Kendrick Lamar

The Optimist pulls together veterans of the LA music scene, including West Coast Get Down alumni Kamasi Washington (tenor saxophone), Miles Mosley (upright bass), Cameron Graves (piano, fender rhodes), Tony Austin (drums), Jumaane Smith (trumpet), Edward Livingston (upright bass), Aaron Haggerty (drums), Brandon Coleman (fender rhodes), Dominic Therioux (electric bass), Robert Miller (drums), and Lyndon Rochelle (drums).

Baxter Dury with a 20 year Best Of called Mr Maserati 2001 to 2021 which showcases two decades of Baxter Dury’s idiosyncratically louche music, a universe of late-night London meet-ups, shuffling basslines and comedown disco tunes, all run through with a wry bleakness and sweet love of humanity. Mr Maserati collects tracks from across Dury’s six albums, plus a new song D.O.A. Baxter Dury on new track: “It’s a kind of provincial nod to the music I got into during lockdown because my son Kosmo was playing it – Frank Ocean, Tyler the Creator and Kendrick Lamar. I became obsessed. They’re embracing everything – sexuality, politics, all of it – and I find that inspiring”

Pray for Me is a song by Canadian singer The Weeknd and American rapper Kendrick Lamar from the soundtrack album of the Marvel Studios superhero film Black Panther. I Like Me Better is a single released by American singer Lauv. Get Along is a song written by Shane McAnally, Ross Copperman, and Josh Osborne and recorded by American country music singer Kenny Chesney. Alone is a song recorded by American singer and songwriter Halsey. Powerglide is a single by American hip hop duo Rae Sremmurd. After teaming up with Drake earlier this week for the song Yes Indeed, Lil Baby decided to come through today and share his new album Harder Than Ever, which features guest appearances from Young Thug, Lil Uzi Vert, Offset, Drizzy, Gunna, and more.

Noname’s first album in five years is a cool and masterful interrogation of the culture. She's taking everyone’s name—including her own. Sometimes the only way to work through the bullshit is to point at your close friends and ask, “Do you all see this, too, or am I bugging?” Their confirmations stop you from feeling like you’re on a different planet from everyone else. That’s the driving force behind Noname’s first project in five years, the eye-opening and disruptive Sundial. On the first track, with her typical buttery, head-in-the-clouds delivery, she raps, “We smokin’ positivity like dust, trust.” It’s a cutting quip: She’s fed up with anti-critical positivity, the kind that leads corporations to dress up and commodify Black art, turning an artist’s politics into a commercialized performance. She has no time for the idea that It’s all good as long as they’re Black, no matter what they’re selling. Sundial pushes back against that complacency in a real regular-person kind of way. It’s not preachy or too heavy. Noname is not trying to sell herself as a revolutionary. She’s also unafraid of biting self-reflection that leaves her own contradictions out in the open. In rap, where it’s so often about seeming indestructible, hanging yourself out to dry is a gutsy move.

Until a late flurry of percussion arrives, doleful guitar and bass are Solána Rowe’s only accompaniment on opener “Supermodel”, a stinging kiss-off to an adulterous ex.

• Kodak Black is officially back in full effect, the former XXL Freshman dropped off If Im Lyin, Im Flyin, his first solo offering since he was released from jail last month. Hes also served up a video for the track. Meeks Legends of the Summer reanimates his muscle memory. The Philly martyr passes for a sympathetic lover when his angel comes-a-calling, even PnB seems to approve of this contagious vibe. Naturally its Jeremih who steals the show on Dangerous. Lost in Japan is a song recorded by singer and songwriter Shawn Mendes. New Khalid has arrived. The R&B revisionist is here to prove his freshman outing was more than a lucky strike. His new single Better communicates the delayed of Khalid performs his song in the dead of night, through a muted-foggy production affectation •

Nothing said new or modern or futuristic quite like a synthesiser in the 70s and 80s. If you were shooting an advert and you wanted your product or your company to appear forward-thinking and ahead of the game, then you would want something electronic, something out of the ordinary. When TV producers and advertising directors started searching for music that sounded like “Tubular Bells” – and then Tomita, and later Jean Michel Jarre – music libraries such De Wolfe, Bruton, Parry and Chappell had to have the tracks readily available. Compiled by Bob Stanley, “Tomorrow’s Fashions” varies from advertising jingles and TV themes to space exploration and gorgeous, beatless ambience. Though it’s 40-to-50 years old there’s a real freshness to this music. Older jazz players Brian Bennett, John Cameron, Alan Hawkshaw and others seized the chance to operate a synth; younger pups including John Saunders and Monica Beale were simply intrigued by the new technology being wheeled into the studios. There’s a tangible sense of adventure.

Wake up, Gucci, Bruno and Kodak are on the mic! Gucci Mane taps Bruno Mars and Kodak Black for a super-collab, Wake Up In The Sky, which dropped on digital music services at the stroke of midnight.

The Billboard Hot 100 is a chart that ranks the best-performing songs in the United States. Its data, published by Billboard magazine and compiled by Nielsen SoundScan, is based collectively on each song's weekly physical and digital sales, as well as the amount of airplay received on American radio stations and streaming on online digital music outlets.