a half-decade later.
Brent Faiyaz’s sophomore album, Wasteland, expands on the message from “Too Fast.” Throughout the album’s 19 songs, which include features from big names like Tyler The Creator, Drake, and Alicia Keys as well as fellow Marylanders Joony and Tre’Amani, an all-gas-no-breaks lifestyle is not the only thing that Brent defends. He also critiques the “toxic” label that’s been placed on him, especially after the 2020 release of his F*ck The World EP. “That’s the Internet word that people like to attach to sh*t” and “So if you sing some real sh*t, like what’s toxic? What’s real?” he says to open Wasteland on “Villian’s Theme.” For Brent, his songs detail a very real lifestyle that isn’t some false persona or game of pretend to play into a trend. Brent isn’t being anything, he just is it, and to him, there’s a difference between the two.
As the non-linear and cluttered conversation on “Villian’s Theme” concludes, in comes the intimidating strikes of a violin on “Loose Change.” The first official record of the album is one Brent uses to pour out his complaints about fame like water from a bucket. The ladies complain too much for more of his time and the men are clout chasing and/or trying to knock him off his throne. Following the monetary theme at hand, “Price Of Fame,” finds Brent once again fighting for peace in the spotlight. “They just wanna take me off of here,” he quips on the song before letting us know that fame, glitz, glam, people screaming your name, and the demands “isn’t everything.” In other instances on the album, like on “Gravity,” “Wasting Time,” and momentarily on “Addictions,” Brent appears worn out and exhausted by the requirements of those in his world. For what it’s worth, more times than not, he’s only asked for the bare minimum – especially from women – and it’s for this reason that there’s a better word than toxic to describe the 26-year-old singer.
In all reality, Brent is more selfish than toxic, that’s seemingly the message on Wasteland. Sure, each share qualities that intersect, but I’d argue that the latter better represents the Maryland native. It’s selfishness that leads to him making a red carpet appearance with his side chick on “Oblivion” moments after his baby mother expresses her frustrations towards feeling lonely and uncared for on “Egomaniac.” It’s selfishness that sees Brent check in with nonchalance for a woman and her seemingly unfounded complaints on “Ghetto Gatsby.” “I can’t buy you happiness if you ain’t got it,” he sings. “Move you to a place, still ain’t what you wanted.” Notably, just two songs later comes “Wasting Time,” the Drake-featured track that arrives as an ode to a minimalistic and unbothered relationship, one that brings a twinkle to the eye of Brent.
In a way, it’s a good thing that Brent is very front-facing about his desires; that way you know exactly what you’re getting into with him. He isn’t controlling, he tells you to do as you please on “Dead Man Walking.” He wants you to view the world as he does as he proudly flexes his approaches and offers to teach them on the foot-stomping “Role Model.” Even in his most love-driven moments, your disappointment about his true personality isn’t something he can fix as noted on “Heal Your Heart.” Brent is a rockstar, matter of fact, he’s a “Rolling Stone” as he coolly reminds us. On that song, he sings, “I’m sorry in advance if I let you down,” with enough sincerity and sympathy that you almost believe he’s genuinely apologetic. But as we know, it’s nonchalance towards others hurt by a lifestyle he loves that takes precedent. The real Brent arrives a few lines earlier. “I’m a rolling stone,” he declares. “I’m too wild for you to own / In a whip that’s meant to speed.”
While he’s not opposed to settling down, Brent is opposed to slowing down. He told us there was no such thing as too fast, but as we hear at the end of “Wake Up Call,” that’s not totally true. He realizes this as his car tumbles to destruction as he rushes to try and save his pregnant baby mother from a suicide attempt. During the last seconds of Brent’s frantic phone call with her, she bluntly says, “No, you can’t always get what you want.” He once said F*ck The World, and while he was completely in his right to say that, the world now returns the insult. The thing is, the world – this chaotic Wasteland that Brent finds himself in – is through his own creation. “Life moves fast when you do what you want,” he sings on “Jackie Brown.” What he soon learns through this album’s well-crafted, dark, and vivid records is that the fast life is oftentimes a death race rather than a carefree cruise through the city.
Wasteland is out now via Lost Kids LLC. You can stream it here.
Brent Faiyaz is back with the official release of his single “Price Of Fame.” The recluse is coincidentally very open about his struggles with being a celebrity, between how it affects his relations with women or just general peace. “They just want to knock me off my square,” he sings with conviction. He even asks “Is it cause my whip too fast you don’t see my flaws?” which is true to his self-aware nature.
“Price Of Fame” was previously part of a three-pack Brent Faiyaz sent to select fans before it made its rounds on the larger internet. Now, it is a confirmed placement on Wasteland, his sophomore album that arrives on July 8. Prior to this, he hadn’t delivered a full project since 2020’s F*** The World, starring the cultural favorites “Clouded,” “Been Away,” and the title track. In between projects, the 26-year-old released the singles “Wasting Time” featuring Drake, “Gravity” with Tyler The Creator, “Mercedes,” “Show U Off,” and “Dead Man Walking.”
Faiyaz even appeared on Tems’ “Found” from her 2021 EP If Orange Was A Place, Meek Mill’s “Halo” off of Expensive Pain, and “Lost Souls” from Baby Keem’s The Melodic Blue.
Listen to “Price Of Fame” above.
Wasteland is out 7/8 via Lost Kids LLC. You can pre-save it here.
Meek Mill is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
It’s been over two years since Brent Faiyaz released an album, with his last effort being 2020’s F*ck The World. While the project only peaked at No. 20 on the Billboard 200, it would go down to be one of the more celebrated R&B projects of that year. Since then, fans have been patiently waiting for the singer’s third album, and luckily enough for them, the wait for the upcoming project hasn’t been too grueling. He’s released records like “Mercedes,” “Wasting Time,” “Show U Off,” and “Gravity.” Thankfully, at long last, Brent arrived with the news that we’d been waiting for.
Brent announced the title for his third project and revealed its collaborators as well. Wasteland is set to arrive sooner than later, and in a trailer for the album, Brent revealed who helped him craft his next body of work. In total, the list of collaborators reads as follows: Drake, Raphael Saadiq, Alicia Keys, The-Dream, Tyler, The Creator, Nascent, No I.D., Paperboy Fabe, Mike Dean, Jorja Smith, Lil Rece, The Neptunes, Jonathan “Freeze” Wells, Mikeblud, OG Che’ The Sensei, Joony, DJ Dahi, Beat Butcha, Steve Lacy, Itai Schwartz, Jayne Andrew, Coop The Truth, Sam Wish, Malcolm Mays, and Jimi Cravity.
The records with Drake and Tyler The Creator have already been released, those being “Wasting Time” (prod. The Neptunes) and “Gravity” (prod. DJ Dahi) respectively. Jorja’s contribution could be the previously released record “Nobody But You” with Sonder, Brent’s group with producers Dpat and Atu.
As for an official released date, we’ll have to wait a bit longer to
You can view the album trailer in the video above.
