Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
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This week, Drake and Central Cee offer a mid-summer single, Morgan Wallen corrals a pair of rap stars and Sombr keeps getting better. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Drake feat. Central Cee, “Which One”
Comeback season continues for Drake: after scoring a surprise smash with “Nokia” and taking names on “What Did I Miss?,” he now returns to dancehall mode on “Which One,” a team-up with Central Cee built around a summer-ready beat, a nod to Rihanna’s “Work” and lyrics that are aimed at a significant other but could also apply to a resurgent Drizzy (“F–k anyone that’s bringing you down”).
Morgan Wallen feat. Lil Wayne & Rick Ross, “Miami (Remix)”
As Morgan Wallen has ascended to superstardom over the past half-decade, he’s added countless fans who wouldn’t consider themselves country music diehards; with a new remix of I’m the Problem track “Miami,” Wallen tries to add some more by bringing in an Auto-Tuned Lil Wayne and a grunting Rick Ross, who bulk up the song’s crossover appeal with veteran hip-hop panache.
Sombr, “12 to 12”
Addison Rae co-starring in the music video for Sombr’s new single “12 to 12” has been worthy of headlines, but the top story here is Shane Boose’s continued growth as a pop-rock savant: here, he applies the fuzzed-out vocal longing of breakthrough hits “Back to Friends” and “Undressed” to shimmering dance music, and arrives at a sound at once propulsive and irresistible.
YoungBoy Never Broke Again, MASA
A few months after President Trump pardoned YoungBoy Never Broke Again in March, the rap star tips his cap with the album title MASA (‘Make America Slime Again’) — although the gargantuan, 93-minute project is less of a political statement than a check-in from one of hip-hop’s most enigmatic personalities, who brings in Playboi Carti for the burbling “Fire Your Manager” but limits the guest list otherwise.
Lola Young, “d£aler”
Since “Messy” brought her voice to the world, Lola Young has showcased different sides of her R&B-informed pop songwriting — and with her latest single from upcoming album I’m Only Fucking Myself, Young gives us a glimpse of her most skittish impulses, with her fear of being hurt morphing into a desire to run away and the bouncing synths soundtracking her vulnerability.
Tyla, WWP EP
Summer wouldn’t feel complete without some new heat from Tyla, whose new EP WWP (‘We Wanna Party’) offers 11 minutes of movement built around sensual melodies; the previously released “Bliss” works well in context as the closing track here, while the Wizkid collaboration “Dynamite” sounds like a potential hit, the two voices intertwined and forming a flirtatious dance cut.
Tame Impala, “End of Summer”
Anyone who’s ever boogied to “Let It Happen” or “Is It True” in a festival field understands that Tame Impala can deploy a danceable iteration of their psych-rock, but “End of Summer,” a seven-minute single that marks Kevin Parker’s Columbia Records debut, is a full-on club track, with a slow build that thumps harder than anything on The Slow Rush and an uptempo, downright sweaty payoff.
Editor’s Pick: Tyler Childers, Snipe Hunter
Within the first minute of Tyler Childers’ new album — the alt-country star’s voice rolling over syllables and quivering with passion on the opener “Eatin’ Big Time” — it’s clear that Snipe Hunter will ratchet up the stakes for Childers, whose audience has grown considerably as he’s moved adjacently to Nashville’s biggest trends and evolved his storytelling process. Read a full review of Snipe Hunter here.
