Uproxx's Best Albums Of 2024 So Far

Listening to Adrianne Lenker’s music can feel like finding an old love letter in a library book: somehow both painfully direct and totally mysterious at the same time, filled with gaps in logic and narrative that only confirm how intimate the connection between writer and reader is. Made with a small group in what one imagines is a warm and secluded room, *Bright Future* captures the same folksy wonder and open-hearted intensity of Big Thief but with a slightly quieter approach, conjuring visions of creeks and twilights, dead dogs (“Real House”) and doomed relationships (“Vampire Empire”) so vivid you can feel the humidity pouring in through the screen door. She’s vulnerable enough to let her voice warble and crack and confident enough to linger there for as long as it takes to get her often devastating emotional point across. “Just when I thought I couldn’t feel more/I feel a little more,” she sings on “Free Treasure.” Believe her.

Ariana Grande is used to being in the spotlight, but over time, she’s gotten savvy at playing it. The pop star’s seventh studio album *eternal sunshine*—a lightly conceptual riff on the head-spinning 2004 film starring Jim Carrey, of whom Grande has said she’s a lifelong fan—feels like a mind game itself, blurring the lines between real-life references and theatrical bits. It arrives in the middle of a whirlwind tabloid-packed stretch—Grande married, divorced, and scored a starring role in Hollywood’s big-screen adaptation of *Wicked*—and she knows fans have questions. What’s true? What’s real? Ari gives a lot of things on this album, but answers aren’t one of them, a cunning reminder of how little transparency celebrities actually owe us. In an interview with Zane Lowe, Grande leans into the project’s thematic murkiness. “true story,” she says, is “an untrue story based on all untrue events,” and when asked about her own experience with the Saturn return, an astrology milestone referenced in the album’s only interlude, she shrugs. “It was chill. Nothing changed. Pretty uneventful.” She says she finds freedom in art because “you can really pull from anywhere,” and she describes the film as another “lovely costume” to wear. Her answers have flickers of defiance that feel like power. Whoever said albums had to be tidy, or true? “It doesn’t have to be an everlasting love story,” she tells Lowe. “Love is complicated. Showcasing both sides of it is what I tried to \[do\].” If there’s one thing these tracks make clear, it’s that she’s still Ari on the mic—she’s still hitting those high highs (“eternal sunshine”); still finding release on the dance floor (“yes, and?”); still sifting gold out of ’90s R&B (“the boy is mine”), a sequel to the leaked 2023 track “fantasize.” Her favorite? “imperfect for you,” a tribute to the friends who make up her inner circle. “We’re so lucky to have loved ones who are accepting and real with us no matter what,” she says. “We live in a time where everything is boiled down, but that song demands room for nuance, humanness, and complexity.”

“In my head, I was looking at this album like a TV show,” Nigerian singer Ayra Starr tells Apple Music about her sophomore album *The Year I Turned 21*. “Every song is an episode.” Structured as a series of life’s key moments, the album features the sonic adventures and lyrical savvy that saw Starr’s debut album, 2021’s *19 & Dangerous*, set Afropop streaming records. Brimming with self-confidence and unvarnished introspection, *The Year I Turned 21* covers a range of topics, from the fear of failure, newfound love, growing fame and fortune, and gender positivity to parental loss, intimacy, and mental wellbeing. Starr blends R&B and Afropop with stylistic borrowings from Latin pop, Jamaican dancehall, Nigerian highlife, gospel, and more. “Dem never know I kala,” she sings on “Commas.” The phrase (a mixture of pidgin and Yoruba, which means being underestimated based on looks) shows a keenness for being accessible, a theme explored throughout the album. Combinations of languages and instrumentals abound, buoyed by disparate samples that include ’70s R&B, a field recording, and taped confessions from family members. Production was provided by notable hitmakers that include LONDON, P2J, P-Prime, and Starr’s brother and frequent songwriting collaborator, Milar. The main attraction, however, remains Starr’s singing voice, which has grown along with her stardom. “This album has made me who I am now,” she explains. “It was proper character development.” Here, she talks through the album, track by track. **“Birds Sing of Money”** “My brother, who is a music video director, paid a guy to just sing a Fuji song about me, which is in the beginning of ‘Birds Sing of Money.’ This was a day after I released my first EP, as a gift. And the guy was just hyping me up. That’s a very Yoruba thing.” **“Goodbye (Warm Up)” (with Asake)** “This is one of my favorite tracks I’ve ever recorded. Ever. Before I sent it to Asake, I wasn’t even sure if he was going to like the song. He was like, ‘OK Ayra, give me some time.’ He sent me his verse in two days. I was like, ‘Oh, this is sounding good.’” **“Commas”** “‘Commas’ is about how God has blessed me and I’m really grateful for where I am in life and where I’m about to go. I’m grateful for just even being present in this moment and being alive. I feel like that’s what has brought me here, my gratitude and the continuous hard work I will keep putting into this job. God is good.” **“Woman Commando” (with Anitta & Coco Jones)** “‘Woman Commando’ is such an Afrobeats/amapiano banger in a way, because of the log drums, and I wanted different perspectives. I’ve been watching Coco Jones since I was 12 on Disney’s *Let It Shine*. I sent her a different song, which she loved, but she was like, ‘Ayra, I want to be on your Afrobeats vibe,’ and I was like, ‘Say less.’ Anitta is such an amazing musician and I really just knew that I wanted to go for that Latin element. Her verse is perfect.” **“Control”** “Is relinquishing control the same as submission? It depends on how the listener, the audience wants to take it. The lyric goes: ‘I’m lit tonight/You know my lips lie.’ I want you to take control. I want you to be the man. Do your thing. It’s not really about submission, it’s more like I’m giving you hints—take control.” **“Lagos Love Story”** “‘Lagos Love Story’ is about being in a very happy state of mind. We have that moment where we are so happy, \[that\] it starts to feel wrong. It starts to feel like, ‘I feel guilty for being this happy.’ You kind of feel relieved when something bad happens, because you’re not used to that amount of happiness. That’s what the song is about: being in a very high state of happiness.” **“Rhythm & Blues”** “When I released ‘Rhythm & Blues’ \[in 2023\], I didn’t know if it was the right time. The headspace I was in was a lot of work. I remember recording this song for the first time and how beautiful it was. Also, there is a lyric that goes, ‘My jigga, my muse,’ which I wrote because you don’t expect girl singers to refer to a male love interest as a muse.” **“21”** “The first demo of ’21’ was a 21st birthday gift from a friend. Writing it, I was kind of stuck because I don’t really know how to write about myself. I’m really good at writing about other people and the TV shows I watch and movies I watch, but never myself. So this album was the first time I actually put myself out there and learned how to write by myself.” **“Last Heartbreak Song” (with GIVĒON)** “GIVĒON’s verse made me cry the first time I heard it; I was so happy. I’ve always wanted to see what we would sound like together, because we both have really low range. GIVĒON came with the most perfect perspective, because anybody that has been in an argument with a man, or any man that’s been arguing with a girl, would know \[that\] ‘Last Heartbreak Song’ is literally the dynamic.” **“Bad Vibes” (with Seyi Vibez)** “Translating Yoruba to English is so annoying sometimes because it doesn’t just hit the same in English. In the hook, the lyric in Yoruba means ‘Don’t poke me in my eye or don‘t hit me in my eye. I don’t break. I’m good.’ It’s an idiom, right? For the guest feature, I wanted a perspective from somebody that would understand what I was trying to do with the song. I felt like that with Seyi Vibez, we sound amazing together.” **“Orun”** “‘Orun’ is a highlife song and a juxtaposition of a puzzle of life. Highlife songs are usually known for being joyful and you want to dance to it. But with ‘Orun,’ it’s kind of different because I’m talking about mental health and depression.” **“Jazzy’s Song”** “I’ve been wanting to sample a Don Jazzy production \[Wande Coal’s 2009 single ‘You Bad (feat. D’banj)’\] for so long and I’m glad I did. The title ‘Jazzy’s Song’ shows my respect for him and how much I admire him as a person, as an artist, and as a musician.” **“1942” (with Milar)** “This song is introspective and so vulnerable. I’ve been working for so long, and for the first time in my life, I took a vacation on my birthday. I remember being in the pool with a bottle of 1942 tequila, and I was like, ‘Wow, this moment makes everything all worth it.’ After all the time we’ve put into this job, all the hard work, everything I’ve done, that moment of relaxing in that villa, overlooking the ocean, made everything worth it.” **“The Kids Are Alright”** “Turning 21 is a big \[moment\] and you start to notice things—like certain behavioral patterns are reflections of certain childhood trauma, or things that you’ve gone through in the past. I noticed that I had not really mourned the death and the loss of my father, and it was something I was holding at the back of my head.” **“Santa” (with Rvssian & Rauw Alejandro)** “I’ve been a big fan of Rvssian for so long, and we’ve been wanting to work \[together\] for so long. I recorded the verse and was made to sing in Spanish, literally. It’s so crazy that, once it drops, it becomes this global song, and I’m so happy.”

Anyone thinking Benny the Butcher signing to Def Jam would inspire him to be more “mainstream” or “pop” is underestimating his intelligence. Steady, talented, 39 years old and relatively unknown until he was in his early thirties, he’s already a voice of reason and maturity for his fans in a world of hype. He doesn’t have to crack the mainstream; signing to Def Jam is proof that all this gritty, soul-sampling, old-school stuff might still have a place in the mainstream after all. Highlights on this Alchemist- and Hit-Boy-produced album include “TMVTL” (threatening), “Pillow Talk & Slander” (celebratory), and a title track where he admittedly does open a little space for something like a “commercial” hook, courtesy of Kyle Banks. He’s safer and more up-the-middle than his Griselda affiliate Westside Gunn (note the passing reference to watching MSNBC), but in that quiet confidence lie the fruits of his fabled grind. And while he might be telling the truth when he says he’s thinking of leaving Buffalo for somewhere warm (“BRON”), you know what they say—you can take the boy out of Buffalo, but…

“Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they?” Linda Martell cackles at the beginning of “SPAGHETTII.” Perhaps the name Linda Martell isn’t a household one, which only proves her point. She was the first Black woman to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, but her attempt to move from soul and R&B into the realm of country in the 1960s was met with racist resistance—everything from heckling to outright blackballing. Beyoncé knows the feeling, as she explained in an uncharacteristically vulnerable Instagram post revealing that her eighth studio album was inspired by a deep dive into the history of Black country music following an experience where she felt similarly unwelcome. *COWBOY CARTER* is a sprawling 80-minute tribute not only to those pioneering artists and their outlaw spirit, but to the very futility of reducing music to a single identifying word. Another key quote from that post: “This ain’t a country album. This is a Beyoncé album.” It’s more than a catchy slogan; anyone looking for mere honky-tonk cosplay is missing a much richer and more complex point. Listening in full to Act II of the presumed trilogy Bey began with 2022’s *RENAISSANCE*, it’s clear that the perennial overachiever hasn’t merely “gone country,” she’s interrogating what the word even means—and who merits the designation. On “AMERIICAN REQUIEM,” in a voice deep and earthy as Texas red dirt, the Houston native sings, “Used to say I spoke too country/And then the rejection came, said I wasn’t country enough.” She nods again, as she’s done before on songs like “Formation,” to her family ties to Alabama moonshiners and Louisiana Creoles. “If that ain’t country,” she wonders, “tell me what is.” With subtlety and swagger, she contextualizes country as an offshoot of the Black American musical canon, a storytelling mode springing from and evolving alongside gospel and blues. Over the wistful pedal steel and gospel organ of “16 CARRIAGES,” she tells you what it’s like to be a teenage workhorse who grows into an adult perfectionist obsessed with ideas of legacy, with a bit of family trauma buried among the riffs. On “YA YA,” Beyoncé expands the scope to rock ’n’ roll at its most red-blooded and fundamental, playing the parts of both Ike and Tina as she interpolates The Beach Boys and slips in a slick Playboi Carti reference, yowling: “My family lived and died in America/Good ol’ USA/Whole lotta red in that white and blue/History can’t be erased.” A Patsy Cline standard goes Jersey club mode on “SWEET ★ HONEY ★ BUCKIIN’,” with a verse from the similarly genre-flouting Shaboozey and a quick note regarding *RENAISSANCE*‘s Grammy fortunes: “AOTY I ain’t win/I ain’t stuntin’ ’bout them/Take that shit on the chin/Come back and fuck up the pen.” Who but Beyoncé could make a crash course in American music history feel like the party of the year? There’s the one-two punch of sorely needed summer slow-dance numbers: the Miley Cyrus duet “II MOST WANTED,” with its whispers of Fleetwood Mac, followed by “LEVII’S JEANS” with Post Malone, the “in those jeans” anthem filling the radio’s Ginuwine-shaped hole. *RENAISSANCE*’s euphorically nasty house bounce returns, albeit with more banjo, on “RIIVERDANCE,” where “II HANDS II HEAVEN” floats on clouds of ’90s electronica for an ode to alternately riding wild horses and 24-inch spinners on candy paint. (Houston, Texas, baby!) There are do-si-do ditties, murder ballads, daddy issues, whiskey kisses, hungover happy hours, cornbread and grits, Beatles covers, smoke breaks, and, on “DAUGHTER,” what may or may not be a wink in the direction of the artist who won AOTY instead. There’s also a Dolly-approved Beyoncification of “Jolene,” to whom the protagonist is neither saying please nor begging on the matter of taking her man. (“Your peace depends on how you move, Jolene,” Bey purrs, ice in her veins.) Is this a genre-bucking hoedown? A chess move? A reckoning? A requiem? If anyone can pull it off, it’s *COWBOY CARTER*, as country as it gets.

Billie Eilish has always delighted in subverting expectations, but *HIT ME HARD AND SOFT* still, somehow, lands like a meteor. “This is the most ‘me’ thing I’ve ever made,” she tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “And purely me—not a character.” An especially wide-ranging and transportive project, even for her, it’s brimming with the guts and theatricality of an artist who has the world at her feet—and knows it. In a tight 45 minutes, Eilish does as she promises and hits listeners with a mix of scorching send-ups, trance excursions, and a stomping tribute to queer pleasure, alongside more soft-edged cuts like teary breakup ballads and jaunts into lounge-y jazz. But the project never feels zigzaggy thanks to, well, the Billie Eilish of it all: her glassy vocals, her knowing lyrics, her unique ability to make softness sound so huge. *HIT ME* is Eilish’s third album and, like the two previous ones, was recorded with her brother and longtime creative partner FINNEAS. In conceptualizing it, the award-winning songwriting duo were intent on creating the sort of album that makes listeners feel like they’ve been dropped into an alternate universe. As it happens, this universe has several of the same hallmarks as the one she famously drew up on her history-making debut, 2019’s *WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?*. In many ways, this project feels more like that album’s sequel than 2021’s jazzy *Happier Than Ever*, which Eilish has said was recorded during a confusing, depressive pandemic haze. In the three years since, she has tried to return to herself—to go outside, hang out with friends, and talk more openly about sex and identity, all things that make her feel authentic and, for lack of a better word, normal. “As much as *Happier Than Ever* was coming from this place of, like, \'We\'re so good. This sounds so good,\' it was also not knowing at all who I was,’” she tells Apple Music. FINNEAS agrees, calling it their “identity crisis album.” But *HIT ME HARD AND SOFT* is, she says, the reverse. “The whole time we were making it, we were like, \'I don\'t know if I\'m making anything good, this might be terrible…’ But now I\'m like, \'Yeah, but I\'m comfortable in who I am now.\' I feel like I know who I am now.” As a songwriter, Eilish is still in touch with her vulnerabilities, but at 22, with a garage full of Grammys and Oscars, they aren’t as heavy. These days it’s heartache, not her own insecurities, that keeps her up at night, and the songs are juicier for it. “LUNCH,” a racy, bass-heavy banger that can’t help but hog the spotlight, finds Eilish crushing so hard on a woman that she compares the hook-up to a meal. “I’ve said it all before, but I’ll say it again/I’m interested in more than just being your friend,” she sings. The lyrics are so much more than lewd flirtations. They’re also a way of stepping back into the spotlight—older, wiser, more fully herself. Read below as Eilish and FINNEAS share the inside story behind a few standout songs. **“LUNCH”** BILLIE: “One of the verses was written after a conversation I had with a friend and they were telling me about this complete animal magnetism they were feeling. And I was like, ‘Ooh, I\'m going to pretend to be them for a second and just write...and I’m gonna throw some jokes in there.’ We took ourselves a little too seriously on *Happier Than Ever*. When you start to embrace cringe, you\'re so much happier. You have so much more fun.” **“BIRDS OF A FEATHER”** BILLIE: “This song has that ending where I just keep going—it’s the highest I\'ve ever belted in my life. I was alone in the dark, thinking, ‘You know what? I\'m going to try something.’ And I literally just kept going higher and higher. This is a girl who could not belt until I was literally 18. I couldn\'t physically do it. So I\'m so proud of that. I remember coming home and being like, ‘Mom! Listen!’” **“WILDFLOWER”** BILLIE: “To me, \[the message here is\] I\'m not asking for reassurance. I am 100% confident that you love me. That\'s not the problem. The problem is this thing that I can\'t shake. It’s a girl code song. It\'s about breaking girl code, which is one of the most challenging places. And it isn’t about cheating. It isn’t about anything even bad. It was just something I couldn’t get out of my head. And in some ways, this song helped me understand what I was feeling, like, ‘Oh, maybe this is actually affecting me more than I thought.’ I love this song for so many reasons. It\'s so tortured and overthinky.” **“THE GREATEST”** BILLIE: “To us, this is the heart of the album. It completes the whole thing. Making it was sort of a turning point. Everything went pretty well after that. It kind of woke us back up.” FINNEAS: “When you realize you\'re willing to go somewhere that someone else isn\'t, it\'s so devastating. And everybody has been in some dynamic in their life or their relationship like that. When you realize that you\'d sacrifice and wear yourself out and compromise all these things, but the person you\'re in love with won’t make those sacrifices, or isn’t in that area? To me, that\'s what that song is about. It\'s like, you don\'t even want to know how lonely this is.” **“L’AMOUR DE MA VIE”** FINNEAS: “The album is all about Billie. It\'s not a narrative album about a fictional character. But we have always loved songs within songs within songs. Here, you\'ve just listened to Billie sound so heartbroken in ‘THE GREATEST,’ and then she sings this song that\'s like the antibody to that. It’s like, ‘You know what? Fuck you anyway.’ And then she goes to the club.” **“BLUE”** “The first quarter of ‘BLUE’ is a song Finneas and I made when I was 14 called ‘True Blue.’ We played it at little clubs before I had anything out, and never \[released it\] because we aged out of it. Years went by. Then, for a time, the second album was going to include one additional song called ‘Born Blue.’ It was totally different, and it didn’t make the cut. We never thought about it again. Then, in 2022, I was doing my laundry and found out ‘True Blue’ had been leaked. At first I was like ‘Oh god, they fucking stole my shit again,’ but then I couldn\'t stop listening. I went on YouTube and typed ‘Billie Eilish True Blue’ to find all the rips of it, because I didn\'t even have the original. Then it hit us, like, ‘Ooh, you know what\'d be cool? What if we took both of these old songs, resurrected them, and made them into one?’ The string motif is the melody from the bridge of ‘THE GREATEST,’ which is also in ‘SKINNY,’ which starts the album. So it also ends the album.”

Bryson Tiller exploded onto the scene in 2015 with the release of his viral, atmospheric track “Don’t” from his debut album, *T R A P S O U L*. Since then, the Louisville crooner has established himself as an R&B hitmaker and go-to collaborator with his 2017 sophomore LP True to Self and 2020’s *A N N I V E R S A R Y*, as well as linking up on tracks with Rihanna, DJ Khaled, Kiana Ledé, and many more. Although Tiller tends to take a bit of a hiatus between projects, he’s ready to reintroduce himself and show the world what he’s capable of. Tiller has always been known to toe the blurry line between singing and rapping. Here, the Grammy-nominated star blends elements of R&B, dancehall, pop, drill, hip-hop, and more throughout the album’s 19 tracks. Executive produced by Tiller and Charlie Heat, *Bryson Tiller* invites listeners into a world where genre boundaries are not only crossed but reimagined in vignettes of his love life—whether he’s saying goodbye to an ungrateful lover (“Ciao!”), dealing with the heartache from a failed relationship (“Random Access Memory \[RAM\]),” “Peace Interlude”), or enjoying the bliss of a newfound relationship (“Find My Way,” “No Thank You,” “Prize”).

It’s not easy being ahead of your time: You have to wait years for the world to catch up. Such was the case when an 18-year-old Chief Keef followed up his anthemic major-label debut (2012’s *Finally Rich*) with a pair of self-released 2013 mixtapes (August’s *Bang, Pt. 2* and October’s *Almighty So*) that sounded obscure in comparison, prompting many a claim that he’d fallen off as quickly as he’d gotten on. These days, you can hear echoes of both projects everywhere, in particular *Almighty So*, the better of the two. You might argue that the slurry, intuitive style which has dominated the past decade of rap began here. Eleven long years later, the project’s sequel arrives after a half decade of teasing. (Keef previewed *Almighty So 2*’s initial cover art way back in 2019.) Hip-hop’s reinvented itself a dozen times over in that time span, perhaps the only constant being Keef’s enduring influence. On *Almighty So 2*, the 28-year-old veteran sounds as if he’s well aware of just how tall his legacy looms. “I done been through so much smoke to where I couldn’t even see myself,” he raps in his oft-copied swing on “Treat Myself” before busting out a classic Sosa-ism: “Diamonds shining off my charm, I think I Christmas tree’d myself!” He spits fire and brimstone over sinister church choirs on “Jesus,” puffs out his chest on the soulful “Runner,” and offers up the most demented Scarface impression since Future circa 2011 on “Tony Montana Flow.” And on “Believe,” the former teenage phenom is now a man who’s done some soul-searching in his time off from shaping the sound of modern rap.

Gen Z pop star and low-key fashion icon Conan Gray summons the glam-pop gods on his third studio album, *Found Heaven*, which builds on the synth-pop odysseys of his 2022 breakthrough *Superache*. The album finds Gray singing of love lost and heartbreak, shining a light on the lonely and desperate, those looking for a hand or simply a path forward. On the disco-tinged “Lonely Dancers,” he implores those looking for a temporary home to follow him as he sings, “We’re lonely dancers, join me for the night/We’re lonely dancers, baby/Dance with me so we don’t cry.” There’s a beauty in owning your vulnerability, and Gray makes that a philosophy of the album. “Miss You” is an icy number with ’80s New Wave chic during the verses—before reaching for the dance floors during the euphoric choruses. “Forever With Me” is built for the credit sequence of a John Hughes film, mixing Queen-esque harmonies with ecstatic dedications to the underdog. This theme is most apparent on the triumphant album closer “Winner,” a piano ballad in the vein of pop classics from Elton John and Warren Zevon. He sings, “The only thing you’ve proven is that there’s no one who ever has done better/At makin’ me feel worse/Now you really are the winner.” Even in the jaws of heartbreak, there’s a certain grace in owning the pain.

DIIV has always been a musical shape-shifter—subtly mutating into new forms that are deeply felt by those who pay close attention to its sonic textures. The band’s debut album, 2012’s *Oshin*, was double-dipped in the chiming guitars of classic indie pop and post-punk’s intense persistence; *Is the Is Are*, from 2016, stretched lush dream-pop weavings across its wide canvas, while 2019’s *Deceiver* dove headlong into shoegaze’s bottomless bliss. For its first album in five years, the quartet led by Zachary Cole Smith takes its catalog into several thrilling new turns: At various points, *Frog in Boiling Water* conjures the sweeping drama of goth à la *Seventeen Seconds*-era The Cure, slowcore’s crushing and hypnotic beauty, and the metallic textures of vintage grunge. DIIV has never sounded so devastating, so ominous, and so utterly pristine as it does on *Frog in Boiling Water*—a triumph in fidelity that’s owed as much to veteran indie-rock producer Chris Coady (Beach House, Future Islands) as it is to the band’s locked-in interplay. Smith and Andrew Bailey’s guitars drip like melted candles over the vast expanse of “Soul-net,” while “Brown Paper Bag” stomps and splashes with every cymbal crash, courtesy of drummer Ben Newman. This might be the heaviest music DIIV has ever put to tape, and its doomy sound perfectly matches the album’s foreboding themes. Borrowing its title from a central metaphor in Daniel Quinn’s 1996 novel *The Story of B*, *Frog in Boiling Water* takes aim at what the band refers to as “the slow, sick, and overwhelmingly banal collapse of society under end-stage capitalism,” and a close read of Smith’s lyrics indeed reveals a sense of wide-scale distrust, as well as general societal malaise. But even at its most despairing, DIIV never forgets that retaining a sense of humanity is key to surviving what lies ahead: “The worst of times/Leave them behind,” Smith implores over the soaring riffs of “Reflected.” “But keep that lump in your throat.”

When it comes to manifesting, Dua Lipa is, well, radically optimistic about its power. And with good reason. “I know this is going to sound mad, but when I was writing my first album, I was having thoughts about my third album,” she tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “I thought by the third album, I would maybe be deserving of working with Tame Impala. *Currents* \[Tame Impala’s career-defining 2015 album\] was the record that completely shook me.” With *Radical Optimism*—the follow-up to 2020’s impeccable, superstar-confirming *Future Nostalgia*, and the next note after her 2023 *Barbie* smash “Dance the Night”—Lipa got her wish. The 11 tracks here were made with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, as well as Tobias Jesso Jr. (the singer-songwriter Adele has labeled her “secret weapon”), OG PC Music artist Danny L Harle (PinkPantheress, Caroline Polachek), and Lipa’s long-term collaborator Caroline Ailin, co-writer of “New Rules.” It’s not the *most* obvious team for a chart-dominating name like Lipa to recruit, but maybe there was radical optimism in that, too. Plus, the proof came in the first song they wrote together: A moodier sister to *Future Nostalgia* standout “Hallucinate,” “Illusion” is an indisputable banger that feels tailor-made for Lipa’s 2024 Glastonbury headline set (something else she manifested for her third album). “It was like, ‘OK, how are we all going to connect together in the room? How is it all going to work?’” says Lipa. “\[‘Illusion’\] really kicked us off. When we wrote that song, it just gave us confidence as a group.” Like *Future Nostalgia*, *Radical Optimism* pulls from the past, so you can expect shimmering synths, groove-laden basslines, nods to psychedelia, and plenty of ’80s production (Lipa has also cited the adventurousness of both Britpop and Massive Attack among the album’s spiritual influences). But the singer-songwriter wanted to “experiment and do something different” as well, and in place of *Future Nostalgia*’s polished nu-disco, *Radical Optimism* often embraces an organic, golden-pop feeling with bright acoustic guitars, pianos, roomy drums, handclaps, and the occasional panpipe, plus some skyscraping vocals that should stop anyone describing Lipa’s vocal style as “nonchalant” again (see: “Falling Forever”). All of which is set against Lipa’s most personal writing to date, fueled by reflections on heartbreak, singledom, the arresting experience of meeting someone you might just give your heart to, and realizing the person you once loved has moved on. “With this album, I feel like I’ve managed to put so much more honesty out there and be really open in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to,” she says. “It was a beautiful experience to not be afraid.” That was helped, again, by the team around her. “You come into the room, you’re hanging out with your friends, and you’re just having a tell-all,” she says. “There was absolutely no holds barred. They knew everything that was happening. There was no judgment. The fact that everyone felt free to just be themselves is what, I think, created such a beautiful energy in the room.” The singer-songwriter *gets* heartbreak pop; after all, she’s made a whole career out of crafting sharp, post-breakup empowerment anthems (and you’ll hear her trademark up-front lyricism here, such as on “Training Season,” in which she declares, “Are you somebody who can go there?/’Cause I don’t wanna have to show ya”). But here, Lipa also favors acceptance and a heartening sense of hope. Perhaps the album’s most powerful moment comes at its end, when Lipa realizes her ex has moved on and experiences an unfamiliar feeling: just happiness that they’re happy. “It feels like a full 180,” she says of closing track “Happy for You,” a song she admits she couldn’t have written until this point in her career. “Maturing, seeing almost my ghost on the other side and being like, ‘Wow, you’ve grown so much from an experience to be able to see things from that perspective. You have to be in the act of forgiveness and growing and learning and being OK with the past in order to move on. For me, ‘Happy for You’ is a beautiful, happy song because it’s so reflective of my journey.” You might say the same about “Maria,” in which Lipa salutes a new partner’s ex for making them who they are today. “I’m better, too, from the ones that I’ve lost/Now he is everything I’d ever want,” she sings. “I wanna thank you for all that you’ve done.” Working through these stories has been “a form of therapy” for Lipa, but she always kept two things in mind: what her songs mean to other people and how they might land at Glastonbury, which the singer-songwriter calls “the pinnacle.” “I think about emotions and feelings and thoughts. How does this make me feel? How will this make someone else feel when they hear it? What is the energy and the emotion and the thing that I’m trying to convey at this point in my life?” For Lipa, the answer seems to be in this album’s title. “What \[this album\] was really about was the theme, which was ‘radical optimism,’” she says. “It’s this idea of rolling with the punches, of not letting anything get you down for too long. I’ve always seen the positive side of things, of being able to grow and move forward and change your perspective regardless of what’s happening in your life—whether it’s heartbreak, whether it’s a friendship, whether it’s a relationship, whether it’s just growing and seeing things differently. I think it’s a big part of maturing.” When *Future Nostalgia* came out in 2020, just as the global pandemic set in, the album met the moment in a way Lipa could never have foreseen. It became a vehicle for escapism—another kind of radical optimism in a locked-down world. It seems that, for Lipa, *Radical Optimism* was about meeting *her* moment—the point she began working with the collaborators she’d always dreamed of, on songs made to perform on the most important stage she can think of. And now, she can draw a line under everything she needed this album to help heal. “Now, I’m done. This chapter is done,” she says. “I did so much growing. I feel like that is my exorcism.”

On previous album covers for Lorely Rodriguez’s alt-pop project Empress Of, the musician assumed a straightforward pose, casually stunting if not smiling. For the cover of her fourth album, which shares a cheeky title with the awards season campaign slogan, the Honduran American singer-producer throws her hair back as she straddles a shooting star, Los Angeles sprawled out behind her. She’s described it as something of a Hollywood album in all its sordid glam; the aching title track reflects on the end of a relationship with a showbiz scenester (“You wrote the script; your words, not mine”). That sheen of glitzy fantasy shimmers gently over Rodriguez’s club-ready explorations on love’s fleeting nature, running the gamut between heartbreak and hedonism and switching seamlessly between Spanish and English. She longs for “*un hombre femenine, un latine, que baile pa\' mi y solo pa\' mi*” on thumping house jam “Femenine,” wonders about the owner of an unfamiliar pair of earrings on infidelity banger “Lorelei,” and finds redemption in a wild night out on “Cura.” Rodriguez’s lyricism is at times abstract and poetic (“The rumors there, the mirror shows, the cards don’t lie, the boys all know—what type of girl am I?”) and at others sharply seductive (“*Yo soy fácil, fácil de comer, fácil de amar*”). The small handful of guests are like-minded in their boundary-pushing, occasionally messy avant-pop: Rina Sawayama on the love-drunk “Kiss Me” and fellow Angelenos MUNA on the searching “What’s Love.”

Faye Webster’s fifth album marks the point of full immersion when it comes to the Atlanta songwriting prodigy’s sly, shifting aesthetic. The tones are richer and deeper; the arrangements expand and breathe like massive lungs; her voice layers over itself and ripples, decadent and deeply felt. Webster’s genre-blending approach may have been slightly overstated in the past—a result of her early association with Atlanta’s rascally, defunct hip-hop crew Awful Records—but her sonic playfulness has never been more fully realized than it is on on *Underdressed at the Symphony*. Slinky, flute-dotted R&B is situated up against sumptuous country pop and grungy flips on ’50s sock-hop rock music; longtime friend and rap chameleon Lil Yachty pops up on “Lego Ring” as the pair switch off from a Weezer-esque chug to spacey, astral psych-rock. Lyrically, *Underdressed at the Symphony*—which was written and recorded coming off of a breakup—carries Webster’s now-trademarked mixture of emotional intimacy and straightforward humor. She finds potency in simple sentiments (“Thinking About You,” “He Loves Me Yeah!”), and on the sparse hyperpop “Feeling Good Today,” she details the small pleasures that come with moving through one’s daily existence. “I used to be self-conscious/Well, really, I still am/I’m just better at figuring out why,” Webster ruminates over the lush guitars of “Wanna Quit All the Time,” one of several songs that feature Wilco guitarist Nels Cline. This is music that’s as mesmerizing as it is disarmingly personal, and *Underdressed at the Symphony* represents an artist who, similar to cosmic kin Cass McCombs, seems increasingly intent on proving she really can do anything.

Card-carrying members of the #FutureHive remember where they were on the two consecutive weekends of February 2017 when rap’s reigning king of gorgeously toxic masculinity dropped a pair of albums that nailed the yin and yang of the whole Future thing. The first one, simply titled *FUTURE*, exemplified his singular breed of haunted club crushers, like “Mask Off,” a Metro Boomin joint that became his highest-charting single at the time. Hot on its heels was *HNDRXX*, named for his softer, trippier side, a buoyant return to the romance of his *Pluto*-era hits. Both albums debuted at No. 1 and felt like a return to form for a rapper who’s had more thrilling returns to form than just about any other rap star of the past 15 years. A similar feeling floats on the breeze with the release of *WE STILL DON’T TRUST YOU*, Future’s second collaborative album with Metro Boomin in less than a month. From the spacey and vaguely French disco pulse of the Weeknd-featuring title track, you get the sense that *WE STILL DON’T TRUST YOU* is the *HNDRXX* to *WE DON’T TRUST YOU*’s *FUTURE*—a balmy sunrise after a dark night of the soul. That feeling is confirmed by the shimmering bacchanalia of “Drink N Dance” and the Brownstone-sampling “Luv Bad Bitches,” an instant addition to the canon of Future’s best love songs (“I like good girls, but I love, love, love bad bitches!”). Metro’s productions have rarely sounded prettier, and Future Hendrix fires on all cylinders, reminding you that for all his red-eyed “fuck love” bangers, at his core he’s a romantic. Kendrick Lamar’s surprise verse on *WE DON’T TRUST YOU* reopened the “Big Three” debate floor; with *WE STILL DON’T TRUST YOU*, it’s time to start seriously considering the idea of the “Big Four.”

It’s understandable if Gunna feels a bit isolated these days. For some two years now, the Georgia-bred rapper has been on the defensive—first, when he was indicted in a sweeping YSL Records RICO case and, subsequently, in the time since his release by the feds. “I’m still fighting,” he tells Apple Music. “I still got friends incarcerated, and I’m still growing, too and getting massive.” Indeed, amid the sly whispers and outright accusations levied against him in hip-hop’s court of public opinion, he nonetheless managed to maintain both his commercial viability and star status with 2023’s *a Gift & a Curse*. That earned him one of the biggest singles of his career in “fukumean,” which, like the rest of the album, eschewed features and put the spotlight squarely upon himself. “It’s a bittersweet moment for me,” he admits. Nearly one year later, he returns with *One of Wun*, another defiant and largely solo testament to his endurance in the face of genuine adversity. Opener “collage” seems to take stock of his current situation, dismissing those who wish he’d retire or otherwise quit the rap game. From there, Gunna faces down opposition with impeccable drip while reveling in the lifestyle he’s become accustomed to, conflating matters on “whatsapp (wassam)” and the title track. From his perspective, professional jealousy and rumor-mongering are no match for his swag. “I’m wearing clothes differently now,” he says of his sartorial aesthetic, which comes up not infrequently throughout the project. “It’s not just about the name. It’s more like really where it come from or the cut of it.” Unlike on *a Gift & a Curse*, a few guests do stop by to show support. Gunna and Offset go way back to the *Drip Season 2* days, making their reunion on “prada dem” all the more momentous. Another repeat collaborator, Roddy Ricch comes through for “let it breathe,” a sleek and moody rebuttal to the haters.

Where the ’60s-ish folk singer Jessica Pratt’s first few albums had the insular feel of music transmitted from deep within someone’s psyche, *Here in the Pitch* is open and ready—cautiously, gently—to be heard. The sounds aren’t any bigger, nor are they jockeying any harder for your attention. (There is no jockeying here, this is a jockey-free space.) But they do take up a little more room, or at least seem more comfortable in their quiet grandeur—whether it’s the lonesome western-movie percussion of “Life Is” or the way the featherlight *sha-la-la*s of “Better Hate” drift like a dazzled girl out for a walk among the bright city lights. This isn’t private-press psychedelia anymore, it’s *Pet Sounds* by The Beach Boys and the rainy-day ballads of Burt Bacharach—music whose restraint and sophistication concealed a sense of yearning rock ’n’ roll couldn’t quite express (“World on a String”). And should you worry that her head is in the clouds, she levels nine blows in a tidy, professional 27 minutes. They don’t make them like they used to—except that she does.

It was instant bromance when Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé met at a house party in early-2000s Paris: two young French graphic designers who loved good old American rock ’n’ roll. What they lacked in technical expertise, they made up for in taste—and not exactly the “good taste” of the French artists du jour. “When we started, French house music was really about precision, and we arrived and had no idea what we were doing,” de Rosnay tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. To the world of groovy French filter house, the duo known as Justice brought AC/DC energy, punishing distortion, and a giant neon cross that towered over Marshall speaker stacks at their famously wild live shows. Three studio albums, three live albums, and two Grammys later, the Justice boys have traded their skintight leather jackets for sharply tailored suits, but though the songs on their fourth album, *Hyperdrama*, are generally less punishing than early eardrum-destroyers like “Waters of Nazareth” or “Stress,” the duo have yet to lose their edge. Eight years after their last studio release, 2016’s unprecedentedly tender *Woman*, Augé and de Rosnay return to the tensions that animated their 2007 debut. “\[Contrast\] has been the motor of what we do since the beginning, because there is some kind of radicality and violence that we love in electronic music, and we are also blue-eyed soul and yacht rock fans.” On *Hyperdrama*, saccharine disco and blistering electronics don’t just coexist—they duke it out, often within the same track, as on “One Night/All Night,” whose stomping beat tugs against plaintive vocals from Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker. “Generator” nods to the brutalism of their early hits, the sax-forward “Moonlight Rendez-vous” evokes the camp of George Michael’s “Careless Whisper,” and “Dear Alan” (named for French electronic legend Alan Braxe) is the kind of blissful filter house they once stood out from like two leather-clad sore thumbs. The duo’s songwriting has aged like fine French wine, but as always, they lead with their gut. “Really often we find that decisions in production and engineering are on the side of style and sensation more than, ‘Does it sound perfect by the standards of hi-fi?’” Augé explains. “If the good thing is that thing that was ripped 10 times and is so downgraded that it has this sort of bitcrush and glow to it, then we should go for that.”

Whether singing in Spanish or in English, Kali Uchis continually proves herself to be a versatile performer. Following 2020’s *Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios)* and its hit single “telepatía,” the Colombian American singer eventually boasted that she had two more albums, one in each language, more or less at the ready, the first being 2023’s soulful *Red Moon in Venus* and the next being *ORQUÍDEAS*. With lyrics primarily (though not exclusively) in Spanish, she delivers an exquisite pop-wise R&B set here, one replete with clubby highs and balladic depth. The dance floor is well served with cuts like “Me Pongo Loca” and “Pensamientos Intrusivos,” her ethereal vocals elevating them further. The collaborations reflect her journey as well as her status, as she links with superstar KAROL G on the polished perreo throwback “Labios Mordidos” and música mexicana sensation Peso Pluma for the romantic duet “Igual Que Un Ángel.” On “Muñekita,” she bridges her two worlds with the aid of Dominican dynamo El Alfa and City Girls rapper JT, who combine to produce an irresistible dembow moment.

The grace of Khruangbin’s dusty, evocative groove music is that it feels both totally effortless and impeccably put together. Arriving after the group spent a few years exploring collaboration (including 2022’s *Ali* with the Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré and the R&B-centric *Texas Sun* and *Texas Moon* EPs with singer Leon Bridges), *A La Sala* goes back to the bass/guitar/drum-and-occasional-distant-vocals setup they managed to get so much mileage out of in the first place. The collection conjures the psychedelia of spaghetti western soundtracks (“Ada Jean”), the pop of West African funk (“Pon Pón”), and the whispered intimacy of indie folk (“May Ninth“) in strokes so minimal it almost breezes by. Of course, breezing is what this band does by design, and in their range, they give you an album as varied as a mixtape and as gently communicative as a great lamp—you know, the kind of thing that can change the whole mood just by turning it on.

For their third album, Kentucky hardcore troupe Knocked Loose chose a title that resonated deeply with vocalist Bryan Garris. During an airplane takeoff that triggered Garris’ fear of flying, the woman seated next to him offered the comforting words, “You won’t go before you’re supposed to.” “The line struck him so strongly that it immediately occurred to him that it should be the title,” Knocked Loose guitarist Isaac Hale tells Apple Music. “It also became a lyric in the last song, ‘Sit & Mourn.’ Like the rest of our records, this is a collection of stuff from Bryan’s personal struggles dealing with anger and loss and depression and sadness. It’s a reminder to him—and all of us—that we’re still here. We made it through all the hardships that came with the past four years of writing this.” Musically speaking, Knocked Loose entered the writing sessions for *You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To* with a very different mindset than the one that drove their 2019 breakthrough *A Different Shade of Blue* and revered 2021 concept EP *A Tear in the Fabric of Life*. “There was just way more pressure, and we had way more experience,” Hale says. “Some people view the third album as a make-or-break record. We had pressure from the fans and the outside world, but more so pressure from ourselves. We thought, ‘How can we possibly outdo what we’ve done before?’ It was tough, but I think we were able to come up with a record where every song accomplishes something unique.” Below, he discusses each track. **“Thirst”** “This was written in the first session that we ever had for this record. It was written before *A Tear in the Fabric of Life* even came out. It came from a jam session we were having where we wanted to create a really difficult song on drums to challenge our drummer Pacsun. We wanted something super short, super intense, and we just made it as complex as we could. And to start the record, it’s something we’ve never done before—a super in-your-face jump scare.” **“Piece by Piece”** “This was our attempt at doing kind of a Hatebreed-esque banger. It has a hook to it, but the hook is one of the mosh parts in the song, akin to \[Hatebreed’s\] ‘Perseverance.’ One of the things we wanted to accomplish on this record was to create stuff that was hooky and catchy, but at the same time crazy heavy. In many ways, I think that it’s the most hardcore song on the record, and that’s what we love about it. It’s our version of a catchy hardcore track that can really connect with people.” **“Suffocate” (feat. Poppy)** “We wrote this song after we thought we had a finished record. Before we went to record, Poppy slid into Bryan’s DMs asking if we would be interested in collaborating on some music. Me and Bryan are huge Poppy fans, so of course we said yes automatically. That same day, Bryan called me like, ‘Hey, man—I’m coming over. We need to write another song.’ We wrote the track the next day, and it was one of the smoothest writing experiences on the record because we wrote it knowing Poppy was going to be a part of it. And because of that, we were able to do some sassy parts that maybe we wouldn’t put on a normal Knocked Loose song but that really work with her voice. I think it’s one of the most special songs we’ve ever written.” **“Don’t Reach for Me”** “This was our attempt at writing a song with a more rock- or pop-oriented structure. It’s different from stuff that we\'ve done before because it has a slightly melodic chorus with a hook. It has a soft bridge with a jam part and some cleaner guitar. And a lot of it is midtempo, besides the very beginning. It only gets fast very briefly. That’s very new for us. There’s like seven mosh parts, so we needed to balance those. It took a long time to figure out, but I think the final product really succeeds in that juxtaposition.” **“Moss Covers All”** “This was written in the second writing session that we did for this record, up in Michigan. We woke up one morning, started jamming, and we were just not coming up with a lot of stuff we liked. We were pretty much just throwing paint at the wall and getting aggravated. When we took a break, I had an idea and basically wrote this entire song in my head in about a minute. I voice memo’d it briefly on my phone and then immediately started putting it down without telling the guys. When they came back, I played it for them—and what I played is pretty much exactly what’s on the record. It’s short, sweet, and super heavy, with a breakdown and a spooky lead that goes directly into the next song.” **“Take Me Home”** “‘Moss Covers All’ and ‘Take Me Home’ are very much connected songs. ‘Moss Covers All’ was written first, but then we really felt the need to have a song on here that’s meant to scare you. We didn’t worry about a mosh part or any sort of heaviness. We just wanted a scary track that’s uncomfortable and throws the listener off guard. When we were thinking about what shape that could take, I immediately thought of that spooky lead from ‘Moss Covers All,’ which we ended up looping as the blueprint for this track.” **“Slaughterhouse 2” (feat. Chris Motionless)** “This song started as an inside joke because Motionless in White was kind enough to reach out to Bryan and have him collaborate on one of their songs, ’Slaughterhouse,’ a very heavy, politically charged track. We’re all huge Motionless in White fans, so of course he accepted. And then we were able to tour with them. As soon as Bryan did that track, we were joking that we should do a song called ‘Slaughterhouse 2.’ We were just kind of laughing about it for a while, but then we thought we were kind of shooting ourselves in the foot if we didn’t do it. Chris was down from the beginning, and his voice is amazing on this. It was a challenge to match the theme and vibe of the original song, but I think we were able to create something that’s not just a great sequel, but that really stands on its own as a highlight of the record.” **“The Calm That Keeps You Awake”** “The funny thing about this one is that the song totally revolves around the huge breakdown at the end. That part was written first, as part of another thing that was written before *A Tear in the Fabric* had even come out. So, like four years ago, we needed to write new parts because the rest of the song we’d written wasn’t up to par, but that breakdown was super necessary. In doing so, we created this really cool, Meshuggah-esque, kind of Sepultura-auxiliary-percussion vibe that’s one of the most unique parts of the record.” **“Blinding Faith”** “We definitely have some jabs at religious hypocrisy throughout the Knocked Loose discography, and this is just kind of an update on that situation. We hadn\'t done one in a while, and it was something that was feeling close to home for Bryan at the time. To me, this sounds like a mix of some of our greatest riffs that we’d written over the course of a year—it’s kind of a riff-salad song. In some ways, it’s one of the heaviest and scariest songs on the record, so we put it out as a single to say, ‘If you thought we were going to get any softer, absolutely not. And here’s proof.’” **“Sit & Mourn”** “This one revolves around the melodic lead and the kind of ambient post-rock breakdown at the end. We wrote that in the first writing session in Joshua Tree, and it took us a while to come up with more parts that we felt were that good. But the song is very, very anthemic. It sounds very dark and melancholic, but at the same time, the lyrics are positive in a way. Thematically, it’s kind of a title track in the way that the lyrics relate to the name of the record. I know it was a very cathartic song for Bryan. In many ways, it’s the saddest song on the record, but in other ways it’s the most positive. And it’s mentally exhausting from start to finish. It ends with a sound clip that I won’t disclose, but it’ll take you by surprise.”

“There\'s something about this record that feels like I\'m coming home,” Maggie Rogers tells Apple Music\'s Zane Lowe about her third full-length *Don\'t Forget Me*, which is the Maryland-born singer-songwriter\'s first project since completing her master\'s degree in religion and public life at Harvard Divinity School. Being away from the music business, she says, allowed her time to think about her life as an artist while also diversifying her mind. “I was trying to put so much in music,” she says. “Now my life is a lot more balanced and a lot more full—and I\'m not saying by any means I have it figured out.” *Don\'t Forget Me* finds Rogers still on a path toward “figuring it out,” marrying the kineticism that made her breakthrough single “Alaska” such a sensation eight years prior with bigger sonic structures and wiser lyrics. Opener “It Was Coming All Along” thrums with plush synths and strings, as well as a sampled phone call that brings Rogers\' lyrics about “trying to be brave these days” to life. “The Kill” possesses a grandness that recalls a sunny drive on an open road, which makes its story of a doomed relationship hit even harder. That energy, together with a wiser perspective, enabled her to her explore stories from beyond her personal realm. Take “So Sick of Dreaming,” a sauntering, Nashville-tinged cut about the travails of twentysomething life punctuated by a frustrated monologue about being stood up for Knicks tickets. (“And by the way, the Knicks lost,” she dryly notes.) It\'s based on “a story that a friend had told to me the night before about another friend of hers that was going through this thing,” she says. “I never would\'ve thought it was material; I had only written songs about things that were so personal to me.” Broadening her songwriting is another way Rogers lets loose on *Don\'t Forget Me*—and it\'s apparent across the album\'s 10 songs, which are confident even when they\'re grappling with regret and frustration. “I\'m so focused and clear about the things that I want, and I\'ve had different goals for every record or things that I really want to accomplish,” Rogers says. “The goal on this album cycle is, I\'m trying to have fun. And if I don\'t think it\'s going to be fun, you probably won\'t find me there.”

More than a decade removed from his 2013 self-titled debut, Jahron Anthony Brathwaite—aka PARTYNEXTDOOR—remains an enigma in the OVO ecosystem: He takes several years between album releases and makes few live appearances, while his elusive reputation is intensified by the fact that some of the biggest moments of his career have come as a behind-the-scenes writer for artists like Rihanna. But his first album in four years represents the purest statement of purpose we’ve heard from the Toronto R&B auteur. If *PARTYNEXTDOOR 4*’s NSFW cover art doesn’t make his intentions clear, then the album’s very first lyric—“Take off your clothes”—instantly thrusts you into the boudoir where many of these songs play out, with foggy keyboard tones wafting in like incense and trap beats flickering like candlelight. But PARTYNEXTDOOR is a certified lover boy keenly attuned to the destabilizing dynamics inherent to desire: After making the aforementioned request for disrobing on the opening “C o n t r o l,” he asks, “Who is in control?”—reframing his bedroom conquest as an act of surrender. Even his most salacious admissions project a certain ecstatic innocence: The Auto-Tuned devotional “L o s e M y M i n d” is possibly the most rapturous song ever written about enjoying a threesome on molly, while the dreamy “M a k e I t T o T h e M o r n i n g” renders mutual oral sex as a near-religious experience. But *PARTYNEXTDOOR 4* does more than merely celebrate his X-rated exploits: The awestruck “R e a l W o m a n” suggests he’s looking for a relationship that goes beyond sunrise, while the downcast closing duo of “F a m i l y” and “R e s e n t m e n t” tap a deeper emotional vein to reveal the hang-ups that come with the hookups.

After nearly two decades in the game, Rapsody’s left no room for doubt when it comes to her formidable pen. But it wasn’t until 2020, when she began piecing together her fourth studio album, *Please Don’t Cry*, that Marlanna Evans realized that she’d shared very little of herself beyond her mic skills. “People had to put up a mirror for me,” she admitted to Apple Music’s Ebro Darden, recalling a pivotal conversation with the producer No ID. “He was like, ‘Everybody knows you can rap, but I can’t tell you five things that I know about you.’” Thus began the North Carolina native’s journey inward: Before she could reintroduce herself to her fans, she’d have to know herself first. The result of that journey, *Please Don’t Cry*, is Rapsody’s deepest and boldest work yet. “Who are you in your rawest state?” asks the gentle voice of the album’s narrator, Phylicia Rashad. Making the record, Rapsody found her mind wandering towards *The Matrix*, in particular the relationship between Neo and the Oracle. “He’s trying to find his way, trying to find himself…and she’s kind of his guiding voice,” she tells Darden. “I was like, ‘That’s kind of what this journey has been for me, but who would be my Oracle?’” Rashad was the first name that came to mind. Through interludes, the Tony Award winner nudges Rapsody further down the path of vulnerability: “Who are you when you’re joyful? What makes you sad? Why do you cry?” Rapsody doesn’t hold back her answers on tracks like “Diary of a Mad Bitch,” a cathartic shit-talking session, or the bittersweet “Loose Rocks,” where she grapples with a loved one’s dementia diagnosis with backup vocals from Alex Isley (yes, that Isley). Intense emotions are countered with airy, meditative beats on the gorgeous “3:AM,” a late-night love song with a hook from Erykah Badu, and the balmy reggae jam “Never Enough.” By the closing track “Forget Me Not,” her fear of vulnerability feels like a distant memory as she raps: “I want to know everything/I want to feel, I want to be alive/It’s too good.”

A Top Dawg Entertainment fixture since the early 2010s, ScHoolboy Q played no small role in elevating the label to hip-hop’s upper echelon. With his Black Hippy cohorts Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, and Jay Rock, the tremendously talented Los Angeles native made a compelling case for continuing the West Coast’s rap legacy well beyond the G-funk era or the days of Death Row dominance. Even still, his relative absence from the game after *CrasH Talk* dropped in 2019 has been hard to ignore, particularly as the most prominent member of his group departed TDE while SZA became the roster’s most undeniable hitmaker. Indeed, it’s been nearly five years since he gave us more than a loosie, which makes the arrival of his sixth full-length *BLUE LIPS* all the more auspicious. His concerns as a lyricist draw upon the micro as well as the macro level, as a parent decrying mass school shootings on “Cooties” or as a rap star operating on his own terms on “Nunu.” Elevating the drama, the *Saw* soundtrack cue nods of “THank god 4 me” accent his emboldened bars targeting snitches, haters, and fakes. Q’s guest selection reflects a more curatorial ear at work than the gratifying star-power flexes found on *CrasH Talk*. Rico Nasty righteously snarls through her portion of the menacing “Pop,” while Freddie Gibbs glides across the slow funk groove of “oHio” with scene-stealing punchlines. A producer behind TDE records by Isaiah Rashad and REASON, Devin Malik steps out from behind the boards to touch the mic on a handful of cuts, namely “Love Birds” and the booming paean “Back n Love.”

Shaboozey has long been inspired by the romantic notion of the outlaw: “The guy who’s standing against a whole bunch of folks and it’s like, ‘We’re going to take them down.’ Yeah, you can try!” the musician tells Apple Music’s Kelleigh Bannen. The obsession is less quaint than it sounds. Having pored through old western films, dime-store pulp novels, and gunslinger ballads à la Marty Robbins, the Virginia native noticed that old-school cowboy culture and hip-hop share a preoccupation with all things American renegade. The conversation around country music’s Black roots will sound familiar to anyone who tuned in to Beyoncé’s *COWBOY CARTER*, which featured Shaboozey on two tracks. (“Beyoncé’s been such a big part of being Black in America,” he said, still in awe of the opportunity. “At every point in our lives, she has had some sort of cultural impact.”) But the 29-year-old singer/rapper has been staking his territory in the space between hip-hop and country for a decade, redefining what it means to be a modern country star. His third album, *Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going*, plays out like a classic American road movie, opening with steel guitar, the gallop of horse hooves, and Shaboozey with his foot on the gas, fresh out of smokes and headed nowhere in particular. On tracks like “Let It Burn,” his rich baritone is equal parts Willie, Waylon, and woozy blues rap à la Future. Elsewhere, he channels Imagine Dragons’ arena-ready roots rock, where breakup banger “Annabelle” hits the sweet spot between Fleetwood Mac and Post Malone. But the star-making moment is “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” the breakaway hit of 2024’s Stagecoach Festival: a Southern-fried riff on a 20-year-old J-Kwon club classic with TGIF vibes.

The hip-hop polymath built a reputation on witty freestyles that befitted her Philadelphia roots, then broke through in 2017 with “MUMBO JUMBO,” a purposefully unintelligible trap ditty that brought new resonance to the term “mumble rap” with a Grammy-nominated video that should come with a warning for those with dentophobia. Her debut album, 2018’s *Whack World*, crammed an LP’s worth of ideas into the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee: 15 sharp, surrealist minute-long tracks that veered from slapstick vocal hijinks to straight-ahead spitting, each accompanied by its own micro music video. The world Whack built was carnival-esque, all funhouse mirrors and sensory overload, with a darkness lingering at the edges. Aside from a trio of three-song EPs (the tentatively titled *Rap?*, *Pop?*, and *R&B?*) released in 2021, Whack kept a puzzlingly low profile in the years that followed. The colorful critical darling who’d had so much to say in so little time had more or less gone quiet. Then, six years after *Whack World*, she announced *WORLD WIDE WHACK*, billed as the rapper’s real full-length debut. Early videos continued the high-concept ideas and cartoonish costumes, but listen awhile and you heard something new: naked vulnerability, almost shocking in its rawness. “I can show you how it feels when you lose what you love,” Whack sing-songs on the twinkling “27 CLUB,” looking like a cross between Pierrot the clown and Bootsy Collins. The hook was one word, drawn out into a wistful melody: “Suiciiiiide…” In other words, there’s more to Whack’s world than you might expect. (“Might look familiar, but I promise you don’t know me,” she reminds you on the minute-and-change “MOOD SWING.”) Over the 15 songs of *WORLD WIDE WHACK*, the rapper grapples with real life, where echoes of abandonment and instances of suicidal ideation coexist with bursts of cockiness, uncertainty, lust, loneliness. The constant is her voice, thoughtful and brimming with ideas as ever. “BURNING BRAINS” is an expression of depressive thinking filtered through Whack’s imagistic lens: “Soup too hot, ice too cold, grass too green, sky too blue.” And there’s a great deal of whimsy, too, as on “SHOWER SONG,” a space-funk bop on the joys of singing in the bathroom.

“I\'ve always wanted to be a pop star, but beyond that, I wanted to be an African pop star,” Tyla tells Apple Music. “The roots of my sound are in amapiano music, in South African and African music.” Though the megaviral 2023 single “Water” may have put the South African singer-songwriter on the proverbial map—first as a social media sensation, then as the highest-charting African female soloist ever on Billboard’s Hot 100, earning her the inaugural Grammy Award for Best African Music Performance—she’s been carefully plotting her path to the top for years. “Since I started experimenting with amapiano, I just feel like it\'s really helped me get to this point where I created something that is fresh and new, but still familiar and comes from home,” she says. “It\'s a sound of Africa, and it\'s something that I couldn\'t be more proud about.” She weaves through a blend of pop, R&B, amapiano, and Afrobeats (“pop-piano sounds cute,” she admits) across *TYLA*, a coming-of-age chronicle through love, heartbreak, and self-discovery. “I’m speaking about the things that I\'ve gone through while creating the album—basically three years in the making,” she explains. “I was becoming a woman. So it was a lot of growing that happened, and me realizing my worth, and realizing how I want to be treated—and how basically, I\'m that girl, and people need to know I\'m that girl.” While the project was brought to life with the help of global producers including Sammy Soso, Mocha, Believve, Rayo, and Sir Nolan, Tyla made sure they all had a taste of her homeland. “\[It was important\] to bring some to South Africa,” she explains, “so when we get in the studio, they have context. Some people that try amapiano sound so watered down, it\'s cringey. So even though I am mixing it with pop and R&B, I didn\'t want it to sound watered down. Music is our everything in Africa. The way we speak, the way we dance, literally, our dance moves—they come so naturally. It\'s just in us. It’s our essence.” Below, Tyla talks us through her debut album. **“Intro” (Tyla & Kelvin Momo)** “I wanted to start off my album with something that was truly South African, something that showed people the root of where I started, before ‘Water,’ before all of these mixtures. I secretly recorded a voice note when I was in a session with Kelvin Momo. I loved hearing the people in the session, speaking, hearing the language, the accents. It was so raw and real. Kelvin Momo is my favorite amapiano producer—his music and his sound is my heart.” **“Safer”** “The message of the song is something that I feel like a lot of people could relate to. And the energy of the song I feel like is a strong intro to open an album.” **“Water”** “‘Water’ surpassed all expectations. I could\'ve never expected all of these accolades—a Grammy, the Billboard Hot 100, people all over the world dancing and pouring water down their back. From the time I finished recording the song, it was all that I was listening to. It was also like a step away from what I was used to, because I \[had been\] *very* PG. And with this one, I was more grown up and I was experimenting more. And even though I don\'t enjoy vulgar music, I feel like we were able to make the song speak about what it speaks about, but in a way that\'s friendly.” **“Truth or Dare”** “This was the song where I was playing more house-y with it. It’s me calling out people, being like, ‘Hey, *now* you care.’ I\'m not that type of person, but these are feelings that I felt around the time where I\'m like, ‘Where did this person come from? Out of nowhere, you want to now talk to me?’ and I literally hate it. I\'m sure a lot of people have felt that.” **“No.1” (feat. Tems)** “Tems and I had been wanting to make a song for long now. We ended up making it work, and Tems\' voice alone is so amazing, so unique. The song is for everyone, but when I had it in mind, it was really for the girls—me and Tems, girl power, African girls—and we were just really pushing that message of ‘I\'m leaving. I don\'t need anybody. If this is not serving me anymore, I’m gone, and I\'m going to be okay.’ Always put yourself before anything.” **“Breathe Me”** “It\'s a song that\'s so emotional and so real. It\'s just about love, of how strong love is, and how you don\'t even need anything else. I don\'t need anything else. You don\'t need anything else—just me, and you; just breathe me and we\'ll be fine.” **“Butterflies”** “With ‘Butterflies,’ I was in a session with \[producer and songwriter Ari PenSmith\] and he was playing me some stuff that he\'s worked on, and I was like, \'Cool, cool, cool.\' And then he played this, and I fell in love with it. It sat so perfectly with my voice. I connected with the song instantly, and it was too specific to what I was going through to not do anything with it.” **“On and On”** “This was \[an initial\] version of my sound, before ‘Water’ and everything. I made this with Corey Marlon Lindsay-Keay in South Africa. We were supposed to go out, and we didn\'t end up going out, so I was dressed up in a whole outfit in the studio session, and he was producing. I love the song so much because it\'s so nostalgic but new. I love that it feels like old-school R&B. I love that it has hints of Aaliyah\'s influence, but it\'s new, and fresh, and African—all things that are Tyla. The messaging is not so serious—it’s literally about not wanting a party to end.” **“Jump” (Tyla, Gunna & Skillibeng)** “‘Jump’ is a very different vibe. I really just wanted to tell people who I am, and I had to show my confidence through the song. And the opening line, with Skilli being like, \'Original girl, you want a replica? No.\' There\'s no replica. That intro was already perfect, and it segues to that line of me saying, \'They\'ve never had a pretty girl from Joburg/They see me now and that\'s what they prefer.\' That line is just—it’s too iconic for me, and I\'m just so excited to hear all the girls sing it, all the Joburg girls sing it, all the girls from home. And having Gunna on it, I really feel like it took me into that world further, making it even more raw and cool.” **“ART”** “When I\'m with someone that treats me so good, treats me well, treats me like art, treats me like a princess, I will be there for them. I will be their art piece. We also played with that wording where it can be ‘art piece,’ but also your peace and your comfort. As a woman, that\'s how I want to be treated, and that\'s how I would treat you if you treat me that way. It’s about being treasured.” **“On My Body” (Tyla & Becky G)** “This was such a fun one because it’s in my world, but also I played a bit with the Latin vibes. The feature came so organically—I was in studio, and she was in a session next door. She loved it, and she recorded a verse, and I absolutely died. I died. I just love her touch, and how it just broadened the audience, because now it\'s just bringing everybody into this experience. It\'s a melting pot with all these genres, and I love that I was able to expand it even further.” **“Priorities”** “This song was probably the most difficult to share, because it\'s really letting people into my heart and mind, and how I feel I\'ve been with myself. I feel like people would resonate with it, and it speaks about what a lot of people feel and may not express. \[The idea of having spread yourself too thin\] is something that\'s so raw and real, that not even just women, men, everybody feels.” **“To Last”** “I love this song with all my heart. I was in the Vaal with LuuDadeejay, and I literally finished this song in five minutes. It was based off an experience that my friend was going through at the time. About a year prior, I wrote the lines ‘You never gave us a chance, it\'s like you never wanted to last.’ And that note just came to mind, and the song just flowed out of me. I ended up going through something that made me feel that way. It was like I told the future, which is not good—but I fell in love with the song again. It’s so South African: It’s amapiano, it\'s house-y, it\'s our sound.” **“Water (Remix)” (Tyla & Travis Scott)** “Travis reached out—he loved ‘Water,’ and around the time, I was like, \'I don\'t want a remix, I\'m cool.\' But Travis Scott was so unexpected that I wanted to do it so bad, and he absolutely killed it. He added some South African shout-outs in his verse, and I just knew that people from home were going to love it—he acknowledged us, and he mentioned \[the South African telephone country code\] +27 and all those things. And I also love that he brought a different energy to the song. Everyone knows ‘Water’ to be that summer banger, and now Travis made it still the summer banger, but also more gritty. Putting him on an African-sounding song was just the perfect collab.”

There’s a sense of optimism that comes through Vampire Weekend’s fifth album that makes it float, a sense of hope—a little worn down, a little roughed up, a little tired and in need of a shave, maybe—but hope nonetheless. “By the time you’re pushing 40, you’ve hit the end of a few roads, and you’re probably looking for something—I don’t know what to say—a little bit deeper,” Ezra Koenig tells Apple Music. “And you’re thinking about these ideas. Maybe they’re corny when you’re younger. Gratitude. Acceptance. All that stuff. And I think that’s infused in the album.” Take something like “Mary Boone,” whose worries and reflections (“We always wanted money, now the money’s not the same”) give way to an old R&B loop (Soul II Soul’s “Back to Life”). Or the way the piano runs on “Connect”—like your friend fumbling through a Gershwin tune on a busted upright in the next room—bring the song’s manic energy back to earth. Musically, they’ve never sounded more sophisticated, but they’ve also never sounded sloppier or more direct (“Prep-School Gangsters”). They’re a tuxedo with ripped Converse or a garage band with a full orchestra (“Ice Cream Piano”). And while you can trainspot the micro-references and little details of their indie-band sound (produced brilliantly by Koenig and longtime collaborator Ariel Rechtshaid), what you remember most is the big picture of their songs, which are as broad and comforting as great pop (“Classical”). “Sometimes I talk about it with the guys,” Koenig says. “We always need to have an amateur quality to really be us. There needs to be a slight awkward quality. There needs to be confidence and awkwardness at the same time.” Next to the sprawl of *Father of the Bride*, *OGWAU* (“og-wow”—try it) feels almost like a summary of the incredible 2007-2013 run that made them who they are. But they’re older now, and you can hear that, too, mostly in how playful and relaxed the album is. Listen to the jazzy bass and prime-time saxophone on “Classical” or the messy drums on “Prep-School Gangsters” (courtesy of Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes), or the way “Hope” keeps repeating itself like a school-assembly sing-along. It’s not cool music, which is of course what makes it so inimitably cool. Not that they seem to worry about that stuff anymore. “I think a huge element for that is time, which is a weird concept,” Koenig says. ”Some people call it a construct. I’ve heard it’s not real. That’s above my pay grade, but I will say, in my experience, time is great because when you’re bashing your head against the wall, trying to figure out how to use your brain to solve a problem, and when you learn how to let go a little bit, time sometimes just does its thing.” For a band that once announced themselves as the preppiest, most ambitious guys in the indie-rock room, letting go is big.

When artists experience the kind of career-defining breakthrough that Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield enjoyed with 2020’s *Saint Cloud*, they’re typically faced with a difficult choice: lean further into the sound that landed you there, or risk disappointing your newfound audience by setting off into new territory. On *Tigers Blood*, the Kansas City-based singer-songwriter chooses the former, with a set of country-indebted indie rock that reaches the same, often dizzying heights as its predecessor. But that doesn’t mean its songs came from the same emotional source. “When I made *Saint Cloud*, I\'d just gotten sober and I was just this raw nerve—I was burgeoning with anxiety,” she tells Apple Music. “And on this record, it sounds so boring, but I really feel like I was searching for normal. I think I\'ve really settled into my thirties.” Working again with longtime producer Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Snail Mail, Hurray for the Riff Raff), Crutchfield enlisted the help of rising guitar hero MJ Lenderman, with whom she duets on the quietly romantic lead single (and future classic) “Right Back to It.” Originally written for Wynonna Judd—a recent collaborator—“365” finds Crutchfield falling into a song of forgiveness, her voice suspended in air, arching over the soft, heart-like thump of an acoustic guitar. Just as simple but no less moving: the Southern rock of “Ice Cold,” in which Crutchfield seeks equilibrium and Lenderman transcendence, via solo. In the absence of inner tumult, Crutchfield says she had to learn that the songs will still come. “I really do feel like I\'ve reached this point where I have a comfort knowing that they will show up,” she says. “When it\'s time, they\'ll show up and they\'ll show up fast. And if they\'re not showing up, then it\'s just not time yet.”

“I really feel like I just hit a specific intersection between what I\'ve always wanted to say, and my skill catching up with what I\'ve always wanted to say,” WILLOW tells Apple Music about *empathogen*. \"That\'s exactly how I feel about this whole album.” Over the course of her nearly decade-and-a-half-long music career, she’s moved through various genre spaces freely. Yet those who enjoyed her recent full-length forays into artfully angsty post-punk will likely find the vibe shift here more drastic than any jagged guitar rock riff. Conveniently albeit loosely categorized as jazz, these dozen tunes showcase yet another side of her maturing craft. Despite the inherent softness of acoustic compositions like “ancient girl,” WILLOW’s strengths burst through each and every time. Informed to some extent by the presence of guests like Jon Batiste and St. Vincent, two vanguard artists who consistently push against convention, *empathogen* gives her ample space to explore and expand. Her lyrics often feel simultaneously confessional and poetic, her voice thick with emotional resonance on “down” and “symptom of life.” Traces of 2022’s sonically tougher ** linger via the frenetic pop-rock fusions of “between i and she” and “false self.” Still, it’s clear that she’s leveled up on all fronts, perhaps most poignantly on “b i g f e e l i n g s,” a finale as grand as any in her discography. “It\'s trying to bring you in, even though it is extremely complicated,” she says. “Obviously it\'s a lot to take in when you listen to it for the first time, but there are moments that you really get into that rhythm.”

On his debut album *Jiggy Forever*, Nigerian producer-turned-artist Young Jonn marks a transformation through emotive log drum and tropical and classically infused Afrobeats. Pairing his ear for beats with melodic messages of aspiration and affirmation, Young Jonn delivers an upbeat manifesto. “‘Jiggy’ is a lifestyle that simply means staying fly and trying to stay above the waters regardless of what’s going on in your life,” he tells Apple Music. “It’s just vibes that carry the energy and emotions I felt at different times, in different places and different moments.” With assistance from Seyi Vibez, Blaqbonez, Zlatan, Sean Paul, Kizz Daniel, Ya Levis, and Don Jazzy, the Ibadan native layers lyrics ranging from the flex-y to the heartfelt and spiritual over his signature orchestral sound. “My production used to have a lot of emotions and a lot of strings,” he says. “This was influenced by me growing up in a church environment. I kind of carry these emotions with me everywhere I go, either with production or singing. I let the beats sink into me and just vibe on top.” Below, Young Jonn talks us through the emotions that inspired each of the tracks on “Jiggy Forever.” **“Tony Montana”** “Ironically, ‘Tony Montana’ is a prayer song, regardless of the title. It’s begging God to come through and shine a light on you, ’cause you know you have what it takes—you know you’re bad like Tony Montana.” **“Pot of Gold”** “‘Pot of Gold’ is a dance track but still a very deep, conscious track. The early timings of the song speak about how I’m switching from a producer to a singer and just looking for a pot of gold. I’ve done so many things in life, like, ‘Will I ever find the pot of gold?’” **“Bahamas”** “This is a summer vibe. I’m just feeling myself, saying I’m not ready for fake emotions right now and just wanna enjoy my life. I’m unavailable on a beach in the Bahamas. I’m just telling the girl, ‘Don’t tell me you love me, you have to show me the evidence… I don’t wanna do too much, ’cause I’m in my element.’” **“Aquafina”** “Coming from my background as a producer, I do a lot of mixtures ’cause I’m used to always experimenting. I kind of infused the heaviness of the drums and everything into my own strings. So this is a typical love song with that heavy drum backing, saying, ‘If you don’t love me, just let me know.’” **“Big Big Things” (feat. Kizz Daniel & Seyi Vibez)** “‘Big Big Things’ was made for the club, no two ways about it! Don’t come to me with anything average or small. I only want big things in life: big money, big moves, big women.” **“Bucket List”** “This is a favorite song of mine. Contrary to the very forceful sound, it’s a very mellow song. It’s a proper love song, you know? Slow vibes, midtempo, chilled trumpets. I’m just saying, ‘You’re number one on my bucket list.’” **“Showcase” (feat. Blaqbonez)** “I enjoy making music with Blaq; it’s now our fourth song together. This track happened seamlessly, and it’s a lifestyle song. If you’re conversant with a lot of things going on over here, people used to complain about the police a lot. I mean, it has reduced, but you can’t really show off in Nigeria ’cause they’re probably gonna say you\'re into this or that. Just leave me alone to showcase what I want to!” **“Jeje”** “‘Jeje’ is an easy dance track. I’m basically talking about a girl that’s stressing me out. Like, you don’t have to lie and over-hype yourself! Just take it easy, it’s either you’re in or you’re out.” **“Stronger”** “‘Stronger’ is a song for my mum. I lost my mum in 2019, and this was one of the things that made me dive into recording my own music. I was spending a lot of time locked up with myself and recording a lot—I kinda just had to put that music out. They say what doesn\'t kill you makes you stronger, but this particular one didn’t make me stronger—I’m still weak!” **“Hold On” (feat. Sean Paul)** “I recorded this song in Madrid and was actually in the studio with Memphis Depay. He was actually gonna take the beat, but before you know it, I’d recorded the chorus! I sent the song to my manager—she’s a very imaginative person and was like, ‘We should get Sean Paul on it.’ Earlier this year she sent me a message saying we got Sean Paul; it was crazy!” **“Maya Maya” (feat. Ya Levis)** “I love France a lot, I won\'t lie, so I was looking for French collaborations. I lost someone really, really close to me and it really touched me. There’s a lot of regret in this song, talking about how you love someone but you never really gave them so much of your time. Now they’re gone.” **“50 Billion” (feat. Zlatan)** “This is just an imaginative song—if only I had \[50 billion\]! Zlatan is one of the biggest stars in the country and he really did justice to the song. It’s a full-on party vibe.” **“Full My Tank” (feat. Don Jazzy)** “Don Jazzy is one of our great producers, and having him on this song means a lot to me. I really wanted him on a track because, growing up, I used to listen to a lot of his production. So this felt symbolic because I’m doing the same thing in this generation.” **“Shine Shine”** “‘Shine Shine’ is kind of like a confessional and a song of affirmation. I’m saying nobody can kill my spirit.” **“Sharpally”** “This one was produced by Jaytunes. I was in Lagos recording and ‘Aquafina’ had hit No. 1 on Apple Music. I was really in a big mood and was feeling myself. I’m always making stuff for the ladies, and this is another big vibe for the ladies.” **“Go Hard”** “This is just to reiterate what they say on the street: ‘Go hard or go home.’ You put your best foot forward, or just leave it.”