Tag: Songs of the Day

Song of the Day: The Ugly Song – Jordan Hollywood

Florida rapper, singer, producer, and hitmaking CEO JORDAN HOLLYWOOD‘s single, ‘The Ugly Song,’ is one hell of a speaker-rattling joint. Featuring Timbaland, ‘The Ugly Song’ serves up as the lead single from his upcoming album, ‘Only the Paranoid Survive’.

“It’s crazy how 20 years ago how I enjoyed this song as kid and now it’s part of my legacy. It’s one thing to get a Timbaland beat or to get him to clear a sample but it’s special when the legend himself steps in the booth with you and adds his touches to your vison,” says Jordan Hollywood. “I never in a million years thought I’d get to work with the hitmaker. With the video I told the director ‘I want this shit to feel like an open world video game where I have freedom to randomly do things my way.’ “The Ugly Song” is just the start.”

An homage to Bubba Sparxxx’s Timbaland-produced single “Ugly,” “The Ugly Song” is a banging reinterpretation that flips the early 2000s classic for a new generation. The instrumental deftly chops Timbaland’s Bollywood-influenced melodies and pairs them with quaking drums and trap percussion. Offering both his blessing and his vocals, Timbaland delivers his signature ad-libs (“ficky ficky”), while Hollywood effortlessly glides over the beat.

The video, directed by Austin McCracken and filmed in Los Angeles, makes liberal use of visual effects (and openly nods to that at the end), dropping Hollywood into a wheat field accompanied by a horse who eventually kicks him in the head. The rapper continues to get knocked into or out of various colorful scenarios. Both the video and the song break from expectation, showing that Hollywood is willing to challenge himself, share a laugh, and execute a variety of vibes.

‘The Ugly Song’ is Hollywood’s first release since 2019’s “Testament,” wherein he recounted the hurdles and hurt he’s endured on his rise. Check out the epic video for the single below…

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Song of the Day: No Caroline – ATO

Leeds/London based, British-Ghanaian-Danish artist ATO drops his introspective, candid new single ‘no caroline’ is a heart-rending track, brimming with raw sentiment stemming from past trauma, dysfunctional relationships, and is influenced by ATO’s on-going journey of self-discovery, defining his identity and understanding his heritage. An artist unafraid to wear his heart on his sleeve, ‘no caroline’ was originally written by ATO about a personal situation, quickly developing into a no-holds-barred deep dive into his own emotional shortcomings rooted in his experiences. In his own words, “the tensions of growing up black in a white city with no real understanding of my black history – lost identity, abandonment, and so on – correlated to the struggles of lost love.”

A track of two parts, the first half of ‘no caroline’ see’s ATO singing rather than rapping, making light of a dysfunctional relationship, acknowledging an incapacity to relate to a partner on an emotional level. An impactful, lightening-fast energy surge flips the second half of the track from a hyper-pop influenced, experimental UK rap offering into a drum’n’bass free for all. Rapping over breaks, ATO soundtracks a sudden explosion of emotions, exploring the complex experiences of his past.

Speaking on the single, ATO says,

“no caroline began as a response to failed relationships, trivialising my own experiences of emotional detachment. The first part was written in my sleep (literally in a dream) and recorded the morning after. It was a new sound and I honestly thought it was done. But the production team introduced a second section that dragged me into different parts of my past. I wrote and recorded the entire second verse to what is now the outro before EDEN flipped the most of the section into a drum ‘n’ bass free for all.”

The second single taken from ATO’s highly anticipated forthcoming EP Side A, due for release this Wednesday (25th August) via MCMXCV, ‘no caroline’ follows recent releases including ‘Muscle Twitch’, 2020 single ‘Yours Now’, EP3, and his feature with Vic Mensa on 2019 single ‘falling’. Standing out from the crowd with pensive, poetic charm, earlier releases of ATO’s have seen him garner support from global tastemakers The FADER, Complex, Trench and Crack and

So here’s your chance to check out a truly astonishing artist at work…

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Song of the Day: Hail Mary – HI SIENNA

Manchester based, animated four-piece, HI SIENNA, are leaning toward a unique sound in 2021 with latest single, ‘Hail Mary’, a juxtaposition between an angelic gospel-sounding melody and the raunchy exploration of lust and desire through it’s lyrics (think INXS). It’s an epic combination of twangy guitars, stadium-filling strings and harmonies that gift an uplifting, euphoric sound to the ear.

Formed in 2019, they bounced onto the scene, playing their first show as a headline at Manchester’s Deaf Institute, supported Scouting For Girls at the O2 Ritz and released their debut single, ‘Favourite’ Thing, in November that year. Their following releases have continued to be supported by the likes of Xs Manchester (record of the week), Amazing Radio (record of the week), BBC Introducing and even some famous faces such as Robert Carlyle and the legendary Dave Haslam!

These guys are worth a listen…check out ‘Hail Mary’ below…

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Song of the Day: I Don’t Trust You – K-Riz

On the heels of his critically hailed The Room EP, Edmonton hip-hop/R&B artist K-RIZ getting ready to drop his sophomore full-length album, ‘Peace & Love’, due out on September 24….and first up from the project is single, ‘I Don’t Trust You.’

About an unfaithful lover, K-Riz confronts an ex-flame’s betrayal and deception, setting his melodic raps to a tender R&B-pop bounce assisted by production from J. Deppisch and Grammy-nominated LordQuest. Juggled into his wordplay, he recounts the good with the bad.

“When you fall for someone, it’s hard to trust what your intuition may be telling you,” K-Riz says of the song. “You miss the red flags. You want the person you’re with to be who you think they are, even if they’re someone completely different than what you set them up to be. When trust has been broken, that’s always going to be in the back of your mind. If you can’t trust, you can’t fully love the one you’re with, even though you want to try.”

Originally set for release in early 2020, K-Riz put Peace & Love on hold once the pandemic hit, choosing to delay the project until the time was right. Then things took a turn for the worse when the rapper was in a near-fatal car accident in the summer of 2020, an event that inspired The Room EP. That effort drew attention from Complex, Exclaim, CBC’s The Block, CBC’s The Strombo Show, and peaked at the #2 spot on Canadian college radio’s National Hip Hop Chart.

With Peace & Love, K-Riz goes back in the narrative arc of his life, recounting how he found the other side of a gutting heartbreak and series of upheavals. Not a breakup album per se, but a record that captures his personal breakthrough as a result of the fallout.

K-Riz’s stunning sophomore, Peace & Love, is slated for release on September 24…but for now, have a listen to its first release below (highly recommended)…

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Song of the Day: Other Side Of The Room – Harve

South East London based non-binary artist HARVE sparsely blends R&B and electronic music with single, ‘Other Side Of The Room’. Accentuated by Harve’s signature play with distorted vocals and layering, this track was written whilst they were in a long term relationship – lyrically it explores gaining a new perspective and taking a step back to see things a little more clearly.

Speaking on the track, Harve says: “OSOTR is both a song I wrote entirely for myself; about finding home within, listening to my own needs. But it was also my final attempt to let my then partner know how I was feeling. OSOTR is about checking in with yourself, it’s about knowing when to let go, it’s about stopping yourself from being left behind, and finding yourself in your loneliness.

An incredibly exciting new talent, the past few years have seen Harve in all the right places including supporting Celeste alongside Fredwave at one of her first headline shows and stunning a packed out Hoxton Bar and Kitchen with a stripped back set for Jamz Supernova’s Future Bounce. Coming straight outta lockdown #1, they debuted music from their EP live on Sofar Sounds and begun to host a regular slot alongside non-binary artist Attz on Polyesterzine called ‘ENBY CHRONICLES’ discussing all thing non binary.

Early singles ‘City Scapes’, ‘Caught Up’ and ‘ReAD’ and caught the attention of key tastemakers including XL Recordings, COLORS Berlin and Glamcult as well as garnering multiple plays across NTS and Reprezent shows and support from Jamz Supernova, Mary Anne Hobbs and Phil Taggart on 1Xtra, 6Music and BBCR1. Blending elements of R&B, Soul and electronic, through ardent lyricism, Harve dissects what it is to be a queer person; the self-acceptance, the relationships, the doubts, and the love.

Coming up this year they have a new project in the works and will continue to co-host Smooth Operator on Foundation FM with their podcaster sibling Nic Desborough; playing new and old music from around the world with a focus on highlighting queer artists.

Check out ‘Other Side of the Room’ below…

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