Bruno Mars has been shaping the industry with his massive hits like, “That’s What I Like”, “Versace On The Floor”, “24k Magic” and his older songs, “When I Was Your Man” and “Just The Way You Are.” His 2016 album “24K Magic” really showed his growth as an artist, and you could definitely hear the Michael Jackson influences. He sets the standards for musical growth from going from a sad boy who sang about heartbreak, to becoming a multifaceted artist who takes risks. It’s hard for other artists not to be inspired by his songs and career. “24k Magic” followed the theme of a nineties throwback and Bruno continues to do so on his latest Remix, “Finesse” featuring the biggest thing to happen in rap in 2017, Cardi B.
He really doesn’t feature rappers on his songs, besides B.o.B, CeeLo Green on his track “The Other Side” so seeing him bring Cardi B on this track is a surprise, but a great one that certainly works. I feel like this is just the start of a whole new vision that Bruno has for himself. Typically in a feature, the rap verse in near the bridge of the song, but they take a different spin on it. Cardi B’s verse is at the beginning of the song which sets up the tone and energy of a fast-paced jam. She comes back on the track near the end to sing, “yea we got it going on, got it going on” with Bruno. It is a different set up that actually works really well. It certainly paid off because it was the first song to debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart in 2018.The track also starts atop On-Demand Streaming Songs (with 18.7 million on-demand streams) — the first to do so since, again, “Rockstar.” The risk that Bruno took paid off. We might see other artists trying to change up the structure of songs to give it more of an original feel but just know: Bruno did it first.
This a another day, another record-breaking accomplishment for Drake. The 6GOD never fails to surprise us with his new releases and on Monday (Jan. 22), his latest single hit a whopping 4,326,679 plays. The next day, the team at Chart Data reported that Drake’s “God’s Plan” released on his two-song, Scary Hours EP, cracked Spotify’s single-day streaming record. This shouldn’t be a surprise to many, but even if I were Drake I’d congratulate myself on Instagram, too. Take a look at Drizzy’s post below:
Due to her talent, style and vocal performance, she is showing signs of becoming the next big thing. She has even collaborated with bigger artists who also see that. Her first album, “Por Vida” which came out in 2015, had contributions from Tyler, The Creator, Kaytranada, and BADBADNOTGOOD. It is certainly is a great album that is needed in R&B today.
She has also been featured on the extremely popular English Virtual band, Gorillaz’s song, “She’s my Collar.”
Tyler the Creator also seems to like her style, as she was featured in his song, “PERFECT.”
About a week ago she released another collaboration with Tyler entitled, “After The Storm” which almost has a million views already.
In addition to these collborations, she has also worked with Snoop Dog, she told Billboard her about her experience:
“Snoop saw “What They Say,” I think. Someone put him on to it — it was all word of mouth shit. He loved that I sampled Brenton Wood and loved the aesthetic and the low-rider culture behind it, so he was like, “I have to work with her.” He gave me a song on his mixtape.”
With so many big artists collaborating with her and seeing the potential she has, there is no doubt that she will shortly be blown up into superstardom. Check her out, she is truly an artist to look out for.
I smell a Takeoff / Yachty tape coming. It’s 2018 and the underrated Migos rapper, Takeoff is the last one of the group to release a collab tape. Recently Yachty previewed a collaboration tape between the two of them on his Instagram alive session and turns out that it’s coming real soon! With Yachty’s promising fans waiting on his drop for Lil Boat 2, there’s no set date when their tape will drop. In the meantime, stay tuned for the Migo’s new debut album Culture II, which will be released on January 26th.
Every album Rihanna puts out breaks the barriers of what we thought we could expect from her. Not only has she completely redefine herself she has the music to back it up.
But Rihanna and N.E.R.D’s new track “Lemon” goes even further than that. At first listen, I didn’t even know it was Rihanna since she has never done rap before. It is a pleasant surprise that actually works. She is now going outside her genre of pop to show us even more of talent she possesses. Being able to do other genres, and have it work is the sign of a true icon.
An artist that evolves, is an artist that stays. “Lemon” officially landed Rihanna’s 50th Top 40 single. The only female artist that is ahead of her is Taylor Swift who has 55 Top 40 singles. Rihanna is currently tied with The Beatles and has surpassed Madonna who has 40. Who knows how long Rihanna’s rain will continue? Based on the last 13 years I would predict it not only is here to stay but to thrive. Anti truly marked her as an icon, and “Lemon” is shoving it in everyone’s faces.
The Migos, the hottest thing to happen in 2017, have just released their new single from their new record “Culture 2.” The Migos formed in 2009 and the group is composed of the rappers Quavo, Offset and Takeoff. Although they were formed in 2009, they really had their big break when they released their second album, “Culture” in January 2017. It received a lot of praise and debuted on top the Billboard 200 chart. After this point, one could not turn on the radio without listening to “Bad and Boujee”, which stayed for 36 weeks on the chart. Following this success, they almost defined and created a new style of rap, which includes mumbling and a sauvé style, comparable to Yung Thug. Now that they are so big, the expectations are high. So what can we expect from this new single entitled, “Supastars?”
At first listen, it doesn’t seem very original and it is definitely not as good as “Bad and Boujee.” The main problem with this song is that it doesn’t have a strong chorus that draws the listener in. The chorus also has three lines of just saying, “yeah”, which can get boring. It also doesn’t have a significant beat change in the chorus, which makes it hard to figure out where the chorus actually is. It is more of a freestyle that lasts five minutes with no central theme, which is a tad too long. Quavo also appears to have the most lines in the song, which is starting to become a trend. I would love to see Offset and Takeoff have more of a contribution on this album.
The background vocals of “yea”, “got it, got it”, “real”, “style” along with other call-outs, only detracts from the song since it is used too frequently, even for the Migos. It is almost like these background expressions are trying to make the lyrics more strong when it just doesn’t have a well-crafted component.
They are sticking to what they know, but the problem with that is that it doesn’t have the quality of being a stand out track. They have influenced the rap game, but this certainly isn’t as revolutionary.
This song is a lot better than a lot of what other artists are doing in the game right now, but I expected more from them. The song doesn’t have that star quality to send it to the top of the Billboard charts. Some would say I am being too critical but they have set this high of a bar for themselves, and only on their second album. Overall, the song doesn’t live up to my expectations and I hope that they have more variety on the full album.
