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Sometimes the best new R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm-and-blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the best new R&B songs that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.

This week features Kehlani’s new single, “Little Story,” which serves as the latest offering from her upcoming album Blue Water Road. Robert Glasper returns with Black Radio III his first full-length project since 2019’s F*ck Yo Feelings while British singer Tiana Major9 prepares to release her upcoming EP with “2 Seater” featuring Smino.

Kehlani — “Little Story”

At the end of last year, Kehlani announced that her third album Blue Water Road was on the way. With its lead single “Altar” still in rotation, you can now enjoy “Little Story” her second offering from the album that aims to add more context to what’s to come on Blue Water Road.

Robert Glasper — Black Radio III

Just shy of ten years after he released his fifth album Black Radio, a project that granted him the award for Best R&B Album at the 2013 Grammys, Robert Glasper returned with the third installment in the series. Black Radio III arrives with 13 songs and contributions from Killer Mike, BJ The Chicago Kid, Ant Clemons, HER, PJ Morton, India.Arie, and many more.

Tiana Major9 — “2 Seater” Feat. Smino

Later this month, British singer Tiana Major9 will release her second project Fool Me Once. It’s her first release since 2021’s At Sixes And Sevens Remixed which brought new voices to songs from her 2020 project At Sixes And Sevens. To prepare for the release of Fool Me Once, Tiana calls on Smino for its romantic lead single “2 Seater.”

Dylan Sinclair — “Suppress”

Toronto singer Dylan Sinclair is ready to take things to a new level as he prepares to release a new EP to the world. The JUNO Award-nominee returns with “Suppress,” a moody single that finds him having empathy towards his girlfriend’s struggle to cope with his growing fame. The song arrives after he released “Regrets” last fall.

Taylor Belle — Out Of Body

Following a consistent stretch of singles that dates back to 2019, Los Angeles-based singer Taylor Belle has finally arrived with her debut project. She returns with Out Of Body which offers eight songs and a lone feature from Tank God for a body of work that she describes as captivating, unique, and ethereal.

Thuy — “Figured U Out”

Last fall, singer Thuy released her debut project I Hope U See This which dropped off eight songs focused on heartbreak, love, empowerment, and self-confidence. In her continued effort to promote the project, she returns with a new video for “Figured U Out” which watches her discover the deceitful ways of her partner.

Maeta — “Frank For You”

Indianapolis singer Maeta is less than a year removed from her debut project Habits which she delivered after landing a deal with Roc Nation. With the hope of new music on the way, she returns with “Frank For You” which finds her admitting to her ability to make the pains of a relationship go away with her sweet vocals.

Che Ecru — Pain Pack 5

If there’s one thing that Boston native Che Ecru will do, it’s release more than enough music to keep his fans happy. In 2020, he dropped three projects, Still Single, Projection, and Til Death (which he gave a deluxe for last year). This year, he gets the ball rolling with Pain Pack 5 which grants eight new songs for listeners to enjoy.

Starrah — “222”

Last year, Starrah, who has earned plenty of success as a songwriter penning hits for Rihanna, Normani, Drake, Nicki Minaj, and more, arrived with her lastest project The Longest Interlude. It was her first project since 2017’s Starrah X Diplo with producer Diplo. It looks like they’ll be more from Starrah on the way as she kicks off her 2022 year with her laid-back single “222.”

OHenry — “Belong With Me”

Nigerian-American and Oakland native OHenry will surely catch your ear with his recent single, “Racin,” a sultry anthem that saw him sprinting at the speed of light to reconnect with his lover. If that isn’t enough his latest single might do the job for you. OHenry arrives with “Belong With Me” is a heartfelt number that sees him deep in regret for the pain he caused towards his lover.

Reminisce — “Hustle” Feat. Buju & D Smoke

After kicking off the year with “Alaye Toh Se Gogo,” Nigerian rapper keeps his momentum alive with his new single “Hustle” alongside D Smoke and Nigerian singer Buju. The track is dedicated to putting in your all to reach your goals and be the very best you can be.

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

Pusha T’s newest single “Diet Coke” has some legs, and he’s using them to go the distance. Last night, the Virginia rapper stopped by the set of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to deliver a snow-capped performance of his latest track. Decked out in all-black from his puffer coat to his climbing boots, Pusha delivered his performance in front of a screen depicting a wind-blown, snow-covered landscape as faux flakes fell from the ceiling of the studio. To add to the effect, the camera begins with a tight shot on Pusha’s face, only revealing the full tableau toward the end of the song.

“Diet Coke” is Pusha’s first new solo single since 2018, when he released his Grammy-nominated collaborative album with Kanye West, Daytona. The song appears to be the first from Pusha’s upcoming fourth studio album, which he says is due sometime this year. While details remain sparse, he has revealed that the new album will contain a collaboration with Jay-Z. Also, last night, he released another new single with Nigo, “Hear Me Clearly.” Whenever the new album actually does drop, it appears there’s a strong possibility it’ll live up to his promise to top Daytona.

Watch Pusha T’s snow-capped “Diet Coke” performance from The Late Show above.

(Spoilers for Netflix’s Bad Vegan will be found below.)

Bad Vegan tells the story of Sarma Melngailis, the celebrity restauranteur who fell from grace and became a fugitive of the law. Sarma got sucked into a cult-like mentality by Anthony Strangis (who used the pseudonym of “Shane Fox”), who she eventually married and who apparently persuaded her to drain her business accounts for, well, reasons. He had promised to make her dog immortal, among other things, and the smart and successful Sarma — the founder of the wildly popular One Lucky Duck and Pure Food and Wine eateries in NYC — ended up in a bad situation. She served four months in Rikers after pleading guilty to grand larceny. Investors got the shaft, her staff had long since walked out after not being paid, and the eateries shuttered forever.

It’s a sensational true story, for sure, to became known as “the vegan Bernie Madoff.” But there’s a strange Alec Baldwin connection here, so let’s dig into that gossipy tidbit.

Alec and Sarma were friends, and he may have wanted to be more than friends, and one doesn’t even have to watch Bad Vegan to see that suggestion. Alec was a huge fan of Pure Food and Wine, and on July 26, 2011, he tweeted, “… when in NY, folks, go to Pure Food and Wine on Irving Place. Even if just to stare at @Sarma.”

Well, Sarma and Alec never actually got together (for reasons disclosed in Bad Vegan), and Alec actually met the woman who would become his wife (Hilaria) while dining at Pure. In 2019, Alec posted an Instagram tribute to how he met Hilaria: “8 years ago, I wandered into Pure Food and Wine on Irving Place, on an unseasonably warm February evening… I turned to my left I saw a woman who would change my life. Entirely.”

Sarma had continued to exchange banter on Twitter with Alec, and she soon noticed a man joking around with Alec and asking him for advice. In 2020, The Daily Beast characterized this man, who was Anthony Strangis, as a hustler, and yep, that’s about right. There’s no real sense that Alec actually knew the guy beyond exchanging tweets, and Sarma began talking with Strangis online. Soon enough, she fell under his spell, and she was giving him money and generally falling under Anthony’s spell. Bad Vegan details what came next and how, eventually, the law came for both of them.

Bad Vegan (from executive producer Chris Smith of Tiger King and Fyre: The Greatest Party) will stream on March 16.

Charli XCX has collaborated with many artists over the course of her career, but one she hasn’t yet been able to add to the list (at least in terms of having released music with them) is Britney Spears. She actually came close on more than one occasion, though, as she noted on a recent Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen appearance.

During the show, a couple of fans asked Charli if she was the first choice to be on Spears’ remix of the 2016 Glory single “Slumber Party” (the remix ended up featuring Tinashe), as well as what it was like to write songs for Spears’ 2013 album Britney Jean (no songs penned by Charli ended up on the album).

Charli was impressed with the questions, as her initial response was, “Whoa, that is some knowledge right there.” She continued:

“I don’t know if I was the first choice, but I did get asked to feature on the ‘Slumber Party’ remix. Unfortunately, it just couldn’t work out with the timings and everything, but I’m really impressed that you know that. That’s like very deep Nardwuar vibes. Very deep cuts. And working on the album was, you know, amazing. Nothing ended up on there, but I’m honored any time Britney calls, obviously. What a queen.”

Cohen noted he’d be interested in seeing Charli and Britney collaborate now and Charli replied, “Me too. I mean, I would love that.”

Elsewhere during the show, Charli was asked for her favorite Spears song and she couldn’t pick just one, saying, “So hard, like really, really impossible, but I really love ‘Gimme More’ slash ‘Toxic,’ sorry. Or ‘Everytime!’” Cohen also asked who Charli would like to work with and she answered, “I mean, I feel like every songwriter’s dream is to get a Rihanna cut. That’s, like, the one because she’s just the best.”

Check out clips from the interview above and below.

Charli XCX is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Bubble is no Cliff Beasts 6: The Battle For Everest, but it still looks fun. The Judd Apatow-directed comedy follows a group of actors and actresses who are stuck inside a pandemic bubble at a hotel while they attempt to complete the sixth film in the dinosaurs franchise. There’s drinking, hookups, bad green screen, helicopter escapades, dancing dinosaur TikToks, and David Duchovny snorting drugs off Keegan-Michael Key’s bald head and telling a British man, “Stop being Benedict Cumberbatch.” Best of all, unlike much of Apatow’s recent work, The Bubble is under two hours.

The Bubble was supposedly inspired by Jurassic World Dominion, “which faced numerous pandemic-related delays that forced the cast to remain in the U.K. for months,” according to Variety, including production stopping and restarting several times due to positive COVID-19 tests. Hopefully Karen Gillan got the inside scoop from Jurassic star Chris Pratt while they were filming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 together.

The Bubble, which was written by Apatow and Pam Brady (South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut and Team America: World Police writer, Lady Dynamite creator) and also stars Pedro Pascal, Leslie Mann, Rob Delaney, Iris Apatow, Peter Serafinowicz, and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm breakout Maria Bakalova, hits Netflix on April 1.

What do Band Of Horses have in common with The Strokes and Interpol? Their first album was mostly considered to be an instant classic, though their second album was arguably better. Band Of Horses may have dominated much of indie music discourse in the mid-aughts, but they’re now making a triumphant return with their first album in six years, Things Are Great. Hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen share their thoughts about the band’s comeback on this week’s Indiecast episode.

Along with reviewing new music, Steven and Ian talked about this biggest news in music this week: Bandcamp was purchased by Epic Games, a tech game company which owns popular video games like Fortnite. Twitter, of course, lit up with jokes about the acquisition while others wondered if it will fundamentally change how Bandcamp compensates artists more than any other music service. On top of the Bandcamp news, this week saw some artists beefing with their stans. Mitski denounced concertgoers who film her entire performance while Charli XCX came at a fan who accused her of going through a “midlife crisis.”

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian gives a shout out to Boston hardcore punk band Vein.fm, whose new album This World Is Going To Ruin You drops this week. Meanwhile, Steven reminds Indiecast listeners that Sonic Youth’s In/Out/In compilation comes out next week, which features a mix of low-key and noisy tracks.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 79 on Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

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

Cryptic mail seems to be a productive way of promoting new music these days. Last week, Florence And The Machine fans received a pink envelope with a playing card that had the word “KING” spelled out on it, which ended up being the title of their new single. Arcade Fire fans are the lucky ones this time; they shared on both Reddit and Twitter that they received postcards from the band with musical notation, the words “we missed you,” and the Arcade Fire logo. At least this is less cryptic and more of a promise of new music.

The Canadian sextet’s last album was 2017’s Everything Now. It was also marketed in a creative way, which they ended up apologizing for: they sold Kendall and Kylie Jenner tour shirts and $109 fidget spinners, instituted a formal dress code for one of their shows, and made a strange joke about “removable jihadi beards.” They also got Stephen Colbert into the action, having the Late Show host’s Twitter account “leak” a series of obviously phony demands made by the band. Hopefully they learned their lesson from over-the-top marketing campaigns and will stick to sending postcards to fans, which is much more sensical and pleasant.

If you want to understand the Russia Ukraine War on a deeper, geopolitical level, there are two ways to do it: read and watch everything you can about the years-long tension between the two countries and what finally brought them to the violent conflict they’re currently engaged in. Or watch Fox News spin some serious pro-Putin propaganda and emerge with a totally distorted view of what sort of dude Vladimir Putin is.

In a desperate attempt to understand why, exactly, Putin invaded Ukraine, The Daily Show’s Desi Lydic decided to spend “648 straight hours” watching Fox News in order to get a stronger grasp on the situation—at least as the network that has brought us Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham sees it—and was able to “Foxsplain” it all in just under three minutes.

The biggest question, of course, is: Why did Putin invade Ukraine? The answer, Lydic says, is complex:

“Burisma. Critical race genders. Minnie Mouse in a pantsuit. Don’t believe me? Take a look inside the gender neutral bathroom in Hunter Biden’s laptop. This is happening because ‘President’ Biden is weak. When Donald Trump was president, Putin didn’t meddle in Ukraine—he meddled in America! Putin is strong and Biden is weak. America needs a strong leader. By the way: Why are we supposed to think that Vladimir Putin is evil? He’s not the one poisoning our children with critical race theory!”

As anyone who has ever tried to follow the illogical trajectory of Fox News’ thinking knows, there is no logic to it. And flip-flopping ideologies are part of the network’s trademark, though you’ll never hear one of their talking heads admit it—despite the fact that hours of video and countless transcripts of their previous comments exist, as Lydic demonstrated.

After stating that “Vladimir Putin is evil, I’ve always said that” then reiterating that she has “never said that Vladimir Putin is a handsome genius with a hottie’s body,” a clip from a week before featured her saying exactly that.

And like any true Fox devotee, Lydic has some pretty bold ideas about how we can put an end to the current situation between Russia and Ukraine: “We need to be sending cruise missiles! Chevy Cruzes, Penélope Cruzs, Norwegian Cruise Lines… Tom Cruises, Terry Crewses, booze cruises, Booz Allen, Tim Allen… Allen Iverson?”

You can watch the full clip, which is sadly not too off-base, above.

If Jeff Bezos has been looking to secure a captive audience with Pete Davidson in order to learn how to harness his newly acquired BDE, there couldn’t be a more perfect place to do it than outside Earth’s atmosphere. According to new reports, just such a get-together could be in their shared future. According to Page Six, the SNL comedian and the Amazon founder are close to finalizing details on a deal that would allow them to take their bromance to the next level with a space flight aboard Bezos’s Blue Origin spacecraft.

Back in January, Davidson and current woman-who-bizarrely-finds-Davidson-attractive (and no, I’ll never get it so don’t even try to explain it) Kim Kardashian were seen having dinner at Bezos’s home in Los Angeles. The details are sketchy in terms of how their relationship progressed from a casual couples dinner to space travel buddies, but sources tell Page Six that Davidson is close to signing a deal to hop aboard an upcoming Blue Origin flight.

“Pete is excited,” a source close to Davidson told Page Six. “They haven’t signed a contract yet, but it looks like it’s going to happen. The details are being finalized. He got on really well with Jeff when they met.”

No details about when the flight might happen have been released, but Davidson unfortunately won’t be the first celeb to head to infinity and beyond with Bezos. In October, legendary Star Trek actor William Shatner hopped aboard a Blue Origin flight and, at age 90, became the oldest person to ever travel to space.

(Via Page Six)

The Batman is longer than Pulp Fiction. It’s longer than Heat, it’s longer than The Godfather, it’s longer than 2001: A Space Odyssey. True, there have been some great movies that are longer — Apocalypse Now, Braveheart, The Godfather Part II — but one important distinction here is that none of those were about Batman. Most importantly, this one feels long.

You know that scene where the Joker sits in an interrogation room and describes his evil plans and Batman punches the bulletproof glass and screams that he’s a madman? In The Batman, that scene (in this case featuring The Riddler, played by Paul Dano) takes place more than 90 minutes into the movie.

This bloat would be a lot easier to explain if The Batman was your typical lynchpin in an expanded universe, a movie responsible for staging meet-ups for 10 other superheroes while establishing storylines for three other villains — á la one of the Avengers movies, which I definitely wouldn’t want to sit through again either. But The Batman isn’t even part of the DCEU. This was supposed to be a weird, stand-alone take on Batman, like Joker (which lots of people hated but I mostly loved).

At times it does feel like Matt Reeves is attempting something admirably bold here, an angsty film noir that happens to have Batman in it, a Gotham-based Chinatown or a Seven (two movies 40 or 50 minutes shorter than The Batman, incidentally). Reeves’s Gotham certainly rains a lot. But for all its self-consciously hard-boiled pretensions, The Batman still manages to feel like 10 pounds of shit stuffed into a five-pound sock.

Your mileage, so it should go without saying, may vary. Just as in his Planet of the Apes movies (Reeves directed Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes and War For The Planet Of The Apes) there’s a lot to love about Reeves’ stylish compositions. For me, it’s hard to get past the fact that Warner Brothers seems to have found the only blockbuster director with even less of a sense of humor than Christopher Nolan. And Reeves’ work seems to lack Nolan’s vulnerability. Tim Burton’s Batman movies were emo. Christian Bale growled and brooded. This version seems joyless, lacking any playfulness whatsoever.

We don’t have to watch Batman’s parents get murdered this time around, which I suppose is nice. Reeves, with a script co-written by Peter Craig (The Hunger Games, 12 Strong), skips straight to Bruce Wayne as a reclusive, brooding orphan, cooped up in a weird old house with his surrogate father, Alfred, played enjoyably here by Andy Serkis, who brings a chavvy muscularity to the role. The plot turns on the murder of Gotham City’s mayor by The Riddler, a Zodiac-esque serial killer who leaves cryptic ciphers addressed to Batman at the scenes of his crimes, as well as creepy vlogs where he screams into a voice modulator until it distorts. The main thing setting him apart from all previous Batman villains is that he’s no fun at all. One of The Batman‘s recurring needle drops is Nirvana’s “Something In The Way.” It’s apt; The Batman is sort of the movie equivalent of “Something In The Way,” a Nirvana song for people whose favorite thing about Nirvana was Kurt’s depressive heroin hangovers.

The Riddler’s stated goal is to expose the corruption of Gotham City (which once again is a sort of New York but not New York), which is beset by corrupt officials and a powerful mafia, in the form of Carmine Falcone (John Turturro, in the Sam Giancana sunglasses he wore in Sugartime) and his lieutenant, The Penguin, played by Colin Farrell in make-up so extensive I didn’t know it was Farrell until I looked it up afterwards. It’s a city in decline where politicians party with prostitutes and everyone is addicted to “drops.”

Why the Riddler is so hung up on Batman in all this is a little unclear. As is why Reeves has chosen to combine 50s gangster references with 70s serial killer references utilizing 2020s social media, with side stories about insane asylums and orphanages. Where are we? When are we? Reeves seems to be going for a Chinatown/noir kind of a thing, but his references are all mixed up, and the plot feels like it’s moving in fast-forward. Batman and Alfred keep solving the Riddler’s ciphers almost instantly, revealing little. Round and round it goes, while Batman and Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz) pout at one another. Say what you will, they both have magnificent jawlines.

The Batman wants so badly to be hard boiled, to be “a vibe,” but it attempts to squeeze in so much that it feels frantic. Why is there so much plot? Why do we care about this Penguin at all? Reeves can’t seem to decide whether this is meant to be cartoonishly dark or actually dark, contemporary or retro, a stand-alone movie or tie-in. It seems to want to be everything all at once, everything except fun. That’s probably why it’s two hours and 56 minutes long.

It saves its big action set piece for a point well after the movie probably should’ve ended. The feeling that Reeves may have had a vision for a tight, spare Batman movie before he tried to incorporate every passing reference and studio note feels all but confirmed by the time we get to the post-credits scene. This scene is placed alllll the way at the end of the credits, mind you, past the color correction firms and logos for the film stock company and the names of the assistants to the Latvian second unit, and ends up being easily the laziest, most irrelevant two-second epilogue ever tacked on. Coming on the heels of a three-hour Batman movie it felt almost vindictive. I almost respect it. If Matt Reeves was telling me to go fuck myself at least I’d know that someone was having fun.

‘The Batman’ is in theaters now. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.