Elusive UK producer Jamie xx has been relatively quiet since the release of his 2015 sophomore record In Colour. The effort scored Jamie a Grammy nomination, and while the musician hasn’t released any solo music since, it looks as though Jamie is gearing up for the beginning of a new era: The producer has shared the revved-up track “Idontknow,” his first solo music in five years.
“Idontknow” has been a staple at Jamie xx’s live shows for the last year. The producer had kept quiet about the song, leaving fans to speculate the dance-ready track’s origin. But Wednesday, Jamie finally debuted the track on streaming services. The wobbly track is available on all streaming services but the producer is planning on pressing the song into a 12-inch vinyl slated for a later release.
The single arrives on the heels of Jamie’s collaborative song and first track of 2020. Just last week, the producer teamed up with Headie One and Fred Again for the thumping number “Smoke.” While the producer hasn’t released any solo material in years, he’s stayed prolific. Ahead “Smoke,” Jamie scored Romain Gavras’ 2018 film The World Is Yours. A year prior, the producer debuted a remix The xx’s I See You track “Hold On.”
Summertime in 2019 was captivated by a wave of Spanish-infused West Coast hip-hop thanks to Watts, California’s own Ambjaay and his platinum-selling hit “Uno.” The catchy song caught the attention of celebrities worldwide and landed on the Billboard Hot 100 chart as well as the publication’s 100 Best Songs of 2019.
With production by Almighty Quise, “Uno” kickstarted a plethora of Latino-influenced slaps such as YG’s “Go Loko” last year and Tyga’s “Ayy Macarena” remake, and though the 20-year-old is proud of his influence and accomplishments, he’s ready to show the world what he’s got with his latest release, It Cost To Live Like This 2.
The project’s only guest feature is Wiz Khalifa on “Blow The Pickle,” who Jaay says was extremely supportive of him from the very beginning as the song began to gain steam on the fun video-sharing app TikTok. As someone who blew up relatively quickly straight out of high school, the buzzing star is simply grateful things happened the way they did.
Uproxx got the opportunity to catch up with Jaay about It Cost To Live Like This 2, his thoughts on TikTok fame, and why everyone should expect more from him than just songs like “Uno.”
On It Cost To Live Like This 2, you have a song called “Blow The Pickle” on there with Wiz Khalifa and I know Wiz was one of the first people that supported you when “Uno” came out. How did that collab come about?
So basically, Wiz already wanted to get on “Uno.” My A&R sent it to him, and he sent it right back. He been messing with me for a long time. It’s not too many rappers that be messing with up-and-coming rappers like that or supporting them. He’s a real humble dude. I was just blessed for him to mess with me while I’m up-and-coming.
How did you guys first get in touch? Was it over Instagram?
He hit me on Instagram, and then he was like, “Aye, let me get your number.” I gave him my number, he FaceTimed me, and was like, “Can I get the ‘Uno’ beat, so I could freestyle it?” And then every show, some fans will just send me a video of him freestyling to the “Uno” beat. It’s crazy.
That’s dope! When did you first realize that “Uno” was a hit? You probably knew it was going to be big, but when did you realize, “Dang, this really hit.”
What people don’t know is, “Uno” been blew up where I was from. But probably, like the middle of the summer when it blew up big. I’m talking about like movie stars, actors, rappers noticing is when it started going crazy. When people first started gravitating to it, I just wanted to work harder. I was like, man, I got one, I got to get more in. That’s how I feel, you can’t just get stuck on one. I was trying to make more. I just feel like it was a catchy, fun song. When I first made it, I kind of spoke it to existence. I was like, “This the one.” The producer, he didn’t even have no faith in me. I’m like, “Bro, this the one.” Because you wouldn’t expect people to do this, wouldn’t expect people to come like this on a record like this.
Do you ever worry about sounding too West Coast, to the point where maybe it won’t resonate with other people?
I’ve got different songs that’s not West Coast, like trap, but I’m different from other West Coast rappers. It kind of be hard to branch off, to be honest — everything sound the same now. Like you might hear drum patterns in a beat, and it still be West Coast. Everybody’s got their own style, though.
Yep. Very true. Now, “Uno” blew up on TikTok. What are your thoughts on TikTok? Did you know what that app was before it blew up on there?
I love that app, man. I feel like without Instagram and apps like that, it would be hard. You know how back in the days they used to like pass off they CDs out they trunks. I swear if we didn’t have internet or these little apps, it’d be hard to blow. It’d be hard to do music. So that really helped me a lot, because people get to show how creative they is and do little videos. Actually, since we’ve been on quarantine, I fell in love with TikTok. I been learning how to use the app.
Out of all places for you to blow up, did you think TikTok would be the app that did it?
Not really. Because I had went away from it for a little while. I wasn’t really on it. But, once the labels showed me, I was like, “Damn, this sh*t crazy.” That one song helps you build up your fanbase for sure, though.
I also saw something where you mentioned in LA Latinos and Black people don’t really get along, so this song can bring us together. I want to know more about your take on that and where you have seen a positive effect.
It ain’t no race song. It’s just bringing both cultures together. What I mean about that is, “Uno” has Latino instruments and I just combine both to bring us together. I swear, if you go to jail — I haven’t been to jail, but there’s this story: If you go to jail, it’s a race card. You got to roll with your color when you go to jail. This just me doing my research. Some Mexicans don’t get along with Black people, some Black people don’t get along with Mexicans. I was just doing that just to have fun. It’s both of our cultures in one.
Are you seeing positive effects from the song?
Yeah, it’d be like 80 percent positive. 20 [percent] that be like, “It’s a race card” because they don’t got nothing else to do. It’s a fun song. It ain’t like racist words. It’s just basic Spanish words in the song.
Yeah. I think YG and Tyga kind of had that same issue with “Go Loko” and “Ayy Macarena.”
And that’s another thing I be wanting to say. People don’t know this and I don’t even like doing this, but I was like one of the first ones to come with that sound in 2019. I made “Uno,” like, on January 3, just before I got signed. “Uno” got me signed. I been made it, we just bumped it up.
It already blew up where I was from and then everybody started doing songs like that. I feel like once you come with your own sound, and then everybody was hearing it, and [some Latino people] just felt like, okay, you wearing it out. “Y’all wearing our culture out.”
I was looking at your Twitter, and I saw you got your first plaque. Congrats! How does it feel?
It feel good! Where I come from, not too many people getting plaques and it just went platinum, too. Where I come from, it’s the projects. For me to even get signed, not too many people doing that. Most people my age give up their goals, don’t really chase their dreams, [and] don’t really want to be nothing. I had to change my life and do something positive with my life.
Growing up in Watts, what other options were you looking at, outside of rap?
If I wasn’t rapping, I’d want to transition into an actor. I wanted to be a basketball player. I was going to be one of those, though. I don’t want to just rap. I want to go into acting, do better things to open doors.
It feels like nowadays rappers can blow up so fast. Three years is a very short amount of time to blow.
Yeah, I feel I blew up at the right time. Before my time, my brother, he was a music producer, and my sister, she used to write poetry. It was always around me. It was just up to me to go through my own problems to figure out what I really wanted to do. When you fresh out of high school, you don’t really know what you want to do.
Especially people our age, most people my age don’t want to go to college. When you graduate high school, life hits you hard and you really don’t know what you fixing to do. I ain’t know what I was fixing to do. I tried to get a job, it wasn’t working for me and I was just rapping at the same time, while I’m trying to get a job. I just came with that one, and God was just on my side. Got lucky. I feel like, if you put your mind to it, everything’s going to work out. If you really try to go hard, everything going to work out.
It Cost To Live Like This 2 is out now on Columbia Records. Get it here.
WhenWhat We Do In The Shadows returns for a second season on April 15, fans might discover some changes amongst the show’s bumbling vampiric trio. The mockumentary comedy series, based off Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s cult hit, has gotten more comfortable in its gothic, Staten Island digs. There’s still plenty of ridiculous hijinks – think virgin vampire hunters, seances, Haley Joel Osment – but there’s also real character growth, emerging threats, and some interesting plot twists.
And Natasia Demetriou is right in the thick of it. The actress, who plays the seductive, superstitious Nadja, returns with a perfected deadpan and some outrageously funny one-liners as she tries to manage the chaos caused by her immortal flatmates and move her relationship forward with husband Laszlo (Matt Berry), despite his more-than-disappointing porn career. Demetriou was nice enough to chat with us about the show’s return, her character’s real-life roots, and being just as dumb as the men.
Most shows spend their first season getting into a rhythm. Have you guys found that groove in season two?
The biggest change I noticed from season one to season two was like, “Oh, I know this character.” You remember how she’d react, and you can push it further because you know the limits.
I imagine wearing those prosthetic teeth all day every day helps get into the right mindset.
Yeah, and the fact that they make us drink blood every morning. That’s kind of crazy. It really gets you into the character.
Jemaine [Clement] and Taika [Waititi] pulled inspiration for the show from their film, but Nadja is a totally original character. Did that make it easier or more difficult to enter this world, knowing she’d be the first female vamp we’d seen?
I felt so lucky to play a female character in a comedy where she’s as stupid and narcissistic as the men, because quite often, the female parts I’ve auditioned gone up for, they’re written kind of strong. They’re there with the guys, and they’re sort of pointing out where the guys are fools or where the guys have made a mistake. It means that, yes, you’re a female character in a comedy, but you’re not getting to do any of the goofy, sort of dumb, fun stuff. With Nadja, it’s amazing because I’m more stupid than the men in the house. And that is like a dream.
Jemaine had a rough idea of what they wanted for the character before I got the part. His wife is Greek, and his mother-in-law is Greek, and I know that they wanted some of that sort of Mediterranean drama as part of the character. We talk a lot about that, about my aunties and my dad, but the writing’s all there.
What’s the big storyline for season two and how does your character play into it?
There is one sort of overarching storyline, but I can’t give too much of that away, and also my character’s too stupid to realize what’s going on. But there are lots of fun things. We may or may not meet our ghosts. We may or may not meet some witches. Me and Laszlo may or may not reveal that we’ve written a lot of the most famous songs of all time, and they’ve just been plagiarized off us over the years.
The show feels different from other comedies on TV right now. How much of that comes from the mostly British cast and the creators? Is there a certain style that you’ve brought with you?
I feel like, at its heart, the true uniqueness of the show comes from Jemaine and Taika. They have such a distinctive voice – and they cast this. Jemaine always says when it came to auditions, all the European people that they cast just do better vampiric accents. He saw Laszlo as coming from England so, of course, there’s no one more British than Matt Berry. And Kayvan has this amazing Iranian family… I think it feeds into the whole fish-out-of-water thing. They are trying to live in this world, but it’s not for them anymore. I think it was very wise of them to cast the way they cast, and not just because I got to be in it.
How much are you able to improvise, especially during scenes like the talking heads segments?
Jemaine and all the directors really encourage us to improvise. I think because we have these characters and this world and these bricks that are so solid, as a performer, you feel really comfortable improvising. You know what the story is. You know what information you have to get across. And then you can kind of improv around that. I’ve thrown a lot of stuff that my dad has actually said, or there’s a couple of things about Nadja’s background story that is literally taken from my dad’s childhood.
Such as?
Well, my dad is from Cyprus, which is a tiny island. There were loads of snakes on the island and he had a serious fear of snakes. So, I let that bleed into her origin story. What other stuff? The way she sings. That’s based on my aunt. Luckily, I don’t think the show goes on in Cyprus, so no one’s going to be getting offended. It’s all done with love, though. I am so proud of my Cypriot heritage. It’s my favorite thing about myself. I’m very, very, very honored to be able to work in a show that embraces the dramatic, crazy wonderfulness of it all.
You got started in sketch comedy. What’s the current sketch comedy scene in Britain and how does it compare to what you’ve seen happening here?
You guys are crushing it. America, when it comes to comedy, is like absolutely smashing it, especially with sketch and character stuff. I feel Britain has had the age of stand-up that’s what Britain’s been focused on for a while. I mean, comedy is the way that British people sort of relax because everyone’s so uptight and apologetic. I got into doing live sketch comedy and stuff because I wanted to be like French and Saunders. My writing partner and I do a sketch comedy show. We are currently writing a show for the BBC. My dream has always been to have my own sketch show, but I guess sketch shows are very expensive to make. There’s a lot of wigs involved, especially in the stuff I write.
That’s so great, because we desperately need more female-led sketch comedy series.
It’s getting better. We’re actually able to notice it and talk about it and go, “Hang on. There hasn’t been much of that,” which is amazing.
‘What We Do in the Shadows’ returns on Wednesday, April 15 at 10:00pm on FX.
An absolutely gigantic trade has occurred in the WNBA. In a move first reported by Howard Megdal of High Post Hoops, the New York Liberty have opted to send team legend Tina Charles to the Washington Mystics in a trade that also includes the Dallas Wings.
The Liberty eventually confirmed the full details of the trade. In exchange for Charles, New York received fourth-year guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough and four picks from the Mystics: first-round selections in each of the next two drafts, along with second and third-round picks in 2021. The Liberty then took that 2021 first and their own 2021 second-round pick, called up the Wings, and acquired veteran guard Tayler Hill along with a pair of picks in the upcoming draft.
It is a stunning haul for the Liberty, which now possess gobs of draft picks as part of a gigantic rebuild. While it is presumed they will use the No. 1 pick to select former Oregon standout Sabrina Ionescu, they now control the first round of the draft based on the sheer number of first-round selections they possess, which could be used to load up on young talent or acquire talent some other way.
Of course, this comes at a steep price, as Charles, a Queens native, is one of the best to ever suit up for the squad. After getting selected No. 1 overall by the Connecticut Sun in the 2010 WNBA Draft, Charles joined her hometown squad in 2014, making five All-Star game appearances in six years and earned a trio of All-WNBA first-team selections. Now, Charles will get the opportunity to compete for a title as a member of the reigning champs, while we’ll get the chance to see what the Liberty do with their treasure trove of picks during Friday’s draft, which will be held virtually.
Phoebe Bridgers just announced her forthcoming sophomore LP Punisher. While the singer’s upcoming solo effort is highly-anticipated by fans, Bridgers is also known for her frequent collaborations. The singer has been apart of her Conor Oberst collaborative project Better Oblivion Community Center and worked with singer/songwriters Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus for Boygenius. As Bridgers prepares herself for a new era of music, the singer reflected on her dream collaborations and said she would love to work will Billie Eilish.
In an interview with Hanuman Welch on Apple Music’s Beats 1, Bridgers detailed her upcoming album and some of her frequent collaborators. Bridgers offered some names of musicians she would like to collaborate with, namely some musicians who intimidate her. And Billie Eilish was at the top of the list.
“I guess just people I’m really scared of, like [I] would be intimidated by, which includes Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Billie Eilish,” she said. Elaborating her admiration of Eilish, Bridgers says she thinks the pop singer is motivated by her own creativity:
“You just can tell that definitely a giant record label is helping it, but she’s the boss. I think it probably wasn’t easy along the way to just be like, ‘Fuck you. This is my idea.’ And it’s so cool that she got proven right. I like that she just did what she wanted and tell that it really, really paid off. No matter what you feel about her music, I think Taylor Swift was kind of a similar thing, where it was like Taylor Swift had this giant infrastructure behind her. But if she wasn’t talented, it wouldn’t be so giant. And Billie is kind of like the coolest possible version of that, where it’s like they monetize her ideas. She just has crazy ideas.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Bridgers explained her album’s title, Punisher. According to Bridgers, a “punisher” is a person you don’t want to encounter at a party:
“I’m constantly afraid I’m doing it to people, and people definitely do it to me. [Its] where you run into someone at a party and they’re very nice. Or, like, your friend starts dating someone. And you end up cornered with your friend’s new boyfriend and they’re talking to you about whether AT&T or Verizon is better or worse. And they’re sweet, but it’s been 45 minutes… It’s not a mean person, but it’s someone who just doesn’t know they’re punishing you.”
Listen to Bridgers’ full interview on Apple Music’s Beats 1here.
Punisher is out 6/19 via Dead Oceans.
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