Category: Worldwide

Leave it to Cash Cobain to make two disparate sounds blend so sweetly as he does on his new single, “Trippin On A Yacht” with Bay Swag and Rob49. The New York producer has made a career of mashing up genres and bending them to his “sexy drill” paradigm; here, he takes inspiration from the regional sound that inspires guest rapper Rob49, blending hazy, relaxed drill production with the chattering chants of New Orleans bounce. With a sample of Big Freedia yammering away over a ghostly synth, the vibe evokes a really turnt up yoga class — or, I guess, chilling on a yacht.

“Trippin On A Yacht” constitutes Cash’s first drop of the year, but he hasn’t lost a step in the five months since he released his debut album Play Cash Cobain, picking up right where he left off as one of his city’s premiere producers and rappers. His Q1 breakout with “Fisherr” last year carried the remainder of 2024, with a XXL Freshman class selection, a remix of fellow breakout artist Laila!’s fan-favorite viral hit “Problem,” and a string of splashy guest appearances. With his 2025 off to a strong start, we’re looking forward to seeing what the next 10 months brings.

Listen to Cash Cobain’s “Trippin On A Yacht” with Bay Swag and Rob49 above.

As more and more music stars (and athletes) get their own meals at McDonald’s, the phenomenon has hopped the pond, roping in UK rapper Stormzy, who becomes the latest artist to get his own meal from Macky’s (that’s what they call McDonald’s in “cheers, bruv”).

In the new ad promoting the meal — which consists of nine McNuggets, fries, Sprite, and an Oreo McFlurry — Stormzy’s order prompts average Brits to “order like Stormzy,” including speaking in his instantly recognizable baritone, complete with South London lingo. At the end of the ad, Stormzy gets his order, only to find his own voice transformed into that of British actress Alison Steadman (she plays chimp Robbie Williams‘ grandmother Betty in Better Man), who informs him from the next table over that she shares his favorite order. It’s cute and funny.

Of course, all this does for US Stormzy fans is give us a hankering for his next project. When last we heard from the English-Ghanaian rapper, singer, and songwriter, he told us This Is What I Mean in 2022, earning an Album Of The Year nomination at the 2023 Brit Awards. Meanwhile, he caused a bit of a stir last year when he was seen kissing R&B singer Victoria Monét at Heathrow Airport, prompting fans to wonder if the two stars are dating. The two were seen together as recently as December, but have left the public to speculate.

You can watch the ad for Stormzy’s Macky’s meal above.

A lot of pressure comes with being signed to one of rap’s most storied and successful labels, Top Dawg Entertainment. Along with the expectations of fans who’ve become spoiled by a legacy of groundbreaking success comes the constraints of working within a proven formula to achieve the same heights as your iconic rostermates — which means a lot of waiting around for lightning to strike twice.

But Del Amo rapper Reason never had those expectations for himself. He’s a rapper’s rapper, but unlike some, he never dreamed of worldwide stadium tours, platinum plaques, and Grammy Awards. He’s a working-class artist from a working-class town (Del Amo is an unincorporated neighborhood just south of Compton and lying between Los Angeles’ logistics hubs of Carson and Torrance, meaning a lot of warehouses and container trucks on its main street). Reason just wanted to make a living doing what he loved.

His prolific, workmanlike approach — which has been employed to great success by indie darlings like LaRussell and the Griselda crew — clashed with TDE’s slow-cooked process, which had previously produced the unparalleled triumphs of Kendrick Lamar, SZA, and just last year, Doechii. Reason just wanted to drop music; Top wanted that music to win awards, sell millions of copies, and reformat the landscape of pop culture. Things came to a head last year over the course of a messy public falling out resulting in Reason being released from the label.

This week, Reason returns with his first independent project, titled I Love You Again. As you might guess from the title, a running theme of the project is Reason rediscovering his passion for producing introspective, wordplay-riddled rhymes after admitting that any other outcome would have led to him quitting music.

“I was so serious about it where I was like, ‘I just won’t make music anymore,’” he tells Uproxx via Zoom. “That’s how certain I was, that I just wasn’t doing it that way anymore.”

However, that doesn’t mean there’s any animosity between Reason and his former label (the fans are another story). But with a new lease on his career, Reason is hitting the ground running; I Love You Again is just the first of three releases he plans to put out this year. The list includes a proper album bearing all the hallmarks of his past output: layered storytelling, moody instrumentation, and appearances from his partner-in-rhyme, Dreamville rapper Cozz. For now, though, he’s basking in his newfound freedom, which has delivered a return to form that should keep fans satisfied until that album materializes.

You’re getting ready to release your new… what are we calling this? A mixtape, an album?

It’s a mixtape or a project. I know it’s funny because we’re in a day and age now where I know a lot of artists say that, and I don’t usually play that game, but it’s genuinely, when you hear it, you’ll be able to tell, “Okay, this is just something that he wanted to get off for his fans.” It is not really conceptual in that way, but the records are really good, and it’s a collection of songs that I’ve loved for a long time, and then newer songs in the space of where I’m at now.

Let’s call it an appetizer.

Yeah, let’s do that. Let’s call it an appetizer. It’s a warm-up.

Maybe this is just my position as having been an artist, having been around artists, being a writer, and being around the business for so long, but I thought people made too big of a deal out of what happened with you and TDE; Everything ain’t for everybody. So if you could just address and give a response that lets people know why there’s still love, but there’s also like, “This is why this works for me and that didn’t work for me.”

I think you hit the nail on the head: everything ain’t for everybody. And it is funny because that’s actually what the single, “Not What You Think,” is about. It’s from the outside looking in, you see this world where you think that, “Oh, this is what it is.” And especially with the TDE aura, you feel like everybody is on board and living this way, and it’s like, “Nah. Every artist is not on board with that.”

That’s not to say it’s any ill will. It was just one of those things where it was just like, “Yo, this is the way that y’all do things and it’s worked for some of y’all artists, and less for other artists. And I don’t want to be one of those artists that it’s worked less for that just sits here and is okay with it working less for them.” That was what I was trying to communicate through that whole process: it doesn’t work for me. It’s crazy because with the TDE fan base, you got to cope, and I love it and I hate it because that fan base is aggressive.

All the fans now have changed the way we deal with music. It’s like rooting for sports teams, but if every fan base was the Lakers’.

It’s nasty right now, bro. It’s tough because that level of commitment and fandom is also why I have the core, loyal fan base that I have now. So it’s a double-edged sword. I’ve had a bunch of fans hitting me, especially with the takeoff of Doechii, they’re like, “Oh, do you regret leaving?” And I’m like, “No, bro.” Just because that’s happening for Doechii doesn’t mean it would’ve happened…

From the day I met Doechii, I literally remember going to Moosa, and I was like, “Bro, she’s out of here.” I mean, the day I met her in the studio, when she was still just driving around a little bucket and stuff, just moved out to LA, and we chopped it up, and she played me some music. I went to Moosa, and I was like, “Bro, she’s gone. She’s one of those.” It don’t matter where she signed to, it don’t matter what her situation is, she’s that talented. So you couple that with a brand like TDE, you couple that with the backing of a major, it all makes sense, but that works for Doechii because that is who she is. She’s an icon. I never got into this thinking I wanted to be an icon. It was more like I looked up to Jadakiss and Fab and n****s like… I’m just like, “N****, I just want to rap.”

Let’s talk about just the process of putting together this… I want to say it’s nine songs, 10 tracks. What made it important to put these out? There are some more vibey records on here; I know you stepped away a little bit from the storytelling stuff.

It’s funny that you noticed that, because I was just talking to my guy that’s helping me distribute all this, and on the vinyls, they put a sticker that said “Reason’s first independent album.” And I was like, “Change it from ‘album.’ It’s not an album.” Because I know how serious my fans are about that. “I want “Colored Dreams” and I need a n**** to die in this.”

So for me, I’m like, “Okay, let me prep my n****s.” Because I know how my n****s are. Let me prep my n****s on the front end and let them know this is a project, and also you don’t have to wait for a long time because I’m spinning the block right away. The first thing I did was go to the hard drive and said, “Okay, what records do I absolutely love and what records do I feel like I’ve outgrown?” That took about three weeks to go through that.

When we were supposed to do the deluxe for There You Have It, “My Own” was on it. So what I did was I took the first verse and then I wrote a new second verse, because the second verse just sounded way too outdated. Then I just started recording. So I did “Stuck On Moments,” which I loved. Then I had two verses, I took one off, I gave it to Kota, and Kota delivered a really, really dope verse. “Not What You Think” was probably the last joint that we did. So I went back into all of the records that I love that were supposed to make projects before, and we did a combination of all of those.

Yes, you don’t have the super, super deep introspective storytelling, but we’re going to spin the block, and that’s definitely coming on the album. On the album, I’ll address everything with the label, ego stuff that I had to… because I went through a lot of growth in that time, but I didn’t want to rush that process without including who I am now with the independence. So when I was about to turn in the album, I’m like, “Damn, this whole album is sounding bitter.” Like I didn’t learn nothing, I didn’t enjoy it.

So I was like, “Let me do some other sh*t, and then I’ll spin the block on the album and get it to a fair perspective.”

Tell the people what it means for LA that LA had the run we had last year, to cap it all off with Kendrick Lamar, somebody that you know, somebody who advocated for you, because you’re closer to him than a lot of people are.

It reminds me of when G-Unit was the biggest thing in the world, and then they signed [The Game] and it was like, “Yo, Game is over there.” And then he started coming out with all these smashes. The thing that’s so impressive about the Dot sh*t is that it’s easy to captivate people when you’re a new artist because people are excited. It’s hard to have the biggest energy ever in your career when you’re not a new artist anymore. The bar is set so high that it starts to become a thing where if you just even can get close to the bar that people have set for you, that’s a win. For him to just f*cking blow by the bar and to the moon when he was already on the moon, so whatever’s past the moon… he’s just out of this galaxy, it’s crazy.

I think it’s important for us because now as West Coast everything — and I mean media, fashion, music, everything — it’s almost like we’re finally allowed to pop our sh*t. We’ve never been allowed to pop our sh*t because the industry has just ignored us. Y’all come out with these rapper lists and y’all don’t put n****s on and y’all talk about the fashion. You n****s dog us. And now you see every single media, Joe and them talk about it, Ebro was talking about, B.Dot finally got five n****s from the coast on his rapper list. We’ve been wanting that for so long and we going to keep it as not even me being biased: we deserve it, bro.

Because we have to talk about the same questions a lot, I always end my interviews with this: What are the questions that they would love to be asked, the things they want to talk about, that if they had the choice to write the questions and figure out what they want to ask.

I like that. I think what I would want to talk about is… it’s so tough because this is the world that they tell you as an artist to never touch on, but I just want to talk about other artists and music, but from a fan perspective. From a space where people aren’t going to take what I say and read into it too deep. It’s like, “Bro, I’m just chopping it with you. I’m just chopping it with you the same way that I would chop it with the homie about music or an album or anything.” And it sucks that we, as artists, don’t get to express… we still love music. We don’t get to express how we really feel about projects anymore or about music anymore.

I Love You Again is out 2/14 via Do More Records/195 Oak Inc. Find more information here.

Jack’s back. After ending 2024 with a pair of new singles suggesting that his fourth studio album could be on the way (November’s “Hello Miss Johnson” and December’s “Tranquility“), Jack Harlow continues to tease his comeback with another new song, “Set You Free.”

Like the previous songs, “Set You Free” finds the Louisville native preoccupied with the nature of relationships and the tension between pursuing romance and chasing his dreams. “I love you but I love my freedom too,” he ruminates. “I know what I must do / But I’m really just scared to leave you / I want to be alone, more than ever / Less free time, more endeavors / Less romance, more get cheddar / Some say both, I’m more instead of.”

Fans have been waiting a little under two years for the follow-up to Jack’s last album, the deeply personal Jackman. After achieving star status with his glitzy second album, Jack reset to a more thoughtful stance; it appears that he may continue in that vein on his next project, considering his recent releases. If not, he’ll still have plenty to talk about; since his last album, he’s purchased a soccer team, dropped his first-ever sneaker collab, and expanded his acting CV.

Watch Jack Harlow’s “Set You Free” video above.

Squid’s third album opens with a song about cannibalism. In the disturbingly titled “Crispy Skin,” vocalist and drummer Ollie Judge assumes the mind of a character from Tender Is The Flesh, a 2017 novel by Argentine writer Agustina Bazterrica. “The blood drips faster than you can think,” he sings during its harrowing finale. Judge has previously described Cowards as a book of dark fairy tales, and its grim (or should I say Grimm?) backdrop befits the art-rock quintet’s knotty, dense arrangements.

Like the most disquieting fairy tales, Cowards vacillates between light and dark; harmony and dissonance; peace and violence. It’s the way in which they both balance and wield this tension that lies at the crux of the record. Through this juggling act, Cowards shines with an emboldened panache.

Following the record’s release on Friday, Judge sat down with Uproxx to talk about singing Nine Inch Nails with tech bros, getting a Twin Peaks tattoo, not being worried about AI and music, and more in our latest Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

Music made by us.

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

With frustration because you can’t eat vinyl, tapes or CDs.

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

Probably Mark Hollis… or Kate Bush.

Where did you eat the best meal of your life and what was it?

We had some great artist catering at Roskilde festival; it was in the posh bit that we weren’t supposed to be in but Laurie managed to sweet-talk us in. I don’t remember much of the meal but the experience was fun.

Tell us about the best concert you’ve ever attended.

Probably Nine Inch Nails at Primavera LA. It was a disastrous trip because Virgin Atlantic lost all of our equipment and we played a pretty rubbish show with hired gear. Nine Inch Nails made up for that, though. It was probably the best-sounding gig we’ve been to. Highlight was standing down the front shouting along to “Head Like A Hole” with a bunch of LA tech bros. The power of music, huh?

What song never fails to make you emotional?

Probably “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails, but the Johnny Cash cover has a bit more weight behind it.

What’s the last thing you Googled?

Potato Croquettes

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

We stayed in a cheap hotel off the motorway in Milan. We quickly realised it was primarily a sex hotel with mirrors on the ceiling and secret corridors.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform and what’s the city you hope to perform in for the first time?

Manchester or Glasgow always have great crowds. I’d love to play in Mexico.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

Keep doin’ what you’re doin’, no regrets.

What’s one of your hidden talents?

I can spin a basketball on my finger and also change the finger it’s spinning on whilst it’s spinning.

If you had a million dollars to donate to charity, what cause would you support and why?

Ummmmm probably a split between Medical Aid for Palestine, Shelter (Housing), Beat (eating disorders), OTR Bristol (young persons’ mental heath), Cats Protection (cats).

What are your thoughts about AI and the future of music?

I don’t think we need to be worried.

You are throwing a music festival. Give us the dream lineup of 5 artists that will perform with you and the location it would be held.

Talk Talk, These New Puritans, Kate Bush, Joanna Newsom and Nine Inch Nails. I’d like it to be very near to my house.

Who’s your favorite person to follow on social media?

Catatonic Youths or Jakerswhite

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

I got a Twin Peaks tattoo from my friend Katie in Brighton. Louis was there; we were sat in their garden drinking beers in the afternoon sun. Great stuff.

What is your pre-show ritual?

Sometimes we do a bit of clapping.

Who was your first celebrity crush?

Maggie Gylenhall or Brienne of Tarth.

You have a month off and the resources to take a dream vacation. Where are you going and who is coming with you?

Japan and my partner Natalie.

What is your biggest fear?

People putting their head out of train windows.

Cowards is out now via Warp Records. Find more information here.

For the past couple of years, eclectic producer and DJ Kenny Beats has made a name for himself for his collaborations with left-of-center rappers like Denzel Curry, Rico Nasty, and Vince Staples. His The Cave YouTube series features those rappers and more joining him in the studio as he makes custom beats for them and then performing freestyles to those beats. It’s pretty cool.

His latest collaboration, though, is a bit of a swerve. On Toro Y Moi’s “Daria,” Kenny and Chaz Bear craft a fuzzy pop rock anthem in the vein of 2006 indie pop classic “Young Folks” by Peter Bjorn & John. An infectious drum loop backs up a propulsive, forceful bassline, over which Toro details a relationship with a girl who might just be a drug dealer.

The song appears on the Japanese version of his 2024 eighth studio album, Hole Erth. Inspired by late ’90s MTV pop-punk and alt-rock and suburban youth culture, the album also featured unexpected, seemingly incongruous appearances from Kenny’s rapper brethren like Don Toliver (“Madonna“), Duckwrth (“Reseda”), Kenny Mason (“Smoke”), and Kevin Abstract (“Heaven“), meaning “Daria” fits right in. Toro is currently on tour promoting the album, with dates in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Raleigh, Nashville, and Atlanta coming this month.

Listen to Toro Y Moi’s new single “Daria” with Kenny Beats above.

When Mereba named her new album The Breeze Grew A Fire, she had no idea how prophetic those words would turn out to be. The nomadic R&B singer has resided in Los Angeles for the past decade — just long enough to be as shocked as the city’s natives by the devastating, unseasonal wildfires that claimed several neighborhoods, historic recording studios, and the homes of some of her closest friends.

“When I tell you, when that title came to me, I really was like, ‘Okay, I don’t really get it, but I’m going to find the meaning of it,’” she told Uproxx in a chuckle-filled Zoom interview about the new project — her first full-length solo release since 2019’s The Jungle Is The Only Way Out.

In the interim, she appeared on Atlanta-based supergroup Spillage Village’s 2020 pandemic paean, Spilligion, and released Azeb, the 2021 EP that constitutes her last music before having her first child.

Born in Montgomery, Alabama, the singer, whose name comes from her Ethiopian heritage, grew up in North Carolina before moving to Atlanta for college. It was there she befriended Spillage Village members JID, 6lack, and Earthgang. She was folded into the group’s official lineup before too long, leading to her own deal with Interscope. While it’d prove mostly successful, resulting in the aforementioned releases, in 2024, she signed with independent label Secretly Canadian and commenced the rollout for her latest.

Mereba’s propensity for releasing new music during unprecedented, world-shaking events aside, The Breeze Grew A Fire isn’t a completely comprehensive overview of her artistic growth over the past four years (there’s a noticeable reduction in the amount of raps, which she jokingly blames on her newfound mom status). It is, however, an elegant, pretty-sounding recapitulation of the things she’s learned and experienced, the healing she’s done, and her hopes for the future. She also flexes her production skills, something she’s proud to share in our conversation, which you can read below.

I think the last time you released something was 2021. What have you been up to since then? What have you been doing? What’s life like?

Yeah, I’ve been making a lot of music, for sure, but I also became a mom, and I’ve been momming.

So yeah, the first couple years is just really taking that time to adjust and be present in that transition in life, but always still, obviously, making music and focusing more on collaborating and features that have come out in the in-between time and stuff like that. But I just wanted to really, really live for a little bit, because so much of my life has been journeying on this pursuit of music. And so when I had my son, I was like, I think this is actually the first time in life that I’m supposed to live outside of that pursuit and just see who I am outside of that. And I had a lot more to write about when I came back to music.

Does he have a favorite song or favorite songs from the new project?

He likes all of them because he likes Mommy’s music, but he definitely gravitates towards certain ones. Right now, he loves “Phone Me.” And it’s interesting because I’m pretty explicit, so hearing my son sing it, I’m like, “Relax.”

Obviously, there’s a lot of pressure and there’s timing to consider, and so I always love to ask artists: why now? What makes now the time for this project? Because you record so much, you can have three or four projects ready to go at any given moment, and there’s something about the time that demands the project that you’re putting out.

I didn’t want to take this long. There were other reasons why it took long outside of having my child: changes in labels, changes in management… a lot of big things changed. For me, it was just a restlessness: I love giving music to the world and I love connecting with my fans. I never imagined that after so many years of trying to get people to care about my music, once they did, I disappeared. But oops, I did not mean to take that long. So, on my level, it was just like, “I’m ready, I have the music, my mind’s right, I’ve got everything figured out, and I can move back into this.”

But I think on the spirit side of it, I couldn’t necessarily have planned the timing of it. I didn’t know what 2025 would feel like coming into it, but it came in very hot. I live in LA. I’ve lived in LA for 10 years. As soon as the year started, it felt like we were just boxing. I think in general in this country and just the world at large, I know what I’m called to do with music has to do with healing and restoration and comfort and calm. I could have released the album earlier maybe, but on the spirit side, I do think it feels like divine timing. Not to mention the title of the album is very interesting, in retrospect.

Ancestors was like, “Hey, girl. Hey, girl, get ready.” They were trying to warn us.

Exactly. Because when I tell you, when that title came to me, I really was like, “Okay, I don’t really get it, but I’m going to find the meaning of it.” Because God said, “This is the title of this album.” There’s some things I don’t ask too much about. I just feel it. I think that’s why the timing worked out the way that it did.

If you were going to be introducing someone to Mereba, the concept of Mereba, who Mereba is as an artist, one time with one song from this album, which song would that be?

Ooh, that’s such a hard question. That’s a really hard question just because there are elements of my artistry that are not as present on this album, i.e. rapping. I rapped on “Counterfeit.” I rapped on “Hawk.” But yes, that is some feedback that I’m definitely getting. I knew that I would, and I will get back to rapping, but I explained that having a baby and a toddler is just not very rapperly energy that you’re in.

So, I didn’t want to force it, but I sprinkled a little bit. But I will say that that is a big part of my artistry that isn’t as present, but I honestly think sentiment-wise and sonically, I think “Heart Of A Child” is a pretty strong representation of what I care most about with music. It has a message to it. It feels timeless to me, and it feels like a song that kid me would’ve wanted big me to make.

What is your hope for the result of this album release? This time next year, what do you want to be able to say about it?

I definitely want this album to be a grand reintroduction of my artistry to the world. I just anticipate all the places we’ll go with it, all the cities and the countries that we’ll go to with this. Definitely my first full world tour, going to places I’ve never been. The timing of my career with the pandemic was an interesting one, where I feel like a lot of things that it might seem like I would’ve already done, I haven’t. The way that things worked out for me, a lot of those things were happening in 2020, and then things changed. So, I just look forward to really standing consistently in my artistry for the next year and really showing people what it is I have to give without any interruptions.

I do hope that one or more of these songs just connects with people in a large way, just really spreads around the world. I feel very blessed because my fan base is a very passionate one, but I definitely would like to grow my fan base and reach more people that maybe wouldn’t expect to connect. Something surprising happening would be nice because I really feel like the energy of this album and this music is so loving and tender and sweet, and I do think that that’s missing in certain ways in the world, and I just want to be of service.

I always ask artists: What’s one of those questions that you wish somebody would’ve asked you? If you had the mic and you asked you, what’s the question that you would want to be asked that you want to talk about that you never get to talk about?

I feel like one thing that I never get to talk about is the fact that I produce my own music. Getting into music production was the game-changer for me. I do believe that that’s how things came together for me to finally introduce a sound that I felt confident in.

And obviously, we’ve heard it is more rare for women to produce their music. We’ve heard the stories about women trying to and men being like, “Ah, you don’t know what you’re doing. Do you even know what a four-count is?” We know all those stories. “Do you know what a snare is?” I will say, yes, I experienced those things, but I also experienced my community, my friends, my male friends, all of my friends really uplifting me and believing in that part of me, even before I really considered myself a producer.

Other than performing, I think producing is probably just the most fun. I’m running around the room, I’m excited, I’m playful. It feels like being in a sandbox as an artist. I’m just looking forward to producing more for other people, too. I’m coming up on my 10-year anniversary of learning how to produce, and I would love to encourage more women to get involved in that side of the artistry because it’s so gratifying, and it’s so cool to hear your production on record.

The Breeze Grew A Fire is out 2/14 via Secretly Canadian. Find more information here.

The Dream Is Over. Morbid Stuff. The Unraveling Of PupTheBand. Those are the titles of Canadian punk band Pup’s last three albums; even their 2020 EP is named This Place Sucks Ass. Are Pup OK? Actually, yes, they’re doing great, and they have a new album to prove it.

Described as the band’s “most immediate, no-frills, and hard-hitting full-length yet,” Who Will Look After The Dogs? was recorded over the course of three weeks. The 12 tracks, including “Paranoid,” find frontman and lyricist Stefan Babcock exploring “his life’s relationships — romantic, with his bandmates, and most ruthlessly, his relationship to himself.” And, for once, it sounds like Pup actually had fun making the album.

“When I first started writing the lyrics for this record, everything felt really heavy,” Babcock said in a statement. “By the time we recorded it, even those dark songs felt light and fun. We didn’t even really fight while making this record. It all just felt f*cking awesome.”

You can watch the video for “Hallways” above, and check out the album cover and tracklist for Who Will Look After The Dogs? below.

Pup’s Who Will Look After The Dogs? Album Cover Artwork

Pup’s Who Will Look After The Dogs? Tracklist

1. “No Hope”
2. “Olive Garden”
3. “Concrete”
4. “Get Dumber”
5. “Hunger For Death”
6. “Needed To Hear It”
7. “Paranoid”
8. “Falling Outta Love”
9. “Hallways”
10. “Cruel”
11. “Best Revenge”
12. “Shut Up”

Who Will Look After The Dogs? is out 5/2 via Little Dipper/Rise Records. Find more information here.

Yesterday brought some tragic news in the world of fictional language-learning app mascots: the Duolingo owl is dead.

In an official statement shared on social media, the company wrote:

“It is with heavy hearts that we inform you that Duo, formally known as The Duolingo Owl, is dead.

Authorities are currently investigating his cause of death and we are cooperating fully. Tbh, he probably died waiting for you to do your lesson, but what do we know.

We’re aware he had many enemies, but we kindly ask that you refrain from sharing why you hate him in the comments. If you feel inclined to share, please also include your credit card number so we can automatically sign you up for Duolingo Max in his memory.

We appreciate you respecting Dua Lipa’s privacy at this time.”

Lipa, who has previously expressed an interest in learning more languages, responded to the shout-out with some online mourning, writing, “Til’ death duo part,” followed by a broken heart emoji.

Meanwhile, Duolingo got some Drake trolling in when responding to people asking who could have committed such a crime, responding, “Authorities are looking into a Canadian rapper currently.”

Duolingo is also teasing on their TikTok more information about Duo’s death, so more information on this make-believe crime is coming soon.

One of America’s longest-running music festivals is back for another year. Summerfest 2025 is held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, over the course of three weekends: June 19 to 21, June 26 to 28, and July 3 to 5. This year’s headliners include Hozier with Gigi Perez in weekend 1, Megan Thee Stallion with Flo Milli in weekend 2, and The Lumineers with Hippo Campus in weekend 3.

The lineup also features The Killers, Lainey Wilson with Lukas Nelson, Benson Boone, James Taylor with Jason Mraz and Tiny Habits, Def Leppard with Tesla, BossMan DLow, The Avett Brothers, Japanese Breakfast, Cake, The Head And The Heart, Riley Green, Gary Clark Jr., Young the Giant, Babymetal, Loud Luxury, Offset, Jack’s Mannequin, Lindsey Stirling, Whiskey Myers, Billy Corgan And The Machines of God, Ayra Starr, Richard Marx, Porter Robinson, Dirty Heads, The Fray, Natasha Bedingfield, Devo, Motion City Soundtrack, Betty Who, Snow Tha Product, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and many more.

“As an independent music festival, Summerfest delivers a one-of-a-kind experience, bringing fans together from all backgrounds to enjoy incredible performances and Milwaukee’s vibrant energy,” Sarah Pancheri, President and CEO, Milwaukee World Festival, Inc., shared in a statement. “Today is an exciting day as we unveil this year’s lineup with over 160 artists spanning all genres of music.”

Tickets for Summerfest 2025 are on sale now. You can find more information here.