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    7 Hot Tracks From a New Generation of Female Rappers

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    Listen to recent songs from Megan Thee Stallion, Ice Spice, Latto and more.Megan Thee StallionCharles Sykes/Invision, via Associated PressDear listeners,In April 2018, the same week that the Bronx superstar Cardi B released her debut album, “Invasion of Privacy,” Complex magazine published an essay by the writer Kiana Fitzgerald that explored a longstanding question: “Why can there only be one dominant woman in rap?”The answer, naturally, was sexism. It was the same old story: The rivalry between Cardi and Nicki Minaj just felt like a new generation’s Foxy Brown vs. Lil’ Kim. Male rappers, Fitzgerald argued, “have free rein in the genre and — consciously or subconsciously — want to keep it that way.” She added, “when women are pitted against each other, they’re occupied and out of the way, ensuring they take up as little space as possible.”It’s remarkable how much has changed since then. In the six years since that essay was published, an entire vanguard of female rappers has come to the fore, proving that more is more. Megan Thee Stallion and Ice Spice have become household names — and done so with markedly different styles that rep their respective hometowns of Houston and New York City. The St. Louis rapper Sexyy Red has transcended her initial co-sign from Drake to become a solo star on her own. Latto, from Atlanta, has commanded airplay with catchy hooks and lively bars; the Memphis-born GloRilla has found success with a harder-edged approach, leaning into the gravelly grit of her signature drawl.Today’s playlist celebrates the many female voices in the current rap game. And I do mean current: It’s composed entirely of songs released in the past few months, a testament to the fact that one of the most notable trends in music right now is the steady plurality of female rappers on the charts.It’s 7 p.m. Friday, it’s 95 degrees,LindsayListen along while you read.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Shawn Mendes Returns Full of Questions, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Leon Bridges, Ravyn Lenae, Kelsea Ballerini and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Shawn Mendes, ‘Why Why Why’“I stepped off the stage with nothing left,” Shawn Mendes sings, referencing his headline-generating 2022 decision to cancel a scheduled world tour and focus on his mental health. The stomping, acoustic-guitar driven “Why Why Why,” from his forthcoming album “Shawn,” represents a new level of candor and pathos from the 26-year-old pop star, who has returned to the spotlight but admits he still doesn’t have all the answers: “I don’t know why, why, why, why,” he croons as the instrumentation builds around him, offering fleeting catharsis in the form of a folksy, singalong chorus. LINDSAY ZOLADZLeon Bridges, ‘Peaceful Place’Leon Bridges, the singer and songwriter based in Texas, sets aside past troubles to enjoy unexpected contentment in “Peaceful Place.” His recent collaborations with Khruangbin have moved him away from soul revivalism toward hybrid, open-ended grooves. “Peaceful Place” hints at funk and Nigerian Afrobeat, with a steady-ticking beat and a hopping bass line as he reassures everyone, “I found something no one can take away.” JON PARELESRavyn Lenae, ‘Genius’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Billie Eilish, Lorde and More Are Singing Out About Body Image

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      Billie Eilish, Charli XCX and Lorde are among a group of young women who are revealing, in their music, the pressure they have felt to look thin.Taken together, the first two song titles on Billie Eilish’s third album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” form a provocative pair: “Skinny” and “Lunch.”“People say I look happy/Just because I got skinny,” Eilish sings on the opener, her melancholic croon accompanied by a single, murky guitar. “But the old me is still me and maybe the real me,” she adds, “and I think she’s pretty.”That lyric is a gut punch. It’s also indicative of a subtle shift among the current generation of female pop stars, who have recently been acknowledging — often in stark, striking and possibly triggering language — the pressure they have felt to look thin.Taylor Swift, who first opened up about her past struggles with disordered eating in a powerful sequence in her 2020 documentary, “Miss Americana,” sings about it on her 2022 track “You’re on Your Own, Kid,” a compassionate ode to her younger self: “I hosted parties and starved my body, like I’d be saved by the perfect kiss.” Last month, in a guest appearance on the remix of Charli XCX’s “Girl, So Confusing,” Lorde confessed that fluctuations in her weight had led her to stay out of the public eye. “For the last couple years, I’ve been at war in my body,” she sings, heartbreakingly. “I tried to starve myself thinner, and then I gained all the weight back.”For several years, conversations about weight in mainstream pop have centered around an artist bold enough to speak up about it and absorb the stinging backlash: Lizzo. In her lyrics, on social media, and in her shapewear line, the singer and rapper has played up self-love, becoming a face of the body positivity movement. Earlier this year, however, she told The New York Times that she had “evolved into body neutrality.” “I’m not going to lie and say I love my body every day,” she said.Part of the vitriol Lizzo has faced is rooted in racism, and it is impossible to divorce a dialogue about body image from race, and the different ways Black, brown and white bodies are dissected, denigrated and idolized. Latto recently spoke out about how online criticism led her to have plastic surgery at 21 to enhance her buttocks. Last year the rapper, who is biracial, said, “When I didn’t have my surgery, they’re like, ‘Oh, she shaped like her white side.’” SZA, speaking to Elle about her own, similar, procedure (which she sang about on her hit 2022 album, “SOS”), said, “I didn’t succumb to industry pressure. I succumbed to my own eyes in the mirror.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Dolly Parton Covers Billy Joel, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Mumford & Sons and Pharrell Williams, Julian Lage, feeo and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes), and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Dolly Parton, ‘The Entertainer’Now that she’s released the deluxe edition — in honor of her 78th birthday, on Friday! — Dolly Parton’s already sprawling double album “Rockstar” runs nearly three hours long and clocks in at an indefatigably rockin’ 39 tracks. This makes finding the album’s buried treasures that much more exhausting, but luckily one sparkles out from the heap of newly released bonus tracks: her ornately arranged and deeply felt cover of Billy Joel’s 1974 single “The Entertainer.” Joel’s version was full of a young upstart’s gimlet-eyed cynicism — “If you’re gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit, so they cut it down to 3:05,” he sang on a kind of spiritual sequel to the earlier “Piano Man” — but Parton sings it from the opposite end of a long career, finding fresh meaning in his words. “I know the game, you’ll forget my name,” she sings, with a slight ache in her voice. “And I won’t be here in another year, if I don’t stay on the charts.” Given that “Rockstar” became the highest-charting album of Parton’s career just a few months ago, that fate seems, blessedly, unlikely. LINDSAY ZOLADZMumford & Sons and Pharrell Williams, ‘Good People’The unlikely pairing of Mumford & Sons with Pharrell Williams has yielded a decidedly un-folksy song. After a brief head-fake intro of acoustic guitar, it’s a foot-stamping, tambourine-shaking vow of solidarity, revival and burgeoning power: “Good people been down so long/And now I see the sun is rising.” Biblical language and church-choir harmonies insist on a return to righteousness, but they leave it to the listener to decide exactly what’s righteous and who the good people are. JON PARELESReyna Tropical, ‘Cartagena’The guitarist and songwriter Fabi Reyna, who led She Shreds in the 2010s, now records as Reyna Tropical. In “Cartagena,” from an album due in March, “Malegría,” she sings about finding oneness with nature. A lilting beat, ricocheting percussion and layers of intertwined guitars and marimbas hint at Congolese soukous as Reyna enjoys “a moment of peace” and exults, in Spanish, “Let the environment caress me”; it sounds like sheer delight. PARELESAnycia featuring Latto, ‘Back Outside’Two Atlanta rappers — the rising star Anycia and the trusted hitmaker Latto — join forces on the brassy “Back Outside,” both sounding utterly unbothered. Anycia’s low, laid-back rasp provides a fitting foil for Latto’s bounding exuberance; “I don’t know how to sing, but I’m her,” Latto spits, taking a quick breath as the punchline lands. ZOLADZThe Dandy Warhols featuring Frank Black, ‘Danzig With Myself’Bitter cynicism — or is it realism? — courses through “Danzig With Myself”; the punny title is the song’s only hint of comedy. With Frank Black (a.k.a. Black Francis) from Pixies to drive home the grunge connection, the song harnesses a blunt riff and all sorts of guitar noise to back observations on a dystopian, disinformation-saturated moment: “I can’t believe how many people want to deceive us/And I can’t believe how many people want to receive it.” PARELESJulian Lage, ’76’The acoustic guitarist Julian Lage has worked in all sorts of styles as a leader and as a sideman with John Zorn, Charles Lloyd and others. “76” is from “Speak to Me,” an album due March 1. It’s a jauntily asymmetrical tune that rides a bluesy riff and a backbeat from the drummer Dave King of the Bad Plus. Lage takes some modal and chromatic detours, and the pianist Kris Davis flings around free-jazz clusters, but the track never loses a rowdy roadhouse spirit. PARELESMagic Tuber Stringband, ‘Days of Longing’The duo from North Carolina that records as Magic Tuber Stringband connects Appalachian tradition to Minimalism, meditation and perhaps post-rock, carrying forward the ideas of musicians like John Fahey and Sandy Bull. In “Days of Longing,” Courtney Werner on fiddle and Evan Morgan on 12-string guitar share a waltz that transforms itself from folksy warmth to harrowing dissonance to an unfinished resolution, refusing easy comfort. PARELESJlin featuring Philip Glass, ‘The Precision of Infinity’What would Philip Glass sound like with a beat to kick his music forward? The electronic musician Jlin provides a definitive answer in “The Precision of Infinity” from “Akoma,” an album due in March. She chops up bits of Glass’s solo-piano arpeggios, two-note ostinatos and wordless singers and sets them to quick-changing but insistent programmed and sampled percussion, as she relocates his long dramatic arcs into an era of fractured attention spans. PARELESfeeo, ‘It Was Then That I’“I felt God in your touch,” sings feeo — the English songwriter and producer Theodora Laird — in a song about sublime physical communion. Her backup is sparse, pulsing electronic sounds that come together as chords, pull apart and realign; she sounds fulfilled, fascinated and enthralled. PARELES 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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      Popcast (Deluxe): Taylor Swift and Matty Healy, Plus ‘The Idol’

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:The premiere episode of HBO’s “The Idol,” a maybe(?) satirical psychodrama about a troubled female pop star and the Svengali figure, played by the Weeknd, who worms his way into her orbitNew collaborations from Latto and Cardi B, and Central Cee and DaveRecent developments in Taylor Swift’s world, including blowback from her relationship with Matty Healy of the 1975, and her collaboration with Ice SpiceThe pop music documentary explosion of the last few yearsConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. More

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      How Jack Harlow, Nicki Minaj and Others Rely on Familiar Samples

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      … Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s “Crazy in Love,” from 2003. Turns out it’s the same sample, a sleight of ear designed to trigger warm nostalgia, and also maybe a little confusion. Something sounds very familiar about Saucy Santana’s 2022 song “Booty,” no? Those horns sound an awful lot like the ones from … The song that […] More

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      SZA’s ‘Ctrl’ Bonus, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Saucy Santana, Demi Lovato, Joyce Manor and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. 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.SZA, ‘Jodie’One way to satiate fans who have been clamoring for your long-delayed next album: just keep adding new material to the one they already love! Five years ago this week, SZA released her widely adored debut “Ctrl,” and though she’s put out a handful of singles and made some celebrated feature appearances since then (including her Grammy-winning Doja Cat collaboration “Kiss Me More”), she’s yet to follow it up with a full-length. As a stopgap, though, SZA offered fans seven previously unreleased tracks this week on a deluxe edition of “Ctrl.” The best of them is “Jodie” — already a fan favorite, since a demo version leaked last year. “Stuck with just weed and no friends,” she laments on the buoyant track, which balances a confessional tone with self-deprecating humor. Her vocals are melodically nimble but endearingly off-the-cuff, as though you’re overhearing an animated conversation she’s having with herself. LINDSAY ZOLADZSaucy Santana featuring Latto, ‘Booty’Whether the exuberant horns deployed on Saucy Santana’s “Booty” are sampled from Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” or “Are You My Woman? (Tell Me So)” by the Chi-Lites (which provided the original sample for “Crazy in Love”) is immaterial — it’s pure cheat code either way. “Booty” functions as a kind of conceptual bootleg remix of the Beyoncé classic, a way of trumpeting an alliance that could be actual, virtual or theoretical. Most listeners won’t parse it out. Consider it a savvy stroke by Saucy Santana, whose “Material Girl” was the best kind of TikTok breakout — a catchphrase that was in fact connected to an outsized personality. “Booty” is his first major label single, and it has a couple of other borrowings, too: a flow from J-Kwon’s “Tipsy,” a nod to Bubba Sparxxx’s “Ms. New Booty.” But mainly this onetime makeup artist is having fun in the shrinking space between fan and star. JON CARAMANICALizzo, ‘Grrrls’Another entry in the gratuitous remake sweepstakes of 2022: Lizzo reimagines the Beastie Boys’ hypercrass “Girls” as a celebration of female friendship: “That’s my girl, we codependent/If she with it, them I’m with it.” CARAMANICABeach Bunny, ‘Entropy’“Somebody’s gonna figure us out,” Lili Trifilio sings with bracing confidence, “and I hope they do ’cause I’m falling for you.” The hopelessly catchy opening track from the Chicago pop-rock band Beach Bunny’s forthcoming second album, “Emotional Creature,” is all about throwing caution to the wind and going public with a clandestine romance. There’s a fitting clarity to the song’s production and arrangement: glimmering guitars, steady percussion and Trifilio’s voice at the forefront as she sings such openhearted lyrics as “I wanna kiss you when everyone’s watching.” ZOLADZDemi Lovato, ‘Skin of My Teeth’Demi Lovato — the child star turned grown-up hitmaker who survived a 2018 drug overdose and has come out as nonbinary — leverages notoriety and a setback into fierce punk-pop with “Skin of My Teeth.” It’s an armor-plated confession that begins “Demi leaves rehab again” and rides seismic drums, cranked-up guitars and an “ooh-woo-hoo” pop hook to claim solidarity with everyone struggling with addiction. “I can’t believe I’m not dead,” they belt, adding, “I’m just trying to keep my head above water.” JON PARELESJoyce Manor, ‘You’re Not Famous Anymore’“40 Oz. to Fresno,” the new album from the Torrance, Calif., rock band Joyce Manor, is a relentlessly tuneful 17-minute collection of all-killer, no-filler power-pop. An obvious highlight is the punchy “You’re Not Famous Anymore,” which sounds like something that would have gotten a lot of play on mid-90s alternative-rock radio — the sort of song that would have seemed like a mere novelty hit until it ended up stuck in your head for weeks. “You were a child star on methamphetamines,” the frontman Barry Johnson sings, “Now who knows what you are, ’cause you’re not anything.” Accompanied by head-bopping percussion and a surfy guitar, Johnson’s archly acidic delivery cuts through the rest of the song’s mock-breezy atmosphere. ZOLADZJoji, ‘Glimpse of Us’A splendid and striking piano ballad from the singer Joji, who finds middle ground between 1970s soft rock and James Blake. His singing is lightly unsteady, meshing an unnerving sadness with a know-better resilience. CARAMANICAJulius Rodriguez, ‘In Heaven’The 23-year-old pianist and multi-instrumentalist Julius Rodriguez has been wowing audiences at New York clubs for more than half his young life. In a story that’s already become part of jazz’s 21st-century lore, from the time Rodriguez was 11 his father would drive him in from White Plains to partake of jam sessions at Smalls. Cats were floored from Day 1. The other big portion of his musical education took place in church, where he started out even younger as a drummer, and those two big influences resound throughout “Let Sound Tell All,” Rodriguez’s highly anticipated debut album. On “In Heaven,” an invocation written by Darlene Andrews and first recorded by Gregory Porter, Rodriguez joins up with another rising star, the singer Samara Joy. He accompanies her molasses-rich vocals with fanned-out harmonies, channeling Kenny Barron and Hank Jones, sweeping from heavy clusters of notes to threads of crystal clarity. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOSonic Liberation Front and the Sonic Liberation Singers featuring Oliver Lake, ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Real But Love’“Love is an emotion in action,” the eminent saxophonist, poet and visual artist Oliver Lake, 79, recites over the Sonic Liberation Singers’ suspended, open-vowel harmonies. “Ain’t nothin’ real but love/It moves independently of our fears and desires.” Lake recently performed a series of farewell shows with Trio 3, the avant-garde supergroup that he has played in for more than three decades — but it should come as little surprise that as he closes one chapter, the ever-prolific Lake has opened another: “Justice,” on which this track appears, is the first LP to feature Lake’s vocal compositions. At times wild and purgative, the album is also full of moments like this one: poised, stubbornly hopeful, grounded in Lake’s memories of a more revolutionary age and seeking to stir that energy up again. RUSSONELLO More