All this week, The FADER is exploring the Songs of the Summer, from massive global hits to the most exciting tracks from emerging artists. We’ve broken our list of contenders into a March Madness-style bracket, with four regionals, each representing a different type of summer song. The FADER staff will fight the tracks off against each other and come out with a winner from each regional before finally picking our ultimate Song of the Summer on Friday. Follow along wherever you listen to podcasts.
On Day One, we’re looking at the Main Stage Regional. These are the heavyweights, the songs you couldn’t avoid this summer, like it or not.
Listen to the Main Stage episode of The FADER’s Songs of the Summer Week Podcast here.
The FADER’s Songs of Summer is presented by Splice. Discover expertly created and curated samples in any style imaginable with a catalog so deep, it’s dangerous.
Winner: Kendrick Lamar: “Not Like Us”
The vitriol fuelling Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s rap beef had a permissive quality — nothing, be it family or speculation over sex crimes, was out of bounds. Every kind of online denizen from multimillionaire streamers to broke Twitter addicts fed into the metastasizing discourse. And yet, improbably, “Not Like Us” managed to escape the whirlpool that consumed the rest of the diss tracks. — Jordan Darville. Read the full blog here.
Central Cee & Asake: “Wave”
There may be no “Sprinter”-style megahit coming out of the U.K. rap world this summer but “Wave” certainly feels like a contender. Asake, singing in a mix of English and Yoruba, toasts a stress-free life and compares himself to the mercurial soccer star Mario Balotelli. Central Cee, meanwhile, is boastful yet paranoid. Together they find balance on a beat that mixes afrobeats with amapiano, making an organically global summer moment in the process. — David Renshaw
YT & Lancey Foux: “Black & Tan”
“Black & Tan” has already notched a cool 3 million streams on Spotify in under a month; not too bad for a young rapper from London with an Oxford degree and no label. YT previously nabbed a viral hit with 2021’s “Arc’teryx,” which snowballed off the back of a hilarious TikTok trend; the Funky Metro-inspired video for “Black & Tan” has already spawned international imitators. “Stoney compass on me, I was lost now I’m found,” YT raps. The only direction he’s going is up. — Vivian Medithi
Tyla feat. Gunna and Skillibeng: “Jump”
Tyla feels the heat “from Jozi to Ibiza” on a summer banger delivered with a light touch. It’s the kind of temperature that calls for short skirts and long drinks, while endless dancing leaves her “sweating out my concealеr.” Sirens ring out as the “Jump” beat loops endlessly and rolls from the nighttime into the sticky early hours. — DR
Tems: “Love Me JeJe”
“Love Me JeJe” is mellow and affectionate, a celebration of tenderness and devotion that could work romantically or for anyone wanting to live a softer life. Mixing old-school African styles with modern R&B melodies, Tems rhapsodizes about “unfailing” commitment and catching an unbreakable wave with someone. The heartwarming vibe is undeniable. — DR
NLE Choppa: “Slut Me Out 2”
For many day-one NLE Choppa fans, “Slut Me Out 2” represented a heel turn: from the hardboiled Memphis street rap that made him famous, to a catwalk-friendly Pride Month anthem. Surely, they whined, this is part of some humiliation ritual offered to Choppa by the music industry in exchange for riches. The backlash just makes the song’s brazen narcissism (“If I was a bad bitch / I’d wanna fuck me too”) feel defiant, and gives the flashbulbing joy of the beat a little more pop. — JD
Chappell Roan: “Good Luck, Babe!”
Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe” begins like a maximalist pop hit from the end of a queer ‘80s rom-com. The extravagant trill of her electrifying falsetto kicks in right after the Hail Mary grand gesture, before its gleeful acceptance is met with a neon-bright blast of chunky, Cyndi Lauper synthesizers and an ecstatic choir of sweeping strings. But listen to the lyrics, and you’ll hear Roan’s anger and resentment ring through Daniel Nigro’s pulsing production. Her heart is broken, and the bitterness is real. — Sandra Song
Tinashe: “Nasty”
Of all the soundbites that have transitioned instantly into cultural shorthand this summer, “match my freak” is both the catchiest and most resonant. It’s a Swiss Army knife of a phrase, just as useful in nonsexual contexts as in raunchy ones like Tinashe’s “Nasty,” in which the singer wonders whether there exists a lover who’s both skilled and kinky enough to meet her high sexual standards. Listeners looking for an even freakier journey should check out Jane Remover’s “Match My Tweak” remix. — Raphael Helfand
