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.
This week, Drake makes noise while awaiting rescue, Suga’s Agust D persona returns, and Youngboy Never Broke Again gets a high-wattage assist from Nicki Minaj. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Drake, “Search & Rescue”
While Drake’s decision to sample a Kim Kardashian speech and crash it into the middle of “Search & Rescue” — along with using a superimposed image of the two of them together in matching motorcycle helmets — will likely dominate social chatter around the new single, “Search & Rescue” also marks an interesting sonic choice from the superstar, who pivots away from the cutthroat rapping heard on the 21 Savage collaborative project Her Loss to croon about yearning for uncomplicated love. Both the sampled audio and Drake’s audio suggest emotional incompletion after many years of mind-boggling commercial success, and paired with subtly detailed production from Sad Pony and BNYX, the vulnerability proves effective.
Suga (Agust D) feat. IU, “People Pt. 2”
As the members of BTS continue rolling out solo projects, sometimes as their first officially released statements on their own, Suga’s upcoming D-Day has been a long time coming, as the end of his trilogy under the moniker Agust D (following 2016’s Agust D and 2020’s D-2). “People Pt. 2,” the sequel to one of D-2’s most fully realized pop-rap tracks, spins Suga’s narrative forward with a more complex blend of hip-hop, R&B and top 40 hooks: in between the swelling beauty of IU’s chorus, Suga reflects on connection and loss with a nimble vocal approach and an effortless sense of gravity.
Youngboy Never Broke Again feat. Nicki Minaj, “WTF”
“Cross YoungBoy, then you cross the Queen,” Nicki Minaj declares to open her verse on “WTF,” a new team-up with Youngboy Never Broke Again that juxtaposes their rap methods but still places them squarely on the same side. After Youngboy’s voice warbles, squeals and unfurls in the same intoxicating manner as heard on his album I Rest My Case from earlier this year, Minaj plays the more traditional role until making a vocal run at the end of her verse; as one of hip-hop’s greats who has expanded the ways in which singing can be deployed in rap music, Minaj sounds right at home alongside Youngboy on “WTF.”
Jonas Brothers, “Waffle House”
When Jonas Brothers made their grand comeback in 2019 with the Hot 100-topping smash “Sucker” and reunion full-length Happiness Begins, they timed the rollout to the spring of that year, so that the single and album could be enjoyed all summer long. “Waffle House,” the trio’s new single which precedes next month’s The Album, could be destined for a similar warm-weather flare-up: the JoBros are locked in with a huge, giddy anthem here, singing about how they’ll always arrive at the right path as bright harmonies explode around them. It’s only April, but don’t be surprised to hear “Waffle House” on this year’s beach playlists.
NF, Hope
Last week, NF announced an international tour that kicks off in July, runs for three months and will hit plenty of arenas along the way; in case anyone doubted the Michigan rapper and producer’s commercial appeal after becoming an underground titan over the years, that itinerary should put those worries to rest. New album Hope is less of a victory lap than another shot at telling his singular story: fusing elements of alternative rock, modern pop, classic soul and different eras of hip-hop, NF plays upon childhood nostalgia while pondering the state of the world and his own future.
Labrinth, “Never Felt So Alone”
Did you recognize that voice harmonizing with Labrinth on his woozy new single “Never Felt So Alone”? That’s Billie Eilish, who reached out to the singer-songwriter expressing how much she loved the in-the-works track being produced by her brother Finneas before providing some lilting vocals and leads the second verse. “Never Felt So Alone” certainly speaks to Eilish’s experimental side: Labrinth has long been capable of classically crafted balladry, but here, his words are warped and processed, the production shuddering around his falsetto as he contemplates his solitude.
