Benjamin, Andre (Andre 3000)

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      7 Great André 3000 Guest Verses

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      He isn’t rapping on his new LP. But he showed his skills on these tracks.Amber Fouts for The New York TimesDear listeners,After announcing a new album just a few days ago, André 3000 has released his solo debut, “New Blue Sun.” Coming nearly two decades into his rap duo Outkast’s long hiatus, the album’s mere existence is surprising enough. But here’s an understatement: It is not what most people were expecting from the man behind hits as disparately brilliant as “Ms. Jackson,” “B.O.B.” and “Hey Ya!,” who is arguably one of the most skilled and beloved rappers of his generation. It’s actually not a rap album at all. It is, in fact, an 88-minute instrumental album of ambient woodwind compositions.Seriously.If you do not believe me, consider the title of the 12-minute opening track, which is at once a mea culpa and a statement of purpose: “I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time.” And then listen to it, because it’s crystalline and beautiful in a way that recalls Laraaji, Brian Eno and Philip Glass — all cited as influences on the album.“New Blue Sun” is a genuine left turn in an all-too-predictable musical world, and it’s definitely worth spending some quality time with this weekend. But for today’s playlist, I wanted to turn back the clock and consider André’s prowess as a rapper by highlighting some of his greatest guest verses.Since Outkast released its sixth (and seemingly final) studio album, “Idlewild,” in 2006, Big Boi has released three solo albums, while André’s musical output has largely been limited to a smattering of guest verses. But oh, what verses they’ve been.André has played the wise sensei on two era-defining Frank Ocean albums and duetted poetically with his baby’s mother, Erykah Badu. He’s lent some extraterrestrial flair to tracks from superstars like Beyoncé and Drake, and teamed up with underground favorites like Devin the Dude and Killer Mike. His verses still feel like special events, though, because he doesn’t just lend them out to anybody. His co-signs feel personally curated, because they’re still relatively rare.Dré can be funny, poignant, incisive, revealing and obfuscating — often within the span of a single verse. He has a canted and utterly idiosyncratic approach to rhythm; he always seems to hop on the offbeat and then hit the ground running. More than most of his contemporaries, he manages to be both lustful and self-aware about his own lust. He’s an otherworldly ATLien and he’s down to earth. He is cooler than cool. He’s ice-cold.So if an instrumental flute album wasn’t what you were hoping to get from André 3000, give it a moment. And listen to this playlist to appreciate all the razor-sharp bars he’s given us in the meantime.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. UGK featuring Outkast: “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You)”Regal, occasionally crass and thoroughly tender, this 2007 stone-cold classic is one of hip-hop’s great odes to monogamy. André’s plain-spoken, feelings-forward verse opens the track and sets the tone: “Hate to see y’all frown,” he says of the women with whom he’s broken it off to go exclusive with another, “but I’d rather see her smiling.” (Listen on YouTube)2. Frank Ocean: “Solo (Reprise)”André bursts into the world of Frank Ocean’s 2016 opus “Blonde” in a gust of rapid-fire wordiness. Accompanied by James Blake’s sparse piano, he experiments with some inspired “solo”/“so low” wordplay (“so now I’m so low that I can see under the skirt of an ant”) as his flow careens around corners and suddenly — as if to assert the control he always has over his rhythm — yanks the emergency brake. That it’s the most prominent feature on Ocean’s deeply personal album attests to the respect the younger artist has for 3000’s artistry. (Listen on YouTube)3. Beyoncé featuring André 3000: “Party”On this verse, featured on a single from Beyoncé’s 2011 album “4,” André indulges in some light braggadocio, makes up his own memorable pronunciation of “gyro,” and, approaching his late 30s, expresses ambivalence about his evolving status as an elder statesman of hip-hop: “Kiddo say he looks up to me, this just makes me feel old.” (Listen on YouTube)4. Rick Ross featuring André 3000: “Sixteen”This eight-minute track from Rick Ross’s 2012 album “God Forgives, I Don’t” is a meta-meditation on what happens when “16 ain’t enough” — or how difficult it is to condense one’s life into a standard, 16-bar rap verse. Both Ross and 3000 manage to cram multitudes into their rhymes here. André’s feature in particular is an absolute tour de force, beginning with a vivid flashback to his youth (when he was just “drawin’ LL Cool J album covers with Crayolas on construction paper”) and somehow shifting into another gear toward the end, as he offers some clear-eyed reportage from the other side of one’s childhood dream coming true. (Listen on YouTube)5. Drake featuring Lil Wayne and André 3000: “The Real Her”From way back in 2011, when Drake was still trying to sound like a genuine romantic, André 3000 slid onto this “Take Care” track to show him how it was done, name-dropping Adele and laying his soul bare. “Everybody has an addiction,” he raps with arresting simplicity. “Mine happens to be you.” (Listen on YouTube)6. Devin the Dude: “What a Job”Another meta-ode to a musician’s creative process, this song from Devin the Dude’s gloriously named 2007 album “Waitin’ to Inhale” finds the Houston rapper — along with Snoop Dogg and André 3000 — offering perspective on and gratitude for his chosen profession. André uses part of his verse to make an argument against then-rampant piracy: “If I come to your job, take your corn on the cob,” he asks, “and take a couple kernels off it, that would be all right with you?” (Listen on YouTube)7. Killer Mike and André 3000 featuring Future and Eryn Allen Kane, “Scientists & Engineers”André proves he’s still got bars in the present tense on this track from Killer Mike’s 2023 album “Michael,” which just last week scored Grammy nominations for best rap performance and best rap song. Amid some evocative bleeps and bloops, André sounds like an alien visitor beaming in from another galaxy, though his verse is also imbued with plenty of human vulnerability: “Too much that I can’t communicate with all of them,” he raps. “I do wish I had scientists to engineer friends.” Later on, though, he’s more optimistic when considering the future: “Hope I’m 80 when I get my second wind.” We should all hope so, too. (Listen on YouTube)Keep your heart, Three Stacks, keep your heart,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“7 Great André 3000 Guest Verses” track listTrack 1: UGK featuring Outkast, “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You)”Track 2: Frank Ocean, “Solo (Reprise)”Track 3: Beyoncé featuring André 3000, “Party”Track 4: Rick Ross featuring André 3000, “Sixteen”Track 5: Drake featuring Lil Wayne and André 3000, “The Real Her”Track 6: Devin the Dude, “What a Job”Track 7: Killer Mike and André 3000 featuring Future and Eryn Allen Kane, “Scientists & Engineers”Bonus TracksIf you ever find yourself in Brussels (as I did on vacation last week), I cannot recommend highly enough a visit to the Musical Instruments Museum. The M.I.M. boasts a huge collection of instruments new, old and even older, including some wonderful curiosities. I got to see one of Adolphe Sax’s seven-bell trumpets (which was not as successful as one of his other inventions, the saxophone), a notorious glass harmonica and a collection of woodwinds extensive enough to have satisfied André 3000.Also, on this week’s Friday Playlist, we have new music from Drake, Dua Lipa, Julia Holter and more. Listen here. More

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      André 3000 Announces Debut Solo Album, ‘New Blue Sun’

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      The artist, best known as one-half of Outkast, will release “New Blue Sun,” an instrumental album of ambient woodwind compositions, on Friday.André 3000, the unpredictable rapper, producer and songwriter best known as one-half of Outkast, is finally releasing a solo album. In a twist, it has no words.Instead, “New Blue Sun,” due out Friday, “is an entirely instrumental album centered around woodwinds,” according to an announcement on Tuesday. Citing Laraaji, Brian Eno, Alice Coltrane, Steve Reich and Pharoah Sanders as influences, the musician has traded beats and raps for flutes and clarinets — a swerve he began some two decades ago as Outkast was winding down.“I’ve been interested in winds for a long time, so it was just a natural progression for me to go into flutes,” André, 48, said in the announcement. “I just like messing with instruments and I gravitated mostly toward wind.”The artist, born André Benjamin, last released an album with Outkast in 2006: “Idlewild,” the soundtrack to the duo’s movie musical. “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below,” the group’s Grammy-winning double album, arrived three years earlier.In the time since, André has surfaced as a featured rapper on songs by Kesha, Beyoncé, Future, Kanye West and others, appearing most recently on Killer Mike’s “Scientists & Engineers,” which was nominated last week for two Grammy Awards (best rap performance and best rap song). In 2014, André and Big Boi reunited as Outkast for a run of festival concerts.“I remember, at like 25, saying, ‘I don’t want to be a 40-year-old rapper,’” André told The New York Times in 2014, when he was 39. “I’m still standing by that. I’m such a fan that I don’t want to infiltrate it with old blood.” He added, “I don’t sit around and write raps, I just don’t. Now the only time I’m really inspired to write raps is if an artist that I enjoy invites me to their party.”The first track of “New Blue Sun” is 12 minutes long and titled, “I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time.” (Other tracks on the eight-song ambient album include “Ninety Three ’Til Infinity and Beyoncé” and “Ghandi, Dalai Lama, Your Lord & Savior J.C. / Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy.”)The album was co-produced by André and Carlos Niño, and includes contributions from the guitarist Nate Mercereau and Surya Botofasina on keyboards and synthesizers. André’s playing encompasses a digital wind instrument, a Maya flute and others of wood and bamboo, the announcement said.For years, he has hinted at his new, preferred musical direction. On Mother’s Day in 2018, André released two songs on SoundCloud, “Me&My (To Bury Your Parents)” and “Look Ma No Hands,” centered around bass clarinet. And spotting the musician around the world with his woodwinds, from the Los Angeles airport to the streets of Japan, has become something of a game for fans.In a new interview with NPR, André cited positive feedback for his ambient music from younger artists like Tyler, the Creator and Frank Ocean. “I don’t want to troll people,” André said. “I don’t want people to think, Oh, this André 3000 album is coming! And you play it and like, Oh man, no verses. So even actually on the packaging, you’ll see it says, ‘Warning: no bars.’”“In my mind, I really would like to make a rap album,” he added in the announcement. “So maybe that happens one day, but I got to find a way to say what I want to say in an interesting way that’s appealing to me at this age.” More

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      12 Grammy Nominees You Need to Hear

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      Some of the best competitions are the under-the-radar ones. Listen to nominated songs by Bettye LaVette, Molly Tuttle, Tainy and more.The soul survivor Bettye LaVette, who’s up for best contemporary blues album.Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesDear listeners,I’m Jon Pareles, sitting in for Lindsay this week because while she’s on vacation, we couldn’t let the Grammy Awards nominations go by without a playlist.Like a lot of critics, in and out of music, I’m pretty skeptical about awards shows. That’s not just because they rarely agree with my own taste. Awards shows have conflicted agendas and contradictory incentives. They trumpet artistic integrity but crave star power. They claim accountant-verified objectivity but often appear cliquish and stuck in industry bubbles.The one thing that makes me indulge the Grammys is an aspect that infuriates some other Grammy observers: the chronic sprawl of awards categories. There are 94 this year. That’s a lot, but fine: Let a hundred flowers bloom. The Recording Academy is forever trying to trim and adjust those categories, consolidating or renaming or expanding the list. But music keeps eluding them, changing styles and constituencies, while little Grammy voter pools — hopefully specialists, realistically partisans — battle to boost their candidates.It’s complicated, fluid, arbitrary, far from perfect. What, exactly, is “alternative jazz,” one of this year’s new categories? But down in the trenches of concert bookings, “Grammy-winning” can make a bigger difference for someone on a club or college tour than for an act with radio hits and arena gigs. The Grammys can be good for something.I regularly watch the pre-Grammy, non-network, un-prime-time “Grammy Premiere” livestream — just go to live.grammy.com or YouTube — where the unsung majority of Grammy Awards are given out before the prime-time show. They’re dorky and unpolished; some winners read their thank-yous from their cellphones, and they don’t always have designer outfits. But the pre-Grammys also book niche-category performers who tear the roof off, because that’s what happens beyond the controlled sphere of pop. Music can upend everything we expect.Here are a dozen down-category Grammy nominees, who are unlikely to show up in prime time. They’re not necessarily popular — though some were huge hits — or fashionable. They just made recordings worth noticing.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Kylie Minogue: “Padam Padam” (pop dance recording)Kylie Minogue conquered dance floors, yet again, in 2023 with “Padam Padam,” her breezily confident assertion that “I know you wanna take me home.” The title is a heartbeat rhythm, the production uses reverb to play with space, and Minogue sounds quite amenable to a tryst. (Listen on YouTube)2. Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane: “Scientists & Engineers” (rap performance)Multifaceted ideas about creativity — as a calling, a compulsion and a career — unite Killer Mike and his guests in this ambitious, changeable track. Enfolded in restlessly blipping synthesizers and Eryn Allen Kane’s ethereal vocal harmonies, André 3000 and Future muse over past and present before Killer Mike arrives with a closing barrage. (Listen on YouTube)3. Allison Russell: “Eve Was Black” (American roots performance)Racism and misogyny are Allison Russell’s direct targets in “Eve Was Black,” which transforms itself from Appalachian toe-tapper to eerie rocker to jazz excursion to gospel incantation and asks the unflinching question, “Do you hate or do you lust?” (Listen on YouTube)4. Jason Isbell: “Cast Iron Skillet” (American roots song)A tangle of bleak, likely interconnected narratives — murder, death in prison, a family shattered by interracial romance — mingles with homey advice in “Cast Iron Skillet,” a modest-sounding but far-reaching ballad. (Listen on YouTube)5. Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway: “El Dorado” (bluegrass album)The songwriter and flatpicking guitar virtuoso Molly Tuttle spins a brisk, minor-key chronicle of the Gold Rush. She sings about desperate characters and wonders, “Was it worth the blood and dirt to dig our lives away?” (Listen on YouTube)6. Bettye LaVette: “Hard to Be a Human” (contemporary blues album)The gritty-voiced, 77-year-old soul survivor Bettye LaVette embraces 1970s-style Nigerian Afrobeat, with its chattering saxophone and curlicued guitars, in “Hard to Be a Human,” as she wonders about humanity’s irredeemable flaws. (Listen on YouTube)7. Blind Boys of Alabama: “Work Until My Days Are Done” (roots gospel album)The Blind Boys of Alabama, a gospel institution since the 1940s, bring their vintage-style harmonies to a traditional song that’s more about diligence than worship. The arrangement is a two-parter, an easygoing shuffle that revs up midway through to something like sanctified honky-tonk. (Listen on YouTube)8. Tainy featuring Bad Bunny and Julieta Venegas: “Lo Siento BB:/” (música urbana)Tainy, the Puerto Rican producer who’s an architect of reggaeton, racked up a billion streams across various platforms with “Lo Siento BB:/” (“Sorry Baby”). Julieta Venegas and Bad Bunny sing about her infatuation and his refusal to commit, juxtaposing cushy electronics and a blunt beat. (Listen on YouTube)9. Natalia Lafourcade: “De Todas las Flores” (Latin rock or alternative album)The Mexican songwriter Natalia Lafourcade’s album “De Todas las Flores’ isn’t remotely rock. It’s richly retro pop that harks back decades, with acoustic instruments and some orchestral arrangements. The title track is a rueful, elegantly nostalgic lament for lost love. (Listen on YouTube)10. Davido featuring Musa Keys: “Unavailable” (African music performance)Davido is from Nigeria, but he has international aims. In “Unavailable,” he infuses Nigerian Afrobeats with a South African style, amapiano, and he’s joined by the South African singer Musa Keys. They’re both playing hard to get. (Listen on YouTube)11. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society: ‘Dymaxion’ (large jazz ensemble album)The composer Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society is an 18-piece big band that stokes suspense with dissonance, pinpoint timing and an arrangement that gets denser and denser throughout most of “Dymaxion.” Even when it eases back, the piece stays ominous. (Listen on YouTube)12. Ólafur Arnalds: “Woven Song (Hania Rani Piano Rework)” (new age, ambient or chant album)“Woven Song” originally appeared on Ólafur Arnalds’s 2020 album, “Some Kind of Peace,” with an eerie, sliding, untempered vocal. The Polish pianist and singer Hania Rani makes it cozier and more consonant in her “rework,” but the ghost-waltz spirit of the original persists. (Listen on YouTube)And I’d like to thank the Academy …JonThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“12 Grammy Nominees You Need to Hear” track listTrack 1: Kylie Minogue, “Padam Padam”Track 2: Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane, “Scientists & Engineers”Track 3: Allison Russell, “Eve Was Black”Track 4: Jason Isbell, “Cast Iron Skillet”Track 5: Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, “El Dorado”Track 6: Bettye LaVette, “Hard to Be a Human”Track 7: Blind Boys of Alabama, “Work Until My Days Are Done”Track 8: Tainy featuring Bad Bunny and Julieta Venegas, “Lo Siento BB:/”Track 9: Natalia Lafourcade, “De Todas la Flores”Track 10: Davido featuring Musa Keys, “Unavailable”Track 11: Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, “Dymaxion”Track 12: Ólafur Arnalds, “Woven Song (Hania Rani Piano Rework)”Bonus TracksCaryn the editor here flagging the rest of our Grammy coverage that’s gone live so far today:Ben Sisario’s big look at the field, with a spotlight on the top competitions.Our always-entertaining snubs and surprises, examining which genres were conspicuously absent from the biggest categories, and a delightful showdown between Olivia Rodrigo and the Rolling Stones.The full list of nominees: yes, all 94 categories. Yes, I formatted this myself.An interview with Victoria Monét, who has seven nominations (the second-most), and one for her toddler.And an interview with the indie-rock trio boygenius, who picked up six nods. More

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      Mahogany L. Browne’s Love Letter to Hip-Hop

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      It was a clear black night, a clear white moon. Warren G, “Regulate” (1994)Originally appearing on the soundtrack of the Tupac Shakur film “Above the Rim,” this song is built around a sample of Michael McDonald’s “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near).” I’m looking like a star when you see me make a wish. […] More

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      50 Rappers, 50 Stories: Hear the Remix

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      Ten bonus songs from our hip-hop anniversary project.Azealia Banks in 2012, the year her “212” became a breakout.Erin Baiano for The New York TimesDear listeners,Last week, the Times published a sprawling interactive package called 50 Rappers, 50 Stories, celebrating the upcoming 50th anniversary of hip-hop.* The day it ran, I set aside about 10 minutes to start browsing during lunch; the next thing I knew, more than an hour and a half had passed. It’s one of those kinds of projects.My colleagues spoke with — you guessed it — 50 different rappers about their careers and relationships with hip-hop, and the result is a mosaic of varied voices and narratives that run parallel and intersect in unexpected ways (like the Cash Money poet Lil Wayne and the New York provocateur Azealia Banks both identifying as theater kids). LL Cool J talks about meeting Paul Simon for the first time (“I’m gonna be honest with you, I didn’t even know who Paul Simon was, bro”); 50 Cent takes style inspiration from Juvenile (“Get me some baby oil!”); Cardi B cites the precise moment she traded in Barney the Dinosaur for Missy Elliott. Trust me, it’s all a delight.My fellow pop music critic Jon Caramanica and culture reporter Joe Coscarelli helmed the editorial end of this ambitious project and did many of the interviews themselves. They also created a comprehensive, roughly chronological 50-track playlist featuring all the artists they chatted with, and I can’t recommend that enough.But I thought it would be fun to have them put together a separate one for The Amplifier, featuring some deep cuts and personal favorites. The result is a playlist encompassing a variety of eras and regions, featuring plenty of marquee names (Cam’ron, Outkast) alongside entries from some of the more outré corners of hip-hop (Lil B, Trippie Redd). Consider this the remix.In his introductory essay for the project, Caramanica writes that hip-hop “is far too vast to be contained under one tent, or limited to one narrative. The genre is gargantuan, nonlinear and unruly.”“So,” he continues, “when trying to catalog hip-hop in full, it’s only reasonable to lean into the cacophony.” Which is how I’d instruct you to listen to this playlist.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Goodie Mob featuring Outkast: “Black Ice (Sky High)” (1998)Later alluded to in Kanye West’s “Touch the Sky,” this moody single about life’s hidden slippery spots from the second Goodie Mob album, “Still Standing,” is a showcase for Big Gipp’s hook writing and worn wisdom, with two acrobatic verses from his Dungeon Family kin — Big Boi and Andre 3000 of Outkast — that previewed the assured flamboyance of their third album, “Aquemini.” (Listen on YouTube) JOE COSCARELLI2. E-40: “Practice Lookin’ Hard” (1993)E-40 has been twisting words for well over three decades, with a dizzying approach to rhyme construction that plays with pitch and pace as much as language. This is a fairly linear storytelling rap, but his approach is frisky and surprising, with lyrics that creep up on you quickly or move at a deliberately slow pace. Also, this is likely the only hip-hop song in history to mention the card game whist. (Listen on YouTube) JON CARAMANICA3. dead prez: “Tallahassee Days” (2003)Recalling the fading of his adolescence in dead-end Florida, stic of the revolutionary-minded duo dead prez paints his artistic and outlaw provenance as one and the same — “kill or be killed” desperation, because “a job is a joke” — on this quick track from “Turn Off the Radio: The Mixtape, Vol. 2: Get Free or Die Tryin’.” “Whoever said life is beautiful lied,” he raps. (Listen on YouTube) COSCARELLI4. Cam’ron featuring UGK, Juelz Santana, Ludacris and Trina: “What Means the World to You (Remix)” (2000)This remix of a classic Cam’ron song has it all: one of the jauntiest beats in hip-hop history, Cam’ron’s dazzling interior rhyme schemes and naughty appearances from two other rappers in this package, Bun B and Trina. (Listen on YouTube) CARAMANICA5. Lil B and Soulja Boy Tell ’Em: “Cooking Dance” (2010)Pairing two early YouTube savants at the height of their anything-goes, post-CD but pre-streaming powers, this 2010 track from the “Pretty Boy Millionaires” mixtape immortalized the Based God’s signature kitchen movements via his free-associative Dada flow, in which Lil B is both “feeling like Fabio” and ad-libbing at will: “Cook! Steak! Chef! Pots! Chef! Pots! Chef! Cook!” (Listen on YouTube) COSCARELLI6. Paul Wall & Chamillionaire: “N Luv Wit My Money” (2002)One of the standout tracks from “Get Ya Mind Correct,” the 2002 collaborative album between the Houston rappers Paul Wall and Chamillionaire, “N Luv Wit My Money” is a lightly comic, utterly serious ode to flashy wealth. Wall was still rapping aggressively here, before he fully found his slow flow: “I love my car like it was my girlfriend: I like to caress the grain/Fondled the wheel and I got aroused/I swung in the ditch and I wrecked the frame.” (Listen on YouTube) CARAMANICA7. Azealia Banks: “Anna Wintour” (2018)As Banks told me, she is often derided for failing to deliver on her early hip-hop promise by pivoting to house music, “‘a.k.a white people music.’ I’m like, honey, no. House music is Black music. Everything I do is in the spirit of hip-hop.” On this 2018 one-off single, a vogue track named for the Vogue editor, Banks threads the two sounds seamlessly. (Listen on YouTube) COSCARELLI8. Trippie Redd featuring 6ix9ine: “Poles1469” (2017)Trippie Redd and 6ix9ine have been at odds for years now, but here’s an early collaboration from simpler times full of the elegiac melodies that have made Trippie Redd the stalwart veteran of the SoundCloud rap movement. This is a sweet, dreamy song about the stuff of nightmares, playful in a way that suggests no consequences lurk around the corner. (Listen on YouTube) CARAMANICA9. Roc Marciano: “Wheat 40’s” (2020)A cascade of sly punchlines, wordplay and unlikely juxtaposition (“I need therapy and a speedboat”), this song from the 2020 album “Mt. Marci” demonstrates Marciano’s economy of language and easy evocation, all while maintaining his character’s Mafioso frigidity: “Ma, I’m just a hooligan/I make this kind of rap cool again/She say I’m way cooler than Max Julian/You ain’t gotta ask who he is, we the loopiest/My character in the movie script is truly at the nucleus.” (Listen on YouTube) COSCARELLI10. Ice Spice: “No Clarity” (2021)It’s been less than two years since the Bronx rapper Ice Spice released this lite-drill revision of Zedd’s EDM anthem “Clarity.” All the elements for success were already there — the patient rapping, the raw emotional content, the as-if kiss-offs. Here, a tragedy in three acts: “You woulda thought that I missed you/But you was a thot, it’s a issue/Your bro was the one that I went to.” (Listen on YouTube) CARAMANICAWhat the world means to me,Lindsay*As Caramanica notes in his essay, “As for the 50th anniversary, well, it is a framing of convenience. The date refers to Aug. 11, 1973, when DJ Kool Herc — in the rec room of the apartment building at 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in the Bronx — reportedly first mixed two copies of the same album into one seamless breakbeat. That is, of course, one way to think about hip-hop’s big-bang moment, but by no means the only one.”The Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“50 Rappers, 50 Stories (Remix)” track listTrack 1: Goodie Mob featuring Outkast, “Black Ice (Sky High)”Track 2: E-40, “Practice Lookin’ Hard”Track 3: dead prez, “Tallahassee Days”Track 4: Cam’ron featuring UGK, Juelz Santana, Ludacris and Trina, “What Means the World to You (Remix)”Track 5: Lil B and Soulja Boy Tell ’Em, “Cooking Dance”Track 6: Paul Wall & Chamillionaire, “N Luv Wit My Money”Track 7: Azealia Banks, “Anna Wintour”Track 8: Trippie Redd featuring 6ix9ine, “Poles1469”Track 9: Roc Marciano, “Wheat 40’s”Track 10: Ice Spice, “No Clarity”Bonus TracksSinead O’Connor forever. “O’Connor was never quiet about her pain,” Amanda Petrusich writes, bracingly, for The New Yorker, “even when it would have been easier to swallow or evade it — in fact, being unapologetic about the crippling weight of certain sorrows was the defining characteristic of her work.”In the aftermath of O’Connor’s death, a number of beautiful tributes have been published considering many different angles of her prismatic legacy. Our own Jon Caramanica wrote about her most infamous and misunderstood act of protest (she “was daring the cameras, and the viewers, to look away; no one did”), while Una Mullally explored O’Connor’s relationship to Ireland and Vanessa Friedman considered the resonant rebellion of O’Connor’s shaved head.If a playlist is what you’re looking for, Jon Pareles has you covered with his reflection on 10 of O’Connor’s most powerful songs. More

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      Meshell Ndegeocello’s Magnificent Mix, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Peggy Gou, Killer Mike, Sparklehorse and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Meshell Ndegeocello featuring Jeff Parker, ‘ASR’The songs on Meshell Ndegeocello’s magnificent new album, “The Omnichord Real Book,” are always in flux. In its seven-and-half minutes, “ASR” hints at fusion jazz, Funkadelic, Ethiopian pop, reggae and psychedelia; the guitarist Jeff Parker, from Tortoise, teases the music forward. As the song accelerates, Ndegeocello sings about pain, heartbreak, healing and perseverance, and she vows, “We’re here to set the clock to here and now.” JON PARELESPeggy Gou, ‘(It Goes Like) Nanana’Peggy Gou is a South Korean-born, Berlin-based D.J. and producer with a penchant for dreamy house beats and a velvety touch. Her latest single “(It Goes Like) Nanana” plays out a bit like her own personal reworking of ATC’s ubiquitous 2000 hit “All Around the World,” but with a kinetic energy that’s distinctly her own. “I can’t explain,” Gou sings over a thumping beat and light piano riff, before deciding she can best express the feeling she wants to describe in nonsense words: “I guess it goes like na na na na na na.” LINDSAY ZOLADZDoja Cat, ‘Attention’Doja Cat returns with a vengeance on the menacing “Attention,” a statement record that puts her pop sensibility aside (at least for now) and leans into her ample skills as an M.C. “Look at me, look at me — you lookin’?” she begins, and for the next few minutes commands the floor with charismatic grit. “Baby, if you like it, just reach out and pet it,” she sings on a hook that recalls ’90s R&B, albeit filtered through Doja’s alien sensibility. The verses, though, are pure venom: “Y’all fall into beef, but that’s another conversation,” she spits with that signature fire in her throat. “I’m sorry, but we all find it really entertaining.” ZOLADZKiller Mike featuring Future, André 3000 and Eryn Allen Kane, ‘Scientists & Engineers’Ambition and achievement, electronics and exaltation all figure in “Scientists & Engineers” from “Michael,” Killer Mike’s first solo album since he formed Run the Jewels with El-P. “Scientists & Engineers” has five producers including James Blake and No I.D. The track pulsates with keyboard chords under the elusive André 3000 (from Outkast), who insists, “Rebelling is like an itch.” The music switches to silky guitar chords for Future, who sings, “It’s better to be an outcast in a world of envious.” And a beat kicks in with trap drums and blipping synthesizers behind Killer Mike, who boasts in quick triplets: “I’m never chillin’, I gotta make millions.” A multitracked Eryn Allen Kane wafts choirlike harmonies — and gospel-tinged sentiments like “I’mma live forever” — while the rappers redefine themselves. PARELESFlesh Eater featuring Fiona Apple, ‘Komfortzone’None other than Fiona Apple decided to collaborate with Flesh Eater, a Nashville avant-pop group, on the mercurial seven-minute excursion “Komfortzone.” Over a low, sputtering programmed beat and outbursts of noise and electronics, Flesh Eater’s lead singer, Zwil AR, sings hopscotching melodies reminiscent of Dirty Projectors. Apple sprinkles in some piano and eventually adds vocal harmonies on refrains like “A field of sunflowers with their backs toward me/I’m on the train.” It’s as willful as it is arty. PARELESSparklehorse, ‘Evening Star Supercharger’Mark Linkous was making his fifth album as Sparklehorse when he died by suicide in 2010. Now his family and a handful of collaborators have completed it, due for a September release as “Bird Machine.” A preview single, “Evening Star Supercharger,” tops unhurried folk-rock with the tinkle of a toy piano, as Linkous cryptically but matter-of-factly considers mortality and depression: “Peace without pill, gun or needle or prayer appear/Never found sometimes near but too fleet to be clear.” In the sky, he calmly watches a star going nova: “Even though she’s dying, getting larger.” PARELESOmah Lay, ‘Reason’The Nigerian singer Omah Lay has split his songs between partying and self-doubt; he has also been featured by Justin Bieber. “Reason,” from the newly expanded version of his 2022 album, “Boy Alone,” has minor chords and grim scenarios: “I don’t know who to run to right now/Army is opening heavy fire.” The beat is buoyant, but the tone is fraught. PARELESDavid Virelles, ‘Uncommon Sense’A low-riding shuffle beat isn’t the Cuban-born pianist, composer and folklorist David Virelles’s most common environment. But “Carta,” Virelles’s new LP, puts him and his longtime first-call bassist, Ben Street, together with Eric McPherson, an innovator and tradition-bearer in today’s jazz drumming. This is the closest Virelles has come to making a standard-format jazz trio album, though it’s still not exactly that. On the opener, “Uncommon Sense,” McPherson’s shuffle kicks in after 25 seconds of solo piano, and Virelles has already led things down a tense path, changing keys capriciously while building up a foundation for the Cubist phrase at the center of the tune. McPherson’s elegantly splattered drum style, using traditional grip to roll his rhythms out as close to the ground as possible, gives solid support to Virelles while he toys with contemporary-side influences: the bodily elocution of Don Pullen’s piano playing, the harmonic splintering and superimpositions of Craig Taborn, the rhythmic restraint of a Gonzalo Rubalcaba. You wouldn’t need to be told this album was recorded at Van Gelder Studio to realize it’s speaking with jazz history — the antique, the modern and what’s barely come into shape. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOBen van Gelder, ‘Spectrum’“Manifold,” a new album from the rising bandleader Ben van Gelder, celebrates the voice. The voice of his saxophone, the voice of the pipe organ, the human voice, the collective voice of an eight-piece band. Each has its own grain. The organ has its own prominent side-narrative in jazz history, but the Amsterdam-based van Gelder is culling from a different stream, closer to contemporary classical composers like Arvo Pärt and György Ligeti, using dissonance and space. The Veracruz-born vocalist Fuensanta sings no words on “Spectrum,” the album’s rangy centerpiece track; she joins the horns, sounding almost like another reed instrument. Beneath them, Kit Downes toggles between minimalism and high-rising waves on the pipe organ. RUSSONELLOElliott Sharp, ‘Rosette’The composer Elliott Sharp has been devising systems of pitch and structure since the 1970s. His latest album, “Steppe,” is inspired by geography. It’s music for six overdubbed vintage electric steel guitars, microtonally tuned and arrayed in stereo, exploring texture and resonance. “Rosette” is built from quick, cascading, staggered, overlapping little runs. It’s bell-toned and spiky, crumbling and reassembling. PARELES More