Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
This week, Post Malone and Morgan Wallen help each other out, Gunna stays prolific as ever and Megan Thee Stallion turns even more cutthroat. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help”
No artist logged more weeks atop the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 in 2023 than Morgan Wallen; meanwhile, Post Malone has been enjoying a hot streak as a collaborator, with recent features on Beyoncé and Taylor Swift’s respective blockbuster albums, while also nodding toward a country crossover. Those fruitful paths cross on “I Had Some Help,” a country rocker with a faster pace than Wallen’s biggest hits and more twang than Posty’s typical oeuvre; popular country has been increasingly impacting the mainstream, and this team-up sounds like it’s ready to dominate the summer.
Gunna, One of Wun
Last year, Gunna’s album a Gift & a Curse reflected on the rapper’s complicated feelings around the YSL RICO case, and included no features; One of Wun is a different story, with a more celebratory flair (particularly after the success of last year’s smash “Fukumean”) and Offset, Normani, Leon Bridges and Roddy Ricch all dropping by. In both modes, Gunna sounds masterful bending syllables over zonked-out beats, and One of Wun may approach the 60-minute mark but flies by, hitting a groove midway through with solo tracks “Back in the A,” “Still Prevail” and “Blackjack.”
Megan Thee Stallion, “Boa”
“All of a sudden they vegan, they don’t want beef,” Megan Thee Stallion — who’s already topped the Hot 100 once this year with a diss track, “Hiss,” to kick off a year of enormous diss tracks — sneers near the top of new single “Boa.” While her latest single gestures toward slicing down more enemies, “Boa” actually showcases Meg’s pop know-how: a smart sample of Gwen Stefani’s “What You Waiting For?” animates the hook, setting up a sleekly designed chorus in between the ferocious wordplay.
Camila Cabello feat. Lil Nas X, “He Knows”
The reinvention of Camila Cabello continues with “He Knows,” which harnesses the edgier exterior of “I Luv It” but delivers more straightforward pop delights, complete with handclaps, a cooing hook and Cabello rhyming “provocateur” with “connoisseur.” Lil Nas X knows a thing or two about provocative pop, and spends his verse doubling down on double entendres before joining Cabello for some nicely rendered harmonies on the chorus.
Ice Spice, “Gimmie a Light”
Throughout her ascent over the past year and a half, Ice Spice has sounded calm, cool and collected, never allowing her flow to be bothered even as beats percolate around her voice and A-list collaborators crash onto her tracks. New single “Gimmie a Light” represents a new shade for the rapper, as she uses the Sean Paul classic as the basis for a breathless shout-along; the track is designed to rattle club walls, but also opens up more possibilities for Ice Spice’s aesthetic, as she continues taking the formula for New York hip-hop and running in various directions with it.
Editor’s Pick: Chief Keef, Almighty So 2
Fans of Chief Keef have been waiting for the follow-up to 2013’s Almighty So for such a long time, with years of targeted release dates giving way to countless delays, that the arrival of Almighty So 2 feels like a minor miracle. The even better news is that the sequel is Keef’s best project in years: building off of the momentum of his recent collaborative project with Mike WiLL Made-It, Dirty Nachos, the drill legend pulverizes an hour’s worth of beats here, locating a strand of his early-career energy and delivering a mix of hunger and confidence on every track.
Source link
