Photo Credit: Mary Ellen Matthews The run-up to SZA’s sophomore effort SOS has been long, unpredictable, and reliably confounding. Its lead single – and SZA’s first solo top-ten hit – “Good Days” arrived almost two years before the rest of the album and wouldn’t enjoy an official music video until March 2021, by which time… Read more
2022 saw no shortage of fantastic music, which is perhaps why there’s so much disagreement as to what the year’s big, standout releases were. With this list, I attempt to break through the noise and put aside any personal biases to objectively assess the most important releases from this year. #10. Alvvays – ‘Blue Rev’… Read more
Photo Credit: Courtesy of DJ Khaled There is something confounding about the success of DJ Khaled. Sixteen years, and thirteen albums, into his career, he has yet to release a truly singular piece of work, let alone a masterpiece. To his critics, Khaled simply does what other DJs do but louder and with a more… Read more
Photo Credit: Getty Images for The Recording Academy (All Photos) Award show attendance has been reliably falling year-on-year and this year, the Recording Academy seemed less concerned than ever about doing anything to revert that trend, with an overlong, self-indulgent ceremony that ran for a seemingly never-ending 2 hours and 33 minutes. Beyond making a… Read more
Photo Credit: David LaChapelle Even in the age of virality – where the most unsuspecting of characters can be turned into worldwide celebrities overnight – Doja Cat still feels like an especially unlikely candidate for 2021’s biggest rapper. Yet, with nearly 60 million monthly Spotify listeners to her name, that’s exactly what she is. Having… Read more
Photo Credit: Collages via Billboard Most people will tell you that the only success that translates financially is “success.” In music, certainly, it’s thought to be almost entirely mathematical: the more records an artist has sold, the more “successful” they are (of course, in recent decades the number of downloads and streams would also have… Read more
Photo Credit: Marcelo Cantu We first met Megan Jovon Ruth Pete, professionally known as Megan Thee Stallion, through 2017’s Make It Hot mixtape. Which now serves as a stark caveat of what was still to come for the 25-year-old Texas rapper. After three years of what seems like several whirlwind successes, the Houston “hot girl”… Read more
Photo Credit: Sarah Bahbah “WE THE BEST!” is the motto and on DJ Khaled’s Father Of Asahd, he is absolutely that. Boasting a roster of twenty-nine total featured artists combined on fifteen tracks is the most we’ve ever seen from the former Terror Squad producer. Marking his eleventh album release in thirteen years, Khaled does… Read more