Month: April 2022

Orville Peck unveiled his long-awaited country epic Bronco a little over a week ago, which he rolled out in three chapters. First, he released “C’mon Baby, Cry,” “Daytona Sand,” “Outta Time” and “Any Turn,” and then “The Curse Of The Blackened Eye,” “Kalahari Down,” “Trample Out The Days,” and “Hexie Mountains.”

He’s known only not just for his twangy, eccentric songs, but also for his outfits — on stage, he wears a frayed mask that covers his whole face, as well as a sparkling beige suit and a cowboy hat. He took this look to Jimmy Kimmel Live last night. The bedazzled cowboy brought the jangly “C’mon Baby, Cry” to the show, playing under yellow and red lights, amongst lit-up cacti and a floor of fog, giving the performance a real western ambiance.

When releasing the second batch of songs from Bronco, Peck said: “The songs on Bronco’s second chapter explore some of the most vulnerable places I’ve ever gone to with my music. I sing about home, escape, longing, resentment… This chapter, lyrically, has some of my favorite songs on the album. Plus I’ve always been a sucker for a ballad.”

Watch the performance of “C’mon Baby, Cry” above.

Emmy Rossum really must have wanted to say goodbye to Fiona Gallagher because her new turn in Angelyne is a total 180. She’s bewigged as the iconic, buxom-blonde beauty shrouded in mystery as she graced 1980s billboards in Los Angeles. Of course, Rossum’s next project after Shameless landed at an awkward time, due to the global situation, so Peacock’s Angelyne took four years to bring to life.

The final product, well, it’s very pink, and my apologies to Winston Churchill for botching his iconic quote, and I’m completely out of context here. The series aims to take a pointed look at identity and celebrity and how we view ourselves vs. how other people view us, and it’s a ride, alright. Poor Hamish Linklater (Netflix’s Midnight Mass and many other selections where he’s unsettled the bejesus out of people) looks so surprisingly uncool. In other words, the hair, makeup, and wardrobe do their intended job.

The show dives into the Marilyn Monroe-wannabe persona of Angelyne, who road numerous coattails in her quest to be famous for nothing. Take that, Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. Angelyne is also a Barbie doll homage of sorts, and this series has got a whole gathering of familiar male faces (Lukas Gage, Martin Freeman, David Krumholtz, and more) who pop up to support the leading lady’s rise to the literal top of LA. We’ve already seen a brief teaser, but this trailer fills in more blanks about how (dare I say) unrecognizable that Emmy Rossum decided to be on her maiden voyage out of South Side Chicago.

Let’s just say that the wig budget must be outrageous. From the limited series’ synopsis:

ANGELYNE, Peacock’s limited series about fame, identity, survival, billboards, Corvettes, lingerie, men, women, women teasing men, men obsessed with women, West Hollywood, crystals, UFOs, and most importantly of all, the self-proclaimed Rorschach test in pink, glow-in-the-dark queen of the universe, Angelyne.

Angelyne premieres on May 19. Enjoy these images and wonder how much time was spent in the makeup trailer.

After years of catchy, dance-ready R&B singles and groovy EPs, Chicago singer Ravyn Lenae is finally releasing her debut album Hypnos. Lenae has teased Hypnos, out next month, with a series of singles, including the trippy “Light Me Up” and the Steve Lacy-assisted “Skin Tight.” Her latest, “M.I.A.,” is an ode to Miami, but also to herself.

“M.I.A is about feeling free and comfortable in your skin,” Lenae said of the song in a statement. “It’s a peek into my world – the duality of knowing the energy you bring to the world but also being confident in riding dolo.”

In addition to her new album, Lenae will also tour the US and the UK over the course of a month.

“When you listen to the music, I hope you have a better understanding of me and even catch a better understanding of yourself,” She said. “As artists, we make music as a pathway to help other people understand certain aspects of their lives. I’ve gone through the tunnels and seen the light on the other side. I’m finding my way. I’m clearer on who I am and my power through music and lyricism. I’m pouring more into me, friendships, family, and music. Through all of that, I’m fulfilled.”

Check out “M.I.A.” above, and the cover art and tour dates below.

05/26 — Seattle, WA @ Nuemos
05/28 — Berkley, CA @ Cornerstone
05/29 — Ventura, CA @ Ventura Music Hall
05/31 — Los Angeles, CA @ El Rey
06/01 — Phoenix, AZ @ Aura
06/03 — Dallas, TX @ Cambridge Room
06/05 — Atlanta, GA @ Vinyl
06/07 — Washington, D.C. @ City Winery
06/08 — Brooklyn, NY @ Prospect Park
06/10 — Boston, MA @ BMH
06/22 — Chicago, IL @ Metro
06/14 — Manchester, England @ Band on the Wall
06/15 — London, England @ Islington Assembly Hall
06/18 — Paris, France @ Badaboum
06/19 — Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Melkweg
06/20 — Berlin, Germany @ Berghain

Hypnos is out 5/20 via Atlantic. Pre-save it here.

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

Despite being a 30-year-old veteran of hip-hop, Queens, New York rap pioneer Nas is having some of the best years of his career lately, dropping off Grammy-winning album King’s Disease I and its followup King’s Disease II and the slick joint EP Magic with Hit-Boy. Today, he announced his next joint endeavor, this time with fellow New York Golden Era hip-hop trailblazers Wu-Tang Clan. They’ll be embarking on the co-headlining NY State of Mind Tour in August, starting in St. Louis, Missouri, and concluding in October at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

And while Wu-Tang hasn’t released a new group album in nearly seven years (eight, if you don’t include Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, which didn’t have a traditional release at all), they’ve also received a pretty high honor recently. Earlier this month, the group’s 1993 debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) was tabbed for inclusion in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. You can check out the full tour dates below and grab tickets for Tuesday, April 26 at 10 am local time here.

8/30 — St. Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
9/1 — Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Music Center
9/2 — Tinley Park, IL @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
9/3 — Clarkston, MI @ Pine Knob Music Theatre
9/4 — Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage
9/7 — Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music Center
9/8 — Camden, NJ @ Waterfront Music Pavilion
9/9 — Hartford, CT @ Xfinity Theatre
9/10 — Mansfield, MA @ Xfinity Center
9/13 — Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
9/14 — Virginia Beach, VA @ Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach
9/16 — Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live
9/17 — Raleigh, NC @ Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek
9/18 — Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavilion
9/20 — West Palm Beach, FL @ iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre
9/21 — Tampa, FL @ MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre
9/22 — Atlanta, GA @ Lakewood Amphitheatre
9/24 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
9/25 — Austin, TX @ Germania Insurance Amphitheater
9/26 — Dallas, TX @ Dos Equis Pavilion
9/29 — Phoenix, AZ @ Ak-Chin Pavilion
9/30 — Irvine, CA @ FivePoint Amphitheatre
10/1 — Oakland, CA @ Oakland Arena
10/2 — Wheatland, CA @ Toyota Amphitheatre
10/4 — Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl

Saya Gray has, for years, worked as a bassist to the stars — Daniel Caesar, Willow, and Liam Payne all among them. But more than 45 minutes pass on her imaginative and immersive debut LP, 19 Masters, before she takes the record’s first and last true bass solo.

It arrives near the end of “Leeches On My Thesis!,” a guarded bit of confessional pop about navigating others’ expectations of her own success and relevance. Just as the breezy acoustic tune seems to dissolve into a comedown of swirling electronics and shivering static, Gray steps forward on electric bass, gliding up and down the neck with the sort of rolling melodic licks Tony Levin might add. It lasts a little more than 30 seconds, teasing what Gray can do and has done but not necessarily what she ever wants to do again.

“I can’t really learn other people’s songs anymore without doing my own thing first,” says Gray from her hometown, Toronto. “They’re like, ‘Can you not just play bass chords over this, just play the part?’ That isn’t for me anymore.”

Gray, now 26, worked as a session and touring bassist for more than a decade, drawn to the teenage novelty of making 100 quick bucks by showing up at a festival, instrument in hand. “Chick on bass? Gets gig immediately,” she says, noting that her Japanese-Canadian heritage only amplified that allure. The shows and tours grew, alongside the paychecks. But those around her, like Payne’s manager Steve Finan O’Connor or her peers in Caesar’s band, recognized that Gray had more to offer than root notes and rhythms. On the road, she began capturing song ideas with her cell phone or in whatever nearby studio she could access.

19 Masters is a captivating and provocative introduction to Gray, a magnetic singer-songwriter with the restless mind of an expert improviser. The sweeping hooks of “Empathy 4 Bethany” slide into a warped jazz duet for piano and trumpet, while “S.H.T.” flits between a fetching folk tune and electroacoustic abstraction while making space for a Hodgy verse. “Little Palm” is an elegiac country beauty, while “Saving Grace” is a minimalist soul manifesto about uncertainty. Though Gray shies from social media herself, 19 Masters feels like New Weird (North) America updated for the TikTok generation. As tuneful and accessible as it is idiosyncratic and experimental, the record reflects Gray’s acceptance that she’s more than a bass player, even if she’s been one most of her life.

“I was self-conforming, turning into the gig because that’s what it takes to be a session musician. You have to turn into what you’re playing,” she says. “It took me a long time to be like, ‘I’m just going to be my weirdo self — whoever likes it can come.”

That sense of autonomy is so strong now that Gray actually doesn’t remember writing many of the tracks on 19 Masters, and not only because some of them are five-year-old voice memos. When Gray writes, she nearly blacks out, she says, slipping into what she calls “a flow state” that often allows her to go from initial idea to recorded track in about an hour.

The process is less about her head and toiling through a song than viscerally feeling it and giving it room and time to appear. Though she’s struggled with depression and anxiety her whole life, her songs actually arrive when she feels good, when she’s already worked through her struggles. They are artifacts of what she’s endured. It’s so personal and intuitive, she says, that writing with other people in the same room is almost impossible.

“As soon as I start thinking, there’s nothing that will come through of any substance,” she offers. “There are months where I won’t create songs at all because they have to move through my body.”

19 Masters is as musically diverse as it is texturally rich, with kotos and singing bowls and bells all suspended inside spans of noisy squelch or bits of Signal chats of Gray’s friends talking about Asian exploitation or general malaise. True to her isolated approach, Gray plays nearly every instrument on it, allowing her to find unexpected sounds.

Her heritage has been key to the process, too. Gray’s father, Charlie, is a Berklee-trained trumpeter, composer, and audio engineer who has written television themes and performed with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett, and Ella Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, her mother, Madoka Murata, founded the Canadian music school Discovery Through the Arts more than 40 years ago.

Gray began playing piano before she could speak, even earning her allowance from her technical progression at one point. She tried every instrument she saw around her before she finally got serious about bass around the age of 10. “My brain barely thinks about music. It’s just in my body,” she says. “It was bred into my subconscious, you know? ‘This is what we do as a family.’”

And though 19 Masters wasn’t made as a family, it was at least made with her family. Just before the album was finished, Gray thrust a phone into her mom’s face and asked her to say “welcome to my world” in Japanese; the sample is the entire first track. After all the paintings Murata had done of Gray over the years, including one where she’s a bass-playing alien, she felt like the favor was the least she could ask. “That’s not something weird for my mom,” she says, laughing.

Gray also recorded several of these tracks in her mother’s basement or father’s closet, using instruments she pilfered from the family music school. Her father plays trumpet on a pair of songs, having diligently written out charts and recorded his parts after the tunes were finished. (“He’s so old-school,” jokes Gray.) These were poignant additions for Gray, as her father retired from performance in the wake of Covid-19 lockdowns.

Her guitar-playing brother, Lucian, appears, too; he’s one of the few people she can stand having in the room while she writes or records. She wants to collaborate more, she admits, but it’s an unsteady learning process. “We have very similar upbringings and influences,” she says of Lucian, “So I know I can trust him if he’s like, ‘That’s sick,’ even if I can’t hear it today.”

Though 19 Masters is Gray’s first full album, it represents an ending as much as a beginning. It closes a period of self-doubt, when she wondered whether or not her ideas were good enough to stand alone. It closes her era of prioritizing other people’s songs. And it collects so many of the tunes she imagined while making money from music that wasn’t her own. “We have these transitions, and we change. We have relationships that end, jobs that end. We just jump timelines and become a different person,” she says. “This is the end of me self-conforming.”

19 Masters is out 6/2 via Dirty Hit.

Being a world-famous musician is an uncommon experience, so it makes sense that the few people who find themselves in that position would lean on each other for support and empathy. It turns out Lizzo and Adele are two such people who have become best buds, which Lizzo just talked about some with Andy Cohen.

Appearing on the SiriusXM show Radio Andy recently, Lizzo said of Adele:

“We’re both Tauruses, and when we’re together, the decibels of how loud we get with our laughter is incredible. We really are super similar and we don’t really f*ck with too many people, but we f*ck with each other.

It’s so funny: At SNL, she texted me. I hadn’t heard from her in a minute, ’cause you know, life. But I was looking at her photo ’cause it’s right outside the dressing room, and she texted me and was like, ‘I hope you kill it this weekend, babes.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God! I’m looking at you while you…’

So she’s so supportive and she really believes in me. She’s f*cked with me for years. I met her at a Grammy party. I think it was Mark Ronson’s Grammy party years ago and she was like, ‘Oh my God!’ and I was like, ‘This is f*cking Adele!’ I like her. She a ghetto b*tch like me.”

This isn’t the first time Lizzo has discussed her and Adele’s bond; She told People in a December 2021 interview, “She’s been through similar things that I have, and she’s given me really good advice. We have very similar personalities and the way we think, and we just connected in that way. We’re both supreme divas. We know our worth — and we’re also both Tauruses!”

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

One of the more passionate reactions to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards (remember that?) came from Billy Crystal. The comedian and multi-time Oscar host (like Rock) called it a “disturbing incident, for sure. It was an assault. I’ve had experiences. I hosted the Grammys three times and I’ve been thrown things.” (He was not thrown a Grammy for “You Look Marvelous,” however.)

Crystal was again asked about the Slap on Chris Wallace’s CNN+ series, Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace, and he still sounds pretty steamed about what went down.

“So what did you think when suddenly Will Smith gets up?” Wallace asked Crystal, who replied, “Uh, oh. Uh-oh. And then, you know, fortunately, you know, it was a horrible thing. It’s, and it’s a crime. The fortunate thing is it wasn’t a closed fist, because then you might have had a Kermit Washington situation. It’s a basketball reference. Rudy Tomjanovich, when he just destroyed him.” Crystal thought Rock “handle[d] himself as well as he could,” but he’s worried for Smith. “It was a shocking moment that I was concerned. Very much for the mental state of Will. That’s what, I was kind of very worried and concerned and shocked by the aftermath of that, too,” he said.

Luckily for Crystal, he has other things to worry about, like the Yankees’ .500 record.

(Via Mediaite)

The release of Pusha T’s new album, It’s Almost Dry, is imminent after the Virginia rapper dropped the first two singles, “Diet Coke” and “Neck And Wrist.” He previously called the new album an “untouchable” body of work and in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, he explains the meaning behind the title.

“I’m always creating a masterpiece,” he says. “In terms of a painting, you end up telling people while they waiting on it, ‘It’s almost dry,’ because they’re always asking, ‘When will it be done?’ And you have to wait on masterpieces.” he says that the title is also a double entendre. “Also in drug culture, a lot of times you’ll have people waiting on the product and it’s not dry yet,” he explains. “You can come get it when it’s dry.”

In addition to hyping up It’s Almost Dry for the past few weeks, Pusha’s worked on other projects including contributing the song “Hear Me Clearly” to Nigo’s new album, I Know Nigo. Pusha also took shots at McDonald’s on behalf of rival restaurant chain Arby’s with “Spicy Fish Diss.” He also said he’s working on a remix to a Lana Del Rey song after sharing a photo of her to kick off his album promotion cycle.

It’s Almost Dry is out 4/22 via G.O.O.D. Music.

Twitter is a place where many people go to share their most incendiary hot takes, many of which are racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, or all of the above. Which is exactly why more than 200 million people around the world log onto it every day, and probably a big reason why Elon Musk wants to buy it with $43 billion in pocket change.

Few people seem to understand the masochistic pleasures of Twitter as well as The Daily Show correspondent Ronny Chieng, who schooled Trevor Noah on the many reasons he’s doing Twitter all wrong.

On Monday, The Daily Show posted a video to its Twitter account in which Chieng berated Noah for daring to be downright pleasant in his tweets—a clear indication that Noah should probably just delete his account.

Chieng took particular offense to a tweet in which Noah wished a “Happy Friday” to his followers—and even had the audacity to include a heart emoji:

“Wow, what an insightful tweet this is. ‘Happy Friday to all my followers!’ Oh, wow. Thank you for this poignant message. What a modern day Shakespeare. I wouldn’t have thought of celebrating my Fridays until I read this.”

When Noah countered that he thought it would be something nice to say, Chieng quickly explained to his boss that he’s got Twitter all wrong. “Twitter is for hate! OK? You don’t post this stuff. You gotta be controversial… You should say something like ‘Fridays are racist.’”

When Noah argued that that was “ridiculous” and “Fridays are not racist,” Chieng had made his point: “Now we’re talking about it!”

You can watch the clip below.

Just about four years ago, Kanye West and Kid Cudi linked up for a self-titled collaborative album as Kids See Ghosts. Since then, though things between the two have soured significantly. It started after Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson began dating, when Ye noted in February, “Just so everyone knows Cudi will not be on Donda because he’s friends with you know who.” Cudi fired back, “Too bad I dont wanna be on ur album u f*ckin dinosaur hahaha.”

So, when it was revealed yesterday that Cudi will feature on Pusha T’s upcoming West-produced album It’s Almost Dry, eyebrows were certainly raised. Now, though, Cudi has made it clear this doesn’t mean he and West have patched things up and are on good terms. In fact, the opposite is true.

This morning, Cudi tweeted, “Hey! So I know some of you heard about the song I got w Pusha. I did this song a year ago when I was still cool w Kanye. I am not cool w that man. He’s not my friend and I only cleared the song for Pusha cuz thats my guy. This is the last song u will hear me on w Kanye -Scott.”

So, don’t hold your breath for another Kids See Ghosts album.