Rex Orange County has a new album quickly on the way, as Who Cares? is set to drop this week, on March 11. He shared “Keep It Up” to announce the album, and now he has dropped what will presumably be his final pre-album single, reuniting with Tyler The Creator on “Open A Window.” Rex and Tyler have famously collaborated before, most recently on Tyler’s 2017 album Flower Boy.
The new songs lives in the smoother side of Rex’s oeuvre, a soulful tune carried by a subtle but impactful groove. Tyler pops up during the song’s final third with a verse that accentuates the track’s rhythm.
Rex discussed his relationship with Tyler in a 2020 interview and gave an example of a time the rapper helped him out, saying:
“I was complaining and worrying about putting out that album, Pony, and feeling like… I was like, I don’t know if I’m wasting my time when there’s so much music coming out. I’m hearing albums come out every week and I’m even going, ‘Alright, cool, next,’ skimming things. It felt like just a landfill of music. I actually just called him up and he was like, ‘The thing is, first of all, everyone has their place. You can’t change anything. Complaining or hating on anything is a waste of your time, because whilst you’re spending 20 minutes hating on that person, that person’s going to spend 20 minutes doing their thing and living their life that they have. You’re going to be on this planet once and you’re just wasting your life. And there’s going to be someone in the world who thinks their album is what you felt when you first heard, like, Channel Orange or Stevie Wonder or whatever. You can’t take that away from anyone, whether you like it or not.’ […] It helped me so much not to be concerned so much about what people would think. He just broke it down in a way that helped me a lot.”
Listen to “Open A Window” above.
Who Cares? is out 3/11 via Sony Music. Pre-order it here.