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      Nicki Minaj Reunites With Lil Wayne and Drake, and 13 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Olivia Rodrigo, Tony Allen, L’Rain 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.Nicki Minaj with Drake and Lil Wayne, ‘Seeing Green’In honor of Nicki Minaj’s still-incendiary 2009 debut mixtape “Beam Me Up Scotty” finally arriving on streaming services, she’s organized a little YMCMB family reunion. “Seeing Green” is more of a status update than a club banger à la the trio’s classic “Truffle Butter,” but everyone is still in fine form. Wayne, as usual, plays the gonzo court jester, and he seizes the opportunity to unload all of those pandemic-related rhymes he’s been holding onto for the last year (“I put you six feet deep, I’m being socially distant”). Nicki locks back into her standard eviscerate-the-haters flow, and Drake continues to rap with a precision and bite that suggests, as did the recent “Scary Hours 2,” that whenever his promised “Certified Lover Boy” arrives, it might actually be worth the wait. “I played 48 minutes on a torn meniscus,” he boasts, “who’s subbing?” (But maybe see a doctor about that, Drake — it’s serious!) LINDSAY ZOLADZOlivia Rodrigo, ‘Good 4 U’The third single from Olivia Rodrigo’s forthcoming debut album, “Sour,” tells a story that will be familiar to anyone who’s heard her first single, “Driver’s License”: A former flame moves on too quickly after a breakup, leaving Rodrigo alone with all her feelings. But this time the 18-year-old Disney actress refracts it through a different lens and a whole new sonic palette. Though it starts off quiet, by the chorus “Good 4 U” explodes into a kind of “You Oughta Know” for the TikTok era, all righteous anger and pop-punky, primal-scream rage: “Good for you, you’re doing great out there without me — like a damn sociopath!” ZOLADZTorres, ‘Don’t Go Puttin Wishes in My Head’The new song from Mackenzie Scott — who makes brooding, searching indie-rock under the name Torres — might be the most accessible thing she’s ever released. And she knows it: She’s wryly described “Don’t Go Putting Wishes in My Head,” the first single from her forthcoming album “Thirstier,” as “my relentless arena country star moment.” More than anything, though, with its buzzing synths and soaring chorus, “Wishes” recalls the Killers at their most fist-clenchingly anthemic. “Just when I thought that it was over, it was only just beginning,” Scott sings, her voice trembling with intensity. She seems to understand that accepting joy can sometimes be an even more vulnerable act than confessing pain, but by the end of the song she sounds fearless, and ready to move toward the light. ZOLADZTony Allen, ‘Mau Mau’The drummer Tony Allen supplied the rhythmic foundation for Fela Kuti’s Nigerian Afrobeat in the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on West African traditions, jazz and funk, he built an architecture of unpredictable offbeats, unhurried but kinetic. Before his death in 2020, he had started a hip-hop project, creating beats and synthesizer bass lines and lining up vocalists. Allen’s new album, “There Is No End,” was completed posthumously by the producers Vincent Taeger and Vincent Taurelle. “Mau Mau” features Nah Eeto, a rapper from Kenya, with multitracked vocals that calmly bounce around the syllables of her lyrics — some in English, some not — to highlight all the ways Allen could dodge the downbeat while constantly flicking the music onward. JON PARELESMaría Grand, ‘Now, Take, Your, Day’The rising tenor saxophonist María Grand wrote the tunes that appear on “Reciprocity,” her new LP, in the middle of a pregnancy, while reading spiritual texts and paying close attention to the bond she was building with her not-yet-born child. (The album’s liner notes include her written reflections on becoming a mother, and how this found its way into the music.) The album, featuring Kanoa Mendenhall on bass and Savannah Harris on drums, is also a testament to the constant regeneration that becomes possible within a close musical partnership; on track after track, Grand dances nimbly over Harris’s subtly shifting patterns, and Mendenhall stubbornly insists on never repeating herself. “Now, Take, Your, Day” begins with all three members singing the song’s title in harmony, before the rhythm section lays down a loosely funky beat and Grand introduces the song’s downward-slanting melody on saxophone. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOBella Poarch, ‘Build a Bitch’Like many TikTok stars, Bella Poarch is making a move into her own music. “Build a Bitch” comes across cute and furious. Tinkly toy-piano sounds and perky la-las accompany her as she points out that women aren’t consumer products. “You don’t get to pick and choose/Different ass and bigger boobs,” she coos. “If you need perfect, I’m not built for you.” A post-“Westworld” video set in an android factory ends, inevitably, in mayhem. PARELESSleater-Kinney, ‘Worry With You’The forthcoming, self-produced Sleater-Kinney album “Path of Wellness” will be the first the Portland band releases as a duo, since its longtime power-drummer Janet Weiss departed in 2019, and her absence certainly makes the song feel a bit muted and minor. But there’s still a familiar pleasure in hearing Carrie Brownstein’s snaking guitar riffs and staccato vocals intertwine with Corin Tucker’s, as they sing of a long-term togetherness that’s provided comfort in good times and bad: “If I’m gonna mess up,” they avow, “I’m gonna mess up with you.” ZOLADZMartin Garrix featuring Bono & The Edge, ‘We Are the People’The official 2020 UEFA European Football Championship song is exactly what you’d expect from a soccer anthem by a big-room EDM D.J. collaborating with half of U2: a grand, thumping march with pinging guitars, vast synthesizer swells and determinedly inspirational lyrics. “You’ve faith and no fear for the fight,” Bono sings, “You pull hope from defeat in the night.” The song uses familiar tools for stadium-scale uplift, but they can still work. PARELESHolly Macve, ‘You Can Do Better’Regrets and reverb both loom large on Holly Macve’s second album, “Not the Girl,” a set of country-rooted ballads that place her reedy voice — determinedly sustained through countless breaks and quavers — in wide-screen, retro arrangements. “You Can Do Better” is a stately, swaying waltz, a breakup-and-makeup scenario that builds up to dramatic questions, swirling across voices and strings: “Is it so wrong to love you?/Is it so wrong to care?” PARELESL’Rain, ‘Blame Me’L’Rain — the songwriter, musician and producer Taja Cheek — opens an ever-widening, ever more disorienting sonic vortex in “Blame Me,” from her second album, “Fatigue,” due June 25. Sparse guitars pick fragments of chords that fall, then rise, as L’Rain muses cryptically on mortality and remorse. Soon, they’re enveloped by a ghostly orchestra and distant voices intoning, “Waste away now, make my way down”; as the track ends, she’s still in a lush harmonic and emotional limbo. PARELESElaine, ‘Right Now’Elaine is from South Africa, where she already has a large audience. But her sound bespeaks international R&B ambitions, with programmed trap drum sounds and an American accent. In “Right Now,” she tries to juggle a damaged relationship against a burgeoning career. “I cannot continue carrying all your insecurities/I got more priorities,” she sings, quietly but adamantly. Her alto is low, intimate and flexible; with her priorities, she’s not about to indulge a cheating ex, even if she’s tempted. PARELESAlan Jackson, ‘Where Have You Gone’“Where Have You Gone,” the title song of Alan Jackson’s new, 21-song album, starts off like a lonely lament for someone who’s left him: “It’s been way too long since you slipped away.” But it turns out he’s lamenting the way “sweet country music” used to sound: steel guitar, fiddle, “words from the heart.” It’s the style Jackson has upheld through his career, looking back to Merle Haggard and George Jones, only to see it supplanted lately by arena-country and infiltrations of hip-hop. “The airwaves are waiting,” he insists; current country radio says otherwise. PARELESSons of Kemet featuring Moor Mother and Angel Bat Dawid, ‘Pick Up Your Burning Cross’Over the rough rhythmic onrush of this United Kingdom-based quartet — featuring Theon Cross’s pulsing tuba, Shabaka Hutchings’s roof-raising saxophone and the interlocked drumming of Edward Wakili-Hick and Tom Skinner — a voice hovers, singing and speaking and laughing. It belongs to Angel Bat Dawid, and it’s soon joined by that of Moor Mother, another revolutionary poet and musician from this side of the Atlantic. “I don’t think you remember me/I was in last place,” Moor Mother begins, serving notice as the band presses ahead. The piece is on “Black to the Future,” Sons of Kemet’s fourth album. RUSSONELLOErika Dohi, ‘Particle Of …’Erika Dohi, a Japanese keyboardist and composer now based in New York City, is one of the musicians affiliated with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver’s label 37d03d (“people” upside-down). “Particle Of …” comes from her new album “I, Castorpollux,” and while it was composed by Andy Akiho (who also directed her music video), it fits the album’s aesthetic of Minimalistic repetitions and startling fractures. It uses percussive, single-note patterns on piano and prepared piano, played live and then computer manipulated, equally virtuosic and digitally skewed. Chords arrive at the end, like a surprise visit from 20th-century modernism. PARELES More

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      Tina Turner and Jay-Z Lead Rock Hall of Fame’s 2021 Inductees

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      Foo Fighters, the Go-Go’s, Carole King and Todd Rundgren were also voted in, meaning nearly half of the 15 individuals in this year’s class are women.For years, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has been pummeled by criticism that its inductees — the marble busts in the pantheon of rock — were too homogeneous, and that the secretive insiders who create the ballots showed a troubling pattern of excluding women.This year the voters seem to have listened: The class of 2021 features Jay-Z, Foo Fighters, the Go-Go’s, Carole King, Tina Turner and Todd Rundgren — a collection of 15 individuals that includes seven women.That ratio alone should lend a new energy to the 36th annual induction ceremony, planned for Oct. 30 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.In past years, when women have been inducted, they have been far outnumbered by men. In 2019, for example, Stevie Nicks and Janet Jackson may have stood triumphant, but their earnest speeches — Jackson: “Please induct more women” — did not seem to last as long as it took to name every male bass player of the rock bands that joined alongside them.Dave Grohl, center, and the members of Foo Fighters. Grohl is already in the hall as a member of Nirvana.Magdalena Wosinska for The New York TimesThe latest inductees show a balance of genre and generation that has come to be a feature of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s expanding tent. Foo Fighters, led by Dave Grohl, represent the cream of 1990s-vintage alternative rock. Jay-Z is rap incarnate. And the Go-Go’s stand for joyful, upbeat 1980s power-pop.Each of those acts was a first-time nominee, although the Go-Go’s — the first and only all-woman rock band to score a No. 1 album on Billboard’s chart — have been eligible since 2006. (Artists can be nominated 25 years after the release of their first recording.)The Go-Go’s in the early 1980s: from left, Kathy Valentine, Jane Wiedlin, Gina Schock, Charlotte Caffey and Belinda Carlisle.Paul Natkin/WireImageRundgren, the prolific producer and multi-instrumentalist, occupies the role of the auteur from classic rock’s flowering in the late 1960s and early ’70s; Turner is a force of nature whose career has stretched from old-school R&B to MTV-era pop; and King is the singer-songwriter and conscience who brings gravitas to the proceedings.Three of this year’s inductees were already in the hall: Grohl as a member of Nirvana, Turner with Ike and Tina Turner, and King as a nonperformer, with her songwriting partner and former husband Gerry Goffin.The story of the inductions is also told by who didn’t make the cut. The voters — a group of more than 1,000 artists, journalists and industry veterans — decided against the bands Iron Maiden, Devo, New York Dolls and Rage Against the Machine, as well as Kate Bush, Mary J. Blige, Chaka Khan and Dionne Warwick.The Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti would have been the first Black musician from Africa to join the hall, but was not voted in this year. Leni Sinclair/Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty ImagesFela Kuti, the Nigerian-born pioneer of Afrobeat, had been the surprise nominee this year, and was one of the artists chosen in the Hall of Fame’s fan vote — an online public poll that creates a single official ballot — thanks in part to support from African stars like Burna Boy. Kuti would have been the first Black artist from Africa to join the hall, but he failed in his first time on the ballot. (Trevor Rabin of Yes is from South Africa, and Freddie Mercury of Queen was born in Zanzibar, now part of Tanzania; both bands are in the Hall of Fame.)And LL Cool J, a titan of hip-hop who also received high-profile support this year, lost after a sixth nomination. But he has been given a musical excellence award, for people “whose originality and influence creating music have had a dramatic impact on music.” This category was once known as the sidemen award, but it is also something of a consolation prize: The producer and guitarist Nile Rodgers won it in 2017 after Chic, his band, was passed over 11 times.The other musical excellence recipients this year include Billy Preston, the keyboardist who was a frequent collaborator of the Beatles, and Randy Rhoads, a guitarist with Ozzy Osbourne.Also this year, the Ahmet Ertegun Award, for nonperformers, will go to the record executive Clarence Avant, and “early influence” trophies will go to Gil Scott-Heron, Charley Patton and Kraftwerk, the German electronic pioneers who had been nominated for induction six times.The induction ceremony is to be broadcast later on HBO and streamed on HBO Max. More

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      DJ Khaled Reaches No. 1 With ‘Khaled Khaled’

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      The album, titled after the star’s full name, has guest appearances by Drake, Megan Thee Stallion, Justin Bieber and more than a dozen others.Two years ago, a pair of hip-hop luminaries, DJ Khaled and Tyler, the Creator, faced off on the Billboard album chart, hawking not just music but also T-shirts, lawn signs and energy drinks.The contest between them — Tyler won, Khaled came in second — stirred up long-simmering frustrations in the industry over the use of retail bundles to increase music sales and goose artists’ chart positions. The fallout from that chart battle, and others like it, led to Billboard tightening its rules late last year.This week, with bundling largely banished to the dustbin of industry sales gimmicks — a very crowded dustbin — DJ Khaled took No. 1 with his latest release, “Khaled Khaled,” which had the equivalent of 93,000 sales in the United States, including 107 million streams and 14,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to MRC Data. It is DJ Khaled’s third time at No. 1.The album, titled after the star’s full name, is a textbook example of DJ Khaled’s style: hyper-pumped affirmations of glory and humility (“Thankful” is the first track, not to be confused with “Grateful” a couple albums ago), delivered with a deep bench of guest stars — this one features Drake, Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Wayne, Nas, Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake, Post Malone, Jay-Z and more than a dozen others. In addition to DJ Khaled, the album’s credited executive producers include his two young sons, Asahd and Aalam.Also this week, “A Gangsta’s Pain” by the Memphis rapper Moneybagg Yo fell to No. 2 in its second week out. Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” holds at No. 3; Bieber’s “Justice” is in fourth place; and “Slime Language 2,” the project led by the rapper Young Thug, is No. 5. More

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      E-40, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and Too Short Form New Rap Group

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      Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, E-40 and Too Short — the old school titans in this new supergroup — made their live debut at an event featuring pop stars and TikTok influencers.ATLANTA — Many people have reconnected with old friends and undertaken new projects during the pandemic. On a Friday night in April, in a large, brightly lit room deep in the bowels of Mercedes-Benz stadium in downtown Atlanta, four of them gathered to introduce their new venture to the world.The voluble E-40, who has released more than 25 albums of distinctive, loquacious street rap, gingerly removed his face mask and offered Tycoon cognac, a product of his own spirits company, to the 20 or so others present, including his old friends Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and Too Short.“You got a cup?” Ice Cube asked, shooting a withering glance at E-40. “What, you gonna pour it in my hand?” Cube is a bullish figure whose blunt, confrontational bearing has made him an intimidating presence as an M.C., a comic one in films like “Friday” and “21 Jump Street” and the object of occasional good-natured mockery among this cohort.Clear plastic cups were located. E-40 poured the liquor, then dipped his nose into his cup before tossing back a shot.Snoop cackled from behind a black face mask he’d yet to remove. “You made the drink and you’re sniffing it like you’ve got to check it?” he said. “It’s your drink!”E-40 shook his head. “You’re supposed to. It’s the same with wine. Cognac is a grape.” He began to expound on his beverage’s fragrant qualities before Cube cut him off.“Save the commercial until after the photo shoot.”The four rap veterans bantered and bickered — about baby powder, about Ric Flair, about the correct amount of time to microwave shrimp fried rice — the way you’d expect from guys who’ve known each other for 30 years. Despite their long, often intertwined histories, it took a global crisis to clear enough time in their schedules to form the supergroup that Cube christened Mount Westmore, a nod to the members’ stature in rap and their West Coast roots.Clockwise from top left: Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Too Short and E-40, a few decades ago. “We can hang with the youngsters or take you back down memory lane,” Ice Cube said.Top l-r: Brian Rasic/Getty Images; Al Pereira/Getty Images, via, Michael Ochs Archives Bottom l-r: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images; Toby Canham/Getty ImagesThe four were at the stadium to do their first interview and photo shoot together, followed by a rehearsal and taping of Mount Westmore’s first performance, which was broadcast the next night as part of a pay-per-view package featuring pop stars and TikTok influencers, headlined by a live boxing match between the YouTuber Jake Paul and the retired MMA fighter Ben Askren. (Snoop is an investor in Triller, the social media platform that promoted the event, and a partner in its Fight Club series.)The collaboration initially took root early in the pandemic at E-40’s initiative. By last summer, the four were recording vocals in their home studios and dropping them into a group chat. Although rapping separately deprived them of some creative friction, it allowed everyone to work on their own schedule.“I can’t rap in the daytime,” Snoop said.“And I can’t rap late at night,” Too Short replied.Nonetheless, competition was fierce. “We come from that school of being around dope people that push us,” Snoop explained.Ice Cube nodded. “Working with Dre back in the day, if your verse wasn’t tight, you weren’t getting on the song.”Deep friendships fostered frank dialogue. “One of the earliest conversations was, ‘If something you do is wack, I’m going to tell you,’” said Too Short, who got his start selling tapes of his gleefully lascivious rhymes from the trunk of his car around the Bay Area in the mid-1980s.“What did you say?” Snoop asked, nodding toward Cube then lowering his voice an octave in a spot-on imitation of his friend’s trademark snarl. “‘I ain’t getting on that love song!’” The quartet recorded 50-plus songs, which they plan to spread across multiple releases, with the first planned for later this year.At the photo shoot, Cube suggested playing tracks from the upcoming album. A member of the group’s road crew fiddled with Snoop’s branded Bumpboxx, a digital boombox wrapped with the cover artwork from his classic 1992 debut, “Doggystyle,” but music was not immediately forthcoming. Snoop, tall and lean with long, dark hair that’s graying near his temples, walked over to investigate.“Turn the power off, then back on,” yelled Too Short. “That always fixes that.”E-40 sighed loudly. “Man, am I going to have to do this? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out.”Finally, the Bumpboxx sparked to life, playing Freddie Jackson’s 1986 R&B slow jam “I Don’t Want to Lose Your Love.”“Well, that’s music,” said Cube. “It ain’t the right music, but it’s music.”Attention turned back to the camera. Too Short, who was wearing a colorful Versace T-shirt and dark jeans over his compact frame, had a suggestion. “Let’s make it look like some old New Edition pictures,” he said. “Or like the Temptations, how they line up the four dudes.”Cube balked at profile shots. “I don’t want to show the Volkswagen,” he said, putting his hands on his belly.E-40 turned sideways and twisted his third and fourth fingers to form a “W” with his left hand. “That hurts my fingers though,” he said. “I had surgery on those fingers.”Mount Westmore performing “Big Subwoofer” as part of a pay-per-view  event presented in Atlanta that included a live boxing match.Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images for TrillerAging can be a humbling process, but it’s especially fraught in hip-hop. The inevitable march of time has generally been treated as an unforgivable weakness in a culture that often celebrates a particular masculine idea of strength. As a then-26-year-old Compton rapper the Game once put it in a presumed shot at Jay-Z: “You 38 and you still rapping? Ugh.” (The Game is now 41 and reportedly preparing to release a new album this year.) The mid-to-late-30s has long been viewed as retirement age for rappers despite the fact so many qualities required of the job — sharp mind, quick tongue, storytelling acumen, life wisdom — are as likely to be growing as diminishing in middle age.So where does that leave Mount Westmore? At 49, Snoop is, in his words, “the baby of the bunch.” Ice Cube is 51, E-40 is 53 and Too Short is 55.“People have their hangups about it,” said Cube, “but if people love what’s coming out of the speakers, they’ll tolerate some gray hairs.”Snoop noted that the Rolling Stones are in their late 70s, and that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards don’t always seem to get along. “You’ve got that being praised and we’re being questioned,” he said. “We should be praised because we’re in our right mind, we love each other, we’re family men, we’re business men, and we’re Black men. If you look at the Cubes, the Will Smiths, the Jay-Zs, the Puffys, the Snoops, the Dr. Dres, the E-40s, whoever — they all flipped from rap to other businesses to show that if you close that door, we’ve got seven or eight other doors we’ve opened up.”Accordingly, music is only a part of the Mount Westmore plan. There’s talk of brand partnerships with Monster energy drink and the Cash app, a documentary, a scripted movie, podcasts and NFTs. As such, introducing the project during a social media-focused, music-heavy event spotlighting a former star of “Bizaardvark” boxing against a guy who’d never boxed before has a certain kind of insane logic to it.At 1 a.m., the four rappers were onstage, sitting side-by-side on large black thrones a few feet from a boxing ring on the stadium’s main floor. About 75 people gathered around, some working, many others just perched on a catwalk between the ring and a large camera crane, watching. The floor rumbled a little underfoot as the bass from the group’s song “Big Subwoofer” boomed from the sound system.The track, which they plan to release as an NFT, is a bouncy, trunk-rattling party anthem that feels like a not-too-distant-cousin of Snoop’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” as well as a pretty precise sum of its parts. The foursome rehearsed the song three times, trading playful verses over the spare, thumping beat, growing more confident and animated with each run through. Then, after Cube gave the group some final instructions — “Shut up and sit down. Let’s do this.” — they performed the song twice more as the cameras rolled. Job done.“We have all kinds of different songs,” said Cube. “We’ve got a mixture of what you always love from us as individuals but also records that show our range. We can hang with the youngsters or take you back down memory lane.”As Too Short had explained while the four friends huddled together after the photo shoot, “The hip-hop spirit doesn’t really age. It’s like a little kid thing you’ve got that’s your spark of life.”“What do we call ourselves?” E-40 asked him.“Old-ass youngsters,” Too Short replied. “That’s what it is.” More

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      An Anthem About Hugging Your Friends Again, and 10 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Rostam, Marcellus Juvann, Gogo Penguin 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.Frank Turner, ‘The Gathering’Who better than Frank Turner, the punk-intense British folk singer, to underscore the imminent joy of reconnecting with others? Turner is barking on “The Gathering” — which casually features Dom Howard (from Muse, on drums) and an inquisitive guitar solo from Jason Isbell — and fully in pulpit mode: “I’ve been missing the feeling when we close up the gaps between us/It’s better than the best benediction, more bracing than blood lust.” Generally, this sort of earnestness can be wearying (even after a very wearying year-plus of isolation), but Turner succeeds because he sounds like he’s just stomped out of a stuffy meeting to go yell on a street corner, frantic with euphoria. JON CARAMANICALump, ‘Animal’In Lump, which releases an album called “Animal” in July, Laura Marling sets aside her virtuosic acoustic guitar to collaborate with Mike Lindsay, the electronics wizard from the folktronica group Tunng. For the album’s title song, she gives herself terse syllable counts — “All that you want/Is to be heard” — as Lindsay supplies steady pulses and blips. But midway through, the metronomic pulse breaks down and Marling leaves her deadpan monotone to wail, “I need more.” Then she submits once again to the digital grid. JON PARELESKhaira Arby, ‘Ferene’The Malian singer Khaira Arby, who died in 2018, was a clarion vocalist who led an incendiary band, fusing Malian modes and rhythms and combining traditional string instruments — the tehardant and ngoni — with a psychedelic electric-guitar attack. “New York Live,” a newly released recording from her first concert in North America, magnificently captures the spiraling energy of her concerts. Listen to the whole remarkable set, or jump in near the peak with “Ferene,” with its intricate cymbal cross-rhythms, its exultant call-and-response vocals and its bursts of fuzz-toned guitar frenzy. PARELESRostam, ‘From the Back of a Cab’Rostam, formerly of Vampire Weekend, zeros in on the awkward intimacy of a particular moment: the cab ride to the airport, a last bit of togetherness before a strictly defined parting. “I am happy you and I got this hour,” he croons, over a nervous six-beat rhythm and echoey piano chords and guitar tones; the relationship stays tentative, conditional. PARELESRodrigo Amarante, ‘Maré’“Maré” means tide, and in his new single, the Brazilian songwriter Rodrigo Amarante compares destiny to a tidal ebb and flow, singing with a tone of weary acceptance. His music has its own push and pull, with three-against-two rhythms and a tangle of instrumental lines — guitars, percussion, a nasal synthesizer, a horn section, some whistling — that interlock but sound like they might collide at any moment. It sounds charmingly ramshackle; it’s not. PARELESGogo Penguin featuring Cornelius, ‘Kora (Cornelius Remix)’Gogo Penguin looks like a jazz trio — piano, bass and drums — but its music also has plenty in common with the repetition, terse motifs and inexorable evolution of electronica. Its new album, “Gogo Penguin Remixes,” hands over tracks from the 2020 “Gogo Penguin” to electronica wizards like Squarepusher, Machinedrum, 808 State and, on “Kora,” the Japanese producer Cornelius. The original’s pecking, stop-start piano theme hints at the plucking of an African kora; Cornelius extrapolates the implied harmonies of that theme to build a sustained, whooshing, buzzing, superstructure, as if he’s unveiling the tune’s futuristic inner life. PARELESJoe Lovano and Dave Douglas, ‘Life on Earth’The saxophonist Joe Lovano and the trumpeter Dave Douglas recorded the tracks that would become “Other Worlds,” the new album from their quintet, Sound Prints, in January 2020, just weeks ahead of a global shutdown. Most of the tunes on the album were done in just one take, and the band’s natural comfort comes through here. On “Life on Earth,” a swiftly shuffling Douglas tune, the pianist Lawrence Fields plays less and less as the trumpeter’s solo develops, moving from a colorist’s role to that of a jagged percussion instrument. Lovano’s tenor saxophone solo brings a sluice of energy flooding back in, until Fields and the bassist Linda May Han Oh finish off the solo section with briefly suspenseful, dashing statements of their own. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOMarcellus Juvann, ‘Wrong’“Hardheaded,” the fascinating new self-produced EP from the Houston rapper Marcellus Juvann, is full of clever, quirky, urgent and oddball beats. They’re uniformly potent, and a strong match for Juvann’s rapping, which he delivers in a lightly croaky, lightly stumbling, lightly swinging voice that telegraphs confidence and disaffection all at once. CARAMANICATrippie Redd featuring Playboi Carti, ‘Miss the Rage’A fan edit of this track has been making the rounds on TikTok, but this version is different, with a new Playboi Carti verse. Trippie Redd remains underappreciated and committed to SoundCloud rap staccato, and Carti sticks with his mewling yelps, all over a beat that suggests a starship shifting into warp gear. CARAMANICAElohim and Big Freedia, ‘Strut’As if 21st-century life weren’t surveilled enough, the Los Angeles producer and songwriter Elohim has enlisted the New Orleans bounce icon Big Freedia to join her in saying that even a sidewalk is a runway, a place to perform and be judged. The beat is downright perky, even if the message is oppressive. Still, sometimes a sidewalk is just a sidewalk. PARELESCarlos Niño, ‘Ripples, Reflection, Loop’Ambient music is having a moment, fed partly by our urge for peace amid the anxiety of a pandemic, but also by a need for contact with the outside world — for physicality and touch. A lot of the quiet-seeking, time-stretching music that’s coming out from artists like Claire Rousay, Lea Bertucci and Ben Seretan isn’t primarily electronic; it lives up to the “ambient” designation more literally, ensconcing voices or instrumentals in the sounds of the outdoors. The Los Angeles-based percussionist and producer Carlos Niño’s new album, “More Energy Fields, Current,” places him and a small coterie of musician friends inside a wider environment, playing loops and gentle improvisations and long synthesizer chords. On “Ripples, Reflection, Loop,” he’s joined by the New Age pioneer Laraaji, the pianist Jamael Dean and the vocalist Sharada, who’s heard from what feels like a distance — and then startlingly, comfortingly up close. RUSSONELLO More

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      Moneybagg Yo Reaches No. 1 With ‘A Gangsta’s Pain’

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      The Memphis rapper’s fourth studio album debuted at the top of the Billboard 200, and Eric Church landed a new LP at No. 4.Hip-hop and country music lead this week’s Billboard album chart, with the Memphis rapper Moneybagg Yo notching his first No. 1 album and Eric Church opening in the Top 5.Moneybagg Yo, who has released four studio albums and a slew of mixtapes going back nearly a decade — with many of them reaching the Top 10 — has finally cracked the peak position with “A Gangsta’s Pain,” which features guest spots from Pharrell Williams, Future, Lil Durk and others. “A Gangsta’s Pain” opened with the equivalent of 110,000 sales in the United States, most of which were attributed to 147 million clicks on streaming services, according to MRC Data. (The album also sold 4,000 copies as a full package.) Moneybagg Yo reacted to the news of his achievement on Instagram, saying it “Feel Crazy, I’m Forever Grateful Tho!”“Slime Language 2,” the new project from the Atlanta rapper Young Thug and his label Young Stoner Life, which topped the chart last week, fell to No. 2. “Dangerous: The Double Album,” by the country singer and songwriter Morgan Wallen, which had a 10-week run at No. 1 earlier this year, remains a steady hit, holding at third place in its 16th week out.At No. 4 is the debut of “Soul” by the country star Church — the companion album to “Heart,” which opened at No. 5 last week. According to Billboard, it is the first time an artist has had back-to-back Top 10 debuts since Future’s albums “Future” and “HNDRXX” four years ago. Justin Bieber’s “Justice” dropped one spot to No. 5. More

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      Billie Eilish’s Portrait of Power Abuse, and 11 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Willow featuring Travis Barker, girl in red, DJ Khaled featuring Cardi B, 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.Billie Eilish, ‘Your Power’Cozy, pristine, Laurel Canyon-style acoustic guitars accompany Billie Eilish as she whisper-sings “Try not to abuse your power.” Then she proceeds to sketch a creepy, controlling, exploitative and possibly illegal relationship. The quietly damning accusations pile up: “You said she thought she was your age/How dare you?” Meanwhile, in the video that she directed, an anaconda slowly tightens around her. JON PARELESWillow featuring Travis Barker, ‘Transparentsoul’The return of Willow — daughter of Will and Jada — is brisk, breezy pop-punk throbbing with a very particular sort of famous-child agonizing. She lashes out at deceptive former friends (and maybe some current ones, too) who “smile in my face then put your cig out on my back.” JON CARAMANICAgirl in red, ‘Serotonin’Whatever slams, girl in red — the Norwegian songwriter Marie Ulven — can use it. In “Serotonin,” from her new album “If I Could Make It Go Quiet,” she sings about trying to stabilize her wildly whipsawing, self-destructive emotions with therapy and medications: “Can’t hide from the corners of my mind/I’m terrified of what’s inside,” she announces. The music veers from punk-pop guitars to EDM crescendos and bass drops, from distorted rapping to ringing choruses, only to crumble as it ends. PARELESDJ Khaled featuring Cardi B, ‘Big Paper’It is perhaps the strongest testament to the A&R savvy of DJ Khaled that on an album filled with glossy cameos from Megan Thee Stallion and Lil Baby, and contemplative elder moments from Nas and Jay-Z, he opts to include the endlessly charismatic and exceedingly famous Cardi B on “Big Paper,” a song that sounds like she’s rapping on an old D.I.T.C. beat. It’s relentless, sharp-tongued and slick: “House with the palm trees for all the times I was shaded.” CARAMANICAQ, ‘If You Care’The power of “If You Care” isn’t in the conventional come-on of lyrics like “If you care you’ll come a little closer.” It’s in the persistent rhythmic displacement, top to bottom: the way beat, bass line, vocals and rhythm guitar each suggest a different downbeat, enforcing disorientation from the bottom up. They only align when the vocals turn to rapping at the end; it had to finish somewhere. PARELESPriscilla Block, ‘Sad Girls Do Sad Things’If you didn’t know better, you’d think the young country singer Priscilla Block was perennially gloomy, the sum of one bad decision after the next. That’s the mood on her impressive debut EP, which is sturdy, shamelessly pop-minded and full of songs about regret like “Sad Girls Do Sad Things”:Don’t get me wrong, I love a beer on a FridayBut lately I’ve been at the bar more than my placeAnother round of shutting it downTwo-for-ones ’til too far goneBlock has a crisp and expressive voice, and she telegraphs anguish well. But this EP skips over the rowdy cheer and randy winks of her breakthrough single, “Thick Thighs.” Which is to say, there’s more to Block’s story than heartbreak. CARAMANICABrye, ‘I’d Rather Be Alone’The teenage pop songwriter and producer Brye Sebring lilts through the wreckage of an overlong relationship in “I’d Rather Be Alone.” Everything is crisp: her diction, her rhymes and the pinging syncopations of an arrangement that builds from single keyboard tones through percussion and handclaps to teasing back-and-forth harmonies. “I doubt you’ll even bother listening to this song,” she notes, one more good reason to break free. PARELESHalf Waif, ‘Swimmer’The drama never stops building in “Swimmer,” from the coming album “Mythopoetics” by Half Waif: the electronics-driven songwriter Nandi Rose Plunkett. It’s a song about everlasting love — “they can’t take this away from me,” she vows — that evolves from an anxious rhythmic pulse to a chordal anthem, all larger than life. PARELESChristian McBride, ‘Brouhaha’The eminent bassist Christian McBride has just released “The Q Sessions,” a three-song collection that he recorded in high-definition for Qobuz, an audiophile streaming platform. The EP features three top-flight improvising musicians who, like McBride, tend to play their instruments in hi-def already: the saxophonist Marcus Strickland, the guitarist Mike Stern and the drummer Eric Harland. The group chases McBride’s syncopated bass line through the ever-shifting funk of “Brouhaha,” which he clearly wrote with Stern — and his roots on the frisky 1980s fusion scene — in mind. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOJen Shyu and Jade Tongue, ‘Living’s a Gift — Part 2: Everything for Granted’The singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu draws on jazz, Asian music and much more. Her new album, “Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses,” reflects on loss, memory and perseverance. It opens with “Living’s a Gift,” a suite of songs using lyrics written by middle schoolers during the pandemic: “We’ve lost our minds, lost our time to shine.” The music is ingenious and resilient; leading her jazzy quintet, Jade Tongue, Shyu multitracks her voice into a frisky, intricately contrapuntal choir, folding together angular phrases as neatly as origami. PARELESBurial, ‘Space Cadet’The elusive English electronic producer Burial has re-emerged yet again, splitting a four-track EP, “Shock Power of Love,” with the producer Blackdown. “Space Cadet” hints at post-pandemic optimism — a brisk club beat, arpeggiators pumping out major chords, voices urging “take me higher” — but Burial shrouds it all in static and echoey murk, letting the beat collapse repeatedly, until the track falls back into emptiness. PARELESSofía Rei, ‘La Otra’As she prepared to make her forthcoming album, “Umbral,” Sofía Rei embarked upon a trek through Chile’s mountainous Elqui Province. She brought a charango and two backpacks full of recording gear; on the trip, she recorded herself playing and singing, as well as the babbling sounds of the natural world around her. The album begins with “La Otra,” out Friday as a single, on which Rei sets a poem by the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral to music. Flutes flutter over ricocheting synth bass, a stop-and-start beat and strummed charango, as Rei’s overdubbed voice harmonizes with itself in fierce exclamations, lapping at the sky like a flame. RUSSONELLO More

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      The Sing-Rap Generation Branches Out

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      The No. 1 song in the United States is Polo G’s “Rapstar”; Rod Wave’s recent album “SoulFly” recently debuted at the top of the Billboard album chart; and one of the most in-demand collaborators in hip-hop is Lil Tjay. The current sing-rap generation is thriving, and utilizing a variety of approaches, from saccharine pop to gospel-esque blues.This genre takeover has been in motion for more than a decade now — even though most artists in the current wave operate under the long shadow of YoungBoy Never Broke Again, the arc dates back to Future and Young Thug; and before that, Drake; and before that, Kanye West; and so on.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the many stripes of sing-rap success, and how melody has reshaped hip-hop over the last few years in the work of Polo G, Rod Wave, Lil Tjay and rising artists including NoCap, Rylo Rodriguez, Mooski and Morray.Guest:Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork staff writer More