Year: 2022

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 brings us a new single from Queen Naija and Big Sean. Their new collaboration, “Hate Our Love,” is their first releases since their respective Missunderstood and What You Expect projects. Kyle Dion teams up with Tkay Maidza for their new song “Hazy” days before his Sassy Tour begins. Elsewhere, Ravyn Lenae makes her return beside Steve Lacy for “Skin Tight.”

Queen Naija — “Hate Our Love” Feat. Big Sean

It’s been almost a year since Queen Naija dropped a deluxe reissue of her debut album, Missunderstood. The album’s original version was recognized on Uproxx’s Best R&B Albums of 2020 list and now, it appears that she’s ready to start the second chapter of her career. Naija teams up with Big Sean for their new single, “Hate Our Love.” The track sees Naija and Sean striving to be the best in love so that those praying on their downfall can be proven wrong.

Kyle Dion & Tkay Maidza — “Hazy”

A few months after dropping his sophomore album, Sassy, Kyle Dion is back in action and it comes through a new collaboration with Zimbabwean-born and Australian-bred singer-songwriter Tkay Maidza. Together, the two deliver their new song, “Hazy,” and it’s a bright and bouncy record that speaks about finding new love and doing your best to not overthink your way out of it.

Ravyn Lenae — “Skin Tight” Feat. Steve Lacy

Ravyn Lenae’s return in 2022 might be a sign that this year will truly be a good one. The last project we received from the singer came back in 2017 and since then we’ve heard her on records with Smino, Joey Purp, and more. Finally, she’s back and she brings Steve Lacy with her for the ride. The two pair up for “Skin Tight” and it’s a silky and magnetic record from Lenae that she says is about “not being in a relationship with somebody, but still having those physical and mental ties.”

SAFE — Get Home SAFE (Part 1)

Toronto singer SAFE made his debut back in 2015 with his project, Stay Down. He returned in 2019 with Stay, which featured contributions from Playboi Carti and singer Quin. Less than three years later, he drops his third project Get Home SAFE. His latest effort continues the theme of staying grounded and he achieves this across seven songs and help from Kaash Paige and Kiana Lede.

Adekunle Gold — Catch Me If You Can

For the past few months, Adekunle Gold has impressed with singles like “Sinner” featuring Lucky Daye, and “High” with Davido. Both songs were the first offerings of what eventually became his fourth album Catch Me If You Can. It presents 14 songs and additional contributions from Fatoumata Diawara, Ty Dolla Sign, Stefflon Don, and Foushee. While there’s plenty of time left in the year, Catch Me If You Can will surely be a memorable release from the afrobeats world.

Moonchild — “Love I Need” Feat. Rapsody

Later this week, Moonchild, the trio composed of Amber Navran, Andris Mattson, and Max Bryk, will release their fifth album Starfruit. Last month, they built up anticipation for the project thanks to “Tell Him” with Lalah Hathaway. Now, the trio delivers “Love I Need” with Rapsody which grants another reason to be excited about the upcoming project. In addition to the aforementioned names, Starfruit will also feature contributions from Alex Isley and Tank And The Bangas.

Koffee — “Pull Up”

It seems like it’s been forever since Koffee released her debut project, 2019’s Rapture, an effort that granted her the award for Best Reggae Album at the 2020 Grammys. After a few years of singles and guest verses, Koffee is ready to drop off another project. Her upcoming effort, Gifted, is set to drop on March 25 and with that announcement comes her new song, “Pull Up.” The track is a fun and infectious record that finds Koffee extending an invite for a night of partying.

The WRLDFMS Tony Williams — “Kiss Or Go Crazy”

After releasing a few singles across 2021, some that included “Everybody Knows” and “Anymore,” The WRLDFMS Tony Williams is here with his first offering of 2022. The singer returns with “Kiss Or Go Crazy,” and it arrives as a love-filled record that captures Williams head over heels about a new woman in his life. He’s so overwhelmed by his feelings for his new partner that he’s unsure of how to express them.

Taliwhoah — “Playbook”

London-born and Los Angeles-bred singer Taliwhoah has a collection of quality singles in her discography. From 2018’s “Soul Food” to 2019’s “Love Cycle” as well as last year’s “In Love Alone,” Taliwhoah’s consistency is one to recognize. She continues it with her latest record, “Playbook.” The somber record discusses a failing love that comes as her partner is unable to do his part in the relationship, leaving her with no option but to let him go.

Tyus — “Ridin’ Shotgun”

After going some years without a full-length project, Tyus kicked off 2022 with Synergy. The 13-track project features ten songs and three interludes, and while that would’ve been enough for some, Tyus is already back with more music. He returns with “Ridin’ Shotgun,” a brief record that feels more like an interlude than a full-on song. On it, he showers his lover with praise and labels her as “the one” while sharing his happiness to be able to have her riding shotgun with him.

SuperSmashBroz — Miles Away

Boston-based produced duo SuperSmashBroz ended 2021 with a visual for “Pace” with Echezona. The record was housed on their 2021 project Black Soap: Reloaded. With 2022 well underway, the duo returns with a new EP, Miles Away. It’s comprised of four songs and features from Phaemous, Adam Halliday, DYM, Chrystel, and Minz for a project that you will surely enjoy.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.0

There’s something about grifters with fake voices that (to quote Will Ferrell from Blades of Glory, as later sampled by a certain Jay-Z and Kanye song), really “gets the people going.” These grifters are having a moment, really. One only need to reflect upon the Elizabeth Holmes saga and wonder if those courtside cosplayers are really devoted fans, but it’s impossible to deny being intrigued by the long game played by Holmes (leading up to a white-collar trial and convictions), and the same goes for Anna Delvey. Make that, uh, Anna Sorokin. Who? Exactly.

We’ll soon see Amanda Seyfried morphing into deep-voice territory as Holmes in Hulu’s The Dropout, but sooner than that, Julia Garner is making her way to Netflix with the unusually-accented Delvey in Inventing Anna. Is it German with a touch of Russian or something altogether different? And who the hell is Anna Delvey, anyway? The latter is a question that gets asked in this show, by many people but most explicitly by Anna Chlumsky’s Vivian, a dogged journalist who’s also attempting to settle a career score by captivating the masses with Delvey’s story.

Vivian is based loosely upon Jessica Pressler, who published the New York magazine profile called “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People.” Expect some hefty dramatization and a reimagining of Vivian’s professional and personal lives, which feel crafted to give the overarching story a sense of structure. Otherwise, it might simply be a disjointed mess of dastardly financial deeds from Ms. Delvey/Sorokin. Oh, but what a fascinating mess this turns out to be. Shondaland very rarely misses, after all.

The story of Anna Delvey comes to sordid life (with some beats that match up exactly to Pressler’s original piece, and other benders that may or may not be invented) in what begins as a showcase for Julia Garner, in the midst of her final Ozark lap and with even more scandal than her Dirty John character endured in that dramatized real-life story. Anna’s in jail when we meet her, after she’s allegedly left a tornado-like path of financial ruin for those who felt compelled to climb onboard with her infuriatingly vague business plans. Yet nearly no one seems immune to her charms. People wanted to believe in her twisted version of the American Dream, one in which she posed as an impossibly wealthy heiress/socialite/Instagram star and tossed out $100 valet tips.

In reality, Anna’s seemingly piggybacking off of friends and fleeting mentors and everyone else while waiting for that wire transfer. You see, her credit cards are having problems due to being international. Dad will send the money soon. Don’t worry, the time zones are slowing things down. Oh, don’t worry. She’ll pay you back. Once she hears from Dad, or once that multi-million-dollar bank loan for the Anna Delvey Foundation comes in. You can see where this is all going from about fifty miles away, but the storytelling sleight of hand makes this show anything but predictable. In fact, the writers succeed at ratcheting up the tension to eleven, presenting some suspenseful and uncomfortable situations that keeps the characters and the audience on their toes, all after you thought this might only be Julia Garner as a Paris Hilton-inspired criminal.

Above with Garner, here’s ^^^ Katie Lowes as Rachel (who works plenty of emotional heft on what she endured), Laverne Cox as Kacy Duke (who largely knows all, in the way that many badass Laverne Cox characters do), and Alexis Floyd as Neff (who’ll defend Anna despite, you know, all of it). None of them will ever forget their time with Anna, that’s for sure, and these characters are well-drawn with personal lives and dreams and hopes and concerns and visions of red flags, all inspired by real-life developments. To varying degrees, watching them fall for Anna’s fraudster ways can make one scream at the camera while continuing to watch social hell unfold.

That is to say: the show’s not perfect, but it’s always entertaining. What made Anna the way she is, and does she ever feel remorse or develop in any way? The show attempts to answer those questions but doesn’t take them too seriously. Garner does get to have a ball with unusual accent work and wild wigs/glasses, and this is also a critique on the culture that allowed an Anna Delvey to prosper. Not only that, but she rose to the top of the pile without any true merit of her own, only that she’s “building something.” False promise upon false promise builds up, and more stunning than Anna’s ability to sell herself is the willingness of people to believe. They’re practically falling all over each other to do so, and that group of people ranges from deep-pocketed society mainstays to bankers to connected hotel employees to fellow Instagram wannabes and journalists.

One might be tempted to scoff at the excess (and discomfort) of it all, since it’s both difficult and surprisingly easy to see how these associates and friends fall for those lies. She exploits stereotypical American weaknesses in such a way that she reveals everything wrong in a system that let her flourish. She’s a melting pot of corruption and, in a way, she’s held out as a folk hero. A few rare people emerge unscathed from Anna’s path, but for the most part, she’s left a wake of immense debt in her wake with many others holding responsibility, and all of this eventually lands her in jail while a dramatic investigation and trial unfold. Anna’s life, and Garner’s portrayal, then take defiant turns, and the show turns into a mirror that might anger some people but also provides an opportunity to judge Anna and her victims accordingly.

Garner’s performance (and accent) are as electric as one would expect here, and it’s a real treat to watch her go. She’s surrounded by a cast that’s committed to bringing this tale of a super-grifter to life. And Shondaland captures eyeballs again, all while Bridgerton fans are waiting for the next installment of that addiction. Inventing Anna doesn’t lend itself to further exploration or spinoffs, but this sole season is filled to the brim with scandal. Who really is Anna Delvey, though? Hit “play” and find out.

Netflix’s ‘Inventing Anna’ debuts on February 11, 2022.

(Spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett finale will be found below.)

If the Chewbacca fake-out in The Rise of Skywalker didn’t make it obvious, the season (series?) finale of The Book of Boba Fett should have: Star Wars, especially in the Disney era, does not like killing the good guys. Or girls. Or Wookiees. After saving the fine folks of Mos Espa from the Pyke Syndicate and their bubble-protected Scorpenek droids, Boba Fett and Fennec Shand celebrate by giving a melon to Black Krrsantan and palling around with their new speeder bike friends. Nearly all the heroes — including Mando and Baby Yoda, obviously — survive the show, except for Cobb Vanth, who was gunned down and killed by Cad Bane in the previous episode. Or was he?

The post-credits scene shows the Mod Artist, played by Stephen Lee Bruner a.k.a. Thundercat, tinkering around a bacta tank. Who’s inside? None other than Space Raylan himself, Cobb Vanth. Does this mean Timothy Olyphant will return in a future Star Wars project? Seems that way, once he’s done filming the Justified spin-off, Justified: City Primeval. It also likely means that Cobb will have technological enhancements, like how the Mod Artist helped save Fennec in a flashback earlier in the season.

It wasn’t The Book of Boba Fett post-credits scene people were expecting (there’s no The Mandalorian season three premiere date and no Obi-Wan cameo), but it’s the one we deserve. The more Olyphant, the better, I always say.

For every 20 celebrity couples you couldn’t care less about, there’s that one couple that seems so perfectly matched that you can’t help but find yourself rooting for them—and crushed if their romance doesn’t work out. For many people, Will Arnett and Amy Poehler were that couple. And as Arnett recently told The Guardian, their divorce—following the birth of their second child—marked a very “weird” time for the actor, especially given that the whole world seemed to be grieving their break-up.

“People talk about you like they know you and they talk about your relationship as if they know what’s going on,” Arnett said. “So imagine how weird that is. It’s brutal with any relationship, and we have kids, and without getting into specifics, you then see stuff online, like, this one journalist wrote: ‘I’m Team Amy.’ I’m like: ‘You’re a grown person. What are you talking about? This is a breakup. This is a family. This isn’t some game.’”

Arnett and Poehler, who first met in 1996 and began dating in 2000, were often seen guest-starring in each other’s projects. Poehler played the seal-selling wife of Arnett’s Gob Bluth for a few episodes of Arrested Development, while Arnett guest-starred as an MRI tech and date of Poehler’s Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation. The couple married in 2003, announced their separation in 2012, and Arnett filed for divorce in 2014. At the time of their separation, Arnett was shooting season 4 of Arrested Development, which had been revived by Netflix.

While he told The Guardian he was happy to be back in the fold of the series he loved so much, mentally, he described the time as “Just brutal, brutal, brutal. I was driving to the set one day and I pulled over to the side of the road and cried for an hour.”

But something positive did come from the pain: BoJack Horseman. Arnett said that he channeled much of what he was feeling into the animated character, whom he describes as “an amalgamation of characteristics that I didn’t like about other people and other stuff about me that I didn’t like. Yeah, what a weird thing to do. But it was kind of the only thing I knew how to do. It was a painful couple of years, but I had to go through it, I guess.”

Ultimately, Arnett says you just have to “get on with it. It’s been almost 10 years and my kids are so lucky that Amy is their mother and I’m so lucky that we’re such a huge part of each other’s lives, even more so than we were five years ago.”

(Via The Guardian)

The BRIT Awards (aka the BRITs) are essentially the UK’s version of the Grammys in terms of their esteem and clout in the music industry, and this year’s edition went down at The O2 Arena in London last night. Adele was the evening’s big winner, as she took home the trophies for Album Of The Year for 30, Song Of The Year for “Easy On Me,” and Artist Of The Year.

She really dominated the night, as in addition to her award wins, she also delivered a performance of “I Drink Wine.” Sitting on a piano and backed by a band and supporting vocalists, Adele belted it, showing once again that her voice is one of the finest instruments in music today.

This year’s BRITs was a bit different than previous installments, in that organizers decided to ditch gender-specific awards this time around. When accepting her Artist Of The Year award, Adele concluded her brief speech, “I understand why the name of this award has changed, but I really love being a woman and being a female artist, I do! I do! I’m really proud of us, I really, really am.” She also expressed surprise at “Easy On Me” getting Song Of The Year while accepting that award, saying, “First of all, I didn’t realize there were that many songs nominated for Song Of The Year. I can’t believe that a piano ballad won up against so many bangers.”

Watch Adele perform “I Drink Wine” above.

[Spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett finale]

The Book of Boba Fett was announced in the end credits of The Mandalorian season two finale. If you were hoping that the Boba Fett finale, which premiered on Disney+ at 3 a.m. EST, might return the favor, well, I have some (bom)bad news: the episode gives us no indication of when The Mandalorian will return for season three (or, for that matter, when Obi-Wan Kenobi debuts), although TVLine expects a “Christmastime” premiere.

The finale did set up the new season, however, with Mando and Baby Yoda (I agree with Amy Sedaris, “Grogu” is a dumb name) reuniting and setting off on their next adventure. The little guy loves his hyperspace jumps, almost as much as he enjoys eating frogs.

“I am told what’s happening and what the plan is, but I can’t share it. They are in the expansion of this world, where there are so many unexpected surprises and timelines that are going to be dealt with,” The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent actor told IndieWire about season three. “If the character were to cross over into these worlds, it will be utilized in a way that isn’t meant to be expected. I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise of whether or not characters from the show we already know are crossing over.”

BD-1 better show up in The Mandalorian, or else.

We’ve had on our eyes and ears on Fana Hues for a minute. Since the rising R&B singers appeared on Tyler The Creator’s 10-minute opus “Sweet/I Thought You Wanted To Dance,” and especially since she dropped the single “Pieces” late last year. Now the Pasadena native has announced a new project cheekily entitled Flora + Fana, out March 25th, and dropped the lead single from it in the vibey “Wild Horses.”

Fana stands out over a hushed drum pattern that veers from what we’ve heard in the past, but is equally cinematic. It has that Frank Ocean melodrama to it that pulls you in. She’s continuing to make a name for herself as a singer who floats over unique tonalities that highlight her emotive vocals.

“Flora + fana represents my world and everything it encompasses, and right now, that’s growth, love, heartaches, and breaks,” she says of the upcoming release in a statement. “It’s also representative of how I cope with the state of the world. No matter what’s happening outside, my ecosystem is flourishing.”

Listen to “Wild Horses” above and check out the album artwork and tracklist for Flora + Fana below.

1. “Moscato”
2. “Breakfast”
3. “Pieces”
4. “BAD Bad”
5. “Rain”
6. “High Roller”
7. “Dayxday”
8. “Alibi”
9. “Wild Horses”
10. “Fall In Line”
11. “Wait”

Flora + Fana is out 3/25 via Bright Antenna. Pre-order/save it here.

If ever one needed proof that the restaurant worker shortage is indeed very, very real, consider this: Domino’s, the pizza chain that aggressively pushed 30-minutes-or-less pizza delivery in its earliest days is now offering to “tip” its customers $3 if they opt to come into the store and pick it up themselves.

As The Hill reports, the pizza franchise—which is less than a week away from one of its busiest days of the year: Super Bowl Sunday—released a statement in which they basically said that they’ll pay any customer who agrees to make the life of their employees easier by laying a whopping three simoleons on pizza-eaters who place their order online and picks it up themselves.

That “tip,” of course, will come in the form of a credit—and can only be used on another carryout (versus delivery) item.

“It takes skill to get pizza from a Domino’s store to your door,” Domino’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer Art D’Elia said in a statement. “As a reward, Domino’s is giving a $3 tip to online carryout customers who take the time and energy out of their day to act as their own delivery drivers. After all, we think they deserve it.”

Art thinks he can pull one over on us with flattery—but he gave himself away when he noted that “Domino’s carryout tips come just in time for the biggest football game of the year, which is also one of the busiest days of the year for pizza.”

In other words: The company does not have enough drivers to get those pizzas to you—so please do them a solid and pick it up yourself. The deal, which is available to online customers only, runs through May 22nd.

No word on whether The Noid was onboard with the decision.

(Via The Hill)

For quite some time now, fans of both Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran have been anticipating a collaboration between the two singers. It dates back to Swift’s re-recorded version of her 2013 album Red. Sheeran confirmed that he re-recorded his vocals for “Everything Has Changed,” their collaboration for the album, but that wasn’t all. Months later, some attentive viewers noticed a visual reference to Sheeran’s album = in Swift’s video for “I Bet You Think About Me.” Shortly after, many picked out references to Swift in Sheeran’s “Overpass Graffiti” video. Well, at long last, we have confirmation that the song is coming.

During an interview with LADbible ahead of the 2021 Brit Awards, Sheeran revealed that a new song “comes out Friday and it’s with Taylor Swift.” He added, “We’re literally announcing that in, like, an hour.” At the time of publication, an announcement from Sheeran nor Swift had yet to be made. Many believe that their upcoming record will be a remix of Sheeran’s “The Joker And The Queen” with Swift. This comes as many noticed that the credits for the song’s official lyric video on Youtube showed the words “feat. Taylor Swift.”

You can watch Sheeran share the news in the video above.

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

It’s been about two years since Future dropped a solo album, namely his eighth album, High Off Life. A few months later, he connected with Lil Uzi Vert for their joint album, Pluto X Baby Pluto. Since then, things have been rather low-key for Future, but 2022 appears to be the year that he returns with some new music. But before he does that, the musician had one thing to get off his chest: He sat down with Kevin Samuels to admit that he’s suffering from an addiction to beautiful women.

“Admitting you have an addiction is never easy, especially when you do it publicly,” Samuels tells Future in the video. “So Chanel, Birkin, Dior, APs, five-star hotels, vacations. Now last year, how much would you say that you spend on women.”

Future then admitted that he’s spent between two or three million dollars on women in 2021, which leaves Samuels completely surprised. “Every time I see a beautiful woman, I have to splurge, I have to spoil her,” Future confesses. “I realize that I have a problem right now. I need help.”

Then again, the conversation could simply.be a promotional effort, as it doubles as a promotional video announcing Future’s upcoming single “Worst Day.” He did not reveal an official release date for the song, but he confirmed that it is “coming soon.“”

You can watch the promotional video above.

Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.