Sometimes the best new R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm-and-blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the best new R&B songs that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.
This week, Ant Clemons leads the way with his new EP, 4Play, a love-focused release with four new songs from the New Jersey native. Amber Mark continues to promote her upcoming debut album Three Dimensions Deep with a remix of “Softly” with Popcaan. And speaking of upcoming projects, Cautious Clay prepares to release a deluxe reissue of Deadpan Love with his latest track, “Rapture In Blue.”
Ant Clemons — 4Play
To start 2020, Ant Clemons released his debut project Happy 2 Be Here, which later received a nomination at the 2021 Grammy Awards. Now, to begin 2022, Clemons returns with his second project 4Play. It’s a love-driven release dropped just in time for Valentine’s season next month. A brief project with just four songs, it’s still an enjoyable effort.
Amber Mark & Popcaan — “Softly (Remix)”
In less than two weeks, Amber Mark will step into the spotlight with her debut album, Three Dimensions Deep. She continues to promote the upcoming project with a remix of “Softly” featuring Popcaan. The new update joins previously released singles “What It Is,” “Foreign Things,” “Competition,” “Most Men,” and “Worth It.”
Cautious Clay — “Rapture In Blue”
Last summer, after years of singles and EPs, Cautious Clay released his debut album, Deadpan Love. The New York-based singer provided 14 songs that stood as a warm official welcome towards his artist. Seven months removed from the project’s release, Clay plans to add to the album’s experience with an upcoming deluxe reissue. Arriving on February 11, he’s begun promoting it with “Rapture In Blue,” a spirited track that captures Clay’s joyous appreciation towards the beauty in his life.
Chris Brown — “Iffy”
Later this year, Chris Brown will release his tenth album, Breezy. It will be his first project since 2020’s Slime & B, his joint release with Young Thug, and his first solo drop since 2019’s Indigo. Chris begins the rollout with “Iffy” and its accompanying visual, a cinematic effort filled with the singer’s trademark dance moves.
Keedron Bryant — Keedron
Keedron Bryant, a 14-year-old singer born in Italy and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, first rose to notoriety back in 2020 with his protest song “I Just Wanna Live,” which earned him a new audience following the murder of George Floyd. Later that year, he released his debut EP, I Just Wanna Live and now he’s back with his second project, Keedron. It bears six songs and finds the young singer flaunting his confidence and improving his artistry.
Johan Lenox — “No One Gets Me” Feat. RMR
Back in November, Johan Lenox, who previously delivered work as a producer for Travis Scott, Big Sean, Ty Dolla Sign, Snoh Aalegra, and more, began the journey towards his debut album, WDYWTBWYGU (What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up). He began with “You Up?” featuring Ant Clemons and returned this week with “No One Gets Me” alongside RMR. The song looks at the “various trappings of traditional American adulthood and questioning if these are things I want to participate in at all,” he says.
Elujay — “Pandemia”
Later this week, Oakland singer Elujay will release his debut album Circmvnt. After sharing three singles for it, “1080p,” “Frequency,” and “Luvaroq,” Elujay returns with a fourth and final single in”Pandemia.” A rhythmic and smooth release, “Pandemida” will certainly contribute to the overall experience Circmvnt provides. “It’s about finding alternative routes to an ever transitioning/deteriorating world,” Elujay said of his debut’s title. “Striving to find peace and solace and new techniques to approaching life.”
Terrence Leon — “Etch A Sketch”
Hailing from Austin, Texas, Terrence Leon begins his 2022 campaign with the new single, “Etch A Sketch.” He describes the song as “a record I wrote about being in love with someone so much that if you could, you’d tattoo their name across your heart; even if it’s momentary.” He adds, “It’s all to appreciate the magic in the very moment.” The track follows last summer’s EP, Loading… The Mixtape.
Kenyon Dixon & Tiffany Gouche — “Love On Replay”
Last year, Kenyon Dixon began the year with his Expectations project, which held 18 songs and features from V. Bozeman, Alex Isley, Jade Novah, Aaron Cole, Avery Wilson, and Re Lxuise. Now, he begins the year with his new single “Love On Replay.” The new record features an appearance from singer Tiffany Gouche and overflows with romance and passion.
Traetwothree — “Done Done”
After concluding his 2021 year with “Worth It” featuring DDG, South Central’s Traetwothree gets the ball rolling in 2022 with “Done Done.” The dancehall-influenced record sees him questioning his past lover’s decision to move on from their relationship. Before closing that chapter of love, Traetwothree gives himself one more chance to consider a second try.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Chicago Bulls guard Lonzo Ball, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, has a torn meniscus in his left knee and is in the process of deciding whether or not to have arthroscopic surgery. Per the report, Ball will make a decision sometime this week.
If Ball elects to have surgery, Wojnarowski reports that he will miss approximately 4-6 weeks in an effort to fix what is described as a “slight” tear. Ball’s injury was initially thought to be a bone bruise and he had missed Chicago’s previous three games with the injury. As a member of the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018, Ball had surgery to repair the same meniscus. Prior to the Bulls’ win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night, Bulls coach Billy Donovan said the team hadn’t “gotten to that point” with regards to considering surgery to repair the ailment.
If Ball does have surgery, a 4-6 recovery period will keep him out until after the All-Star Break. Assuming there are no hiccups in his recovery, that’s plenty of time before the playoffs begin and, in theory, enough time to for him to get reintegrated back into the team.
For Chicago, this continues a rough run of injuries. Alex Caruso just returned from being in the league health & safety protocols and dealing with other injuries, while Zach LaVine is currently dealing with his own knee injury.
Although bourbon is inextricably tied to Kentucky and the greater Ohio Valley, it can be made anywhere in the U.S.A. by law. That being said, the vast majority is made in Kentucky, which means those bottles tend to dominate liquor store shelves, home-delivery websites, and the discourse around bourbon, in general.
That said, given the explosion of craft distilling across America, you can now get bourbon from nearly every state in the nation. And many of those bottles are worthy of mainstream love.
Today, we’re highlighting 20 bottles of bourbon whiskey that aren’t from Kentucky. These are bottles I’ve tasted and vouch for. I’ve gone ahead and ranked them by flavor alone — though I did try to keep the MGP of Indiana entries to a minimum — to give you a better idea of which ones might be worth your hard-earned cash.
Iowa’s first distillery planted itself right in the middle of America’s grain belt. They’re making a product that requires corn, rye, and barley, so there’s really no better place to set up a distillery. Cedar Ridge’s Reserve Iowa Bourbon wins awards pretty much everywhere it drops a new expression. The corn-fueled bourbon spends five years aging, adding a deep complexity that’ll help you fall in love with bourbon in general.
Tasting Notes:
This is a big whiskey with a lot to ponder. It opens with a flourish of freshly cracked black pepper, warm honeycombs, and fields of blooming jasmine. There’s a dry nature to the sip with fresh herbs — dill and fennel, predominately — hitting first. Then the corn arrives. You can almost taste the fresh green husks in the whiskey. This is a spring farm in full bloom, distilled into a glass.
Bottom Line:
This is a great place to start a non-Kentucky bourbon whiskey journey. I really dig this whiskey for mixing, but the lower ABV does shave some of the bigger notes off while also creating a soft and approachable experience.
19. Wyoming Whiskey Small Batch Bourbon Whiskey (Wyoming)
This small-town craft distillery is making some of the finest grain-to-glass whiskey on the market. Their signature bourbon is a wheated bourbon that utilizes grains grown within 100 miles of the Wyoming distillery. The juice is aged for at least four years before it’s small-batched, proofed with local water, and bottled.
Tasting Notes:
The vanilla and caramel on the nose are creamy to the point of feeling like a stiff pudding with a hint of wildflowers. The palate holds onto those flowers and pudding while adding cinnamon sticks warming in browned butter with a note of cedar. That spice broadens out to a Christmas spice vibe as a buttery toffee sweetness and mouthfeel lead you toward a finish that’s just the right length.
Bottom Line:
This feels very classic while packing a little bit more “punch” than your average macro bourbon at the same ABV. Still, I’d highly recommend this for mixing over sipping neat. Or sip it neat if you dig it! We’re not here to judge.
18. Hudson Whiskey Bright Lights, Big Bourbon (New York)
This redesigned New York whiskey starts off a super rare mash bill of 95 percent corn and five percent malted barley. That juice is aged for three short years before batching, proofing, and bottling along the Hudson Valley.
Tasting Notes:
The nose draws you in with hints of dry corn kernels, vanilla extract, salted caramel, a slight hint of rum-raisin, and a touch of raw sourdough pancake batter. That sourdough batter draws a line into the palate with an echo of wet oak next to a vanilla cake with dark chocolate frosting next to damp cornmeal. The end is all about that damp cornmeal and more sourdough pancake batter as salted caramel and vanilla make a sweet and fleeting return.
Bottom Line:
This is a very young whiskey that is specifically built to highlight those green flavor notes. If you dig that sourdough, cornmeal, and caramel vibe, you’ll love it. If you’re looking for deep and dark spices, sugars, and fruits, this isn’t for you.
Either way, it knows what it is and shines therein.
17. Bib & Tucker 10-Year-Old Small Batch Bourbon (Tennessee)
Bib & Tucker is another classic example of what great blending can do with sourced juice. The Tennessee whiskey is a marriage of ten-year-old whiskeys aged in the lowest char barrels available, allowing more direct contact with dried wood rather than black char. Those barrels are blended and then proofed down with soft limestone water from Tennessee.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a sense of vanilla bean (pod, seeds, essence) up top with hints of spicy chewy tobacco, dry oak (almost pine), and a distant note of fresh corn husks. The palate really holds onto that velvety vanilla as the corn husks dry out and notes of orange-infused dark chocolate mingle with that spicy tobacco, which starts buzzing on your tongue. The end is long-ish, has touches of that dry pine, and holds onto both the vanilla and dried corn husks.
Bottom Line:
This is my favorite expression from Bib & Tucker. I’d argue this is the sweet spot of the line (it’s expertly built) and this particular pour really shines neat or on a rock or two.
This grain-to-glass craft whiskey from outside of Chicago is quickly becoming a craft classic. The grains in the high-rye mash bill are all sourced within 100 miles of the distillery. The juice is then aged for just under four years in small format Minnesota oak before it’s small-batched, proofed, and bottled.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a richness that’s welcoming with oily vanilla, rich caramel, Christmas spices, and a hint of cherry. Those spices really amp up and get chewy on the palate, as buttery toffee with a hint of almond arrives with oak. The end is medium-length and brings more oak and spice with a hint of those local grains popping in.
Bottom Line:
This grew on me over the last year. While I still contend it’s a solid mixer first and foremost, I can see pouring it over some rocks as a good “everyday” pour.
This Michigan whiskey is made to highlight a true grain-to-glass experience. The juice is made from a mash of 71 percent corn, 25 percent rye, and four percent barley. It’s aged for four years in the extreme weather of the Great Lakes. Barrels are then hand-picked and bottled with no fussing.
Tasting Notes:
The milled corn comes through with a touch of orange zest, vanilla, toffee, and lemon jam. The taste amps up the toffee with a caramel kettle corn vibe next to hints of cedar and orchard fruit. The end is long and very clearly all about the velvety vanilla and toffee sweetness with a slight alcohol warmth, thanks to a touch of spice and citrus.
Bottom Line:
This is another young bourbon that lets the corn shine through early but then goes much deeper than many others at this age. This makes for a great cocktail bourbon thanks to those powerful ABVs.
Frey Ranch is all about the farm behind the whiskey. In this case, that’s a 165+-year-old farm in the Sierra Nevada basin near Lake Tahoe. The grains (corn, wheat, rye, and barley), fermentation, distilling, aging, and bottling all happen on-site at Frey Ranch.
Tasting Notes:
The sip draws you in with hints of burnt orange rings next to fresh honey, apple-cider-soaked cinnamon sticks, cherry tobacco, and vanilla pods. The palate leans dry with cornmeal, bales of straw, woody eggnog spices, cherry stems, and a touch of dried mint next to cedar boxes full of vanilla tobacco. The mid-palate turns with a note of pancake syrup that leads back towards the dry woods and tobacco.
Bottom Line:
Frey Ranch is doing great work, even with their entry-level bottle. This works wonders in a cocktail but I like it over some rocks just the same.
13. Leopold Bros. Bottled-In-Bond Bourbon (Colorado)
This Colorado crafty gets a lot of attention from bourbon drinkers in the know. The mash is made from 64 percent corn, 21 percent malted barley, and 15 percent Abruzzi Heritage Rye that Master Distiller Todd Leopold malted at his malting house at the distillery in Denver. That mash ran through a classic pot still before it was barreled and left to rest for five years.
Tasting Notes:
The floral and spicy nature of that Abruzzi rye really comes out on the nose with a touch of candied apples, Quick powder, and the faintest hint of sourdough rye with a light smear of salted butter. The taste leans into stewed pears with nutmeg and clove spices leading the way as Almond Roca and green peppercorns jostle for space on your palate. The end mellows out as that spice fades towards an eggnog vibe with a creamy vanilla underbelly and a final touch of that floral rye and hint of pear.
Bottom Line:
There’s a young, crafty note to this that works thanks to everything else that’s going on in the nose, taste, and finish. There’s a great depth at play here that works wonders as a sipper or high-end cocktail mixer.
12. Smooth Ambler Contradiction (West Virginia/Indiana)
Smooth Ambler is a great example of how smaller craft operations get up and running. This expression is a blend of sourced high-rye bourbon that’s aged for nine years with their own-make, a wheated bourbon that’s aged for two years. The sourced bourbon is MGP of Indiana, giving the blenders a quality foundation to build their bourbon off of.
Tasting Notes:
Classic notes of bourbon vanilla and oak mingle with spicy stewed cherries buried in a sourdough pancake on the nose. The palate holds onto that sweet fruit and spice, as notes of worn leather and soft cedar arrive with a hint of grain. The end is short-ish with the spice, oak, and cherry lasting the longest until a nice and velvety vanilla mouthfeel arrives.
Bottom Line:
This is kind of like a magic trick. The nose is young but the palate is old. It’s a nice balance and helps this work as a nice sipper, especially on a rock or two.
This craft whiskey from Colorado takes the idea of wheated bourbon to the very edge of its limits. The mash bill carries a whopping 45 percent wheat, pushing this very close to being a wheated whiskey. The juice is then aged for an undisclosed amount of years before it’s batched and cut down to proof with that soft Rocky Mountain spring water Colorado is known for.
Tasting Notes:
You’re drawn in by a big bowl of vanilla ice cream drizzled with salted caramel sauce next to a very faint hint of dried florals. The palate builds on that ice cream, creating a sundae with crushed almonds, creamy toffee brittle, and a hint of eggnog spice. The end is medium-length with a touch of that buttery sweetness carrying the sip to a warm end.
Bottom Line:
This just works. It’s easy drinking, mixable, sippable, and all-around enjoyable.
This is the most unique bottle on the list and worth the search (and money). The mash bill is 100 percent blue corn. The juice is aged in the Balcone’s Waco rickhouse under the hot Texas sun, allowing the sugars from the wood to really imbue themselves into the bourbon more quickly than in cooler Kentucky. The results are vatted and bottled at cask-proof, letting every detail of the barrel shine through.
Tasting Notes:
Salted butter melting on freshly baked cornbread mingles with fresh tobacco, dried mint sprigs, and powdery white pepper. The sip then takes a left turn into Red Hots, orange marmalade, and fire-roasted marshmallow territory with black tea bitterness cutting through. The pepper and corn return on the finish as this one takes its time to say goodbye.
Bottom Line:
This whisky is aged for just over two years and it barely registers as “young.” It’s a bold and deeply hewn sipper that pushed the limits of what a “bourbon” profile is while being extremely drinkable, mixable, and enjoyable.
This is a very old whiskey, all things considered. The juice is from single barrels, aged 15 years or more, and the proof varies accordingly (sometimes it’s cut with water, too). The whiskey showcases Dickel’s vast warehouses and the gems they have hidden deep on those ricks.
Tasting Notes:
This is all about the cherry pie with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream next to a slight apple-tobacco vibe on the nose. The palate is full of red berries leading towards bourbon-soaked oak and a rush of dry sweet grass before a cherry-choco soda pop and more vanilla cream pop on the mid-palate. That sweetness gives way to a musty corner of a cellar as a soft cherry tobacco finish leaves you with a velvet and almost powdery (think vanilla pudding powder) mouthfeel.
Bottom Line:
This is an unsung hero of Tennessee whiskey and, thereby, bourbon. Dickel 15 grows on you if you give it time. It’s pretty damn good neat but really blooms with a touch of water. Plus, we’re talking about a 15-year-old whiskey for around $70 — that’s wild.
Smoke Wagon is everywhere these days. That’s thanks, in part, to co-founder Aaron Chepenik killing it on IG. The other part of the brand’s meteoric rise is that Smoke Wagon’s crew is masterfully blending some of the best barrels from MGP of Indiana that were made available. Case in point, the latest batch from the company was a high-rye bourbon (60 percent corn, 36 percent rye, and four percent malted barley) that was an instant hit.
Tasting Notes:
Based on Batch 29, expect a nose full of classic bourbon notes of orange oils, cinnamon stewed apples, caramel with a touch of salt, and peachy wood chips. The palate really embraces the fruit and moves from that peach vibe towards a blackberry crumble that’s just kissed with nutmeg and clove that leads towards a hint of old leather, singed cedar planks, and a late hint of cherry-touched tobacco. That leather, berry tobacco, and cedar drive the finish towards a dry end.
Bottom Line:
These releases do not disappoint. I resisted these for a long time (mostly due to interest hype). I finally gave in last year and haven’t looked back. This is great juice from MGP that’s damn near inexplicably tasty.
This new age statement release from Jack Daniel’s feels like a throwback to a bygone era in Tennessee whiskey. During the expression’s ten years of aging, the barrels spend time in the “Buzzard’s Roost” at the top of the rickhouse. Once they hit the right flavor profile, those barrels are moved to the bottom floors of other warehouses to slow the aging down. Finally, the whiskey is vatted, proofed, and bottled.
Tasting Notes:
This opens with a rich matrix of cherry syrup, apple cores, sticky toffee, vanilla ice cream, and a thin line of wet and sweet wood. The palate opens up towards the dark fruit but dries it out and married it to a sticky and spicy tobacco leaf while toasted cedar soaked in salted caramel vibes with dry corn husks that are just singed. The finish really takes its time as the cherry attaches to an old cinnamon stick and the tobacco takes on a sticky chewiness with a mild savory fruit edge.
Bottom Line:
Jack Daniel’s is woefully maligned for being the biggest seller in the world. This release proves they’re hitting in the highest weight class of great bourbon whiskey and deserve your attention.
6. 291 Small Batch Colorado Bourbon Whiskey (Colorado)
291 Colorado Whiskey’s Small Batch is a great entry point into the wider world of the crafty brand. The juice isn’t a “straight” bourbon since it’s only aged for one year. That very young whiskey is amped up thanks to Aspen wood staves which are added into the barrels to create a deeper sense of maturation without taking half a decade to achieve it.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a push towards cornbread dripping with butter next to hints of berry bushes plus a touch of caramel apples. The taste adds a good dose of cinnamon to the mix as the caramel leans away from apple and towards kettle corn with hints of nougat and maple syrup arriving late. The end holds onto the warmth of the cinnamon and the sweeter edges while a pine-y resinous note sneaks on the short finish, adding a nice nuance to the sip.
Bottom Line:
While the corn is still very present on this very young whiskey, there’s real depth at play in this bottle. It’s sort of the best of both worlds — young and old whiskey-wise — while feeling unique but, well, familiar.
5. Remus Repeal Reserve Series V Straight Bourbon (Indiana)
Last year’s Remus Repeal Reserve V is a hell of a whiskey. The MGP of Indiana (now Ross & Squibb) signature bourbon is comprised of nine percent 2005 bourbon with a 21 percent high-rye mash, five percent 2006 bourbon with a very high-rye mash of 36 percent of the sticky grain, 19 percent 2006 bourbon with the same 21 percent high-rye mash, 13 percent 2008 bourbon with that 21 percent rye mash, and 54 percent 2008 bourbon with the 36 percent high-rye mash.
Tasting Notes:
The nose on this is brilliantly fruity with touches of fresh raspberries, strawberries resting in dry straw, candied cherries, freshly peeled mandarins, apple cores and stems, and a touch of caramel malts. That caramel sweetness merges into a fresh honeycomb next to Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda vanilla flavor and pep while the fruit dries out, leaving you with meaty dried figs, dates, and prunes driving the midpalate toward the finish. A touch of candied ginger spices things up as a fruity but dry tobacco leaf rounds out the end with the faintest touch of walnut shells.
Bottom Line:
This is just goddamn delightful. Pour a glass and enjoy every last drop.
4. High West A Midwinter Night’s Dram (Utah/Indiana)
Each year, this limited drop varies slightly. Last year’s release was a mix of MGP rye (95 percent rye) and High West rye (100 percent rye) finished in French oak barrels that held port. The barrels were between four and seven years old before mingling and proofing.
Tasting Notes:
This bursts forth with bright red berries covered in rich and bitter dark chocolate with sultanas, burnt orange peels, and nutmeg-heavy French toast custard. The palate really holds onto the berries while savory rhubarb cobbler mingles with dates, old leather tobacco pouches, and vanilla pudding with a salted caramel drizzle. The end leans into eggnog spices with a touch of bitter black tea, more leathery tobacco, and a whisper of fresh mint.
Bottom Line:
As you can read from above, we’re in “wow, that’s f*cking good” territory. Make sure to add a few drops of water in your Glencairn to really open this up.
This whiskey takes Woodinville’s signature (and much-lauded) five-year-old straight bourbon and gives it a new finishing touch. The juice is finished in Pedro Ximenez sherry casks. Those barrels are then vatted and the whiskey is proofed and bottled as-is.
Tasting Notes:
The nose is a bouquet of dark spices next to dried orange rinds, soft Christmas cake, and a slight floral underpinning that’s more “damp” than “dried out.” The taste embraces the holiday spice matrix with a creamy veneer of dark chocolate oranges, eggnog spice, and a velvety mouthfeel with a hint of orchard fruit and toffee drizzle. The finish is long but doesn’t overstay its welcome. There’s a sense of the woody spices that’s more akin to cinnamon sticks dipped in hot apple cider, leaving you with a dry note of spicy tobacco.
Bottom Line:
This is subtle winter in a glass of great bourbon. There are really no faults here.
This much-lauded Texas bourbon is the highwater mark of what great whiskey from Texas can be. The juice is aged in Ozark white oak for four years and then finished in oak from Minnesota for another year, all under that blazing West Texas sunshine. The bourbon is then small-batched, proofed with Texas spring water, and bottled at a healthy 115 proof.
Tasting Notes:
You’re greeted with a real sense of a corn-syrup-laced pecan pie next to hazelnut bespeckled cinnamon rolls and creamy milk chocolate. That chocolate drives the taste towards a mint-chocolate ice cream vibe (heavy on the chocolate part) with small dashes of holiday spices, hard toffee candies, worn leather, and a flourish of cedar boxes full of dried tobacco leaves. The end circles back around to all that sweet and chocolatey creaminess with a final slice of pecan pie on a slow fade.
Bottom Line:
This is pretty much my favorite sip at the moment. It’s so bold yet subtle. It’s easy drinking while also having a slight edge of “challenge” to it. It’s just great.
This Alabama whiskey is all about that grain-to-glass experience. What really stands out, though, is that this whiskey aged for four years. The whiskey takes on a dark hew thanks to it being stored at the top of the rickhouse and in hot and balmy Alabama. The results are bottled from a single one of those barrels without any cutting or fussing.
Tasting Notes:
The nose on this one starts with cornbread that’s been baked in lard in a cast-iron skillet with an almost burnt crust, plenty of salted butter, and a dollop of honey that’s been cut with orange oils. The palate takes that cornbread, crumbles it up, and mixes in fresh cracked Tellicherry black peppercorns, dried roses, a touch of cedar, and a mild echo of orange-laced tobacco leaves. Finally, the sip layers in a wintry spice combo that leans towards cinnamon sticks soaked in mulled wine and apple cider that leads towards a soft finish with a dried mint that’s… almost menthol tobacco.
Bottom Line:
This has that “young” corn note but it feels like it’s aged to damn near perfection with the wood, tobacco, and spices. This is new, feels unique, and promises a bright future of releases from this distillery. Just make sure to drop some water in to let it fully bloom in your glass.
Ever since blowing up in late 2020 with her breakout single “No More Parties,” New Jersey rapper and XXL Freshman Coi Leray has put up with a frankly ridiculous amount of scrutiny. While she brings some of it on herself — while her XXL Freshman freestylewas fun, she could have guessed that it’d draw as much backlash as it did — a lot of it stems from the double standards surrounding women in the music industry, as well as unfair comparisons fans have drawn between her and other female rappers… especially Dej Loaf, who many say she sounds like.
And while there are some similarities in the singsong flow she uses on “No More Parties” and the usual cadence of Dej’s hits like “Body” and “Me U & Hennessey,” a deeper look at Coi’s catalog reveals more variety than the first glance assumption many have made about her. In a recent tweet, she addressed one fan’s accusation that she “bit” Dej Loaf’s style, pointing out how many other songs of hers don’t sound like the Detroit rapper’s at all, and offered her own explanation for why fans can’t help comparing them.
Maybe it’s the tomboy stud vibe we have in common.., but we do not sound alike.. From no more parties to big Prrdd and twinnem nigga you cannot tell me we sound alike https://t.co/AeDlDYe23F
“Maybe it’s the tomboy stud vibe we have in common,” she mused, “but we do not sound alike. From “No More Parties” to “Big Purr” and “Twinnem,” n**** you cannot tell me we sound alike.” That’s leaving aside earlier tracks like “Huddy,” in which she employs a more clipped, straightforward flow, or new ones such as “Medicine,” which honestly sounds more like something Playboi Carti would make. Meanwhile, for her part, Dej Loaf seems to have taken the newer rapper’s rise in stride, preferring to focus on promoting her own works, like the 2020 sequel to her own star-making mixtape, Sell Sole.
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What happens when an iconoclastic recording artist, so fully committed to contradicting convention, goes the other way around and embraces the mainstream sound? We don’t know yet, but we get an inkling with Earl Sweatshirt’s new album Sick!, which doesn’t so much embrace convention as it does co-opt it, wrangling it into new shapes and forms to suit Earl’s contrarian ways.
For years, Earl has been nothing short of a masterful technician, weaving words together like Arachne at her loom. He’s also been, for lack of a better term, hip-hop’s consummate curmudgeon, grousing that I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside over beats that could wrack the listener’s nerves and obfuscate his impressive wordplay.
This wasn’t always the case. When Earl first showed up on the DIY scene alongside Odd Future, his was the exciting voice that proved complex, intricate raps could coexist alongside other styles like Tyler The Creator’s horrorcore and Domo Genesis’ updated G-funk. His debut Doris offered forward-facing production from The Neptunes and features from a who’s-who of other highly gifted lyrical technicians who’ve since gone on to bask in varying degrees of stardom; think Tyler, Vince Staples, and Mac Miller.
Then, after releasing the above-mentioned I Don’t Like Shit, Earl became disillusioned with the rap game. His next two projects, Some Rap Songs and Feet Of Clay, have an unfinished quality to them. The mixing is all over the place. The stream-of-consciousness rhymes are only occasionally lucid enough to be decipherable. The beats are muddy, disconnected, and obdurate, clashing spectacularly with each other and with Earl’s admittedly still very expert raps. Both projects were still highly regarded by critics and fans, but less and less inviting for less-hardcore followers.
But he’s since mellowed out, telling Entertainment Weekly’s Marcus J. Moore, “I’m ready to embrace all of this. I believe I’m ready to feel it. I feel fuller. I’m less confused. Like, ‘Yeah, let’s go to the studio. Let’s go on tour.’ I wasn’t developed enough to fit the mold all those years ago. I’m ready to be in the league now.” It’s possible that fatherhood has granted him perspective (his son was born at some point within the last three years), or that going through the pandemic with the rest of us made him feel more connected. Certainly, cutting down on his drinking helped, as he told Moore. But whatever it is, his output has benefitted from it — at least, from the perspective of someone who always kind of side-eyed Earl as being unnecessarily standoffish and pretentious.
That newly relaxed stance is evident in the relative accessibility of Sick!, from the beat choices to the raps. I’d never have called him “nostalgic,” although his rhymes have always been ruminative and autobiographical. But there was never the sense of warmth that would have suggested he looked back on his life with any degree of fondness. However, on tracks like “2010,” he takes stock of all he’s seen and accomplished since his explosive debut with his upstart skater posse, Odd Future.
Earl imposes his will over contemporary cadences on “Vision” and “Lobby,” which pair his propensity for stripped-down instrumentals and quirky samples with booming 808s — the sort of production that you could almost hear modern-day trap artists on. When he does indulge his jazzier inclinations on “God Laughs” and “Tabula Rasa” with Armand Hammer, the results are smoother than on his previous iterations of the sound, with looped lounge pianos and contemplative rhyme sequences that highlight his newfound sense of security.
Even though he’s grown up, though, there remains an element of inscrutability in his music, a chip on his shoulder that has been reduced in size but is no less embedded in the fabric of his being. His rhymes still require “hard hat and ax pick” levels of exegesis, the title track nearly washes out his vocals in favor of an admittedly hard-hitting drum pattern, and you won’t be hearing many requests for Earl’s new music at any clubs or parties anytime soon (none you’d want to go to, anyway). But what feels more important is that Earl is in a good place, mentally and emotionally, and that’s translated to art that is proportionately more enjoyable.
Sick! is out now via Tan Cressida and Warner Records. Stream it here.
Earl Sweatshirt is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
In theYellowjackets pilot, Shauna Sadecki – played by the singular Melanie Lynskey – masturbates to a picture of her teenage daughter’s boyfriend, in her daughter’s bed. Shauna, now in her 40s, yearns for a part of her youth that was taken away from her, that she can never get back. Then she’s approached by Jessica Roberts, a private investigator disguising herself as a reporter who pushes Shauna to tell her real side of the story. That is, the story of how she survived in the Canadian wilderness for nineteen months, stranded with her high school soccer team after a plane crash in 1996. “I moved on,” Shauna tells Jessica. But it’s so clear that she hasn’t, and never will.
There is an overwhelming amount of television right now. In the peak TV era, if you are behind on something (especially if it is on Netflix), it’s often pointless to catch up because a few days late is already too late to have the communal, modern equivalent of a water cooler chat. With more options than ever, it has somehow become even more difficult to find something as powerful, original, and as sure of itself as Yellowjackets. And even when you do find something that is great, it can quickly become a fleeting memory. I, for example, enjoyed The Queen’s Gambit, but do not remember most of what happened in it. My eyes have simply seen too much since fall 2020 to remember anything except Thomas Brodie-Sangster in a cowboy hat. But like the best television shows and movies, Yellowjackets, the best new show in years, is seared onto my brain forever.
From the very first scene of the pilot to the devastating but inevitable events of its season finale, Yellowjackets is a confident first-season show that knows its themes, its characters, and exactly what it’s about; there is no learning curve. The haunting first scene of the series shows a teenage girl being hunted in the snowy woods with no shoes or winter clothes. She falls into a pit of spikes and is subsequently bled out and, apparently, eaten in a cannibalistic ritual conducted by masked figures we can’t quite make out yet. From there, it jumps to Shauna’s introductory masturbating scene, which quickly establishes what this show is and always will be: bold, mysterious, violent, and irreverent. Shauna’s introduction establishes that Yellowjackets is, above all else, a show about trauma that explores how it manifests over decades with a varying set of personalities and backgrounds. Yellowjackets satisfies a need for discussion and theorizing, puts a necessary spotlight on the women of Gen X, and the complicated bonds between women. Whether you’ve been stranded in the wilderness with your soccer team or not, anyone can pinpoint a character, moment, or dynamic they can relate to on a deeply personal level.
Yellowjackets is a show about survival. Survival after the plane crash, survival in the woods, survival after the woods. Each character who made it out of the woods is still surviving. In addition to being haunted by the lost years of her youth, Shauna is haunted by visions of Jackie, her best friend from childhood, and in the 1996 timeline, we see their friendship deteriorate. Natalie (Juliette Lewis), an addict who makes regular rehab visits, is bound forever to Travis, another survivor who, for better or worse, helped her get through it. In the 1996 timeline, Natalie is one of the few rational thinkers essential to the group’s survival. Taissa Turner (Tawny Cypress) did everything she set out to do before the crash: she went to the right schools and followed the right career path. Her run for state senate triggers stress she has not experienced since being lost in the woods. She spent decades ignoring it, but it never really went away.
The ever-so-charming but very terrifying Misty (Christina Ricci), in contrast, appears to have enjoyed the experience in the woods because it was the first time she felt wanted, needed, and included. If Yellowjackets ever has a “we have to go back” moment, Misty would be delighted. As much as the survivors want to disconnect, they’re drawn to each other because no one else could or will understand what they experienced and how they feel about it. Through these separate and incredibly different depictions of trauma coming from the same experience, Yellowjackets separates itself from other shows by presenting multiple complex emotional arcs for women – and at that, women in their 40s. The show’s structure which follows the 1996 timeline and the 2021/present timeline shows how much people can change and evolve but still stay the same.
Although we as a society have long moved on from it (or have we?), Game of Thrones made us, for lack of a better word, thirsty for theories. The shocking twists and sudden, brutal deaths of unexpected characters created a new dynamic between show and audience only comparable, but on a smaller scale, to shows like Lost and The X-Files. The compelling mysteries and what-ifs of Yellowjackets are the most talked about elements of the show. The internet is flooded with questions including: who is the man with no eyes? Who is the man in the cabin? Why does Taissa eat dirt in trees? And who do they eat?
Even after amping up the supernatural elements toward the end of season one, Yellowjackets exists on a fine line between the real and the supernatural. Anything at this point could be explained from a realistic perspective, such as psychosis. But it could also be explained from a supernatural standpoint, like that the woods have a mind of their own and a purpose. While the major mysteries are kept from the audience to keep us on our toes, the mystifying nature of the show exists for more than just that. They’re kept from the audience because as a trauma response, the main characters Shauna, Natalie, Taisssa, and Misty, are keeping it from themselves. Okay, well, maybe not Misty.
Television quickly jumped from centering around sad, broken, difficult white men in the 2000s like Tony Soprano and Don Draper to self-deprecating millennials like Hannah Horvath in the 2010s. In the process, Generation X, particularly its women, were largely ignored throughout entertainment, perpetual middle children that they are. Even in the television shows and films portraying Gen Xers from the 1990s, the experience was conceived and written by adults trying to understand the MTV generation. A shorter way of saying this is that Gen X had My So-Called Life and Party of Five, but they didn’t get a Girls or a Euphoria. Yellowjackets is one of the first – if not the first and only – shows to center Gen X from an authentic lens because it’s written and played by them. Actors who were icons in the 90s including Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci and Melanie Lynskey were intentionally cast to give the actors a new life on-screen and to exaggerate and acknowledge the show’s intentions. While Juliette Lewis’ Natalie is exactly the type of character you’d expect Lewis to play, Christina Ricci’s Misty is quite unexpected, and Melanie Lynskey, who often plays secondary characters, is given a starring role. The characters do the stereotypical teens in the 90s things like listen to moody female rock and wear flannel but their depiction goes beyond pop culture consumption and aesthetics and digs deeper into the disaffected, independent generation.
Yellowjackets is the best new television show in a decade, with one of the strongest pilots ever made (it is Cheers and Friday Night Lights pilot level good), and one of the tightest, most cohesive first seasons in modern television. Other prestige shows such as Succession, Better Call Saul, or The Americans that have premiered in the past ten years have proven to be some of the best ever made, but it took them a while to get there. In an era of television with endless options – we have gone from a new show every week to a new show every day – Yellowjackets stands out as one of the most audacious, original shows in recent memory due to its strong premise, characters, and careful storytelling with its finger on the pulse of culture.
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of her third album, Grimes is releasing a special vinyl reissue that includes an exclusive art print and liner notes that are written and illustrated by Grimes. As for the vinyl, it will be a single LP on 180g Magenta & Green Galaxy vinyl. “Wow, I can hear myself learning how to make music in this song,” said of Grimes of Visions‘s opening track, “Infinite Love Without Fulfillment,” continuing: “I remember doing the vocal over the drums and then randomly trying that bass line and being like whoa! And kinda spiraling into this experiment.”
What began as an experiment for her arguably launched a whole new realm of cerebral synth-pop that toed the line between mainstream pop music and experimental electronic sounds that were only just making their way up out of the underground. No matter how you feel about Grimes post-Elon, Visions is definitely an excellent album and worth owning on vinyl.
Microsft and Activision Blizzard are two giants in the industry. There was no scenario where these two joining forces wouldn’t have ripple effects, because many of the IPs, services, and competitors involved are behemoths themselves. We’re going to be seeing the impact of this deal for years to come, but until that comes to fruition, all we can do right now is speculate on what we think is going to happen.
With all that in mind, these are three areas across the industry that we wanted to focus on.
Call of Duty
Arguably the biggest yearly franchise in gaming, Call of Duty is a behemoth. Millions play it every year, it is frequently among the highest selling games of the year and has one of the most popular battle royales in Warzone. This has been the flagship title of Activision for well over a decade and suddenly it’s going to be going into the ownership of Microsoft and Xbox. This isn’t the same as when Microsoft purchased Bethesda and started selling their games exclusively on the Xbox. Call of Duty is the kind of franchise that extends beyond console and it would be a monumental — and really, really harmful — change if it suddenly went Xbox and PC exclusive.
Call of Duty fans not only buy and play the game, but pay for skins, loot boxes, and all the other extra bells and whistles that so many companies make money off of these days. Removing that income source for a chance at exclusivity, in this day and age, would just be bad business, and it stands to reason that Microsoft would understand this and not make CoD a console exclusive. There’s just too much money in it being available for all gamers.
Having said that, over the last decade, we’ve seen a lot of Activision’s branch companies get folded into the giant brand that is Call of Duty as support studios. Instead of allowing them to develop games, they ended up becoming more fuel to fund a giant. While we don’t expect that support for Call of Duty to end, ideally some of these branch companies allowed to expand and make their own games, maybe even spin-off from Call of Duty. The Xbox umbrella allows for more creativity, and hopefully, we get to see it.
Game Pass
We’ve spoken at length about how Game Pass is the best deal in gaming right now. No service gives players a larger catalog of games to play at no additional cost than Game Pass. The deep library of current and older games makes it a must-have for anyone that’s even remotely interested in gaming outside of their comfort zone, and to top all of this off, every single Microsoft-published game releases to Game Pass day one.
That last tidbit is where the purchase of Activision Blizzard gets very interesting. Yes, there’s now a huge library of games that could come to Game Pass from franchises like Warcraft and Diablo, but have we considered that every single game under the Activision Blizzard name could be a Game Pass release? Overwatch 2, every Call of Duty, and any new Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games could all potentially be available at launch through the service.
We’ve known for a long time that Game Pass was Microsoft’s plan to push the Xbox branding in the future, but as it continues making moves to bring gigantic IP’s to the service, it’s never been more clear that Microsoft does not plan on fading back towards selling the console as their main branding strategy. Obviously, consoles are still extremely important, but getting people into that Game Pass ecosystem is the obvious goal and Microsoft is willing to keep on spending to make it happen.
We can still expect Sony to conduct itself with the same level of confidence it always has. Part of why Microsoft has had to seek out these deals is because its first-party exclusives have, for a long time, been weaker in comparison to the ones that Sony has traditionally published. With Horizon Forbidden West and God of War: Ragnarok expected to debut in 2022, a big year is on deck for Sony despite Tuesday’s news.
Unfortunately for Sony, many of the things it has been pushing back against for so long are starting to become the norm. Crossplay, PC gaming, and cloud gaming are all services that Microsoft embraced. Their services beyond a great console and great games need to be improved and we would not be surprised to see that become a focus.
Last year, Sia released the film Music, which she directed and scored. The film starred dancer Maddie Ziegler portraying a nonverbal autistic teenage girl. Members of the autistic community condemned Sia for having a neurotypical person represent someone on the autism spectrum and slammed a particular scene that shows the character put in a dangerous restraint which can lead to suffocation. Though the film went on to win two Golden Globe awards, Sia now says the backlash was so intense that it led her to relapsing and having suicidal thoughts.
The singer recently spoke to The New York Times for a profile on actress and comedian Kathy Griffin, who is a dear friend of Sia’s. The singer explained how, following her film’s criticism, she “was suicidal and relapsed and went to rehab.” Sia went on to commend Griffin for her help, saying Griffin invited her out for dinner in Hollywood in order to generate some positive press around Sia’s name. “She saved my life,” Sia told The Times.
Following conversations about Music from the autistic community, Sia announced that her film will include a warning going forward. “I promise, have been listening,” she said. “The motion picture MUSIC will, moving forward, have this warning at the head of the movie: MUSIC in no way condones or recommends the use of restraint on autistic people.”
Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish movies available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.
Andrew Garfield is giving theater-kids everywhere a musical-thirst-trap performance in this Lin-Manuel Miranda-directed biopic that pays tribute to Jonathan Larson, the artistic genius who changed Broadway with his seminal musical Rent. This film examines Larson’s life before fans were belting out Season of Love though, with Garfield giving an award-worthy turn as a restless visionary who feels the suffocating deadline of turning 30 without having produced a great show. The supporting cast is terrific, Garfield is doing his best work, and Miranda infuses everything with a genuine sense of love and admiration that makes it hard not to root for this one. Watch it on Netflix.
Halle Berry’s MMA movie made a deal with Netflix and now Halle Berry’s MMA movie is on Netflix. Yes, that sentence said “Halle Berry’s MMA movie twice but, to be fair, it’s a phrase it takes a little bit of time to wrap your head around. Berry makes her directorial debut and stars as a disgraced fighter named Jackie Justice (Jackie Justice!) who is back in the cage to deal with various personal demons. It’s Halle Berry’s MMA movie! The reviews are pretty good! Watch it on Netflix.
As odd as it is to have a movie about two of the greatest athletes of all time told centered on, not the women winning Grand Slams and Olympic gold medals, but their determined, driven father – King Richard works. It works because Will Smith exudes charisma and charm but he also brings a believable grit and weary defiance to the role of Richard Williams, the man who gave tennis not one, but two female legends. This is Serena and Venus’ story, told from the perspective of the man who believed in them when no one else did so, yeah, grab a box of tissues before you sit down to watch. Watch it on HBO Max.
Benedict Cumberbatch gives a villainous performance for the ages in The Power of the Dog, the first film in 12 years from director Jane Campion. The western is expected (and deserves) to be an Oscars frontrunner, so hop on the horse-drawn bandwagon now. Watch it on Netflix.
Set in the near future, Swan Song stars two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali as a husband and father who’s dying from a terminal illness. To spare his family from unimaginable grief, he secretly agrees to undergo an experimental treatment where his memories will be transported into an exact healthy duplicate. Swan Song examines how far we’re willing to go to protect the ones we love. It’s science-fiction at its most melancholy. Watch it on Apple TV+.
Aaron Sorkin is back with a movie about I Love Lucy and its stars, with Nicole Kidman playing Lucille Ball, and a whole bunch of other stuff. You know what to expect here, probably, if you’ve seen a Sorkin movie or television show in the past. The dialogue will be snappy, the villains and heroes will be clearly defined, all of it. The important thing here is that we all agree that Lucille Ball was pretty impressive. Watch it on Amazon Prime.
7. South Park: Post-COVID: The Return of COVID (Paramount Plus)
Paramount Plus
It’s the follow-up to the first COVID special and things are still weird. There are experiments and mental asylum escapes and marijuana farming and pretty much everything you’ve come to expect from South Park at this stage of the game. There are worse ways to spend a few hours this weekend. Watch it on Paramount Plus.
This one is pretty straightforward: the delightfully incompetent police department from the long-running Comedy Central series is now, for some beautiful reason, on the hunt for the mysterious political conspiracy theorist Qanon, and their mission takes them from the desert of Nevada to, for other beautiful reasons, the open seas. Maybe straightforward wasn’t the right word. It’s probably best to avoid asking questions. Let’s just roll with it and be glad it exists. Watch it on Paramount Plus.
Jennifer Lawrence is back in Don’t Look Up, Adam McKay’s apocalyptic satire about two low-level astronomers (J-Law and Leonardo DiCaprio) who try to warn everyone on Earth about an approaching comet — but no one seems to care. The ensemble cast also includes Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Ariana Grande, Timothée Chalamet, Cate Blanchett, and Tyler Perry. Maybe that’s why no one cares about the comet. They’re too busy looking at all those stars. Watch it on Netflix.
What we have here: George Clooney directing Ben Affleck in a film adaptation of a best-selling memoir about a writer who learns a number of life lessons while working as a bartender. The star power here is undeniable and makes it worth at least a snoop at some point, but it does make us wish — at least a little bit — that Clooney and Affleck had teamed up to make a movie about two handsome guys in tuxedos who team up to steal… oh, let’s say the Liberty Bell. This is probably fine, too, though. Watch it on Amazon Prime.
The gang is all back. Mostly. They’re mostly all back. Keanu is there as Neo, with the John Wick beard. Carrie Ann Moss is back as Trinity even though Trinity kind of… died. It’s a whole thing. And it’s fun. This all could have gone a lot worse, really, which isn’t exactly the highest praise but is still important. Let’s do it all again in another 20 years. Let’s make it a thing. Watch it on HBO Max.
The Tragedy of Macbeth is the first time Joel Coen has made a movie with no involvement from his brother, Ethan. But even without his sibling, this black-and-white adaptation of one of William Shakespeare’s bloodiest plays is typically excellent, with stellar performances from Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Corey Hawkins, Stephen Root, and Kathryn Hunter. Something wicked good this way comes… to streaming. Watch it on Apple TV+.
The standout cut from the Encanto soundtrack, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” is the latest addition to the Maddeningly Catchy Disney Song canon, along with recent inductees “Let It Go” and “You’re Welcome.” (Lin-Manuel Miranda apparently knows a thing or two about songwriting, who knew?) The rest of the movie is fun, colorful, and teaches an important lesson about family and community, and you get to hear Rosa from Brooklyn Nine-Nine belt it out. But the best reason to watch Encanto is to learn firsthand why “Bruno” is one of the most popular songs in the country right now. Should you skip Encanto? Bruno-no-no-no. Watch it on Disney Plus.
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