Weekend Recommendations (7/26/19)

Lots of new music and a new Netflix documentary

Today’s weekend recommendations is going to be full of music recs, so we’ll get them out the way first.

New Albums

Three years after his wildly successful Coloring Book, Chicago MC Chance the Rapper has put out another album. The Big Day was released today and, while I haven’t gotten a chance (pun intended) to listen to the full thing, it has all the fixings to be a successful album. There are tons of features on this thing — John Legend, MadeinTYO, Gucci Mane, Shawn Mendez, Nicki Minaj — that, although they might not be as rap-heavy as the last album’s guest list, should make for some interesting and catchy songs.

YBN Cordae, one of the members of the YBN collective, released his first solo album today entitled The Lost Boy. Even though the main members (Cordae, Nahmir, and Almighty Jay) are all 21 or younger, they’re no strangers to hit songs. The Lost Boy is Cordae’s first solo album and he appears ready for the spotlight. The features on this album on a little more sparse than The Big Day, yet more intriguing to me. Pusha T, Anderson .Paak, Meek Mill, and even Chance all make appearances. The songs off of this album that I have listened to have been much more mellow than what we’ve come to expect from the young rapper, but I really like it so far.

New Songs

Bryson Tiller released his first song since “Canceled,” today when he put out “Blame.” The song is much shorter than I would’ve preferred, at a little over two minutes, but Tiller fills it well. He brings his smooth voice combined with some faster-paced rapping to a very typical Bryson Tiller beat. As far as I’m concerned, everything Tiller touches turns to gold.

When Avicii’s posthumous album Tim was released earlier this summer, I was extremely pleased to see A R I Z O N A, a group who I hadn’t heard of before I saw them before at Osheaga in Montreal last summer, featured on the tracklist. I was even more pleased that “Hold the Line” is one of the better cuts off of that project. They just released an acoustic version of that song and it’s beautiful.

New Documentary

The dammed Netflix suggestion algorithm got me again. I was just minding my own business, trying to catch up on Queer Eye and Last Chance U, when some trailer pops up and pulls me in immediately.

The Great Hack explores data collection by large corporations and specifically how one company, Cambridge Analytica, has been using that data. Data use and privacy have never been issues I worry strongly about — I assume I’m always being monitored and marketed to, something I view as a price for using free services — but it is a hot topic of conversation right now. I have not watched The Great Hack yet, but will be checking it out this weekend for sure.

That’s it. Follow me on Twitter if you want. Peace