Category: Viral

This week saw the release of a ton of great new pop music. Beyoncé put on her cowboy hat and recruited a ton of A-List legends for her new album — proving exactly why she’s a Texas girl at heart. J-Hope of BTS released some new solo material while the band is on a hiatus, giving fans something to listen to alongside his recently released documentary.

Check out the rest of Uproxx’s Best New Pop Music roundup below.

Beyoncé — “Protector” Feat. Rumi Carter

Beyoncé has taken over the world again, as her anticipated full-foray into country music with Cowboy Carter dropped. Spanning 27 songs and shining with features from Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, it’s hard to pick just a single favorite — given it varies with each listen. For this week, “Protector” seems like an underrated but moving pick. The gentle track is a dedication from Beyoncé to her children, emphasizing the hopes she has for them and the advice she wishes to give. Her daughter, Rumi Carter, also makes an appearance on it, giving it an added layer in terms of an emotional tie. “Mom, can I hear the lullaby please?” Rumi asks at the beginning before Bey launches into the song.

J-Hope — “Lock/Unlock” Feat. Benny Blanco

J-Hope of BTS dropped a new documentary on Prime Video and gave fans an album, Hope On The Street: Vol. 1, to go along with it. One of the highlights from his latest solo project is “Lock/Unlock,” which features Benny Blanco. The track builds up the energy with a rising danceable instrumental, as J-Hope seemingly sings about a rollercoaster of a relationship, changing with each line of the chorus.

D4vd — “Feel It”

D4vd has continued to be on a roll when it comes to incredible songs this year. His latest track “Feel It” was created for the animated TV series Invincible — so he taps into the energy of feeling unstoppable from a loving relationship. There’s also speculation that fans can expect a new album from him later this year with his Genius page seemingly hinting at it.

Isabel LaRosa — “Favorite”

Isabel LaRosa turns up the tension on her bilingual “Favorite” as she details a hotter side of her love life. “I swear you’re heaven, but boy, you’re no angel / You take me places only we go / You’re so pretty, God, I swear that it’s painful,” she points out.

Blu DeTiger, Magdalena Bay — “Disappearing”

“Disappearing” finds bassist queen Blu DeTiger joining forces with the pop duo Magdalena Bay — as they also co-produced it. A bubbly jam just in time for summer, the song is set to be included on DeTiger’s forthcoming debut album, All I Want Is Everything.

1999 Write The Future — “Pump It Up” Feat. Rich Brian and TiaCorine

1999 Write The Future dropped a debut album in February, but it’s clear they have no plans to slow down in 2024. Their latest track “Pump It Up” features Rich Brian and TiaCorine, providing an instant mood boost. Just as the title suggests, it is a dancefloor hit with an instrumental that just radiates positive energy.

Blusher — “Accelerator”

Blusher is a rising Australian pop group not to miss. Back in January, Uproxx spotlighted the band’s “Rave Angel” as a Best New Pop highlight. Since then, the trio have been hard at work, being listed among a list on Rolling Stone and now releasing their latest single “Accelerator.” The band goes full throttle for the party anthem, describing it as something straight out of a “big-budget action movie.”

Leigh-Anne — “Stealin’ Love”

Leigh-Anne, who some fans might know from Little Mix, dropped her solo track “Stealin’ Love” this past week. When describing the intention behind the vulnerable lyrics, she said that it “speaks to those times when you feel like you are pouring so much love into someone and not getting what you need back. I think it’s incredibly powerful to be open and honest about these moments.”

Sophie Cates — “Moments”

Sophie Cates dropped her new album Supernova, a treat for fans who have been keeping up with her since the Silver Sphere era. “Moments” opens the record, as Cates details the quiet and romantic moments that she clings to. However, by the second verse, she also opens up about her struggles in relationships — putting her full heart on display in the process.

Maude Latour — “Too Slow”

Maude Latour had been previewing “Too Slow” for a few weeks on TikTok before its release, giving it just the right amount of time for the song to get stuck in fans’ heads. As she shared on the platform, she was inspired to write a song as a joke in an hour after feeling burnt out. However, it wound up being a lighthearted encapsulation of pregaming before heading to a party — and has become another viral sensation. After catching Latour perform at a college showcase before the pandemic, it’s been truly exciting to see others discover how talented she is.

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

Louisville crooner Bryson Tiller might be plotting on a low-key career change but first, he’s planning on releasing his first album in four years, Bryson Tiller. After 2020’s Anniversary, the “Don’t” singer took a long break, explaining that it took him a while to get back to himself, hence the self-tilted album for his long-awaited comeback.

As he put it in a recent interview, “I just feel like it wasn’t time to try to get people to believe in some new concept or some new world that I’m trying to create for people. I feel now is the time to just show people what I’m capable of.”

Here’s everything to know about Bryson Tiller’s self-titled album.

Release Date

Bryson Tiller is out 4/5 via RCA Records. Find out more information here.

Tracklist

See the tracklist below:

01. “http://”
02. “Attention”
03. “Stay Gold”
04. “Persuasion” Feat. Victoria Monét
05. “Ciao!”
06. “Peace Interlude”
07. “Rich Boy”
08. “Random Access Memory” Feat. Clara La San
09. “No Thank You”
10. “Find My Way”
11. “Prize”
12. “Waterfalls”
13. “ÆON L U S T”
14. “Calypso”
15. “Outside”
16. “Undertow”
17. “F4U”
18. “Assume The Position”
19. “Whatever She Wants” [Bonus]

Singles

Bryson Tiller has released two singles: “Outside” and “Calypso.”

Features

The features include Manchester, England singer Clara La San, who, like Tiller himself, first rose to prominence a decade ago with a unique blend of bedroom pop and R&B. She released her first and only album, Good Mourning, in 2017. Victoria Monét is also featured on “Persuasion.”

Artwork

Tour

You can view the dates for the The Bryson Tiller Tour below.

05/11 — Portland, OR @ Alaska Airlines’ Theater of the Clouds
05/12 — Vancouver, BC @ UBC – Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre
05/14 — San Francisco, CA @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
05/15 — Wheatland, CA @ Hard Rock Live Sacramento
05/16 — San Diego, CA @ Gallagher Square at Petco Park
05/17 — Inglewood, CA @ YouTube Theater
05/20 — Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theatre
05/22 — Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom
05/24 — Chicago, IL @ Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island
05/26 — Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage
05/28 — Laval, QC @ Place Bell
05/30 — Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway
06/01 — Bridgeport, CT @ Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater
06/03 — New York, NY @ The Theater at MSG
06/06 — Washington, DC @ The Anthem
06/07 — Philadelphia, PA @ Skyline Stage at the Mann
06/09 — Raleigh, NC @ Red Hat Amphitheater
06/11 — Charlotte, NC @ Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre
06/12 — Atlanta, GA @ Coca-Cola Roxy
06/15 — Hollywood, FL @ Hard Rock Live
06/16 — Tampa, FL @ Yuengling Center
06/18 — Houston, TX @ 713 Music Hall
06/19 — Irving, TX @ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory
06/22 — Cincinnati, OH @ The Andrew J Brady Music Center
06/23 — Nashville, TN @ Ascend Amphitheater
06/25 — Indianapolis, IN @ Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park
06/26 — Sterling Heights, MI @ Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre
06/28 — Minneapolis, MN @ Armory
07/05 — Milwaukee, WI @ Milwaukee Summerfest
07/11 — Calgary, AB @ Calgary Stampede
09/21 — Puyallup, WA @ Washington State Fair

Euphoria star Hunter Schafer confirmed that she had a past relationship with Rosalía, during a new interview for the cover of GQ. Schafer started off by discussing her documented time dating another musician Dominic Fike.

“I had dated other famous people before, but people didn’t know about it,” Schafer added. “It was completely different.”

This led the interviewer to ask specifically who, to which she responded, “People who care enough and have done their research probably know what’s up.” Initially, Schafer doesn’t go into too much detail because she wasn’t sure if Rosalía was going to be comfortable with her sharing. The two had previously been spotted earlier this year going out to grab smoothies together.

However, the next day, she did get permission and decides to share more about the relationship they had. The two had specifically dated for five months during the fall of 2019 — and they still have a close bond, despite the fact that it didn’t work out.

“I have really beautiful friendships with people that I was once romantically involved with,” she shared. “She’s family no matter what.”

“It’s been so much speculation for so long,” Schafer continued. “Part of us just wants to get it over with, and then another part is like, ‘It’s none of anybody’s f*cking business!’  It’s something I’m happy to share. And I think she feels that way too.”

Since then, Rosalía has been tied to Jeremy Allen White from The Bear.

LeBron James had a big game the other night, when his Los Angeles Lakers bested the Brooklyn Nets 116-104. He wound up with 40 points on 13-of-17 shooting from the field, including nine three-pointers (which ties a career high). Metro Boomin couldn’t help but notice that James’ big night came after the NBA star was spotted rapping along to Kendrick Lamar’s verse on “Like That,” a highlight from Metro and Future’s new album We Don’t Trust You.

That verse, of course, made waves when it first dropped for apparent disses against J. Cole and Drake. Drake caught wind of LeBron’s moment with the song and had a subtle reaction: He liked an Instagram post sharing the video.

This comes after Drake used Instagram to offer up with some took as other reactions to the song. In one post, he wrote, “They rather go to war with me than admit they are their own worst enemy [crying laughing emoji].” He said in another, “I could never sell ya’ll out to sell my latest work. Never do you bad out the blue but I’m down to make it worse.”

So, at this point, unless he’s saving it for a diss track or something, it looks like these subtle shots may be all we get from Drake in terms of a “Like That” response.

It should come as no secret by now that Schoolboy Q loves golf. He’s talked before about how the sport helped him learn about himself as a person and he even partnered with 2K Games for the rollout for PGA Tour 2K21, appearing in the game’s launch trailer and performing at the game’s launch party in Los Angeles.

However, rap fans may not appreciate his love for the game as much when they learn it was one of the main reasons for the five-year gap between his last two albums, 2019’s Crash Talk and the newly released Blue Lips. Appearing on Lil Yachty’s podcast A Safe Space, Q recalled how he got into golf via a bet, but ended up making so much from his secondary career, it basically funded his hiatus from rap. “I don’t kick it in the studio no more,” he said after joking that his “studio budget is silly.”

“I was able to relax for five years,” he said. “I made a lot of money off rap, but golf helped me a lot.”

It should be no secret either that music is… not the most lucrative career. For every multi-millionaire, there are dozens of artists grinding to make ends meet — and for every one of them, there are even more whose dreams never make it past local stages in dive bars [raises hand]. So for Q, having some level of celebrity — and the perseverance to polish his game to serious levels — golf turned out to be a blessing for the South Central rapper because of endorsement deals.

Unfortunately, there was also a dark side: He says he fell back from endorsements and appearances because of racialized disrespect he experienced, such as being asked to wear grills to appear “more Black.”

You can watch the full interview above.

Back in the fall of 2023, Jon Stewart surprisingly walked away from his lucrative Apple TV+ deal and his burgeoning new series The Problem with Jon Stewart. While Stewart would only say that he felt “hamstrung” by Apple, the two parties reportedly battled over the comedian’s plans to tackle AI. Stewart is not having that same problem after making his triumphant return to The Daily Show.

During Monday night’s episode, Stewart devoted his opening segment to roasting the tech industries’ massive investment in artificial intelligence and/or machine learning. The comedian paid particular attention to the way some tech CEOs danced around the topic of how AI will displace jobs because, as Stewart noted, the unspoken promise that AI will increase productivity without having a “people tax” as one tech CEO said. Stewart accurately joked that he’s talking about employees.

Later in the show, Stewart welcomed FTC chairperson Lina Khan and made an announcement. “I wanted to have you on a podcast and Apple asked us not to do it,” Stewart informed Khan. “They literally said, ‘Please don’t talk to her.’”

Stewart also revealed that Apple was against most of the material in the opening segment. Via Endgadget:

“They wouldn’t let us do even that dumb thing we just did in the first act on AI,” he told Khan. “Like, what is that sensitivity? Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out in the public sphere?”

“I think it just shows the danger of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision making in a small number of companies,” Khan replied.

Below is a segment like the one AI that Apple allegedly didn’t want Stewart to run:

And here’s his full interview with FTC chair Lina Khan:

(Via Endgadget)

Pat Sajak previously announced his intention to retire as Wheel of Fortune host. Granted, this will not happen until the end of the current (forty-first) season when he will be replaced by self-professed “terrible speller” Ryan Seacrest. Yet on April 1, the most unholy day of the year, the show took a trial run on proceeding without Sajak, or at least, they pretended to do so. A most random “surprise host” joined the show, and yes, “random” is the key word here.

On Monday night, out popped Jared Leto in a suit with his rock-star hair like it was no big thing. Yes, Pat did swiftly return to the scene, so that we were spared actual Morbius-themed hosting duties, but even though Vanna White and the evening’s contestants played along for a few moments, this was enough to make the world know what it will be like to miss Pat Sajak.

For his part, Leto seemed perfectly game to don the customary game-show host attire and didn’t show a trace of nerves — perhaps he was fresh out of another transformative silent meditation retreat — but we didn’t see him strut that stuff for too long. Once relieved of his temporary hosting duties, Leto took to his Instagram story to toss out a joking emoji and ask, “How’d I do?”

As far as April Fool’s Day jokes go, this certainly wasn’t the worst that the world has ever seen. Still, it was no match for what Michael Che did to Colin Jost in 2023. Man, that was brutal.

Last night (April 1), Taylor Swift appeared via video message to accept her award for Artist Of The Year at the iHeartRadio Music Awards. And it wouldn’t be a Swift speech without fans dissecting it for clues. Given she is just a few weeks away from dropping her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, she decided to hint that she has a lot of plans for it in the works.

“We have so many exciting things ahead of us,” Swift said after thanking fans for voting for her to win. “I’m continuing on with the tour and, most importantly, I have a brand new album called The Tortured Poets Department, which comes out on April 19. I cannot wait to share it with you.”

“So, thank you for voting for me for this incredible honor: Artist Of The Year,” she added. “I am so blown away and so thankful and I just can’t wait to keep having fun with you guys because we have a lot of exciting things coming up. Thank you so much.”

Although Swift has allowed fans to pre-order physical and digital copies of the upcoming record, not much else is known about it outside of the tracklist — as a lead single has yet to be released. Here’s hoping Swifties get to hear what it sounds like soon.

Check out Swift’s full acceptance speech above.

The Tortured Poets Department is out 4/19 via Republic. Find more information here.

Maybe banning TikTok isn’t a bad idea after all. Last month, Jahelis Castillo, who goes by @Jahelis on TikTok where she has over 100,000 followers, posted a video where she wondered why SNL has never hired a “hot woman.”

She clarified (a.k.a. further dug her own hot take grave) that she’s “not saying that every single woman on SNL is ugly, it’s just that none of them have ever been, like, hot. They all just kind of have looks that eventually grow on you.”

According to Newsweek, Castillo’s theory is that for a woman “to be considered funny, you have to be more funny than you are hot. And if you’re more hot than you are funny, then it boils down to you just not being funny at all.” Also, she called Jimmy Fallon “a conventionally super hot guy,” compared to Jason Sudeikis, Andy Samberg, Bowen Yang, who are “relatively hot.” Toonces the Driving Cat and Adam Driver’s dead bird were not ranked by their hotness.

Current very funny SNL cast member Sarah Sherman responded to the TikTok on X. “just found out i’m not hot. please give me and my family space to grieve privately and uglily at this time,” she wrote.

Here’s how others responded:

Conan writer Laurie Kilmartin astutely pointed out that “you don’t have to rebut this by listing SNL women that you think are hot,” but also, literally Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

(Via Newsweek)

Donald Trump had a very normal Easter. Well, normal for him, a guy who loves to post in all-caps on his rapidly crumbling social media ghost town. “HAPPY EASTER TO ALL,” the former president (and “rich asshole”) wrote on Truth Social, “INCLUDING CROOKED AND CORRUPT PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES THAT ARE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024, AND PUT ME IN PRISON, INCLUDING THOSE MANY PEOPLE THAT I COMPLETELY & TOTALLY DESPISE BECAUSE THEY WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA, A NOW FAILING NATION…”

Trump goes 165 words without a period, so I’m going to stop there.

This was only one of 70 times that Trump posted on Easter, as host Seth Meyers noted during Monday’s episode of Late Night. “What’s in the baskets at the Trump family Easter egg hunt, Cadbury meth eggs?” he joked.

After reading the entirety of the post above, Meyers called it “the most deranged thing Trump has ever posted online, which is saying something because he once misspelled his own name. Just put yourself in a place where a friend or loved one sent you a text like this. Would you immediately alert your entire family and urge them to seek help? Or would you write back and say, ‘You’ve got my vote in November!’?”

You can watch the Late Night clip above.