LISA, Anderson .Paak and Cordae, John Legend and the Releases That Matter Right Now

Friday (Oct. 23) brought a pop star’s first solo EP, a producer’s first full album with a singer he has known for 20 years, a long-awaited debut from a City Girls rapper and a vault tape from Yeat. These are 10 releases worth your time from the day: seven from the big names and three from the underground, including Brakence’s first album in four years, a married DJ duo’s love letter to ’90s big beat and Shabazz Palaces’ first full-length in six years. Every entry comes with something to press play on.

LISA, Press Play

Led by the pop-rap single “SaWaDiKa,” which debuted at No. 69 on the Hot 100 in September, LISA’s very first solo EP runs six tracks and lands just ahead of her Las Vegas residency in November, Billboard notes. The focus track “Tarantino” comes with a three-and-a-half-minute spy-movie video directed by James Mackel, in which she dresses to impress and fights her way through a hotel. “Cobra” interpolates Missy Elliott and Timbaland’s “Bomb Intro/Pass That Dutch,” and closer “Sweat” is a sultry one that leaves its subject with a simple instruction: “don’t stress me out.” “It’s a movie, baby, come and press play,” she sings on “Tarantino.” (The preview is here, and our explainer covers the rest of her fall.)

PRESS PLAY - EPLISAListen on Apple Music

Anderson .Paak and Cordae, Heavy Is the Crown

A joint album sold like a buddy comedy. The cover has the pair in argyle vests doing their best Step Brothers impression, and the video for lead single “A Good Day” nods to Friday, Complex reports. J. Cole, Conductor Williams and Swizz Beatz are among the producers on the 11 tracks, and Pitchfork adds 9th Wonder on “You’re Mine.” Its review finds the album “fleet and playful,” with opener “58th Floor” staged as a phone call between Cordae, at home playing dollhouse with his daughter, and .Paak. It also argues that .Paak is the stronger of the two on the mic, and still says that “there are worse ways to spend 30 minutes.” The album went on to debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Rap Albums chart, the first leader for either artist (our report).

Heavy Is The CrownAnderson .Paak & CordaeListen on Apple Music

John Legend, Muse

Twenty years into their friendship, Legend and Pharrell Williams finally made a full album together. It grew out of Legend’s appearance on Clipse’s “The Birds Don’t Sing,” which inspired Williams to build a record around his voice, and the 16 tracks were recorded mostly at Williams’ studio inside Louis Vuitton’s Paris headquarters, per the AP. Williams’ brief was to say more than sing, Legend told the AP: “One of the things that he encouraged me to do on specific songs was to talk-sing in a way where it was like I was more speaking and having a conversation.” Billboard hears lush string arrangements set against hard-hitting horns and 808s, a “Black James Bond aesthetic” by Legend’s own description, and Clipse turn up on “Bodies on the Floor,” Complex notes.

MuseJohn LegendListen on Apple Music

Yung Miami, Watch Dis

“Spend Dat” was one of the summer’s rap anthems, a platinum-certified hit whose remix with Kodak Black and Lil Baby peaked at No. 17 on the Hot 100, and Watch Dis is the debut solo album built on it: 21 tracks with Travis Scott, Summer Walker, Trina, Quavo and more. Pitchfork’s review hears a lot of fun in the roller-rink beats and the retro swing of “Put Together,” and singles out “Dear JT,” in which she misses the days when she and her City Girls partner were a “modern-day Thelma and Louise.” It sours on “Ride for You,” a slow jam dedicated to Diddy, noting that she remains one of his most vocal supporters. And on Hot 97 she said Drake left her on read when she asked him onto the “Spend Dat” remix: “Just tell me no. I’m good with a no, but leaving me on read?” (The rollout and “Dear JT” have more.)

Watch Dis!Yung MiamiListen on Apple Music

Kacey Musgraves, “Weekend in Texas”

Kacey Musgraves announced on Thursday (Oct. 22) that Middle of Nowhere Vol. 2: Tex Mex Tapes arrives Jan. 15 on Lost Highway, and “Weekend in Texas” is the first taste. It’s a love letter to the state, set to bright horns and an easy groove, in which she sings, “I’ve got the hat and the cattle to back it up / Everything will be great in my favorite state of mind.” The 16-song follow-up to Middle of Nowhere holds 11 new songs and five covers, four of them sung entirely in Spanish, including a new “Uncertain, TX” with Intocable and a take on Freddy Fender’s “Before the Next Teardrop Falls,” Billboard reports. She also heads into the CMA Awards with five nominations.

Middle of Nowhere Vol. 2: Tex Mex TapesKacey MusgravesListen on Apple Music

John Mayer, “Tom and Jerry”

His first new single since 2021’s Sob Rock is also the first release on his new label, Sob Rock Records, which he launched with Mercury. Mayer produced it with Blake Slatkin, with Pino Palladino on bass, Aaron Sterling on drums, Lenny Castro on percussion and Larry Goldings on organ, Rolling Stone reports. Billboard hears a soft-rock opening riff that recalls Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” and a cat-and-mouse metaphor for a couple who may never get it right. Mayer explained the title on Instagram: “‘Tom and Jerry’ was the name I used when saving my first voice memo with this song idea.” He’s back at the Sphere in Las Vegas in April 2027 with three different sets.

Tom and JerryJohn MayerListen on Apple Music

Yeat, Luh Leakyz Vol. 1

Yeat’s third project of 2026, after the March album ADL and last month’s Cocoon EP, is a 14-track collection of unreleased songs from different periods of his career. It opens with “Lil Krazy,” which surfaced in 2024 without an official release, and several of its tracks played a key role in his recent Fortnite collaboration, Complex notes. “Every era in the cup,” he told fans on Instagram on Thursday (Oct. 22) as the tape arrived. Complex put both ADL and Cocoon on its list of the best rap albums of 2026 so far.

Luh Leakyz Vol. 1YeatListen on Apple Music

Brakence, marroW

Four years after hypochondriac, the 24-year-old’s 18-track Columbia album arrived with a video for lead single “ready or noT,” directed and edited by Quadeca, per The FADER, and a mountain of lore: two browser-based games and a Discord squabble between a “butcheR” and a “jesteR.” Pitchfork calls it a dark romantasy novel of a record and “brakence’s most paranoid, indulgent, prickly monstrosity yet.” He sings of fighting an affliction until he embraces it: “I don’t need an antidote, the sickness started paying up.” He has since announced a 30-date tour, and our rising artists feature has more on him.

marroWbrakenceListen on Apple Music

Alchemical Sisters, Alchemical Sisters

Octo Octa and Eris Drew’s back-to-back sets are the stuff of legend, but the married DJs had never made a record together until they remixed Special Interest’s “Disco III” in 2021. Their first full-length as a duo is built on ’90s big beat, from the Orb to Orbit, per Pitchfork. They turned the bedroom of their New Hampshire log cabin into a sealed studio and wove dulcimer, synths and samples from their archive of vintage dance music into something maximalist, then brought it to Detroit’s BMG to be mixed on a huge analog console. Pitchfork’s review calls it “a four-dimensional record where the past endlessly loops back on itself.”

Alchemical SistersAlchemical SistersListen on Apple Music

Shabazz Palaces, It’s a Style Sport

Ishmael Butler’s first full-length as Shabazz Palaces in six years, on Sub Pop, keeps the haze but plants one foot on solid ground, per Pitchfork. Lead single “Ahh World (I Won the Alpha Bet)” sets lucid social commentary to ominous beats, “Jheri Curl Jump” is a love story murmured over jittery electro-funk, and Kassa Overall, Evan Flory-Barnes and Thaddillac are among the guests, with Erik Blood producing alongside Butler. Rolling Stone made “Show Me Missouri in Mink” one of its songs to know this week. The review calls the record “a serious and smirking ode to resilience and curiosity.”

It’s a Style SportShabazz PalacesListen on Apple Music

Also on our radar

A day earlier, Ecco2k ended five years without a solo song with “Aldehydes and Ketones,” produced by Gud, and a video he shot across 12 countries, per The FADER (our report). My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) sold 78,000 equivalent units to give the band its first No. 1 on the Billboard 200, per Rolling Stone (our report). Sammy Virji’s second album, Open Late, was a surprise drop, Billboard says, and girl in red’s four-song BLUE EP chronicles a breakup. Michael Kiwanuka’s Fudge also came out. And the Oct. 23 date we flagged for Offset’s GMFU has moved: he announced on Nov. 2 that it now arrives Nov. 13.

Added to the High Grailed archive on November 10, 2026.