Leon Bridges spent the summer handing out his new album four songs at a time, and on Friday (Sept 25) the pieces finally come together as one record. Happiness Anytime, cut in Los Angeles with J Lloyd-Watson and Lydia Kitto of the British trio Jungle, arrives the same morning as Tinashe's long-promised Popstar, a 16-song set from Tank, a new Tee Grizzley album on 300 Entertainment and the debut album from Jae Stephens on Raedio and Def Jam.
Four of this New Music Friday's biggest records come out of R&B, and the rap side carries weight of its own, with Detroit's Tee Grizzley returning to a full-length and Kiefer bringing the Los Angeles beat scene to Blue Note. The one album with only an artist announcement behind it is reported separately at the bottom.
Salt's solo debut, the week's freshest singles from Aaron Frazer and EarthGang, and two rap albums that moved to October fill out the rest of the list.
Leon Bridges - Happiness Anytime
The rollout told listeners what to expect before the full album could, initiating July 17 with a four-song drop of "Light The Way," "Tears of Joy," "Illusion" and "Your Love Is Electric," and continuing this week with an Apple Music 1 premiere of "Watch You Dance." The finished record runs 12 songs via Columbia, and the sessions at Chaplin Recording Studios brought in bassist Pino Palladino, whose credits run from D'Angelo to Adele, to anchor the low end.
Lloyd-Watson described the process, stating, "We aren't leaving until we have a full track at the end of the day," and Kitto put the brief even more simply: "Leon said he wants to have music that he can dance to." Jungle's own catalog runs on exactly that kind of loose, head-nodding disco-soul, which makes the pairing one of the more natural producer matches of Bridges' career.
Bridges outlined the project as a steadier kind of joy than the title might suggest. "For me, happiness is not a feeling that you chase," he said in the label's announcement. "I want this album to be something that lingers with people and lingers in people's bones."
Tinashe - Pop Star
Popstar runs 16 songs with no features on Nice Life and Atlantic, and the production credits read like a map of where Tinashe has been heading since her independent run, with Zack Sekoff, kimj, Ricky Reed and Nightfeelings behind the boards. The singles came in a steady line through the summer, starting with "Too Easy" on June 5, then "Crash Out" in July, "Melatonin" in August and the double release of "Pillow Fight" and "I'd Rather Be Alone" on September 10.
We contended in July that this album was never a comeback, and a no-features, 16-song sequence is the sound of an artist confident she no longer needs a guest verse to open doors. On Call Her Daddy, she described the range she was reaching for in plain terms: "I've made records on this project that feel like dance records, like hip-hop records, like pop records, like R&B records," a list Complex collected alongside the album credits.
The Tinashe Popstar tour, billed as Three Nights With a Popstar, keeps the rooms intimate, with a stop at Chicago's Salt Shed on Oct 16, Brooklyn Paramount on Oct 24 and the Hollywood Palladium on Nov 7.
Tank - EXPERIENCE
EXPERIENCE runs 16 songs on R&B Money under license to BMG, and its singles have already done the work of setting the table. "Control" climbed to No. 1 at R&B radio, "Yes" reworks Floetry's "Say Yes" into a top 10 Adult R&B Airplay record, and "Highlight" pulls Charlie Wilson and the house producer MK into dance-floor territory, a long way from the slow jams that built Tank's name.
The album closes on "How I Need You," a gospel record with Kirk Franklin, Eric Dawkins and Zacardi Cortez, and Tank told Rated R&B that the reach was deliberate. "EXPERIENCE is exactly what the title says it is," he said. "I pushed myself on this one, stepping into dance, gospel, country, sounds people might not expect from me."
He releases it while booked on The R&B Tour alongside Usher and Chris Brown, and on Oct 6 he turns up on screen as Eric Cropper in the fourth season of Hulu's Reasonable Doubt.
Tee Grizzley and Jae Stephens
Tee Grizzley - They Forgot
Tee Grizzley's They Forgot runs 16 songs under exclusive license to 300 Entertainment and follows 2025's Forever My Moment. The rollout leaned on history, with "No Effort 2" picking up the thread of his 2017 single "No Effort" and "Back Ina Yams" arriving with a video, while Apple's listing adds "Hard Times" with Hurricane Wisdom. The album also lands after a Michigan judge granted a full expungement of his criminal record, a detail the album announcement placed right beside the title.
Jae Stephens - AUDACITY
Jae Stephens makes her album debut with AUDACITY, 11 songs on Issa Rae's Raedio label under exclusive license to Def Jam, with a 12th track held back for the vinyl. Dallas Caton produced the record, MNEK contributed as a writer, and Cass Meyers directed the visuals behind singles "Attaboy!" and "Sugar Trap." "AUDACITY is me daring to take up as much space as I want in a world that has tried to box me in both personally and professionally," Stephens said, and in October she takes those songs across Europe as support on Khalid's tour.
Further Out: Kiefer, Benny Sings and Raz Fresco
Kiefer's Memory Bomb is his Blue Note debut, 13 songs co-produced with Shibo and CARRTOONS, and the guest list runs from saxophonist Walter Smith III and drummer Nate Smith to Erick The Architect, Planet Giza and Amber Navran of Moonchild. The lead single, "NewLevels NewDevils," arrived July 23 with Tony Stone, Erick The Architect and CARRTOONS, the title track followed on Aug 21, and Blue Note's announcement fixes the street date for Friday.
Benny Sings returns to Stones Throw with 22 Durnham Dew, 11 songs written out of a year spent at home. "I've been totally immersed in family life lately," the Dutch songwriter said in the label's release notes. "We bought a house, renovated it, and still are. The new music is all about that, my adult life as a real person."
For the underground, Raz Fresco's Boulangerie Deux lands on Bandcamp with 15 tracks, including "Yesterday" with Blu and Cavalier, "Things We Do" with Estee Nack and "Old Port Party" with Mike Shabb and Jimmie D.
Cheryl Salt James - Salty N Lit
Cheryl "Salt" James releases Salty N Lit on her own Salt Songs, Inc. - 15 tracks that take their title from Matthew 5:13 and 5:14 and pull in Chuck D, Erica Campbell on "Overcomers," Shanice and Dee-1 on "4 The Love," and Elijah Blake on "Poison Water." We laid out the full tracklist and the case that this is not a gospel record when she set the date, and the sequence threads three interludes, titled "Chuck D," "Insecure" and "Like Christ," between the features.
Announced for Friday, Not Yet Confirmed
Skyzoo has announced September 25 for Luxury Tax, his second full album with Apollo Brown and the first since The Easy Truth in 2016, on FGR and Escapism Recordings. As of Thursday night no streaming or store page carries that date, so we are listing the album as announced rather than confirmed. The singles "God Given," "No Discounts" and "Hear Me Out" are out, "The Blind Spot" features Blu and Elzhi, and Skyzoo told So Fn Dope Magazine that the album follows "a drive to get 'that thing,' the thing that you're contemplating paying the luxury tax on."
The Week's Singles
Remy Ma releases "Why I Get Married," her single with Keke Wyatt, and announced it with an Instagram preview, a pre-save link and a fan-experience giveaway. The song will follow "Jezebel," the diss record and video Papoose aimed at her earlier this month, and we reported both sides of the exchange as it unfolded.
G-Eazy and Ty Dolla $ign released "JFK" on Friday, the first single under G-Eazy's new joint venture with Ty's EZMNY Records and EMPIRE, which follows more than a decade on a major label. The song got its first airing last weekend at Madison Square Garden, where G-Eazy turned up unannounced during Ty's tour stop, and he framed the deal in an Instagram statement quoted by Complex: "This is bigger than a deal. This is about bringing it all home and bringing things full circle."
Pusha T turns up on Landstrip Chip's "Sin For Me," which arrived Thursday night on MNRK, after both men appeared on Babyface Ray's 2022 single "Dancing With The Devil." Talib Kweli and Large Professor brought in Bun B for "Rare Heir" on Javotti Media, Kembe X and Ab-Soul share lead billing with Zacari featured on "New Devils," and the Dallas group Strange Fruit Project handed a feature to Rapsody on "Won't Back Down." Bruiser Wolf and Twista paired up on "Barbiturates" for Fake Shore Drive, Sleepy Hallow returned with "Loaded" on Winners Circle and RCA, BunnaB released "Gimmie What I Ask," and another posthumous Lil Peep single, "heaven sent," arrived through AWAL after "Benz Truck Pt. 2" in August.
On the soul side, Patrice Isley's "Take Me In Your Arms," the David Kent ballad we previewed last week, is out on Expansion Records. Jill Scott gave "Right Here Right Now" a six-minute dance remix through The Orchard, and KAYTRANADA remixed Rochelle Jordan's "TTW" ahead of her Disc 3 EP, which is listed for Oct 9.
Kirk Franklin announced "This Time" with GloRilla for Friday, a gospel record built on Shawty Lo's "Dey Know" and their second collaboration after "Rain Down On Me." As of Friday morning no streaming page carries the song, so we are listing it as announced and will add it when it goes live.
Aaron Frazer shared "Paint the Picture" with a video and announced Corners, a six-song EP due Oct 30 on Dead Oceans with Mayer Hawthorne, Tommy Brenneck, Kelly Finnegan and Gabe Roth among the contributors. He called the EP "a joy to make with no pressure, no timing it around a grand tour, with no goal other than to make songs I love with people I love," according to Rated R&B.
EarthGang released "Cool Me Down" for Climate Week NYC with a joint statement: "Nature has always been a part of music and music is the most powerful tool we have in connecting people around a common idea," the duo said, per HotNewHipHop. Polo G surprised fans with "Still Standing" and a performance video, and Drake gave "Quebec," first heard in his FOMO film, an official video of its own.
Victoria Monét, Meshell Ndegeocello and Boney James are all expected on October 2, and we will confirm each date against its own release page before next week's roundup.
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