Fifteen tracks land Friday from a man gone seven years, and the most important line on the record is the license at the bottom of the page.

Rapsody's "Apple Juice" samples D'Angelo's Voodoo into the first real rap homage since his death. This is how you honor a giant.

Hamilton has one Grammy in seventeen tries and it came from a duet. Ledisi needed thirteen nominations to get hers. On Friday they both showed up on somebody else's record.

T-Pain went on Twitch and explained the reasoning behind his reported $100M catalog sale. It doubles as the clearest artist-side case on ownership all year.

Five-time GRAMMY-winning vocalist Lalah Hathaway returns to her hometown roots on "47th Street," a new single shaped by the emotional geography of Chicago's South Side. The song is more than a location pin: it is a reminder that Hathaway's peerless voice has always carried memory, lineage, and a distinctly Chicago sense of possibility.

The official Whitney Houston Barbie gives families a tangible way to revisit the singer's singular style, voice and influence. While the doll was released in 2024, rather than for what would have been Houston's 63rd birthday in 2026, its meaning reaches far beyond the collector's shelf.

Dawn Richard is opening a new chapter with the album 'creole culture' and its first single, 'enough.' For listeners meeting her through this release, the moment is also an invitation into one of independent R&B's most ambitious careers, from Danity Kane and Dirty Money to her fiercely self-directed solo catalog.

Alemeda's new single, "The World Keeps Spinning" featuring Foushee, finds the TDE alt-pop artist confronting the disorienting routine that follows a profound loss. The soulful, rock-leaning collaboration arrives as Alemeda prepares to join Isaiah Rashad's Lil Sunny's Awful Road Trip across North America in 2026.

Sam Smith's new single 'When He's Gone' finds the singer turning relationship anxiety into a slow-building, live-recorded soul storm. The track arrives ahead of the Aug. 21 release of Hazel Eyes, while Smith prepares intimate residency dates in Mexico and the UK.

This week's New Music Friday runs defiant rap, grown-and-expensive R&B, and the Dinner Party soul album six years in the making.

E-40, Cam'ron, Rapsody, and a posthumous Nipsey album own August. It is the strongest case for human curation all year.

J. Cole closed a five night New York metro run at UBS Arena with a floor that rapped every album cut back at him. The streaming dip on The Fall-Off was real. It was also the least useful number on the page.