August 14 is a stacked release Friday spanning Afrobeats, alt-rock, R&B, K-pop-adjacent pop, and underground rap: six full projects land the same day, plus a run of notable singles including Erykah Badu and The Alchemist's first collaboration in years. Here's the full slate, each with the Apple Music player and a Spotify link.
Listen to the full Uristocrat New Music Friday tape →
Ayra Starr — Starr Girl
Starr Girl is Ayra Starr's third studio album and her first for Mavin Records since 2024's The Year I Turned 21, expanding the 16-track set into her most pop-forward record yet. The cover, shot by Paris-based photographer Axle Jozeph, has Starr in a purple gele — a deliberate mix of Nigerian tradition and a superhero motif. Features include Wizkid ("Gimme Dat"), Rema ("Who's Dat Girl"), Zayn ("Heaven Baby"), and Danny Ocean on a "Hot Body" remix.
Phoebe Bridgers — Lost Weekend
Lost Weekend is Phoebe Bridgers' third solo studio album and her first in six years, following 2020's Punisher. The 17-track double LP was co-produced with Jack Antonoff and Alex G, and pulls in contributions from boygenius bandmates Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker. Bridgers will tour the record on the Lost Tour, running September through December 2026.
Trippie Redd — NDA
NDA is Trippie Redd's sixth studio album, succeeding 2023's Mansion Musik, released via 1400/10K Projects/Atlantic. The 25-track project leans back into the melodic emo-rap style that broke him out of SoundCloud a decade ago, with guest turns from Young Thug (two tracks), Lil Wayne, Sexyy Red, Rema, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Kodak Black, and BigXThaPlug.
KATSEYE — WILD
WILD is KATSEYE's third EP, following last year's Beautiful Chaos, released via HYBE UMG/Geffen. The six-track set includes "Animal," co-written by Ed Sheeran and produced by Omer Fedi and Blake Slatkin, alongside lead single "Pinky Up." A companion documentary, Wild Hearts, drops alongside the EP. The group is also part of Uristocrat's ongoing K-pop-adjacent pop coverage.
Fridayy — Tension
Tension is the third studio album from four-time Grammy nominee Fridayy, out via Def Jam. The 12-track set blends his signature emotional R&B songwriting with Caribbean-inflected, rhythm-driven production, led by the single "Haiku." It's a tighter, more focused follow-up to last year's Everybody Got Somebody EP.
Open Mike Eagle & Kenny Segal — DOOMED!
DOOMED! (full title: DOOMED!: Rap Songs About A Relationship That Ends In Every Possible Universe) is the first full-length collaboration between longtime rap partners Open Mike Eagle and producer Kenny Segal, out via Backwoodz. The 15-track record turns a five-year relationship's end into a multiverse-spanning concept album, with billy woods and Gothic Tropic featured and lead single "Unfinished Concrete Initials" built around Hemlock Ernst, the rap alias of Future Islands' Samuel T. Herring.
Singles & tracks worth pulling
- Erykah Badu & The Alchemist — "Witch Doctor": the lead single from their first joint album (due August 28), Badu's first album in 16 years — a six-and-a-half-minute, genre-blurring cut recorded over 18 months between Dallas and Los Angeles.
- Rema — "Tea": released August 7 as the opening single of a new era for the Afrobeats star.
- Cruel Santino — "Oz" & "International Collector": back-to-back previews of his upcoming album Kings of the Bounce.
- Trippie Redd feat. Sexyy Red — "Meet The Redds" and feat. Young Thug — "Paperbag Boy": the two pre-release singles off NDA.
- Marilyn Manson — One Assassination Under God, Chapter 2: the second chapter of his ongoing two-part album project.
- Troye Sivan — "She's The Best" and Natasha Bedingfield — "Dot Dot Dot": pop singles rounding out the day.
The week in context
Six albums sharing a single release date is a lot of overlap even for a Friday — Starr Girl, Lost Weekend, NDA, WILD, Tension, and DOOMED! all land within hours of each other, spanning Mavin, Dead Oceans, Atlantic, HYBE UMG, Def Jam, and Backwoodz. It's also a rare week where a K-pop-adjacent pop EP (KATSEYE), an Afrobeats flagship release (Ayra Starr), and an underground rap concept record (Open Mike Eagle & Kenny Segal) go head to head on the same chart week — a reminder of how wide "new music Friday" actually runs now. For more from this week, see last Friday's New Music Friday: Ckay, Beyoncé & Whitney Houston roundup, and browse the full Hip-Hop archive.
]]>
Comments