The past year has been absolutely huge for SZA, with the highly anticipated release of her new album Ctrl, her appearance on SNL, her work on the Black Panther soundtrack, a cameo in the “This Is America” video, and a few Grammy nominations, but things have recently taken a more tragic turn for the singer. As reported…
Although Marvel’s Black Panther—and Kendrick Lamar’s accompanying soundtrack album for the film—have drawn strong reviews and massive box office takings over the last week, there’s at least one artist who’s unhappy with her unwanted (alleged) association with the film. Per Pitchfork, British-Liberian artist Lina…
Most Black Panther fans nationwide still have to wait until February 16 to visit Wakanda, but they can already stream the soundtrack album curated by Kendrick Lamar and Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith. The 14-track compilation, Black Panther: The Album, is now out on Apple Music and Spotify, and features SZA, Khalid, Vince…
When a new tour is announced featuring two of the artists in The A.V. Club’s five best albums of 2017, it’s cause for us to get excited. But when that same tour includes other great musicians, including the guy who rapped, “Missus Piggy want her Biggie back...I’ma keep on eating till my ankles fat”? Perfection.
Interscope Records announced this morning that Kendrick Lamar and label exec Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith will “produce and curate” Black Panther: The Album in collaboration with the film’s director, Ryan Coogler. The upcoming Marvel film, due out February 16, stars Chadwick Boseman as the title character, and it will…
“I do a lot of jobs.” “Don’t do that James Franco!”
There was too much to listen to in 2017—not just albums, of which there were once again thousands, a barrage of releases from major-label veterans and SoundCloud up-and-comers alike, all vying for your attention. There was just too much of everything: a persistent, buzzing storm of push notifications and free-floating…
I know Insecure is a good show, but I’ve got this thing about all these mostly sad sometimes-funny comedy shows set in L.A., and so I’ve mostly caught the show in bits and pieces as my wife has kept up with it. But it’s clear that its concern with music is more than merely the narrative touch of Issa Rae’s bathroom…
Even at just over six months old, 2017 has already given us more than enough good music to fill playlists from here until December—enough that it would be fine, really, if everyone just took a knee until next year. It’s also been an unusually busy year for comebacks: High-profile returns from the ’00s indie-rock class…
Upon reviewing SZA’s album Ctrl, The A.V. Club declared it “one of the best R&B albums of 2017.” Now there’s a new video for the artist’s track titled “Drew Barrymore,” which features a sly, unassuming cameo from the song’s namesake.
“Ctrl is one of the best R&B albums of 2017, and it would’ve been one of the best in 2015 or 2016, too. It’s clear in the opening moments that it’s not merely a continuation of SZA’s previous records but an evolution; no longer is she hiding in the reverb behind dense swirls of ambient synthesizers and immaculately…
For a while there, it seemed like SZA would never release Ctrl. The singer-songwriter (and sole R&B act on TDE, which also houses Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, and Isaiah Rashad) had released three brief but rich records: 2012’s See.SZA.Run, 2013’s S, and 2014’s Z. These were gauzy, atmospheric affairs, snapping to…
