Six albums worth sitting with landed this Friday, and a striking number of them are artists deliberately changing lanes: Tyla renaming her sound "A*POP," Cypress Hill rapping a full record in Spanish for the first time, and both WILLOW and Charli xcx leaving behind the styles that broke them. Last week's roundup was led by Rick Ross, Steve Lacy and Syd; this one is a reintroduction week.
Listen to this week's Uristocrat New Music Friday mixtape →
Tyla — A*POP
Tyla's second album arrives two years after her Grammy-winning self-titled debut, again through FAX and Epic. The title is the thesis: the South African singer is calling her sound pop outright rather than amapiano or Afrobeats. The credits keep the roots close, though — the 14 tracks feature South African collaborators Liquideep, MaWhoo and Babalwa M, plus a returning Zara Larsson on "She Did It Again." She headlines the TODAY show's Citi Concert Series the same day and becomes the first international artist to headline the WNBA All-Star Game on Saturday. Her last big release before this was "Dynamite" with Wizkid a year ago.
Rico Nasty — RX
Nine tracks on Rico's own Sugar Trap label, and the story is a reunion: producer Kenny Beats — credited here as Kenneth Blume — is back with her for the first big stretch since their 2019 mixtape Anger Management, the project that set her template. 100 gecs' Dylan Brady produced "Kiss N Make Up." She recorded it around her acting debut in Apple TV+'s Margot's Got Money Troubles and last fall's tour. Lead single "Cupcake" set the tone.
Kenyon Dixon — Ego Ruins Everything
The five-time Grammy nominee delivers his most ambitious project yet — a 21-track concept album about pride worn as armor, stitched together with short "Running" interludes that recur across the record. It's traditional, song-first R&B in a year short on it, built out from the singles "Talk You Through It" and "No Jodeci." His biggest solo statement since 2023's The R&B You Love.
Cypress Hill — Dios Bendiga
More than 30 years into their career, Cypress Hill made the album they'd never made before: 12 tracks written and performed entirely in Spanish, their first full-length in over four years. It's out on Zarpazo, HYBE Latin America's imprint, with B-Real and Sen Dog rapping in Spanish over Latin production directed by longtime percussionist Eric Bobo and produced by DJ Flict. The guests span generations of Latin rap — Sen Dog's brother Mellow Man Ace on "Campeones," Argentina's Trueno, and Mexico's Alemán and Coyote.
WILLOW — The Thread
WILLOW's eighth studio album is her second release of 2026, following petal rock black. The 10 tracks were written and produced with Chris Greatti, her collaborator on Coping Mechanism and the Grammy-nominated Empathogen. She's framed it as a "devotional" record — jazz-, rock- and soul-leaning, a clear turn away from the pop-punk that defined her early-2020s run. Lead single "Talk On The Hill" was the first taste back in May.
Charli xcx — Music, Fashion, Film
Charli's seventh album, on Atlantic, is her first since 2024's Brat reset her whole career. It's a hard swerve from that record's club-pop: 11 tracks and 30 minutes of processed guitars and art-rock, made with her longtime collaborators A.G. Cook and Finn Keane. The cover is the concept — a black-and-white shot of John Cale, Marc Jacobs and Martin Scorsese, one for each word of the title — and David Cronenberg turns up on the closer.
Singles & tracks worth pulling
- Shaboozey feat. Leon Bridges — "Burn It Down." Two of the biggest names in the country-soul crossover on one song.
- Moneybagg Yo — "I See Why." A new solo single ahead of his next project.
- Sam Smith feat. Twocity Chorus — "Oh Mother."
- Katseye — "Animal." The global girl group keeping its run going.
- DDG — "Calling My Phone."
- Martin Garrix feat. U2 — "Fireflies."
The week in context
The clearest pattern this Friday wasn't a genre cluster. It was a set of deliberate turns. Tyla retitled her entire sound "A*POP." Cypress Hill, more than three decades into their career, made their first all-Spanish album. WILLOW left her pop-punk behind for jazz-soul, and Charli xcx traded Brat's club-pop for art-rock. Four established acts used the same release date to reintroduce themselves, which is a lot of reinvention to land in one 12-hour window.
Comments