Month: May 2021

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 no longer need to wear masks indoors. “We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said. It’s true. Things have gone back to normal, because many Americans are trying to find a loophole.

“The CDC announced last week that with a few exceptions, vaccinated Americans don’t need to wear masks indoors, and since they did that, there’s been a sharp increase in Google searches for fake vaccination cards. Searches for ‘fake COVID vaccine card’ are up over 1,100 percent, which is so gross,” Jimmy Kimmel Live! host Jimmy Kimmel said during the monologue of Thursday’s episode. “Let’s start calling these vaccine avoiders what they are: free loaders. The only reason you’re somewhat safe now is because other people got the shot.” He continued:

“You’re the person who heads for the bathroom when the check comes at the restaurant. You’re the lady who takes home the centerpieces from a wedding you weren’t invited to. You’re the guy who brings five napkins to a potluck dinner. That’s you. You don’t think it’s you. But it’s you.”

You can watch the entire monologue below (the vaccine talk begins around 7:30).

Overwatch 2 was first unveiled to the world at BlizzCon 2019. It was a significant moment for the game franchise as well as Activision Blizzard. They had a cinematic trailer, characters had clearly changed, and the idea of the team-based FPS growing stale was starting to infiltrate the minds of many fans that had been playing since it first released in 2016. No one expected a sequel right away, but with development clearly underway there was an assumption that more news would be on the horizon as the months passed.

Fans, however, were in for a long wait on that news and signs of what Overwatch 2 would become. Details that did come out were sparse and lacking detail. Then game director Jeff Kaplan left the company in April. For some, the news set off alarm bells about what it meant for the future of Overwatch. But on Thursday, the Overwatch development team managed to answer a few of those questions with a showcase of what the multiplayer will look like. It’s been a long time coming, but Overwatch 2 appears to be taking shape. Here’s what we know about Overwatch 2 up to this point.

5v5

The biggest news out of the Thursday PVP showcase was that Overwatch 2 is moving away from the 6v6 combat style that has defined it since launch. They’re throwing all that out for a 5v5 structure and changing the meta to be two healers, two DPS, and one lone tank. This is going to change the game entirely, but how so remains to be seen. We already know that heroes are being reworked to fit the new system, but how will this impact strategies? It’s exciting news and something that we’ll be watching with anticipation as more details come out.

Push

We’ve known about this for a little bit now. It’s a new game mode for Overwatch 2, but we finally got to see it in action and it’s hard to see how this is any different than a payload, but they swear it is. This is something that we may have to experience ourselves by playing it, because the general style of the game felt very much like an escort map. Even with the video we still need some more information on this one. At least the robot is cute?

Less Crowd Control?

One of the biggest complaints about modern Overwatch is how easy it is to be stunned. Crowd control abilities like Mei’s freeze, or McCree’s stun can make someone want to quit a game ASAP, and with fewer tanks that could become more powerful than ever. Developers have hinted, however, that some heroes may see altered abilities. We already know for certain, for example, that Mei’s freeze will no longer stop players in place. Most players agree Overwatch is at its best during freedom of movement so this is overall a good change as long as it’s balanced properly.

New Maps And Engine!

The Thursday event showed us a lot of new maps and the new engine at work. It’s even more colorful than the current game and the darker shading is a definite improvement on the current visuals. That they managed to create an engine that somehow looks even better than the previous one is impressive. Combat also looks smoother and the new maps are going to play to that. There are more corridors and verticality. In the current meta, this would be really not fun, but the new hero changes will likely lend themselves to this new map design.

Story Mode On The Way

We already know this but a story mode is on the way in Overwatch 2. It will be player vs. environment-based and is supposed to expand upon the story and universe that has been established in the cinematics up to this point. What that story will look like we still aren’t sure. They’ve given us no details besides calling it player vs. environment and it is the part of Overwatch 2 that people will have to pay for.

PVP Updates Will Be In Overwatch 1

If you already have Overwatch you’re in luck, because all the multiplayer updates seen today are going to be pushed in Overwatch 1. That will, hopefully, be a free update, but the details of how that whole thing is going to work haven’t been explained yet. They have stated the two games will be compatible though.

We’ll learn more as time goes on, but it’s nice to finally have some details about Overwatch 2. Hopefully a release date and more is on the way as well. It’s been a long wait for hardcore Overwatch fans, but the time before the game sees the light of day can feel even longer now that we’re starting to know what’s coming.

About two and a half minutes into Afrique Victime, the new album by Nigerian guitar phenom Mdou Moctar, the music explodes at you in a way that records often don’t anymore.

At the start of opening track “Chismiten,” Moctar sings in his native Tamasheq — a Tuareg language spoken by nomadic tribes from North Africa — about the dangers of “being so jealous and insecure” and how he’s praying to God for help in avoiding those behaviors. But Moctar doesn’t seem all that interested in talking about sin. Instead, he wants to show God’s fearsome power in his music.

Around the 2:20 mark, he steps away from the mic and leans into his Fender Telecaster. At first, his playing is slow and wandering, like he’s trying to locate a coherent train of thought. After about a minute, his guitar gathers speed and intensity. His tone is fierce and ecstatic, like a violin being played at a fever pitch. (Fans of Superwolves, the recent album by Matt Sweeney and Bonnie “Prince” Billy that Moctar guests on, will recognize this fevered sound immediately.) After about two minutes, he sounds spent. But then, suddenly, he fires up back again, emitting an incredible squall of violent noise. Moctar plays a guitar solo like LeBron James dunks a basketball — what some might see as an indulgence, they see as a demonstration of power, skill, and sheer determination to never be conquered by anyone.

For Moctar, this determination derives from his background as a man raised by a devout Muslim family in Agadez, Niger. Faced with ambivalent parents and a dearth of music stores, Moctar was forced to build his first guitar out of wood and bicycle cables, a story that sounds straight out of the mythology of “Johnny B. Goode.” I first heard him play on 2019’s Illana (The Creator), a vibrant and bracingly loud ripper of an album that made the 35-year-old Moctar the hottest rising star in a scene that also includes the Tuareg legacy act Tinariwen and fellow desert blues star Bombino.

Afrique Victime is loaded with moments where Moctar steps out of the song in order to ram his guitar directly into your guts. He does this for emotional effect, bending and blurring notes with the furious energy that defines one of his most obvious influences, Jimi Hendrix. But you suspect that Moctar also believes that ripping off a sick solo is extremely dope, which on this record it absolutely is. It might even make you ask: Why don’t we hear guitar solos more often these days?

When the great Eddie Van Halen — who Moctar has also cited as an influence — died in October, it felt like witnessing the passing of the world’s most accomplished blacksmith. In his prime, Van Halen was acknowledged as our reigning guitar hero, a designation that doesn’t really exist in 2021. This is not to say that nobody plays guitar anymore, as some overheated pundit is bound to inevitably declare every few years, only for some other pundit to inevitably declare a few years after that that “guitars are back, baby!” Let me be clear, as a person who receives at least 100 music PR emails every day: There were many, many guitar bands yesterday. There are many, many guitar bands today. And there will be many, many guitar bands tomorrow.

But the concept of the guitar hero — a virtuoso player who is singled out for mega-stardom because of their instrumental prowess — seems to have mostly passed. Yes, you still have master guitarists soloing away in the jam, blues, and jazz scenes, like Trey Anastasio of Phish and Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi of the Tedeschi-Trucks Band. But closer to the mainstream, guitarists tend to stress other aspects of their musicality beyond an ability to play a lot of notes hard and fast for minutes at a time in the middle of songs.

For instance, the most majestic guitar record of 2020 was Live Drugs, a concert album by The War On Drugs in which the band’s frontman and lead guitarist, Adam Granduciel, extends several tracks with dazzling solos. But Granduciel is first and foremost a songwriter and record maker who utilizes the guitar as part of a larger sonic tapestry, rather than as a focal point. The same can be said Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast, whose excellent forthcoming LP due next month, Jubilee, concludes with an unabashedly grand three-minute guitar solo that evokes Prince’s iconic shredding on “Purple Rain.” But like Granduciel, Zauner is “more” than just a guitar player; the solo ultimately is meant to express an emotional truth embedded in her album, not how freaking good she is at guitar. They’re more like guitar workers than guitar heroes.

Even artists who are known first as guitarists tend to shy away now from the sort of show-offy, “look at me!” theatricality that defined the age of Hendrix, Clapton, Page, and Van Halen. Players such as Yasmin Williams, William Tyler, Bill MacKay, and Daniel Bachman are textualists more interested in creating unique and striking sounds from their instruments, rather than ripping technically impressive (but otherwise conventional) solos. Even Ryley Walker, whose recent Course In Fable ranks among 2021’s best indie records, favors the soloing style of ’70s prog and ’90s post-rock, a wonkier approach that doesn’t quite square with the populist hero worship that a person like Eddie Van Halen inspired.

I suppose there are good reasons to move beyond the guitar hero archetype. For one thing, it led to a fair amount of excessive, self-indulgent, and boring music. (Like about 85 percent of Eric Clapton’s output.) There’s also something chauvinistic about putting a shirtless dude (because it was almost always a shirtless dude back then) who can wheedle-wheedle-wheedle with great proficiency on a pedestal, as if that’s somehow the be-all, end-all of music.

On the other hand, when it’s done well, it can be exhilarating to hear someone wheedle-wheedle-wheedle with great proficiency! The beauty of an expertly performed guitar solo is how it breaks free from the rigid structure of a melody, in order to simulate the feeling of briefly (or perhaps not that briefly) exploring previously uncharted territories of the mind, soul, and spirit. Put another way: A great solo is exciting on a primal, lizard-brain level. It’s musical but it’s also athletic, in that it spotlights the extreme edge of human potential. The fact that most people can’t do this is both the point and the problem — in the wrong hands, a guitar solo can turn a rock star into an elitist megalomaniac. (Or perhaps an anti-lockdown activist.)

But in the right hands — like a man who aspires to make music that feels like the wide and windy expanse of an endless desert — a guitar solo can sound like freedom. The physicality on display explains why so many guitarists and air-guitarists alike are often reduced to making goofy faces that express a unique combination of pleasure, surprise, and even pain. The visceral adrenaline rush of a killer guitar solo can almost be too much.

On Afrique Victime, the purest rush occurs on the title track, which is also the album’s most overtly political song. Moctar, a frequent critic of French colonialism and the devastating impact it has had on his country, rails about how “Africa is a victim of so many crimes / if we stay silent it will be the end of us.” But, again, it’s his guitar that speaks most forcefully. And, like he does on “Chismiten,” he gives over almost half of his song to a long, fiery guitar solo that stands apart as the album’s angriest and also most rock ‘n’ roll moment.

The violence and indignation of the lyrics achieves full expression in his playing, which starts at “face-melter” speed and picks up from there. There are some lightning-quick, Van Halen-style arpeggios, but this is him working mostly in “Machine Gun” era Hendrix mode, where the velocity and extreme volume signify a deeper cultural narrative about fear and death. As the minutes roll on, the cumulative effect of all those notes is stunning — your eardrums feels as ravaged as Moctar’s home country.

Western audiences won’t know what Moctar is singing about without a set of translated lyrics. But that guitar solo speaks a universal language.

Afrique Victime is out today via Matador. Get it here.

Netflix crushes the content game this week even more than usual, so much so that you might be tempted to stay at home to binge like the wind, even as the weather grows nicer and the CDC is lightening up on masking recommendations. This week, the platform brings us the newest contribution of Zack Snyder to the streaming masses, after his recent HBO Max smash success, and Aziz Ansari returns after an extended, largely self-imposed hiatus from the Internet. Between these two selections, there’s a lot of action and a ton of heart, even if they both reside on opposite ends of that spectrum. There’s also two series followups coming your way and nope, we have no idea how Netflix keeps bringing us all of these offerings without appearing to slow down at all.

Here’s everything else coming to (and leaving) the streaming platform this week.

Army Of The Dead (Netflix film streaming on 5/21)

Zack Snyder’s pretty much the King of Streaming at the moment after Justice League scored big for HBO Max on the superhero front, and he’s spreading his love around over at Netflix while going back to his undead-loving roots. This zombie-heist movie follows a group of mercenaries who head into the Las Vegas quarantine zone to pull off the ultimate heist, which is apparently worth $50 million to Dave Bautista’s character. Watch out for these intelligent zombies, through, and an undead tiger. Fortunately, Bautista is aided by hot Tig Notaro (who replaced Chris D’Elia), and the film also stars Matthias Schweighöfer, Ella Purnell, Ana de la Reguera, Garret Dillahunt (TWD universe fans will enjoy his presence), Raúl Castillo, Theo Rossi, and Omari Hardwick.

Master of None: Season 3 (Netflix series streaming on 5/23)

It’s been (four) years since we’ve seen Aziz Ansari’s brainchild do its thing, and that’s not even (officially, at least) down to the pandemic. Ansari’s been largely out of the public eye following sexual misconduct allegations, although he did emerge a few years ago for an insightful comedy special that goes a long way to show that gazing inward, but he’s still got a lot of comedic material to mine. This season, the co-creator’s taking a step behind the camera to direct in a season that he cowrote with the Emmy-winning Lena Waithe, whose character (Denise) moves from the sidelines to the forefront. The season will largely focus on Denise’s relationship with Alicia (Naomi Ackie) to bring viewers a new modern love story. There’s no word yet on whether Aziz will make an on-camera appearance, but clearly, he remains intent upon breaking new storytelling ground.

Who Killed Sara?: Season 2 (Netflix series streaming on 5/19)

Alex Guzmán’s working hard to uncover the Lazcano family’s darkest secrets, which might have something to do with his sister’s death. In the process, he unmasks Sara’s true nature that she kept hidden from almost everyone. Meanwhile, a mystery corpse is discovered buried in his patio, which doesn’t help the whole return-to-prison factor. To save himself, he must take on investigative hats to solve the title’s mystery.

Special: Season 2 (Netflix series streaming on 5/20)

This season, the main characters start to come into their own power while realizing that happiness can most reliably be found inside of oneself. Karen and Ryan can’t get it together enough to speak since their big blowout fight. Ryan’s dealing with writer’s block, too, which eases when he meets someone else who isn’t entirely available, and meanwhile Kim meets a tech mogul, and they have a predictably complicated relationship. And Karen realizes that it’s time to focus on herself and stop taking care of everyone else, but it doesn’t come as an easy revelation.

Here’s a full list of what’s been added in the last week:

Avail. 5/12
Dance of the Forty One
Oxygen
The Upshaws

Avail. 5/13
Castlevania: Season 4
Layer Cake

Avail. 5/14
Ferry
Haunted: Season 3
I Am All Girls
Jungle Beat: The Movie
Love, Death & Robots: Volume 2
Move to Heaven
The Strange House
The Woman in the Window

Avail. 5/16
Sleight

Avail. 5/18
Sardar Ka Grandson

Avail. 5/19
The Last Days
Sabotage
Small Town Crime
Who Killed Sara?: Season 2

Avail. 5/20
Hating Peter Tatchell
Special: Season 2
Spy Kids: All the Time in the World

Avail. 5/21
Army of the Dead
Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous: Season 3
The Neighbor: Season 2

Avail. 5/22
Sam Smith: Love Goes – Live At Abbey Road Studios

Avail. 5/23
Master Of None: Season 3

And here’s what’s leaving next week, so it’s your last chance:

Leaving 5/29
American Crime: Seasons 1-3
My Week with Marilyn
The One I Love

Leaving 5/31
50 First Dates
Act of Valor
All Dogs Go to Heaven
The Blair Witch Project
Brokeback Mountain
The Boy
Deliver Us from Eva
The Help
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Julie & Julia
Marauders
Milk
Miracle
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz
The Pursuit of Happyness
The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior
The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption
Soul Surfer
Striptease
Waiting…

Olivia Rodrigo’s hotly anticipated debut album Sour is out now, and during the lead-up to it, much was made about the relationship between Rodrigo and Taylor Swift. Like many, Rodrigo is a fervent Swift admirer and she’s been fortunate enough to forge a friendship with the pop legend. Now that Sour has been released, fans are drawing even more parallels between Rodrigo and Swift.

First, let’s get the obvious connections out of the way, ones that were made before the album was released. For one, Rodrigo previously told Rolling Stone that the bridge of “Deja Vu” was inspired by that of Swift’s “Cruel Summer.” It was also revealed this week that Rodrigo’s “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back” is an interpolation of Swift’s “New Year’s Day” and Swift has a writing credit on the song (along with Jack Antonoff). Some fans have speculated the reason Rodrigo opted to not sample the song directly is because Swift does not own the rights to the original recording, so Scooter Braun and Swift’s former label Big Machine (and not Swift) would be the ones to profit from a sample.

Now that Sour is released, fans have noticed that Rodrigo’s “Happier” and Swift’s Evermore cut “Happiness” are both perhaps the saddest songs from their respective albums despite their upbeat titles.

There are also fans who just see similarities between the two in a more general sense, with one describing Rodrigo as “the second coming of” Swift.

It has also been reported that following the release of Sour, Rodrigo became the top-selling artist across digital platforms around the world. The artist who was No. 1 until Rodrigo took over? Swift, of course.

Check out some other stray observations about Rodrigo and Swift below.

Birdman and Lil Wayne were once an inseparable duo in the hip-hop world. From the early Cash Money days of the late 1990s and early 2000s to the eventual Young Money days of the early 2010s, the Louisiana rappers were side by side through it all. Things would go left from 2014 to 2018 as Wayne and Birdman engaged in a lengthy battle over the delayed release of the former’s album, Tha Carter V. While the matter was settled in court, their relationship didn’t so much return to what it once was. That could change as the pair joined forces for a new track.

The rappers re-sparked their chemistry on “Stunnaman” with Roddy Ricch. It’s the first track Birdman and Lil Wayne have worked on together since 2019’s “Ride Dat” which also featured Juvenile. Today’s new track is a boastful effort that sees each rapper laying confident verses of their own. The single also proves that Birdman and Wayne haven’t let their past differences stop them from making good music together.

As for Roddy Ricch, the track is the latest guest feature that the Compton rapper has delivered as he recently joined DJ Khaled for “Body In Motion” with Lil Baby and Bryson Tiller and 42 Dugg on “4 Da Gang.”

You can listen to the new track above.

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

In February, Sacha Baron Cohen announced that his days of playing Kazakhstani journalist Borat Sagdiyev are over, as the job is getting too dangerous. Now audiences will get to see that for themselves. On Tuesday, May 25, Amazon Prime is dropping Borat Supplemental Reportings Retrieved from Floor of Stable Containing Editing Machine, a multi-part special featuring never-before-seen footage from Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, less clunkily known as Borat 2.

BORAT: VHS Cassette of Material Deemed “Sub-acceptable” By Kazakhstan Ministry of Censorship and Circumcision is one part of these special extras. It’s where you’ll find footage that didn’t make it into the movie, including a bit where Borat’s daughter Tutar (Maria Bakalova, who earned an Oscar nomination for the role) is getting a makeover and asks to be made to look like R. Kelly. In the midst of the hilarity, however, is the one scene that led Cohen to his early retirement.

While disguised as a country singer performing at a Three Percenter Rally, Borat—looking out into a sea of all-white faces—describes how he’s “looking out on this diverse crowd in every shade of white, all waving machine guns.” Then, in an extremely rare moment of breaking character, we see Cohen—still in disguise, but speaking as Cohen—tell his driver to “Go, go, go! Just keep going, because if you stop you’re going to be in a violent situation.”

Other parts of the special features include Borat’s American Lockdown, a 40-minute reality show that details the five days Cohen spent (as Borat) with conspiracy theorists Jim and Jerry; and Debunking Borat, a collection of six documentary shorts in which Jim and Jerry’s wild ideas about vaccine microchips, mail-in ballots, and Hillary Clinton’s nefarious ongoing role in government are all debunked—with a special appearance by Clinton herself.

You can watch the trailer for Borat 2’s unseen footage above.

Hip-hop has granted fans a decent amount of joint albums over the last few years. Drake and Future, 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne, 21 Savage and Offset, Future and Lil Uzi Vert, and more are among the list of rappers who took a moment to combine the best of both worlds for a project. The latest example comes from YG and Mozzy who just released their joint album, Kommunity Service. The 10-track effort is flooded with the many colors of West Coast rap with one example coming on “Vibe With You” which features fellow California native, Ty Dolla Sign.

On the collaboration, the two rappers take a moment from the muscle-flexing and big talk that is heavily present on Kommunity Service to let their softer sides fly. Altogether, “Vibe With You” is a chilled track that sees YG and Mozzy detailing how their fame has made it easier to keep the ladies entertained.

In addition to the Ty Dolla Sign guest appearance, Kommunity Service also sees features from G Herbo, E Mozzy, Celly Ru, D3szn, Tyga, Blxst, Young M.A, and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. YG and Mozzy first began the campaign for the new album with “Bompton To Oak Park” and “Perfect Timing.”

You can listen to “Vibe With You” in the video above.

Kommunity Service is out now via Mozzy Records/4Hunnid/EMPIRE. Get it here.

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

Tom Cruise’s willingness to do crazy things for stunts is well-known at this point. Stories of him trying to film Mission: Impossible alone have made it clear that the man is dedicated to getting the shot that fits the outlandish and visually-demanding scripts from Christopher McQuarrie. And according to a newly-uncovered discussion about the first Mission: Impossible, it seems an ingenious solution was necessary to make one of the most iconic scenes in the series’ history a reality.

As The Hollywood Reporter detailed, Cruise was having a terrible time filming the infamous “close call” scene in the film where he’s suspended from a wire in an all-white secure room. With a computer disc in his teeth and sweat pouring from his face, the high-wire act is a near-silent set piece that’s instantly-recognizable 25 years later.

The moment is as harrowing as it is visually stunning. The rat in the air vents might be scary, sure, but mostly the idea of slamming face-first into a floor seems pretty painful even before FBI security would haul you away if alarms went off. Actually getting the shot, however, involved some spare English coinage and a bit of fun on the part of director Brian De Palma. According to the anniversary edition of the movie’s Blu-Ray, Cruise actually did slam his face on the ground quite a bit before they got it all right.

“We were running out of time, and I kept hitting my face and the take didn’t work,” the actor said, explaining he finally asked crewmembers for British pound coins to put in his shoes as counterweights.

“[Director] Brian [De Palma] said, ‘One more and then I am going to have to cut [into the moment] and do it,’” Cruise said. “I said, ‘I can do it.’ And I went down to the floor, and I didn’t touch. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh. I didn’t touch.’ And I was holding it, holding it, holding it, holding it. And I’m sweating and I’m sweating. And he just keeps rolling.”

Cruise said he realized in that moment that they got the shot and De Palma was now just messing with him. Finally, De Palma began to laugh and called cut.

It’s really fascinating to know these details watching the scene again all these years later, as Cruise’s reaction to not hitting the ground seems that much more genuine. The shot De Palma uses certainly lingers on Cruise’s dangling body, his arms and legs desperately reaching away from the floor to make sure the take was useable. Imagining him holding that pose, only to have De Palma mess with him perhaps longer than we’ve seen on screen, is pretty funny. Simply put, though, that scene without that visual of Cruise bouncing just shy of the floor pretty obviously would not hold the same place in the series’ lore today.

And though there’s no sign of the English pounds used to apparently keep Cruise off the ground, they get a notable place in film history as the unsung heroes that made movie magic possible.

[via THR]

It may not feel like it, but it was more than a year ago that RMR broke the internet with his juxtaposing video for “Rascal,” the lead single off his 2020 project, Druging Dealing Is A Lost Art. Now, RMR is well-established as an artist with the hope that his second full-length project is close to arriving. Until that’s confirmed fans can enjoy the singer’s latest release, “Vibes,” a track that puts him beside Tyla Yaweh. The laid-back track finds the pair revealing what an ideal day in their lives looks like.

“Politicking in Miami, right after New York,” RMR sings. “She gon’ suck me up for breakfast / Eat me after brunch, meet me after lunch.” Later on, Yaweh submits a verse that finds him enjoying some of his own fun while promising to protect RMR from harm at all costs.

The collaboration comes after RMR kicked off the year with his 4th Quarter Medley, a four-track effort that included covers of Matchbox Twenty’s ’90s hit “3 AM” (titled “The Wishing Hour”) and Drake’s “Laugh Now Cry Later” (titled “That Was Therapeutic). Tyla Yaweh, on the other hand, hasn’t shared a project since 2019, but he saw his stock rise last year thanks to collaborations with Wiz Khalifa, Post Malone, and more.

Press play on the new song in the video above.

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