Music

As promised, Nicki Minaj and Lil Baby dropped their new single, “Do We Have a Problem?”, at midnight Friday. 

Not only did the duo drop the audio, they released a nearly 10-minute long music video that also stars actors Joseph Sikora and Cory Hardrict. 

In the video, Nicki is some sort of operative who is working a case with Sikora as her partner. While interrogating a suspect, she’s solicited to complete a hit on a high-profile target, or else she will become the target. 

After successfully performing the hit, Nicki and Lil Baby drive off, eventually making their way to Cuba as Nicki sings in the chorus, “I got a shooter and I got a driver / They want that heat, I’m the only provider.”

When a concerned Sikora finally catches up with her, it’s revealed that Nicki was playing both sides.

“Do we have a problem,” she asks Sikora as she holds a gun to his head. 

As if a new single and video weren’t enough, Nicki also gave a glimpse into what’s presumably the next single, which has fans thirsting for her next album. 

“WE NEED THAT NEXT SONG ASAPPPP!!!!!!!!” one user wrote on Twitter.

Another chimed in, “THIS ALBUM IS ABOUT TO BE SO [freaking] GOOD.”

“Do We Have a Problem?” is available to stream now. 

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Welcome to your 60s, Axl Rose.

The Guns N’ Roses frontman was born on February 6, 1962, 60 years ago Sunday. He moved to Los Angeles in the early ’80s, and in 1985, Guns N’ Roses was formed with Rose on vocals, guitarists Slash and Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Steven Adler, now referred to as the band’s classic lineup.

Two years later, GN’R released their debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which spawned hit singles in “Welcome to Jungle,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Paradise City,” and went on to become one of the best-selling records of all time.

GN’R followed Appetite with 1988’s GN’R Lies, and then 1991’s Use Your Illusion I and II. By then, drummer Adler had been fired from the group because of his drug use, and the band had earned a bad reputation due to destructive behavior on the road. Stradlin soon left, too.

Guns would release one more album, a covers compilation called “The Spaghetti Incident?”, in 1993, before Slash and McKagan eventually departed the group in 1996 and 1997, respectively.

Rose, the only remaining original member, continued to work on new GN’R music for a new album called Chinese Democracy, which would become one of the most notorious records in history while sitting in development hell for a decade before finally being released in 2008.

As Rose kept touring GN’R without his old band mates, fans wondered whether a reunion was ever possible. Finally, in 2016, Slash and McKagan rejoined for the Not in This Lifetime tour, a reference to Rose’s previous comments regarding a reunion. The run became the third highest-grossing tour of all time.

In between, Rose fronted AC/DC in 2016 in place of Brian Johnson, who was sidelined due to hearing issues.

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It’s been a couple of years since Dua Lipa last appeared on CBS’ The Late Show, so on Thursday, she and host Stephen Colbert caught up on some of her latest projects, including her Future Nostalgia tour and her new concierge service, called Service 95.

Like most artists, the “Levitating” singer had to put her Future Nostalgia tour on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but oddly enough, the delay worked to her advantage.

“I feel like I know which songs people like, and the future nostalgia tour really is the future nostalgia tour because it predominantly is the songs from the album, where I think before it would have been bits here and there…now it’s like the first combination, the very best of,” she explains.

One of those hits is “Bold Heart,” her duet with Elton John, which he pitched to her in a Facetime chat — a pinch me moment for Lipa.

“Immediately I was like, ‘you’re joking.’ and said, ‘Of course, I’d love to,'” she recalls. “No, no, you listen to it first and decide,” Elton insisted. “Listen to it and let us know afterwards if you want to do the song.”

“I knew I was. Absolutely,” she continues. It’s a remix of “Rocketman” and “Sacrifice,” she says.

Dua also officially launched Service95, a “global style, culture, and society concierge service created to help the reader make sense of the world,” and she told Colbert the newsletter and website which features articles and features curated by Dua herself, grew out of her obsession for lists.

“I also thought, you know, we can have lots of different thoughts, perspectives, stories, articles that are really interesting that maybe you wouldn’t find as easy,” explains. “I wanted to make activism accessible to people who wanted to get involved.”

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While Bastille‘s last album, 2019’s Doom Days, told the story of an apocalypse unfolding over a single night of partying, the “Pompeii” outfit’s newest effort feels like a tale of an apocalypse in slow motion.

Give Me the Future, the fourth studio effort from Dan Smith and company, is essentially a sci-fi film in album form, pondering the dangers that technology and virtual reality might have on real life.

In beginning to write the album, Smith tells ABC Audio he and his band mates “looked at escapism through the lens of the future through the lens of technology, and our relationship with technology and what that then says for our relationships with ourselves and other people.”

“I guess as lockdowns and the pandemic progressed, the idea of making this science fiction album emerged with these songs,” he says.

In looking for a sound to match those themes, Bastille decided to “heavily lean into the retro-futuristic,” turning Give Me the Future into the most electronically-driven album of their career, as heard in the opening track, “Distorted Light Beam.”

But in between those electronics, you’ll hear more organic instrumentation in songs including “Thelma + Louise,” “Shut Off the Lights” and “Club 57,” which Smith says represent important moments on the album.

“We wanted to use the sonics of the album, and the arc of the album, to draw you in and pull you out of it,” Smith says. “It opens with ‘Distorted Light Beam,’ which is very direct, very electronic…Then it goes off and we time travel to early ’90s America for ‘Thelma + Louise.'”

He adds, “I guess the whole album is drawing you back-and-forward, in-and-out of your head, in-and-out of the future.”

Give Me the Future is out today.

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The concept for Thomas Rhett‘s latest single, “Slow Down Summer,” came from a place of honesty. 

Thomas and his team of co-writers, including dad Rhett Akins, were on a retreat in Montana in October, splitting their time between fly-fishing and writing, when they noticed that the leaves were changing as summer faded to fall.  

“Someone said, ‘I wish summer would slow down.’ As a songwriter, you hear words like that and you’re like, ‘Maybe we should try to write that,'” Thomas recollects. “We related it to an emotion that I think a lot of us have been through, of getting out of high school or college dating somebody when you got three months to maybe solidify this relationship or it’s not gonna work.” 

It’s a story that Thomas has truly lived, referencing a time when he and a former girlfriend parted ways at the end of summer as they both went off to different colleges. The country superstar compares the track to his previous heartbreaking hit, “Marry Me,” wherein the lead character watches the love of his life marry someone else.

“I hadn’t put a song like that out in a long time that had that tension of love in it, really since ‘Marry Me’ a couple of records ago,” he notes. “I just love the sentiment of the song, I love the arrangement, the production, and I feel like the music video really helped describe what that emotion was. I thought it was a really neat first single to this next record, and it’s been really cool seeing the reaction of it as well.” 

“Slow Down Summer” is the lead single off Thomas’ new album, Where We Started, set for release on April 1.

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After turning 41 years old last week, Alicia Keys is still facing the challenge of being a mother, a wife and a superstar, while finding time to relax. She celebrated her birthday by announcing a new health and wellness partnership with the Athleta company, and has found a new focus for her life.

“Everything with me is about wellness,” the 15-time Grammy winner tells People. “That’s what all of this is about, taking the everyday and turning it into a small bit of a ritual so that you can have a moment for yourself.”

Alicia says keeping a book of notes helps keep her balanced.

“I found that like for me as a writer, I really needed to get back into my journaling because I was getting all backed up in my head, and I was feeling all these things but I wasn’t really able to express them,” the “Karma” singer explains. “Getting back into my journaling really opened a space for me, and it made me become more creative too because I was kind of stuffing that down.”

The former coach for The Voice adds that skiing with husband Swizz Beatz. and sons Egypt, 11, and Genesis, 7, is one of her favorite ways to relax.

“It’s also such a beautiful way to be with your family because so many times everybody’s doing everything in different directions, so it’s really nice to have something that you do together,” she explains.

Tumblr announced on Thursday that Alicia is featured in the first installment of its new Artist of the Month series, in which she’s seen presenting exclusive new content. In the first clip, Alicia talks about how one of her favorite artists, Sade, blessed a song on her new album, Keys.

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Demi Lovato has teamed up with Winnetka Bowling League — the band fronted by singer/songwriter/producer Matthew Koma — for a duet called “fiimy,“ which stands for “f**k it, i miss you.”  It’s on their new EP pulp, which is out today.  And even though he and Demi had worked together before, Matthew says he’s still surprised that the collab happened.

Demi recorded one of Matthew’s songs, “Easy,” for their 2021 album Dancing with the Devil…The Art of Starting Over.  After that, Matthew tells ABC Audio, “We just remained friends, kind of separate from music.”

But after Matthew posted a TikTok video of himself working on “fiimy,” he says, “They reached out to me and were like, ‘I love this song…can I have a copy of it just to listen to it?'”

Instead, Matthew says he asked Demi if they’d like to finish writing it with him, and sing on it as well.

“Luckily, they were into that, which was awesome,” he notes. “The fact that Demi is on the song and brought what they brought to it in such a big way just allows us such a bigger audience than we typically have.”

“fiimy” is about the mixed emotions you feel when you run into an ex. In a statement, Demi says the song speaks to the “power of human connection and missing someone.”

Last month, Demi wrote on Instagram that she was holding “a funeral for my pop music.” So is “fiimy” a first step into a non-pop era?

“I don’t know!” says Matthew. “I mean [it] may be a head-scratcher for a lot of people, and for me included. I’m, like, ‘I can’t believe Demi wanted to be on our little indie band’s tune!’ so I have no idea. I’m just glad they wanted to be on it!” 

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