On Monday, May 17th, Kings of Leon announced a 2021 tour. The rock band will be hitting the road with Cold War Kids as the opening act for the When You See Yourself Tour. The two groups will start in West Palm Beach, FL on August 3rd, and end in Ridgefield, WA on October 3rd. Throughout the two months on tour, they will perform 26 shows while making stops in Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Colorado, Texas, and more. Eddie Vedder’s Ohana Fest in Dana Point, CA is also on the list of stops, which will be on September 24th. For most shows, tickets go on sale this Friday, May 21st at 10 am local time.
Kings of Leon announced the tour on their social media. On their Twitter, they included a picture of the tour and its dates, along with the caption “When You See Yourself Tour with @coldwarkids. Tickets on sale Friday 5/21 at 10 am local.https://kingsofleon.com.”
Cold War Kids tweeted about touring with Kings of Leon enthusiastically, saying “We are so excited to open for @KingsOfLeon on tour all over the US! Like- thrilled beyond belief, losing our minds about it! Let’s go !!! Tickets on sale Friday at 10a local time.”
Learn more about the tour, its dates, and buy tickets on the Kings of Leon website here.
The tour will be in support of Kings of Leon’s most recent album When You See Yourself, which released in March of this year. The album marks the band’s 8th studio album, and includes the songs “The Bandit,” and “Stormy Weather.”
On this past Saturday’s episode of Saturday Night Live, Olivia Rodrigo appeared as the show’s musical guest, and Keegan-Michael Key hosted. Rodrigo performed two of her songs, including her massive hit “drivers license” and recently released “good 4 you.”
Olivia Rodrigo, the 18-year-old pop star, started off with her live performance of “drivers license.” The song has made a big mark around the world this year. It even inspired an SNL sketch from earlier this year in February, featuring Bridgerton’s Regé-Jean Page. The sketch aired on Rodrigo’s birthday, and the artist tweeted in response on her Twitter saying “DRIVERS LICENSE SNL SKETCH IS THE BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER IM SHAKING.”
Check out Olivia Rodrigo’s performance of “drivers license” on SNLhere.
Rodrigo’s second, and last performance of the night was for her song “good 4 u” which was released just a day earlier along with an accompanying music video.
Check out Olivia Rodrigo’s performance of “good 4 u” on SNLhere.
Both “drivers license” and “good 4 u” will appear on Rodrigo’s upcoming highly anticipated debut album Sour, which is to be released May 21st. Rodrigo announced the album, showed its tracklist, and its cover on her Twitter in April. The cover of the album is a photo of Rodrigo, with her face covered in stickers, with four on her tongue spelling “SOUR.” The album includes 11 total songs.
Check out Olivia Rodrigo’s Twitter to see the cover and tracklist for her upcoming album Sourhere.
This week there are full album releases, some of them highly anticipated, and long-awaited, by top artists including J. Cole, Nicki Minaj, Kehlani, Jorja Smith, MK xyz, and The Black Keys.
J. Cole releases his highly anticipated new album, The Off-Season today. As Cole himself said, this album “was years in the making.” Earlier this week, J. Cole released a documentary, called Applying Pressure: The Off-Season Documentary which was based on the process of making the new album. Last week, Cole gave us a preview of the album by releasing one of its songs “Interlude.” I think all of us knew what to expect from this album when Cole dropped this internet-breaking freestyle with the LA Leakers.
Nicki Minaj released her Beam Me Up Scotty mixtape for the first time on streaming services today. The re-release of the 2009 mixtape features new songs and features from Lil Wayne, Drake, Gucci Mane, G Herbo & others. The mixtape starts off with a new Nicki, Wayne and Drake collaboration “Seeing Green” and Nicki even launched a classic Myspace page to promote the release.
Kehlani & T-Pain surprised us earlier this week when they announced they had a collaboration coming out. Today we were blessed to receive “I Like Dat” & the collaboration is actually a sequel to T-Pain’s 2007 anthem “Buy U A Drank”.
Today, St. Vincent releases her new album Daddy’s Home. The album’s title is inspired by her father being released from prison, and she also discusses this situation throughout the album. Vibes of 1970s New York are said to be felt throughout the album, with glam rock and pop feelings throughout. Earlier this week, St. Vincent released “Down” and its accompanying music video, which seems to follow the theme.
SHAED’s long-awaited album High Dive was released today. The indie-pop trio previously released a few songs from the album, including “Once Upon A Time,” “Part Time Psycho” featuring Two Feet, and “Osaka.” SHAED partnered with Teen Line for the upcoming release, as a portion of its sales will go towards the organization, which spreads awareness about teen mental health, by providing resources and support.
R&B crooner MK xyz dropped her debut EP Sweet Spot today including her hit single “One Time” produced by Hit-Maka. The EP features 4 other tracks that showcase MK’s versatility from the confident lyrics on “Dennis Rodman” to the hard hitting track “GEAUX”, Sweet Spot is titled properly as MK xyz found her “sweet spot” sonically.
Jorja Smith continues her rise to the top with her latest album Be Right Back. The project features 8 new tracks from the songstress and is one of those projects that doesn’t require the “next” or “skip” button. Be Right Back is Jorja’s follow up to her successful Lost & Found album from 2018.
Delta Kream, The Black Keys’ new album was released today. The band described the album saying “The record celebrates the band’s roots, featuring Mississippi hill country blues standards that they have loved since they were teenagers, including songs by R.L Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, among others.” The band previously released “Crawling Kingsnake,” and “Going Down South” which will be included on the new album.
On Wednesday, May 12th, Korn and Staind announced they would be going on tour together starting this summer. The two bands make 27 stops around the United States, starting in West Palm Beach, FL on August 5th, and ending in Louisville, KY on September 23rd for the Louder Than Life festival. ‘68 and Fire From the Gods will also perform at select shows on the tour. Tickets for the tour’s shows went on pre-sale on Thursday, May 13th, and general on-sale started on Friday, May 14th.
To see the full list of dates and locations, and to learn more about the tour, check out Korn’s website here.
Korn announced the tour on their Instagram, with a picture of the tour’s poster, and the caption, “Beyond excited to announce our return to live music this summer in the U.S. with special guest, @Staindofficial. We’ll also be joined by @theyare68 and @FireFromTheGods on select dates. 🔥 Tickets go on sale this Friday at noon local. RSVP at Kornofficial.com. Link in bio.”
Check out Korn’s Instagram to see their announcement of the tour with Staind here.
Korn had to cancel their tour planned for 2020 with Faith No More because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The band’s most recent album release is from 2019, The Nothing.
Staind released a new live album Live: It’s BeenAwhile this year, which was recorded in 2019 at Foxwoods Casino in their hometown of Mashantucket, CT.
On May 7th, Chance The Rapper announced that he is partnering exclusively with AMC for an advanced screening of his film Magnificent Coloring World. The partnership will make the Chicago native the first artist to have their film independently distributed through AMC theaters.
The concert film will be celebrating the 5 year anniversary of ‘The Coloring Book’ mixtape. The mixtape is the third mixtape released by the Grammy-Award winning rapper.
In the past Chance The Rapper has produced a concert film for a holiday special titled Chi-Town Christmas. The film paid homage to several of Chance’s favorite holiday films.
Watch Chance The Rapper’s virtual concert Chi-Town Christmas here.
In preparation for the screening of Magificent Coloring World, Chance went to his Twitter to release a statement in which he said “Seeing movies together on the big screen is an essential part summertime and something I deeply missed over the last year, so I am extremely excited and honored to partner with AMC to safely bring fans back to the theater.”
The screening is set to take place from May 14th and May 16th at the AMC River East 21 in Chicago. Tickets are available for purchase starting May 12th.
On this past weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live, Miley Cyrus appeared as the musical guest, and Elon Musk hosted the show. Throughout the night, Cyrus performed three songs, including a performance with Kid LAROI.
This episode of SNL differed with its opening, whereas they usually have the cold open where cast members appear, Cyrus started out the episode with a performance in celebration of Mother’s Day. She started by saying “Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. This is for all of the moms out there.” She then started her performances for the night by covering Dolly Parton’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning.”
Cyrus took a bit of a rock take on Parton’s 1997 country song while staying relatively true to its roots. SNL cast members appeared throughout Cyrus’ performance to introduce their mothers. At the end of the song, Miley Cyrus’ mother Trish, walked on stage to join her. Cyrus also wished a Happy Mother’s Day to her mother, and her godmother, Dolly Parton, after the song ended.
Watch Miley Cyrus’ cover of Dolly Parton’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” on SNLhere.
Cyrus’ second song of the night featured The Kid LAROI, for the first live performance of their recently released track “WITHOUT YOU.”
For her third and final performance of the night, Miley Cyrus sang her song “Plastic Hearts” off of her 2020 album of the same name.
Watch Miley Cyrus perform “Plastic Hearts” on SNLhere.
On Monday, May 3rd, the Black Keys released a cover of blues legend, R.L. Burnside’s song “Going Down South.” The song was accompanied by a music video, which was directed by Ryan Nadzam, and features the band performing at Jimmy Duck Holmes’ Blue Front Café, along with shots from many locations around Mississippi.
In a statement, Dan Auerbach talked about the song, saying, “That was one of R.L. Burnside’s hits! We strayed a little from the original on our version with the falsetto and percussion, but we liked how it sounded in that moment. It’s become one of my favorites on the album.”
“Going Down South” is to be included on the Black Keys upcoming album Delta Kream, which will be released on May 14 via Nonesuch Records. The band describes the album, saying, “The record celebrates the band’s roots, featuring Mississippi hill country blues standards that they have loved since they were teenagers, including songs by R.L Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, among others.”
The Black Keys released the first single off of Delta Kream, “Crawling Kingsnake” back in April. The accompanying music video for the track also shows the band performing at the Blue Front Café. Auerbach said of the song “We were honored to play alongside Kenny Brown and Eric Deaton, who are a direct link to R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. This is the Mississippi hill country sound that Pat and I first bonded over.”
Watch the music video for the Black Keys’ “Crawling Kingsnake” here.
On Saturday, May 1st, Lil Wayne performed at Trillerfest in Miami. Throughout the entire performance, both Lil Wayne and the audience have incredible energy. Towards the end of his set, Lil Wayne shared some memories of him meeting DMX for the first time while touring.
Lil Wayne started his story saying “You see, when I was a younger kid we used to be on tour a lot, like six months out the year. And we used to go on tour with another record label because we used to have so many artists. We didn’t have to have no opening acts because we just needed another record label and it was just us and them. So back then, we went on this tour called the ‘Cash Money Ruff Ryders’ tour. See, being from New Orleans, it’s so far away from New York and Cali and shit like that we didn’t know if it was real when we seen it on TV, the New York guys, the LA people. So when we saw DMX, we all fell in love.”
He continued, by talking about the way DMX carried himself, and how it blew him and his friends away. He ended by saying “…it’s impossible not to be obsessed, infatuated, motherfucking impressed, whatever. Ladies and gentlemen, please make some noise for the late great DMX!”
Watch Lil Wayne’s full performance at Trillerfest here. He begins talking about DMX at the 49:15 mark.
The tribute to DMX came right before Lil Wayne performed “Uproar” which was dedicated to Swizz Beatz, who produced the track, and who Lil Wayne said has taken the death of DMX hard. Lil Wayne’s performance comes a week after the funeral and memorial service for DMX, who passed away on April 9th following a heart attack at age 50.
This week we have new music from some of the top artists out there right now, including new singles from Billie Eilish, Twenty One Pilots, and Machine Gun Kelly, and new albums from DJ Khaled, Girl in Red, and Birdy.
On Thursday, Billie Eilish released a new single “Your Power” which is off of her newly announced album Happier Than Ever. This will be the music icon’s sophomore album and will be released on July 30th. “Your Power” was accompanied by a music video, which was directed by Eilish herself, and shows her in rugged terrain getting constricted by a snake while singing “Your Power.”
DJ Khaled released his highly anticipated Khaled Khaled album. The project features his two singles with Drake “Greece” & “Popstar” that dominates the airwaves last year. The album also features a Nas & Jay-Z collaboration as well as a Justin Bieber & 21 Savage collab. Safe to say Khaled has anotha one!
Twenty One Pilots released a new single today called “Choker” which will be included on their upcoming album Scaled and Icy, to be released May 21st. The single was also accompanied by a music video. Read Dash’s full article on Twenty One Pilot’s upcoming album Scaled and Icyhere.
Little Mix released a new single “Confetti” featuring Saweetie today. Along with the song’s release was its accompanying music video, which features an epic dance battle. The battle is between the members of Little Mix, Perrie Edwards, Jade Thirlwall, and Leigh-Anne Pinnock, and themselves as their male doppelgangers. The video matches the song’s upbeat, and catchy energy.
Norweigan artist Marie Ulven, also known as Girl in Red, releases her long-awaited debut album, If I Could Make It Go Quiet today. The album includes previously released tracks “Seratonin” and “You Stupid Bitch.” You can expect lo-fi, bedroom pop-sounding songs from this album, as well as Girl in Red’s ever-present themes of love, and struggling relationships.
Rising rap star OBN Jay surprised us with two singles today including the viral hit “It’s Up With Me” alongside “Green Beam”. After dropping a snippet of “It’s Up With Me” Jay saw the song go viral throughout TikTok and Triller prior to its official release. The Louisiana native also dropped a video for “Green Beam”, this should definitely hold us down while we anticipate his upcoming project.
Machine Gun Kelly released a new single called “love race” featuring Travis Barker, and Kellin Quinn yesterday. The single is put out there for the romantics and sticks to Machine Gun Kelly’s recent punk and hard rock sound. The new song comes shortly after Machine Gun Kelly announced his 2021 Tickets To My Downfall tour which will include 25 dates starting on September 9th and ending on October 30th.
English singer-songwriter, Birdy releases her first new album in 5 years, called Young Heart. The album touches on themes of the artist becoming wiser with age, adulthood, and heartbreak. Birdy is most well known for her cover of Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” back in 2011 when she was a teenager. Young Heart includes 16 tracks, including previously released songs “Second Hand News” and “Surrender.”
TDE shared a cryptic message this week announcing that new music is on the way next Friday, May 7th. Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith tweeted “THE WAIT IS OVAH!!!” along with a graphic that was loading up for the release.
The announcement got fans in a frenzy wondering who is going to drop new music. It’s been 4 years since Kendrick Lamar & SZA released their critically acclaimed albums DAMN & CTRL.
Isaiah Rashad dropped his last project The Sun’s Tirade in 2016 so it’s safe to say an album from any of TDE headliners would be long overdue. The release could also be TDE rapper Reason or R&B crooner Zacari.
With more than 10 days between the announcement and the upcoming release, fans are gonna speculating daily. It’s gotten to the point that fans are following the label’s head of security who recently gave us a clue that something was on the horizon.
AND Y’ALL SAID THE TDE BODYGUARD SHIT WAS A REACH WHILE I WAS RIGHT THIS WHOLE TIME BRUH 😭💀 pic.twitter.com/cjFZQwPese
Regardless of who it is, Kendrick, SZA, Isaiah Rashad, Reason, or someone we haven’t heard of yet all we know is TDE always delivers. You know Dash Radio will have the release in rotation next week to stay tapped in with us as news keeps coming.
