Connect with us

Music

LVRN Gets In The Christmas Spirit With Shelley And Young Rog’s Jazzy ‘Feliz Navidad’ Video

LVRN beat the holiday rush with their Christmas EP and add an extra present for fans with their new video. …

Earlier this year, the Virginia singer/rapper formerly known as Big Baby DRAM quietly changed his name on streaming services to his government-issued first name Shelley, although he generously tagged himself “FKA DRAM” so fans could still find his catalog. However, he hadn’t released any new music under his rebranded moniker until his label, Love Renaissance (or LVRN), issued its first-ever holiday album, Home For The Holidays, last month. Today, the label shared the first video from the project, which features Shelley and newcomer Young Rog covering José Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad.”

Featuring a quick intro by LVRN’s resident DJ Kitty Cash, the video documents the two crooners recording their rendition in a thoroughly decorated studio complete with Christmas trees, stockings, and fairy lights. Shelley — who’s recently taken to filming cooking content for his Instagram throughout the pandemic — looks like he’s been baking some cookies for Santa and his labelmates, wearing a printed apron and holding a blunt as he embellishes Rog’s mellow take on the holiday standard. Fittingly, the production still features a subtropical flair, with bossa nova percussion and a soft, Spanish guitar backing the singers’ smooth vocals.

Other standards that appear on Home For The Holidays include “Santa Baby,” sung by Summer Walker, “This Christmas,” by Eli Derby, and Shelley’s second take on “The Christmas Song” after he dueted the song with his mom on his own holiday EP in 2017. Meanwhile, 6lack and Summer Walker take a turn on James Brown’s “Santa Claus, Go Straight To The Ghetto” with “Ghetto Christmas,” while rappers Westside Boogie and OMB Bloodbath put a ratchet twist on a classic with their irreverent “12 Days Of Bhristmas.”

Check out Home For The Holidays here.

Advertisement

Electronic

WONDERLOST makes waves with latest single “Bully Man”

H

WONDERLOST’s newest single, “Bully Man,” is a genre-blurring ride that cruises like a sailboat across sunlit waters. Direct from the heart of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, this is an invitation to slow down, take a deep breath, and have the rhythm carry you home. “Bully Man” is a potent mix of roots reggae, jam band alchemy, and dreamlike electronic haze. It’s a melodic cocktail that goes down easy, with deep basslines throb like the heartbeat of the island, as hypnotic delays and dub textures radiate outward like heat from the Caribbean Sea.

Jared’s voice is warm, inviting, and effortlessly soulful, leading listeners through a story in homage to the life-rich culture of his island home. The song’s message is cloaked in sunny positivity, “Bully Man” is reflective, genuine, and pounding with authenticity. There’s something transgendant about this track. It’s the sort of song that requires nothing, just your time and your ears. It’s best tasted with salt on your skin and the horizon wide open, like a soundtrack for golden-hour escape.

And while its island roots are deep, the song doesn’t remain tethered. WONDERLOST slipped in occasional electronic swells and moments of improvisational flair, suggesting something more exploratory and open to evolution. It’s that mix of tradition and innovation that gives “Bully Man” its appeal. WONDERLOST is trying to ride the wave. And with “Bully Man,” they’ve released a sun-soaked track that invites you to slow down, tune in, and drift a little with nothing but rhythm, a little soul, and a ton of heart.

Continue Reading

Music

Evalyn’s “Boys Girls” is a daydream in rewind

H

If you’ve ever found yourself plopped down in your bedroom, staring at a dusty old shoebox full of polaroids, desperately wishing you could hit rewind on life, then Evalyn’s latest single “Boys Girls” may just be your new favorite escape hatch. Infused with dreamy melody, “Boys Girls” is a love letter to those rose-tinted memories that we carry around in our back pockets. With a rich cinematic quality that evokes riffling through a scrapbook of summers long gone, Evalyn manages to capture that universal longing for the past and compress it into three minutes of pure, exuberant memories.

“Boys Girls” welcomes you into its soft-focus realm, a sort of alternate universe where time moves just a bit slower and the feeling hits just a bit harder. Evalyn’s vocal sails in a manner that’s so close to touch, wistful and bright, like seeing yourself in an old car window that’s parked outside a high school party. It’s that kind of song that immediately sends you back through time, to when your life felt simpler and messier at the same time. There is a striking tension in “Boys Girls,” it pines away for what was, and enjoys the way we remember it. It is not about reliving the past so much as reclaiming the way it made us feel. The freedom. The chaos. Not knowing what will happen next.

It surrenders to that emotional pull with polished production that harkens back to the days of retro pop classics, while still sounding fresh. It’s the sort of track you want blasting out of the car stereo on a night drive with the windows down and heart swelling. “Boys Girls” is a mirror for anyone who’s ever glanced over their shoulder and smiled, even despite the sting. It’s vulnerable, and it’s entirely unforgettable. With this release, Evalyn not only takes us down memory lane, she makes us fall in love with it all over again.

Continue Reading

Video Of The Week

Trending