R&B/Hip-Hop

“Whatever Wham say goes.” That’s the phrase that popped up on billboards in L.A., referencing a Young Thug jailhouse tweet from June. The YSL boss teased new music with his fellow Atlanta rapper Lil Baby, tweeting, “Wham let’s drop one on these rats peter,” shortly after coming home from Fulton County Jail.

Now, Baby is ready to say his piece with a brand new album — his first since 2022’s It’s Only Me. On Thursday (Nov. 14), the rapper released the lead single and video to his project WHAM: Who Hard As Me.

“5AM” (produced by Wheezy and Sean Momberger) shows Baby trying to come to terms with the pressure of expectations and celebrity. He starts the song off by talking about those pitfalls, rapping, “How you managed to get everything you want and still ain’t happy?/ Half of me done died, the other half alive, I’m tryna balance it/ Granny said if it’s worth something to you, then it’s worth the challenge.”

Later in the song he raps about struggling with vulnerability and survivor’s guilt, saying, “Five in the mornin’, just me and a ‘Rari, don’t know where I’m goin’/ Thinkin’ ’bout all this sh—t, honestly, I don’t know how I be doin’ this/ Can’t be vulnerable, who I’m gon’ talk to when I’m going through it?/ Am I delusional? Keep tellin’ myself that it’s all good/ All I know is survival and dollars, I come from the hood.”

Last night, the Atlanta rapper took to Instagram and posted footage of himself shooting the new music video and recording the song with a caption that mentions he was going through a rough patch the last two years. “Ain’t it crazy how they tryna play me like i ain’t the one!!! It’s that time! I would say again, but this run will be totally different!!” he wrote. “I had the darkest period of my life these last two years, but I stayed down and overcame that sh—t now I’m back to f—kin sh—t up as usual…, Sincerely, Wham!! Who hard as me. Let’s go.”

While no release date for the album has been announced, Baby wrote on X that he was dropping another single and video this week. He was recently spotted in the studio with Young Thug and Future, so there could be something from the trio coming soon.

Check out Lil Baby’s new video for “5AM” above.

SZA’s back.

After taking over the music scene with her record-breaking sophomore album, SOS, in December 2022, the 35-year-old star has maintained a relatively low profile since. In a new British Vogue interview, she’s ready to return to the music scene, revealing that she has not one, but two releases up her sleeves.

According to the publication, both the deluxe version of SOS and her third studio album, Lana, are on the way. “I think I am making music from a more beautiful place. From a more possible place versus a more angsty place,” she explained. “I’m not identifying with my brokenness. It’s not my identity. It’s shit that happened to me. Yeah, I experienced cruelty. I have to put it down at some point. Piece by piece, my music is shifting because of that, the lighter I get.”

Elsewhere in the story, her TDE label mate Kendrick Lamar praised her creative openness. “I recognize a more expressive SZA. The shy s— is completely out the window – to a degree, at least,” he said. “She has the answers to some of the things she was curious about and is willing to tell it all in the most disruptive yet beautiful compositions this generation has ever heard.”

Following its release, SOS debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 318,000 equivalent album units – the third-highest debut week of 2022 – and shattered the record for the biggest streaming week for an R&B album by a woman, with 404.6 million official on-demand streams for the album’s songs, according to Luminate. It spent 10 total weeks atop the chart, and became the first R&B album by a woman to hit the double-digit mark since Mariah Carey’s self-titled debut posted 11 weeks at No. 1 in 1991.

The album’s longstanding hit single, “Kill Bill,” dominated on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, racking up 21 weeks at No. 1, surpassing the 20-week run of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, as the song with the most weeks at No. 1 on the chart since it became an all-encompassing genre survey in 1958. 

At the 2023 Grammy Awards, she led the nominees with nine nods, and ended up taking home three awards. SOS won best progressive R&B album, “Snooze” snagged best R&B song and her Phoebe Bridgers collaboration, “Ghost in the Machine,” won best pop duo/group performance.

Drake has made his disdain for Pharrell known on several occasions with bars from “Meltdown” and “Family Matters” sniping at Skateboard P. The 6 God even purchased some of Pharrell’s jewelry in the Joopiter auction and flexed in P’s $2 million N.E.R.D. necklace in the “Jumbotron S–t Poppin” visual.

GQ named Pharrell its Designer of the Year for 2024 and at one point in Wednesday’s (Nov. 13) interview the Neptunes legend was asked how he felt about Drake melting down his old chains and Pharrell revealed he’s been unbothered by it all.

“No, because I think beyond all of the on-goings, at the heart of all of it, he’s a fan of music,” P said of Drake making the purchase. “He’s a fan of the history of what it is, and I happen to be a part of that, and those artifacts are a part of it.”

Pharrell was tight-lipped when questioned about the Drake disses and how “it struck him.”

“It didn’t,” he replied. “No.”

On a broader scale, the Louis Vuitton Men’s Creative Director explained how letting go of all the jewelry in the auction was his way of disconnecting from the value of the items.

“Or not. I guess some things are not for me to understand. When you let things go, a huge part of it is actually letting go,” he added. “Not just of the physical item, but letting go of your connection to what it’s supposed to mean, or the memory.”

P continued, “You’re literally letting them go. That was the purpose. It’s like when people sell something and they go, ‘I just want to make sure you take care of it because this is my baby.’ And I’m like, ‘No, no, no.’ This is not my baby. That’s why I’m letting it go.”

Drake jabs at Pharrell on Utopia‘s “Meltdown” with Travis Scott. “I melt down the chains that I bought from yo’ boss/ Give a f–k about all of that heritage s–t,” he raps.

Pharrell even found himself in the middle of the Drake and Kendrick Lamar feud. Lamar stuck up for the superproducer on “Euphoria.” “I don’t like you poppin’ s–t at Pharrell, for him, I inherit the beef/ Yeah, fuck all that pushin’ P, let me see you push a T,” he spews.

Drake then directly responded on “Family Matters” when baiting Kendrick to come get his legacy — in this case the chains — out of his mansion. “You wanna take up for Pharrell/ Then come get his legacy out of my house,” the OVO boss replied.