Hip-Hop Lives Here
Hip-Hop Lives Here
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When she’s not making indie-folk with Florist, Emily A. Sprague records ambient albums, and she has a new one on the way. Cloud Time is out October 10 (via Rvng Intl.). Below, watch the video for the new album’s opening track, “Tokyo 1.”
Sprague recorded her new album while she was on tour in Japan last year. “When I began preparing for the tour, I couldn’t shake a sense that the invitation to Japan was more about opening myself up to this new place instead of bringing something into it tightly under my control,” Sprague reflected. “Improvisation has always been such a pillar in my music practice, and I really wanted to meet the country, spaces, and people through that process.”
Cloud Time is a distillation of more than eight hours of material that Sprague recorded. For the album, Sprague was inspired by the Japanese environmental music philosophy kankyō ongaku.
Cloud Time is Sprague’s first solo album since 2020’s Hill, Flower, Fog. She and her bandmates in Florist released the album Jellywish earlier this year.
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Cloud Time:
01 Tokyo 1
02 Osaka
03 Nagoya
04 Matsumoto
05 Hokkaido
06 Tokyo 2
07 Each Story
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Chris Brown, despite his polarizing reputation, continues to be one of R&B’s biggest heartthrobs. Just ask fellow artist Summer Walker. His charm and stage presence seemed to win over Kayla Nicole as well during their moment together onstage last week.
The Virginia-born star invited the reporter and media personality onstage during his Los Angeles show for Breezy Bowl XX, giving her an unforgettable experience. She joined him for his live performance of the 2007 hit Take You Down, where the chemistry quickly heated up.
Sitting her down in a red chair, Chris Brown climbed onto her lap and delivered a sultry lap dance. While many of his fans might have been overwhelmed by the moment, Kayla Nicole confidently embraced it, giving the energy right back to him. The two even leaned in close for a kiss before the lights dimmed, leaving the crowd guessing how it ended. Nicole later reflected proudly on the moment.
“Well, that was fun. I had to do it for the teenage me blasting CB in her bedroom. For the mini me who saw him at one of her first concerts. For the woman who sometimes feels like she has to be a monolith instead of multi-layered. I did it for the smart girls, the cool girls, the sexy girls, the fun girls— for all of us who are all of those things at once. And I OVERLY did it for my brown girls, tthhhhaankya.”
Since then, her fans have been eager to hear how it all came together. On her podcast over the weekend, as highlighted by The Shade Room, Kayla Nicole revealed that the performance was not rehearsed or planned.
She explained that someone asked if she’d be interested in participating only moments before the concert, but she wasn’t chosen until Take You Down started to play. That spontaneity made the experience even more surreal for her.
One of the burning fan questions was whether Chris Brown smelled good during their close encounter. Nicole admitted she honestly couldn’t recall much because of the rush of adrenaline in the moment.
While the performance drew plenty of positive reactions, it also stirred up controversy, with some accusing Brown of being a “colorist” who favors lighter-skinned women. He clapped back on Instagram before stepping away from social media. “Miss me with that colorist rage baiting!!!” he wrote on his IG story. “Ima a take a break from social media. Y'all done pissed me off long enough.”
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