Category: News

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.

Snoh Aalegra leads things this week with the release of her third album, Temporary Highs In The Violet Skies. The 13-track project is supported by guest appearances from Tyler The Creator and James Fauntleroy as well as excellent production from The Neptunes, No I.D, Sevn Thomas, and others. Charlotte Day Wilson also appears with a new project, that being her official debut album, Alpha, while Tinashe readies her upcoming album with her latest single, “Bouncin.”

Snoh Aalegra — Temporary Highs In The Violet Skies

Almost two years after she gave us Ugh, Those Feels Again, Snoh Aalegra is back doing what she does best on her third album, Temporary Highs In The Violet Skies. Its 13 songs capture the Swedish singer traversing through the highs and lows of love through moments that bring her closer to her partner and others that make her grow apart from them. The project is a mostly solo effort aside from a pair of guest verses from Tyler The Creator and another from James Fauntleroy.

Charlotte Day Wilson — Alpha

Seemingly years in the making, Charlotte Day Wilson finally arrives with her debut album, Alpha. It boasts 11 songs and contributions from BADBADNOTGOOD, Daniel Caesar, and Syd for an effort that speaks on the singer’s inner struggles with love, growing, and breaking free from old ways that she’s finally able to speak on in a clearer way. It should also be noted that the project is produced by Charlotte herself.

Tinashe — “Bouncin”

After teaming up with Buddy for “Pasadena” last month, Tinashe keeps things moving with her latest single, “Bouncin.” The track is a flirtatious effort that will hopefully bring fans closer to the release of her upcoming album, an effort that’s already looking to be a promising follow-up to her 2019 project, Songs For You.

Mariah The Scientist — Ry Ry’s World

Atlanta’s Mariah The Scientist slowly grabbed the attention of R&B lovers little by little with the release of her 2019 project, Master. Now, she’s back to prove that she’s here to stay with her latest full-length effort. Ry Ry’s World invites listeners into the universe that makes Mariah what she is and through its ten songs, the singer stays absolutely true to herself, even if it comes off as simple and uneventful. Fans will also be greeted with appearances from Young Thug and Lil Baby on the project.

Amorphous — Things Take Shape

The past year has been an amazing rise towards fame for viral producer Amorphous. The 23-year-old went from sharing mashups of music’s biggest names to working with them on his brand new project, Things Take Shape. Kehlani, Brandy, James Fauntleroy, and Bree Runway appear throughout its six songs that capture Amorphous’ versatility through R&B, house, and other sounds.

Jam & Lewis — Jam & Lewis, Vol. 1

As producers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and extremely decorated. Hailing from Minnesota and Nebraska respectively, the production duo has notched sixteen No. 1 singles with the likes of Janet Jackson, Usher, Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, and more. Decades later, the pair steps out as Jam & Lewis on their debut album, Jam & Lewis, Vol. 1. Its ten songs are highlighted by appearances from Mary J. Blige, Boyz II Men, Usher, Toni Braxton, Mariah Carey, and others.

Ant Clemons — “Section” Feat. Kehlani

Ant Clemons is still building off a 2020 year that saw the release of his debut album, Happy 2 Be Here, an effort that later earned a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Album. Now, in 2021, the singer is back with more music thanks to his latest single, “Section” with Kehlani. The pair admit to mission a past lover and despite their attempts to cope with the feelings during a night out of drinking, the alcohol only seems to make things worse for them.

Kyle Dion & Ja Rule — “Placebo”

Two years removed from his sophomore effort, Suga, Kyle Dion is finally gearing up to release a new album. The currently untitled project will arrive on August 20 and to build some excitement for it, Dion shares his latest single, “Placebo” with Ja Rule. The track is a fun and bright record that makes a departure from his past melancholy records. “People are ready to have fun,” he says about the song. “Nobody wants to be sad as hell anymore — we already did that.”

BJ The Chicago Kid — “Type Of Day” Feat. Eric Bellinger

BJ The Chicago Kid returns with his third installment in his “BJ Wednesdays” series. After last week’s cover of The-Dream’s “Fancy,” BJ calls on Eric Bellinger for an original effort in “Type Of Day.” The song marks the duo’s second collaboration after their 2019 song, “Back It Up.” Their newest effort is quite the feel-good record to enjoy as you head into your weekend.

Jean Deaux — “Gang”

After dropping off Watch This! last year, Jean Deaux returns with her second single of the year with “Gang.” The bouncy track finds the singer reinforce her loyalty to the people she loves the most while refusing to switch up and turn her back on them. “Gang” is also the follow-up to her March single, “Easiest Thing.”

Jawan x Tiffany — “To Myself”

After moving through the music world as solo acts earlier in their career, Jawan x Tiffany joined forces last year for their debut single, “Finally.” Nearly a year removed from the single and the duo is back with their latest effort, “To Myself.” Jawan x Tiffany detail a relationship bonded by an impenetrable mold of chemistry on their new song. “Communication is always key in any sort of relationship,” the duo said about the song. “With ‘To Myself,’ we wanted to empower people to not be afraid of being vulnerable. We can’t expect others to know how we feel if we never speak up.”

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

Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson hasn’t responded to Stephen Dorff’s sympathy over her place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but her sympathies are otherwise occupied when her husband is performing on Saturday Night Live.

Appearing remotely on the Kelly Clarkson show on Wednesday, Johansson talked about a number of things including her new Marvel movie, acting on Broadway, and her family. That included Jost, her husband and co-head writer on Saturday Night Live. According to the actress, it’s hard to watch the show while knowing that someone you love is involved in the high-wire act of putting on a live TV show about once a week.

“I now rarely watch the show without having just a sense of… not overwhelming panic, just like, a slight underwhelming panic,” Johansson said. “Because I just feel like at any moment something’s going to fall apart. And that’s the excitement of SNL, that it’s absolutely live.”

It’s not that she’s expecting disaster, of course, but that the “excitement” of live TV for audiences changes when you know someone putting in that work on screen.

“When you’re emotionally invested in it and not just entertained by it, it takes on a little bit of a different life,” she said.

That certainly makes sense, as scripted TV and movies have a much bigger safety net for when things go wrong. You always want to see the people you know performing at their best, and even though Jost ordinarily only appears on camera for Weekend Update he has a large role on the show behind the scenes. The rest of the interview has some fun Marvel tidbits, but ahead of an uncertain summer for Saturday Night Live, it sure sounds like Johansson wouldn’t mind more Tom and Jerry films in Jost’s future rather than more anxiety-filled live TV.

Baton Rouge rapper Fredo Bang isn’t quite a household name yet, but with his latest collaboration, he takes a massive step toward the spotlight and the inevitable stardom that awaits him. Linking up with Chicago’s breakout artist Polo G, the street-bred rapper honors his most loyal comrades on the reflective “Bless His Soul.”

The connection between the two rappers and their shared gift for melancholy recollection makes for an easygoing combination on a beat produced by DJ Choze. The video, shot by DrewFilmedIt, sees the two rappers performing their verses in front of a motel occupied by their crew as visual allusions to the traumatic experiences of their lives flash by. They also show off their muscle cars, echoing Polo’s late-verse claim that he’d purchase a “Hellcat just for racin’, f**k around and bought the dealership.”

Fredo’s Rolodex is swiftly filling up with hood superstars he’s called on to collaborate with over the past several months. While his 2020 debut album Most Hated contains appearances from Lil Baby, Moneybagg Yo, and YNW Melly, he recently reconnected with Moneybagg Yo for the video to his song “Doin My Dance.” Meanwhile, Polo G’s star continues to rise as well as he netted his first Billboard 200 No. 1 debut with Hall Of Fame earlier this year.

Watch Fredo Bang’s “Bless His Soul” video with Polo G above.

The climate has been working hard this past week to promote Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.

First, the Gulf of Mexico caught fire. Now, parts of New York are literally underwater after torrential rains from Tropical Storm Elsa battered the East Coast this week. In short, the planet is either burning or sinking, which means that AOC’s climate change proposal is looking really good right now, something she’s been happy to point out on Twitter.

The Congresswoman took to social media to share videos of her fellow New Yorkers battling the effects of the storm. In one, a woman can be seen wading through waist-deep water to get to the subway. In another, cars are stranded on a major highway as riders escape to safety in the back of a utility truck. Both videos show the real-world consequences of ignoring climate science right now, and AOC is using them to put pressure on her fellow lawmakers — you know, the ones who’ve been having weekly phone chats with Exxon lobbyists who are paying them to convince their constituents that the Earth isn’t stuck inside a CO2 microwave that’s nuking our environment to death.

Here she is dragging her conservative colleagues for taking climate change advice from fossil fuel execs instead of actual scientists:

And here she is pointing out how frustrating bipartisanship is when it comes to climate change legislation, especially when the other side of the aisle is happy to filibuster any meaningful change while parts of the U.S. are melting under rising temps.

In summary: we’re killing our planet, and AOC is really good at this whole social media thing.

The Phoenix Suns got a bit of good news on Friday afternoon. According to a report by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, reserve forward Torrey Craig, whose hard-nosed defense and ability to hit perimeter shots off the bench have led to him being a member of the team’s rotation during the playoffs, did not suffer a serious knee injury during Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

Craig, who is slated to get a ring no matter who wins the series due to the fact that he played for the Milwaukee Bucks for the first half of this season, appeared to injury his knee after attempting to draw a charge on Giannis Antetokounmpo. He was helped to the back and did not return.

Fortunately for the Suns, Craig underwent an MRI that showed no structural damage, leading to him being viewed as day-to-day ahead of Sunday’s Game 3.

With Dario Saric suffering a torn ACL in Game 1, Craig would have been an understated but major loss for a thinning Phoenix frontcourt. Instead, Craig being able to take the floor (if his knee is in a good enough place, of course) gives the Suns the ability to throw out small-ball lineups when Deandre Ayton rests instead of relying on backup big Frank Kaminsky, which appeared to by Monty Williams’ preferred hand to play before Craig got hurt.

Matt Damon has appeared in plenty of hit movies, including The Martian ($655 million at the worldwide box office), Interstellar ($651 million), and Saving Private Ryan ($485 million), which unlike the other two, is not set in space. Unless there’s an asteroid battle scene that I forgot about. It’s been awhile. Either way, Damon has a keen eye for blockbusters (and a keen ear pop-punk songs in mid-2000s comedies), but he’s not in the highest-grossing movie of all-time. He could have been, though.

“I was offered a little movie called Avatar, James Cameron offered me 10 percent of it,” he told Deadline at the Cannes Film Festival. “I will go down in history… you will never meet an actor who turned down more money.” Oops.

Avatar is up to $2.8 billion after reclaiming its box office throne from Avengers: Endgame. That means Damon could have made $280 million for playing a blue cat-person, but he passed because he was shooting the Jason Bourne movies and made the “moral” decision to not ditch the franchise. The role instead went to Sam Worthington, who probably did not get a 10 percent cut of that $2.8 billion. But he did make enough scratch that he hasn’t had to work much since Avatar came out 12 years ago. That’s the only reason I can think of for why Worthington didn’t pull a Leonardo DiCaprio and become the king of Hollywood. It certainly has nothing to do with his acting…

Damon doesn’t seem bitter about turning down Avatar, but James Cameron should still cast him in Avatar 5. Give the guy who’s worth a reported $170 million a break.

(Via Deadline)

Glaive has established himself as one of the more fascinating rising teenagers in music over the past year or so, and now he has teamed up with another similarly internet-boosted artist, Eric Doa, for a new single. The song is “F*ck This Town,” and like many of Glaive’s tunes, it packs a lot of energy and hooks into its sub-two-minute runtime.

Glaive says of the track, “‘f*ck this town’ was made the second time I met eric in person. This song was the first one we made… we freaked that.”

Ericdoa added, this song is special to me cause it’s the first hook me and ash ever wrote together #wholesome.”

The pair has a collaborative EP on the way, which doesn’t yet have a confirmed title but is due for release at some point in September.

The song lines up with how Glaive previously described his music-making process, saying, “It was a good way of getting out emotions instead of being friggin’ sad all the time. Most of my songs are pretty sad, but I’m a pretty happy, energetic person. Getting rid of all those negative emotions through music — then I don’t have to talk about it at any other time.”

Watch the “F*ck This Town” video above.

Strand Of Oaks (aka singer-songwriter Timothy Showalter) has unveiled the release date for his forthcoming eighth album, In Heaven, which will be out October 1. Showalter has also released a contemplative new lead single, “Galacticana.” It was recorded with collaborator Kevin Ratterman at Ratterman’s Invisible Creature studios in Los Angeles and is the first LP of Showalter’s since his move to Austin, Texas.

Of the album, which follows up 2019’s Eraserland, Showalter said in a press release, “In Heaven was created with so much love and my greatest hope is that it connects with people and provides a momentary space for reflection, joy, catharsis, and whatever else someone might be looking for in their life. Music is magic and I feel like the luckiest person in the world that I’m allowed to share it.”

Listen to “Galacticana” above and check out the album’s art and tracklist below. Also, have a look at Showalter’s upcoming fall tour dates (venue and ticket information will be announced soon).

1. “Galacticana”
2. “Easter”
3. “Hurry”
4. “Horses At Night”
5. “Somewhere in Chicago”
6. “Jimi & Stan”
7. “Sunbathers”
8. “Carbon”
9. “Sister Saturn”
10. “Slipstream”
11. “Under Heaven”

10/11 — Boston, MA
10/12 — Washington, DC
10/13 — Philadelphia, PA
10/15 — Holyoke, MA
10/16 — Hamden, CT
10/18 — Brooklyn, NY
10/19 — Buffalo, NY
10/20 — Detroit, MI
10/22 — Cleveland, OH
10/23 — Columbus, OH
10/24 — Indianapolis, IN
10/26 — Kansas City, MO
10/27 — Denver, CO
10/29 — Boise, ID
10/31 — Seattle, WA
11/01 — Portland, OR
11/03 — Oakland, CA
11/04 — Los Angeles, CA
11/06 — San Diego, CA
11/08 — Phoenix, AZ
11/10 — Dallas, TX
11/11 — Houston, TX
11/12 — Austin, TX
11/15 — Tampa, FL
11/16 — Atlanta, GA
11/17 — Nashville, TN
11/19 — Carrboro, NC

In Heaven is out 10/1 via Galacticana Records/Thirty Tigers. Pre-order it here.

While the old adage “a series does not start until the road team wins a game” applies so far, the Milwaukee Bucks find themselves in a tough spot in the 2021 NBA Finals. The Phoenix Suns currently boast a 2-0 series lead as things shift to Wisconsin for Games 3 and 4, meaning now’s a great time for a guy like Jrue Holiday to get into a rhythm.

While Holiday has been his usual pestering self on the defensive end of the floor, he’s had some major issues getting the ball to go into the basket. He’s averaging 13.5 points per game in his NBA Finals debut while connecting on 31.4 percent of his field goals and 14.3 percent of his threes, and despite the fact that he’s done other good things — Holiday’s averaging eight assists, six rebounds, one steal, and one block in 39.7 minutes per game in the Finals — his inability to provide a scoring punch is giving some folks flashbacks to his predecessor, Eric Bledsoe, whose struggles in postseason play were well-documented.

The good news, to whatever point there is any, is that Holiday’s MVP teammate is confident in what he’s able to do. Giannis Antetokounmpo spoke to the media after the game and expressed that he’s not worried about Holiday’s play so far.

“Just keep talking to him, keep telling him to be aggressive,” Antetokounmpo said when he was asked how he approaches Holiday’s slump as the team’s leader. “No matter what’s going on, you gotta stay aggressive and you cannot get all in your feelings. It’s hard not to — NBA Finals, 20,000 people booing you and all that, it’s kinda hard, but at the end of the day, it’s not about me, it’s not about him, it’s not about Khris, it’s not about coach, it’s about all of us. And at the end of the day, if there’s a game that you’re 3-for-12 or whatever the case has been, you can rebound the ball, or get a steal, or do something else to help the team win, that’s what it’s all about right now. And I think he understands that, and I don’t worry at all about him, I know he’s gonna be there when we need him the most.”

Antetokounmpo went on to call Holiday “a great basketball player” before referencing how well he’s played all season. While Holiday’s scoring went down a tick during the regular season — his 17.7 points a night was his lowest scoring output in four years — he put forth career-best marks in effective field goal percentage (57 percent) and true shooting percentage (59.2 percent).

The Bucks very much need to continue to have faith in him, and if there’s a reason for optimism, it’s the fact that the friendly confines of Fiserv Forum are on the horizon. If that faith does not come to fruition, though, it’s not hard to imagine the Bucks struggling to get this series back to Phoenix.

It has now been more than five months since Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, but the conspiracy theories about the various ways the election was stolen from Donald Trump keep on comin’. The latest comes courtesy of kooky Colorado congressman Ken Buck, who doesn’t seem to know how elections or algorithms work, which is a pity, given that he’s the House Antitrust Committee’s top Republican. As Mediaite reports, Buck is now pointing the finger at Google as the reason Trump got fewer votes than Biden. Yes, you read that correctly: Google! As he explains it:

“Google, by the way, changed its algorithm in May of 2020 to disadvantage Donald Trump and to advantage Joe Biden. [It] changed its algorithm! And when you ask them about this, and I know people that own newspapers, and I asked them about it, and they say, ‘Oh, well that’s just a technical thing. We don’t know what the result was. We just know that we did, that a technical person did this.’ Nonsense! They chose the winner… The estimates are they moved 15 million votes. Because every time you ask for an article on Donald Trump or every time you Google Donald Trump—and people here obviously Google in a more sophisticated way—but people out there that were hearing about Donald Trump and they’re wondering, you know, ‘Donald Trump, Hunter Biden.’”

If only Google had an algorithm to decipher what the hell Buck is talking about!

When asked to better explain what he was talking about, and how a search engine “flipped” 15 million votes to Joe Biden, Buck briefly stammered before giving his response:

“Well, what I’ve heard from, you know, sort of the academics on this issue is that by, by changing the algorithm, you can flip 15 million votes. You can influence 15 million people to move one direction or another, in that situation… So you talk to people, you know, at conservative publications and what they’ll tell you is the day after that algorithm went into effect, their readership went down. So if you were looking for something on The Washington Examiner or The Washington Times, or the conservative newspapers in this area, you would have to go further down. You’d have to go to page two or three to find the story you were looking for.”

We won’t bore you with the details of how Google algorithm tweaks affect the traffic of pretty much all media outlets (including this one!)—not just the conservative ones—but in July 2020 it was revealed that there was some sort of glitch which caused Google to block search results for conservative sites like Breitbart, and that it was quickly rectified.

Which is all to say that of all the people, places, and things that have been blamed for Trump being less popular than Biden, Google might be the wildest culprit yet.

(Via Mediaite)