Jordan Ward’s ‘Smoking Potna’ With Sailorr: ‘Backward’ Album
St. Louis crooner Jordan Ward released one of the best R&B albums of 2023 in his debut Forward, snapping up attention with its single “White Crocs” and becoming one of the most exciting young voices in music today. Now, he’s returned to announce its follow-up, Backward, and share the first single: “Smoking Potna” featuring Florida […]
IDK & DMX Release ‘S.T.F.’ Video Produced By Kaytranada
Cross-generational collaborations where one of the acts involved is deceased are always tricky. It’s hard to know whether the decedent would actually have approved their voice pairing with the contemporary artist employing it. However, there’s little doubt that DMX would have loved contributing to IDK’s new single, “S.T.F.” IDK and DMX are so similar philosophically […]
How Pop Stars Are Taking Over Music Festivals
From Coachella to Lollapalooza and the just concluded Austin City Limits — festivals that used to be a haven for indie and rock acts are now pushing pop stars to the top. Here’s what the names at the top of this year’s lineup say about the shifts of festivals and popular music in general. To […]
‘Sound Check With Jeremy Hect’: Evidence
The latest episode of Sound Check with Jeremy Hecht features an underground West Coast hip-hop veteran: Evidence. Born and raised in Los Angeles’ Venice neighborhood, Evidence was one-third of pivotal backpack rap trio Dilated Peoples (along with Rakaa and DJ Babu), and has had a long and storied solo career, encompassing six studio albums. The […]
Summer Walker Announces ‘Finally Over It’ Release Date
Summer Walker’s Finally Over It is finally (almost) here. The sultry singer revealed the long-awaited release date for the third album in her Over It trilogy with an amusing trailer/short film in which she sits down for a Vogue magazine-style lie detector test. The test dispenses with much preamble, jumping right in with, “Is the […]
Sabrina Carpenter Parodies ‘Sex And The City’ In ‘SNL’ Tease
Not only has Sabrina Carpenter quickly become one of the biggest pop stars in the world, but she has done it while showing that she has one of the most fun personalities in the business, too. That, paired with her past as an actor, makes her the perfect candidate to pull double-duty on Saturday Night […]
New York Fashion Week Strut
Two weeks after dropping her new single, “Baddie Baddie,” Ice Spice has followed up with a stylish music video. Directed by Ice Spice herself along with her frequent collaborators The Evil Twins, George and Frederick Buford, the “Baddie Baddie” visual was shot during September’s New York Fashion Week and sees Ice pair off with some […]
Solange Knowles Is USC’s First Scholar In Residence
While Solange’s big sis Beyoncé racks up the hits, the younger Ms. Knowles has taken a more circuitous path in the music business. It’s led her to some interesting places; she’s directing films, scoring ballets, curating events, and learning new instruments, proving that there is more to musicianship than simply recording music and performing concerts. […]
Wale’s BNYX-Produced ‘Mirroronnabenz’ Shifts His Self-Talk
Wale knows how he can be. Over the year’s the DMV area pioneer has earned himself a reputation for being short-tempered (to put it nicely) and sensitive about his status in hip-hop. After all, very few other artists with his resume get talked about the way he does, and almost no one is meaner to […]
Doechii’s ‘Live From The Swamp’ Tour Opener Wows Fans
From the beginning, Doechii won fans over on the strength of her live show. Whether she was performing on late-night TV, behind NPR’s Tiny Desk, or onstage at Camp Flog Gnaw, Doechii captivated with her staging, breath control, and theatrical delivery. The first night of her Live From The Swamp in Chicago upheld the standard […]