Bleachers has returned with “Alma Mater,” the latest single from their newly-announced self-titled fourth album, which is set to arrive next March. The calming track was premiered on Zane Lowe’s Apple Music show. It finds lead singer Jack Antonoff reflecting on everything from love as he declares “she’s my alma mater” to his youthful memories.
“Some dreams are meant to die,” he declares. “Kill your idols in the street outside in daylight / Cuz if we walk, we’ll get high tonight / Shoulder to the wheel tonight / Joke about blowing town tonight, until we drive past my alma mater.”
Oh, and it features guest vocals from Lana Del Rey that add to the chill, nighttime drive vibes. “I’ll make it darker,” she adds, providing the final line of the track.
As a whole, the song shows a duality to the group, shifting the energy from the carefree jam session that was the band’s previously released “Modern Girl” single.
Additionally, the band will be performing in the UK, shortly after the album’s release next year. Fans who pre-order the album will be able to access a presale on Wednesday, November 22 at 10 a.m. GMT. General sale opens Friday, November 24 at the same time. More information can be found here.
Check out Bleachers’ new song “Alma Mater” above. Continue scrolling to view the Bleachers cover art and tracklist, as well as their UK tour dates.
Alex Lockett
Bleachers tracklist
1. “I Am Right On Time”
2. “Modern Girl”
3. “Jesus Is Dead”
4. “Me Before You”
5. “Alma Mater”
6. “Tiny Moves”
7. “Isimo”
8. “Woke Up Today”
9. “Self Respect”
10. “Hey Joe”
11. “Call Me After Midnight”
12. “We’re Gonna Know Each Other Forever”
13. “Ordinary Heaven”
14. “The Waiter”
15. “I Am In Your Hands” (Bonus Track)
16. “Margo” (Bonus Track)
17. “Alma Mater (From The Day It Was Written)” (Bonus Track)
18. “Drug Free America” (Bonus Track)
Bleachers 2024 Tour Dates
03/19/2024 — London, UK @ O2 Forum Kentish Town
03/22/2024 — Manchester, UK @ O2 Ritz
03/23/2024 — Birmingham, UK @ O2 Institute
03/25/2024 — Glasgow, UK @ SWG3 Galvanizers
Bleachers is out 3/8/24 via Dirty Hit. Find more information here.
https://uproxx.com/music/common-molested-let-love-have-the-last-word/It’s safe to say that hip-hop is in its memoir era. Many of the genre’s most prominent figures are starting to enter the age range where they can look back with not just nostalgia, but wisdom to share. Although hip-hop is such an autobiographical musical form, it turns out that many of these figures, from Common to Fat Joe to Jeezy to Lil Kim and more, have a lot more stories to tell than the ones they’ve already shared in their music and interviews over the past 20-30 years.
That goes double for Tariq Trotter, aka Black Thought, the frontman of The Roots, and bar for bar the best rapper of all time. Though he’s been a fixture of the music business for 30-plus years at this point, the truth is, we don’t really know much about him. He’s rap’s foremost wordsmith and storyteller, but so little of his output at this point has been about himself, that as he points out over an expansive and illuminating Zoom call, even longtime fans feel he’s a bit of a mystery.
He sheds light on that mystery with his new book, The Upcycled Self: A Memoir On The Art of Becoming Who We Are, out now via Penguin Random House. Starting with a traumatic, world-changing fire he caused when he was just six years old, and encompassing his childhood in South Philly, from rock fights with friends to surprising anecdotes of dabbling with petty crime to meeting and mind-melding with Amir “Questlove” Thompson, the book unveils new facets of the titanic rap icon, humanizing him in the process.
It’s a beautiful and worthwhile read, and in a wide-ranging conversation discussing the book, he reveals the intentionality behind that sentiment, praises his co-author, Jasmine Martin, and gets as nerdy about Ken Burns as I get about The Roots.
First of all, congratulations on your Grammy nomination. I actually really quickly looked up, I believe this is the first time you’ve been nominated as yourself for the music, not executive producing. How does that feel? You’re three decades into your career, and it’s your first Grammy nomination as Black Thought the rapper, not a member of The Roots, or executive producer of the Hamilton soundtrack?
It’s dope, man. It’s a huge honor. I’m real excited. And just a pleasant surprise, man. You don’t go into these things expecting anything, right? That’s not what I do it for. It’s not for the accolades. It’s not for someone to say, “Oh, yo, that’s dope.” And it’s not for an award. I make music for someone to say, “Hey, this helped me get through a thing, or address a thing. This made me better. I’ve been made better, after experiencing this art.” Everything else is cake, man. If somebody says, “Oh, yo, I want to give you a trophy too,” that’s dope.
It’s funny that you should mention that you wanted it to be something that helped because we’re talking about the book, and we’re talking about The Upcycled Self. This book did two things. One, it recontextualized some of your art for me. But two, it also … I had never thought of Black Thought in terms of baby Black Thought. Like young, childlike Black Thought. And the descriptions you give of yourself and Amir, I realized mirrored me in a lot more ways. Now, you’ve recontextualized me for me. And also, it was meaningful because, in a roundabout way, you’re the reason I even have this job.
I’m sending you an invoice.
So for example, in your Funk Flex freestyle, the line, “Things we lost in the fire.” Double entendre. But in the book, you talk about burning your family home down playing with matches. But now I know, oh, that’s incredible. What other lines, or what other moments do you think this will be able to put into a new perspective or a new life for long-term fans who’ve been on it since Illadelph Halflife, or Do You Want More?!!!??!, or Things Fall Apart?
I think every moment. Because that’s sort of the intention. They say to be intentional about what it is that you’re doing. And in this endeavor, the intention was to grant access in that way. It’s not to abandon a new fan or a newcomer or someone who just has stumbled upon The Roots or arrived upon Black Thought. They’re welcome too, and this is for them too.
But I would meet folks who say, “Yo, I’ve been rocking with you for 30 years at this point, and I still feel like I don’t know you. How is it that I know so many of your lyrics, you know what I mean? I can quote music, I can quote your whole body of work, but there’s a disconnect in that I don’t still know who the man behind the music is. I’m not as familiar as I should be, or would be in any other dynamic with the artist.”
And I mean, after the 10th, 11th, 20th time, you hear that, you start to think, okay, maybe there’s something in there. That it’s something that I can address. It became an opportunity for me to essentially humanize myself. There are people who are such huge fans of The Roots, and of my writing, who rocked with us for such a long time.
What we do as MCs has always been about building ourselves up — sometimes to a fault. So it’s always been about bigging up ourselves, and bigging up our block, and bigging up our community. And after a point, after all of the build, you have this figure, this legend, this brand, whatever, can reach proportions where it’s larger than life. And I don’t know that that is always the best thing. I think it’s more effective and beneficial to us all to show the other nuance, to show the other side of the coin. For every Dr. King, every Malcolm X, every larger-than-life figure — they’re still people. They’re still these persons, and we’re all flawed. And I think that’s the real work.
Two chapters stood out for me: the Cassie chapter and the Luqmann chapter. How did you decide to use your family members’ third-party perspectives to come back around and give you more context on them? Because I feel like that context on them does kind of help to inform your story as well.
That tool is part of the brilliance of my co-author, Jasmine Martin. It’s so seamless, and so it comes from a really real place. This is a woman who’s never met my mother, obviously. She has had the opportunity maybe once to interact with my Uncle Luqmann. I think she may have interviewed him for something else some years ago.
But yeah, I think that was the brilliance of what she was able to bring into this process is that perspective and those glimpses. In those asides, that’s where I was moved to the most emotion. That’s when I tear up, because it’s a chance to, especially in my mother’s case, it’s a chance to hear from what feels like firsthand her take on where I am in life.
I wonder how you have the time to do all that you do. Because when I started listing the things that I know you for and that I’ve been like, oh, watching you do this, and then now you’re doing TV, now you’re doing this, I watched Brooklyn Babylon 87 times when I was 15. What’s the next thing for you? How do you keep fulfilling that creative drive?
For me at this point, it has to present a challenge. I’m most engaged when I’m rising to a challenge and having to do any job that I can’t do on autopilot. It’s something that is beyond another notch in the belt. It’s a spiritual sort of thing that happens through achievement, through the realization of a goal. Especially when it’s something that feels impossible or completely unachievable.
That’s where I live right now, and those are the projects that are most exciting for me to take on. Those are the projects that I feel benefit both me and the beholder, receiver, listener, and viewer the most. So what happens next in this journey I think is “onward and upward.” I don’t think anything is ever going to change. I’m not going to, now at 50 plus, I’m not going to start telling a different story. It’s that I think I’m just becoming wiser, more experienced, more skilled, and more efficient in telling the same story and focusing on the parts of my story that people are going to resonate with the most.
I always ask this question in all my interviews because I have to ask a lot of the same questions, biographical questions, things like that. What is something that you’ve always wanted to talk about? If you had the chance to ask yourself the question, what would you want to talk about the most? And what would you want to say?
People always ask me, how much do you read? Where do you get the … what fuels the proverbial creative fire? I mean, how are you able to cover such an expansive amount of content in such a short period of time? Where does the motivation for these bursts come from? And though I obviously read a lot, I’m an advocate for reading, a literacy advocate… people always think the inspiration comes from something more scholastic.
But honestly, it’s not that I watch a lot of TV, but I’m a big documentary buff. I’m a huge fan of the Ken Burns of the world. Anything that he touches, directs, or produces, I’m rocking with that. Right now, I’m in the middle of The American Buffalo, which I didn’t even know that joint was out. My daughter, who’s a high school senior, came home like, “We watched a super boring documentary today in school, but I knew it was something that you would be into.” I said, “What was it?” And she said, “Something about the buffalo.” And I was like, “Oh, wow. I thought it was this other Ken Burns doc called The West,” which there’s a segment that concentrates on the buffalo. I didn’t know he did a whole joint, a three-part thing that was just on the American Buffalo. So then I had to dig that joint up.
Do you still keep a written-down shitlist in an encyclopedia of all the people who get on your nerves?
Not in an encyclopedia. It’s in my phone, though. I got lots of stuff. All I got to do is go to my notes and type in “irk” and it all comes up.
One of last year’s standout rap albums was JID’s The Forever Story. Fueled by singles like “Surround Sound,” “Dance Now,” and “Kody Blu 31,” the album was a critical and fan favorite and commercial success for the Atlanta rapper, peaking at No. 12 on the Billboard 200 — his best-performing album to date.
This year, though, The Forever Story is receiving renewed attention, thanks in large part to the “Surround Sound Challenge” on TikTok set to the song. So, just what is the Surround Sound Challenge?
Its alternate name, the Ceiling Challenge, offers a hint: Users have been taping their phones to the ceilings of their homes, classrooms, offices, and even retail establishments in order to get a top-down view as they dance to the beat of JID’s hyperactive single. The team at Dreamville shared some of their favorite examples on the label’s TikTok account:
Meanwhile, the label’s president, Ib, noted the song’s recent streaming resurgence as a result of its TikTok popularity, joking on Twitter (never X), “Crazy. Great music never dies it just needs a little tik tok.”
He ain’t wrong. TikTok has increasingly become the launching pad for older or overlooked singles, juicing the stats for tracks like Flyana Boss‘ “You Wish” and Tyla’s “Water,” taking them from relative unknowns to charting major label artists.
After releasing a joint statement on the death of Matthew Perry, the cast of Friends have been releasing their own individual tributes this week. Matt LeBlanc, Courteney Cox, and Jennifer Aniston started things off with touching posts about their late friend, and now, David Schwimmer is remembering the beloved co-star.
“Thank you for ten incredible years of laughter and creativity,” Schwimmer wrote on Instagram. “I will never forget your impeccable comic timing and delivery. You could take a straight line of dialogue and bend it to your will, resulting in something so entirely original and unexpectedly funny it still astonishes.”
After paying tribute to Perry’s generous heart, which helped “create a family out of six strangers,” Schwimmer shared a photo from his favorite Ross and Chandler moment. “Now it makes me smile and grieve at the same time,” he wrote of the duo decked out in full ’80s regalia from their character’s college days. They were definitely going for a Miami Vice look, which was much better than Chandler’s Flock of Seagulls phase.
Megan Thee Stallion is no stranger to working out in the gym, whether she wants to get stronger or just work on keeping her booty in top shape. Yet, in a new video on Instagram, she revealed that she’d started doing Pilates.
The video opens with Megan prepping her workout by drinking green juice, while hilariously having Family Guy playing in the background.
“Pilates is not for the muthaf*cking weak,” Megan said in her voiceover, as she is seen standing up and working on her muscles. “These little b*tches that be doing Pilates, they might kick your head off with one swift kick. B*tch, I don’t want to f*ck with no b*tch who do Pilates.”
While she continues narrating, she also details how she had to lift a ball with her feet, per the Pilates trainer’s request. “Look how my legs are shaking,” Meg points out, before commenting at another part of the video, “I’m whooping Pilates’ ass cuz I ain’t gonna let Pilates whoop me.”
Megan also has some footage of her throwing in cardio and some weighted sit-ups into her workout video — that way she is working all aspects of her body.
“You wanna do some lunges because that’s what makes the booty sit up,” she added, ending the video by working out on her butt, before relaxing with some salmon and a Topo Chico.
Check out Meg breaking down her booty gym routine above.
Swifties from all over the world finally have the chance to unite. Next year, Taylor Swift fans can embark on a cruise with fellow Swift fans on the Swiftie-led “In My Cruise Era” cruise, which will take place on the Royal Caribbean International ship.
“Join us as we celebrate all things Taylor, make new friends, dress up in our favorite eras, trade friendship bracelets, and enjoy everything this amazing ship has to offer!,” reads a description on the official website.
Swift herself is not affiliated with the tour, but this makes for a great opportunity for Swifties to bond and gush over all things Swift.
The cruise is set to take off on October 21, 2024 from Miami, Florida, a day after Swift wraps up a three-show performance on her Eras Tour. “In My Cruise Era” will take place over the course of four days and Swifties on the cruise can look forward to visiting Royal Caribbean’s Bahamas private island, Perfect Day at CocoCay, and Nassau.
According to USA Today, Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas ship can accommodate nearly 5,500 guests. That’s a whole lot of Swifties!
During the cruise, guests will be able to participate in bracelet exchanges, karaoke, trivia, and dance parties. There will also be nightly outfit themes based on Swift’s album eras.
“Oh boy this one has cut deep… Having to say goodbye to our Matty has been an insane wave of emotions that I’ve never experienced before,” she wrote on Instagram. “We all experience loss at some point in our lives. Loss of life or loss of love. Being able to really SIT in this grief allows you to feel the moments of joy and gratitude for having loved someone that deep. And we loved him deeply.”
Aniston called Perry “such a part of our DNA. We were always the 6 of us. This was a chosen family that forever changed the course of who we were and what our path was going to be.” The actress, who played Rachel Green on the NBC sitcom, praised Perry for how “he loved to make people laugh. As he said himself, if he didn’t hear the ‘laugh’ he thought he was going to die. His life literally depended on it. And boy did he succeed in doing just that. He made all of us laugh. And laugh hard.”
She continued:
Matty, I love you so much and I know you are now completely at peace and out of any pain. I talk to you every day… sometimes I can almost hear you saying “could you BE any crazier?”
You can see the post, including texts between Perry and Aniston, below.
In the two years since the Astroworld Festival disaster, in which 10 people were killed and hundreds more were injured, Travis Scott has said very little about the incident. Part of that was out of necessity; aside from an interview in the immediate aftermath (which didn’t go well for him), he spent much of the next year out of the spotlight, and this year, he focused on rolling out his album Utopia and its promotional tour as efficiently as possible — perhaps to avoid a media furor over Astroworld.
But he had to address the disaster eventually, and it appears he chose a friendly forum to do so: GQ‘s Men Of The Year cover story. During the interview, he talked about taking a break from music due to the festival disaster and its mental impact on him.
“Making music, you think about things that go on in life and things that happen in your life, and you dial in on things. That moment for families, for the city, you know, it was devastating. And when it came to making, like even finishing the album…I got back into it probably like, I don’t know, months and months and months after. And the idea of just even getting back into music, working on music and just even getting into that, was therapeutic of being able to channel some of the energy into production and sounds and finishing it.”
Travis also said he was “overly devastated” by the deaths, comparing the fans to his own family. “I always think about it,” he admitted. “Those fans were like my family. You know, I love my fans to the utmost… It has its moments where it gets rough and…yeah. You just feel for those people. And their families.”
He’s still addressing the fallout from the festival, as well. While a court ruled he would not be charged with any criminal offenses in June this year, a massive combined lawsuit against him and Live Nation from the hundreds of victims and survivors is still ongoing.
In the two years since the Astroworld Festival disaster, in which 10 people were killed and hundreds more were injured, Travis Scott has said very little about the incident. Part of that was out of necessity; aside from an interview in the immediate aftermath (which didn’t go well for him), he spent much of the next year out of the spotlight, and this year, he focused on rolling out his album Utopia and its promotional tour as efficiently as possible — perhaps to avoid a media furor over Astroworld.
But he had to address the disaster eventually, and it appears he chose a friendly forum to do so: GQ‘s Men Of The Year cover story. During the interview, he talked about taking a break from music due to the festival disaster and its mental impact on him.
“Making music, you think about things that go on in life and things that happen in your life, and you dial in on things. That moment for families, for the city, you know, it was devastating. And when it came to making, like even finishing the album…I got back into it probably like, I don’t know, months and months and months after. And the idea of just even getting back into music, working on music and just even getting into that, was therapeutic of being able to channel some of the energy into production and sounds and finishing it.”
Travis also said he was “overly devastated” by the deaths, comparing the fans to his own family. “I always think about it,” he admitted. “Those fans were like my family. You know, I love my fans to the utmost… It has its moments where it gets rough and…yeah. You just feel for those people. And their families.”
He’s still addressing the fallout from the festival, as well. While a court ruled he would not be charged with any criminal offenses in June this year, a massive combined lawsuit against him and Live Nation from the hundreds of victims and survivors is still ongoing.
Swifties from all over the world finally have the chance to unite. Next year, Taylor Swift fans can embark on a cruise with fellow Swift fans on the Swiftie-led “In My Cruise Era” cruise, which will take place on the Royal Caribbean International ship.
“Join us as we celebrate all things Taylor, make new friends, dress up in our favorite eras, trade friendship bracelets, and enjoy everything this amazing ship has to offer!,” reads a description on the official website.
Swift herself is not affiliated with the tour, but this makes for a great opportunity for Swifties to bond and gush over all things Swift.
The cruise is set to take off on October 21, 2024 from Miami, Florida, a day after Swift wraps up a three-show performance on her Eras Tour. “In My Cruise Era” will take place over the course of four days and Swifties on the cruise can look forward to visiting Royal Caribbean’s Bahamas private island, Perfect Day at CocoCay, and Nassau.
According to USA Today, Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas ship can accommodate nearly 5,500 guests. That’s a whole lot of Swifties!
During the cruise, guests will be able to participate in bracelet exchanges, karaoke, trivia, and dance parties. There will also be nightly outfit themes based on Swift’s album eras.
Tickets for “In My Cruise Era” begin at $1,573.
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