Billboard’s Friday Music Information serves as a useful information to this Friday’s most important releases — the important thing music that everybody shall be speaking about right now, and that shall be dominating playlists this weekend and past.
This week, Drake makes noise whereas awaiting rescue, Suga’s Agust D persona returns, and Youngboy By no means Broke Once more will get a high-wattage help from Nicki Minaj. Try all of this week’s picks beneath:
Drake, “Search & Rescue”
Whereas Drake’s choice to pattern a Kim Kardashian speech and crash it into the center of “Search & Rescue” — together with utilizing a superimposed picture of the 2 of them collectively in matching motorbike helmets — will seemingly dominate social chatter across the new single, “Search & Rescue” additionally marks an fascinating sonic alternative from the famous person, who pivots away from the cutthroat rapping heard on the 21 Savage collaborative mission Her Loss to croon about craving for uncomplicated love. Each the sampled audio and Drake’s audio counsel emotional incompletion after a few years of mind-boggling industrial success, and paired with subtly detailed manufacturing from Unhappy Pony and BNYX, the vulnerability proves efficient.
Suga (Agust D) feat. IU, “Individuals Pt. 2”
Because the members of BTS proceed rolling out solo tasks, typically as their first formally launched statements on their very own, Suga’s upcoming D-Day has been a very long time coming, as the top of his trilogy below the moniker Agust D (following 2016’s Agust D and 2020’s D-2). “Individuals Pt. 2,” the sequel to considered one of D-2’s most totally realized pop-rap tracks, spins Suga’s narrative ahead with a extra complicated mix of hip-hop, R&B and high 40 hooks: in between the swelling great thing about IU’s refrain, Suga displays on connection and loss with a nimble vocal method and a simple sense of gravity.
Youngboy By no means Broke Once more feat. Nicki Minaj, “WTF”
“Cross YoungBoy, then you definately cross the Queen,” Nicki Minaj declares to open her verse on “WTF,” a brand new team-up with Youngboy By no means Broke Once more that juxtaposes their rap strategies however nonetheless locations them squarely on the identical aspect. After Youngboy’s voice warbles, squeals and unfurls in the identical intoxicating method as heard on his album I Relaxation My Case from earlier this 12 months, Minaj performs the extra conventional position till making a vocal run on the finish of her verse; as considered one of hip-hop’s greats who has expanded the methods during which singing might be deployed in rap music, Minaj sounds proper at house alongside Youngboy on “WTF.”
Jonas Brothers, “Waffle Home”
When Jonas Brothers made their grand comeback in 2019 with the Scorching 100-topping smash “Sucker” and reunion full-length Happiness Begins, they timed the rollout to the spring of that 12 months, in order that the one and album might be loved all summer time lengthy. “Waffle Home,” the trio’s new single which precedes subsequent month’s The Album, might be destined for the same warm-weather flare-up: the JoBros are locked in with an enormous, giddy anthem right here, singing about how they’ll at all times arrive on the proper path as brilliant harmonies explode round them. It’s solely April, however don’t be stunned to listen to “Waffle Home” on this 12 months’s seashore playlists.
NF, Hope
Final week, NF introduced a world tour that kicks off in July, runs for 3 months and can hit loads of arenas alongside the way in which; in case anybody doubted the Michigan rapper and producer’s industrial attraction after changing into an underground titan through the years, that itinerary ought to put these worries to relaxation. New album Hope is much less of a victory lap than one other shot at telling his singular story: fusing parts of different rock, fashionable pop, basic soul and completely different eras of hip-hop, NF performs upon childhood nostalgia whereas pondering the state of the world and his personal future.
Labrinth, “By no means Felt So Alone”
Did you acknowledge that voice harmonizing with Labrinth on his woozy new single “By no means Felt So Alone”? That’s Billie Eilish, who reached out to the singer-songwriter expressing how a lot she beloved the in-the-works observe being produced by her brother Finneas earlier than offering some lilting vocals and leads the second verse. “By no means Felt So Alone” actually speaks to Eilish’s experimental aspect: Labrinth has lengthy been able to classically crafted balladry, however right here, his phrases are warped and processed, the manufacturing shuddering round his falsetto as he contemplates his solitude.
