You couldn’t escape the hype train around Pusha T’s fourth album, It’s Almost Dry, released on April 22. Few artists have the power to make click-and-scrollers slow down long enough to give a new release the attention it deserves.

But the Picasso of the Pyrex, King Push, has an effect on hip-hop unlike anyone before him or to come after.

As one-half of the rap duo the Clipse, he and No Malice set the standard for how "coke raps" were delivered from state to state. Push then upped the ante as a solo artist and president of Ye’s G.O.O.D. Music imprint, servicing audiophiles and rap fiends with vivid, luxe-infused bars that had internet sleuths searching for the origins of his Lanvin-laced lyrics.

Few rappers are operating at a competitive level this far into their careers, placing Pusha T — already one of the game’s most legendary wordsmiths — into rarefied air. Authentic in the streets and history-making when it comes to pop culture and the charts, Pusha T gets the GRAMMY.com examination, as we dive into the key takeaways from It’s Almost Dry.

1. The Holy Triumvirate of Pusha-Ye-Pharrell Is a Full Circle Moment

There may be no other artist outside of Jay Z that connects with Pharrell Williams and Kanye West quite like Pusha T. After hearing him on Nigo’s "Hear Me Clearly" record, Virginia P famously challenged Push to "not become a mixtape rapper for the rest of his life." The gauntlet was officially thrown down between the two megaproducers. 

Armed with the clout (and a decades-long history of collaboration), Pusha T convinced Pharrell and Kanye to produce an entire album for him. The resulting It’s Almost Dry highlights the best, and varied, things each beatsmith wanted from Push.

"[Kanye] only wants bars, all day, all night — he wants a thousand of them," Push explained in a sit-down with High Snobiety. "Pharrell wants to sit there with me. He uses the term ‘composition’ a lot [...] and it made for such a colorful, well-rounded album because I took both of them and did what they asked of me. And it just works." 

The energy between the three parties fuels It’s Almost Dry to go further than they’ve ever gone before, possibly making one of the best rap albums of the year.

2. There’s No ‘Yuugh!’ Anywhere

Adlibs have been a staple in rap, but the last decade has seen them turn into a calling card from those who reign in the upper echelon of hip-hop. Pusha T's "yuugh" has been something that, whenever dropped on a track, signifies that he meant that s</em><em>t. Audiences have come to love and appreciate his signature yuugh, but will be surprised to learn that it doesn’t appear anywhere on It’s Almost Dry. 

You can only say the type of s<em></em>t Pusha T says when you’ve achieved a certain level of success. King Push, he’s more than earned the right to deliver the product how he best sees fit, yuugh!

3. Ye Continues To Explore Family Issues

Listening to It’s Almost Dry can put someone in a fever dream, yet thankfully, Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West) tempers the barbiturate bars with some sobering thoughts. For example, "Dreamin Of The Past" — which takes its title from John Lennon’s "Jealous Guy," by way of a sample of Donny Hathaway's version of the song — finds Yeezy in reflection mode, closing the track with some family-centered ponderings.

"Born in the manger, the son of a stranger/When daddy’s not home, the family’s in danger," he raps. On "Rock N Roll" (which also marks the final collaboration between Ye and Kid Cudi), the former references his late mother, Donda West ("Love my mama but sometimes dad was right/Take his hand, hold on with all of your might"), not wanting to argue with his ex-wife and wanting a Bel-Air-styled mansion ("I used to watch the ‘Fresh Prince’ and pray the house would be mine/Could have bought it but I ain’t like the way the kitchen [was] designed").

Ye has remained publicly silent after being suspended from Instagram, so getting this brief look at what's on his mind through It’s Almost Dry is interesting.

4. "Neck & Wrist" Finds Jay-Z In Take-On-All-Comers Mode

Who else but Hov should you call when you want to talk that ultra-braggart talk? On "Neck & Wrist," the second collaboration between Pusha T and Jay Z, the latter is in his bag and talking spicy towards any enemigo — real or imaginary. The Pharrell-laced beat finds Marcy Jay opening the verse by addressing comedian Faizon Love and the comments he made on Vlad TV.

"The phase I’m on, love, I wouldn’t believe it either/I’d be like, ‘Jay-Z’s a cheat,’ I wouldn’t listen to reason either," he raps. Jay Z goes into his bag for this clever homophone of sorts, turning the joke onto the jokester while emphasizing how his real life is far from fiction.

Whether it was highlighting how The Commission would’ve run rap had the Notorious B.I.G. survived, or serving up his famed triple-entendre references, "Neck & Wrist" is a great example of It’s Almost Dry's dynamic coke raps<em>.</em>

5. Pusha T is Hip-Hop’s Drug Dealing Larry David

To quote Rolling Stones’ Will Dukes, "Pusha T is to coke references what Larry David is to absurd social situations." Pharrell’s honest diss as a friend may have inspired Push to make It’s Almost Dry into a rap cinematic tour de force, but the 44-year-old MC has always been a lyrical Martin Scorsese.

Push consistently and creatively delivers new and interesting ways to invoke drug dealing staples. Self-described as "Cocaine’s Dr. Seuss," Push evokes humor, menace, thrills, and pathos into It’s Almost Dry and proves he’s one of the main reasons why coke rap — as a subgenre — exists in the first place.

"We’re Still A Force To Be Reckoned With": Cypress Hill's Eric Correa & 'Insane In The Brain' Doc Director On The Band's Trailblazing Legacy

Kassa Overall holds his phone aloft, and rolls his eyes back in his head.

He's playing the intro to his track "Going Up," featuring Lil B, Shabazz Palaces and Francis and the Lights, which had dropped that day. A cello drone gives way to a strange woodblock part; a chopped-up drum solo jaws at everything — then it's as if Ableton freezes. Flanked by synths and sequencers, Overall seizes in his chair, as if he's being sucked into a black hole.

"You know the part where Neo gets kicked out of the Matrix?" the GRAMMY-nominated rapper, drummer and producer tells GRAMMY.com via Zoom. "It's like that, but when you get spit out, you actually get spit out in the bush in Africa."

That 20-second intro took Overall a long time to get right, but it's one of his favorite moments on his new album, ANIMALS — which arrived May 26 on Overall's new home, Warp Records.

The conversation has turned to the concept of absurdity —  a helpful lens through which to view Overall's art. It sure beats the one that hamstrung him in the past, when he did interview after interview after interview about the intersection of jazz and rap — with mental health thrown in for good measure.

"I've talked about this for two albums now," he told GRAMMY.com in 2021 with a hint of exhaustion. "I ran that cycle in my head. I'm not so much trying to prove the point anymore that these things can go together. I just want to make the dopest s—."

The joy of ANIMALS is not in that genre fusion, but Overall's swelling boldness and vividness as an artist — as well as its novel fusion of seemingly disparate collaborators. Try to find another record where you'll find jazz-adjacent pianists Vijay Iyer and Kris Davis next to singular rappers like Danny Brown and Lil B.

"The reason the jazz world feels a little bit dry and s— is because there's not really the space for absurdity," Overall says. "Somebody like Louis Armstrong or Dizzy Gillespie — a third of them was Lil B and Danny Brown energy. That's why it was fire."

On ANIMALS, Overall rose to the energetic occasion. The album is consumed with subjects like his uneasy relationship with ambition, and his relationship with his growing audience. On tracks like lead single "Ready to Ball," the Nick Hakim and Theo Croker-featuring "Make My Way Back Home," and the Vijay Iyer-assisted "The Score Was Made," Overall has bigger fish to fry — than where rap does or doesn't connect with jazz.

Read on for an interview with Overall about his latest career moves, bucking tired narratives and using collaborators as instruments — much like a certain embattled rap innovator.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

I'd like to start by talking about your pandemic-era SHADES trilogy of mixtapes. How was the experience making those mixtapes significant to your creative journey?

I was just thinking about the SHADES series yesterday, actually. I was thinking about the process of making that versus making a solo record, and I realized they're actually a lot more connected than people might think. 

When I make my own music, the process of it is still sample chopping — whether I'm chopping up original music, or chopping up some Nirvana, you know what I mean? Oftentimes, my original music includes collaging from other sources.

The SHADES thing was like me going, Let me actually deal with the sample practice. I missed the idea of taking some s— and flipping it. So, that was really a lot of fun.

I think SHADES 3, the third in the trilogy, was kind of a new direction for me, because I started actually using drum machines. The series started with more of me on the laptop, locked down in COVID, chopping up this and chopping of that. For this one, I had an actual studio behind me.

The lockdown is over, so I'm not so much in the headphones. So, if you listen to SHADES 3, it's more house tracks and s— like that. For me, it was just a good experiment. Although I made beats and used sample sequences, I never really got into step sequences, and those kinds of drum machines.

I'm a novice at that; I'm brand new at that. So, that's been a lot of fun.

The last time I interviewed you, you seemed to be trying to wrestle out of the reductive narrative around your music. You're dealing with more important subjects on ANIMALS. Where are you at in your career, through the lenses of public messaging and your signing to Warp?

Thank you for pointing that out first, because that'll allow me to not have to repeat things I'm tired of repeating.

Just to recap what you're saying, historically, jazz and rap often equals corny. I've never wanted to be corny, and I don't think I've ever been corny. It just happens to be the things that I say — where I come from. It's not so much like, I'm gonna do this.

And then the mental health s— is more like, I've just gotten comfortable talking about my life. Just like with any writer — you could be a writer for years, but it could become years until you become comfortable talking about your perspective and your ideas. If I'm just talking about the things that affect me a lot, that has to be a part of it. You can't not talk about it, but it was more like, I want to get past that.

I think that putting the album out on Warp is a bit of messaging in itself, because I've been making this music that I don't consider to be that weird. My music is not weird compared to Aphex Twin or Squarepusher, you know what I mean? 

It's a fresh take on electronics and organics, you know what I mean? It's unique, but it's not that weird. I came up through the industry I came up in. So, I'm trying to get booked in jazz clubs and play jazz festivals, and they're looking at me like, "Not under my banner!"

If you listen to the state of jazz, or different playlists on the various streaming platforms, they sound a lot different than when I first started putting music out. People were like, "Whoa, what is this? Is this your pop product? This is your pop album, right? How's your pop s— going?"

That's what my homies used to say — my jazz friends. "He plays good — like, he's a killing drummer, but he's also got this pop s— he do."

Your work doesn't resemble any pop music I've ever heard.

Nah, nah, But there's a drum machine of sorts. There's a clap that's not organic. There's vocals. [Laughs.] It's pop!

The first time I noticed was when I did a guest mix for BBC, which came through Tom Ravenscroft. He got hip to the album through Bandcamp; he had no idea who I am or what I am.

That's how I started even doing the SHADES stuff — when I got the opportunity to do guest mixes, I would do remixes to kind of double down. It's like a double word score of like, Yo, he's doing some extra-different s—.

So, they were like, "Producer Kassa Overall does a guest mix." And I noticed that it's the way you present something; people are listening to it differently. If I present an album as a jazz drummer, then it's some pop s— where I'm trying to sing or something. 

But then when it's presented as a producer thing, people are automatically like, "Oh, word. This is, like, electronic music. It's cool. We know where to put this."

My biggest influences are unique artists — unique people who made things that are kind of their own genre, whether it be Thom Yorke, Radiohead, Björk. Even Kanye; at a point, it was rebranding the whole idea. Like, "I'm a producer — no, I'm a rapper!" "You have a gangster image!" "No, I'm wearing skinny jeans and a pink polo!"

Then, even someone like John Coltrane, somebody like Bob Marley — obviously, these are the biggest artists in their fields, but they're also people [where] whatever they're making, you didn't really know what it was before it kind of popped in.

So, I would rather people hear my music and not think it's a jazz-rap collage. What if you don't relate it to anything else? What does it sound like to you?

The thing about the last album with Brownswood [Recordings, 2020's I THINK I'M GOOD]: I was like, "Bro, so many songs I'm making that y'all are considering to be B-sides would work well next to a Frank Ocean or James Blake record." 

Maybe it's a little too poppy for Brownswood's audience, but f— Brownswood's audience, you know what I mean? But there's a million people over here that don't even know what a Nord or a Rhodes is, and they f— with what I'm doing.

So I think that's the frustration I've dealt with. I'm just a dude making songs about my life. That's all it is.

Kassa Overall. Photo: Patrick O'Brien Smith

Was it a difficult process to find a post-Brownswood home that was conducive to what you want to do?

No, it was very easy. And shouts to Brownswood; I'm not saying "F— Brownswood." That's the homies. [Label founder] Gilles Peterson is still a big supporter of what I'm doing. I'm just saying moreso my image and branding — if you want to make it seem like I'm this organic Afro-bop type, it's not gonna really sell. My s— is way too sad boy.

Somebody from Warp hit me up after I THINK I'M GOOD came out and asked me to make some beats for Danny Brown. Actually, they asked me if I had some beats. I was like, "Bro, give me two weeks," and I made three beats for Danny Brown; he picked two of them.

And then, that same A&R came back around and was like, "Yo, I think you should touch some other tracks on the album and 'Kass out' the whole album." So, I added all sorts of little drums and vocal throws — different things to give my little texture.

I ended up working on four joints total on Danny's next record — and fully producing one, which is one of the singles, but it sounds like a Kass kind of thing. So, that relationship started, and we chop it up on music stuff regularly.

When I started getting ready to shop for my next record, it was kind of like, "Y'all want to do it?" and [Warp] was like "Hell yeah."

I could have signed somewhere else and gotten more money, but the branding would be the same "What is this?" type of thing. I think Warp has the history of electronic music, and they have artists there now — it tells a story of what I'm doing, in a good way. I fit into the thing.

You came up in the jazz scene, and your relationship with ambition weighs heavily on ANIMALS. What is it about that world that lends itself to a hyper-competitive, rise-and-grind spirit?

I think it's the displacement of a cultural home. I understand what you're talking about — jazz, self-help, motivational. There's so many connector cables there, and I'm guilty of it all. 

As a jazz musician, you have to learn how to practice. Like, I'm gonna practice all day, and the gigs are gonna come, and you're damn near doing, like, affirmations, and then you go sit in at Smalls. It's not like a doctor goes to school, and then applies, and it's an actual, visible track, The music thing is very pie-in-the-sky.

If you think about self-help as its own branding and industry, a lot of jazz musicians are susceptible to that kind of rhetoric. Because it's like, this person is huge, this person has nothing, and they're almost equally talented. One of them grinds his ass off; the other one drinks. 

The other thing — this might be a little darker, a shadow thing — is one thing that happened with jazz is colleges. Once jazz became this academia thing, that's the student industry. That means you have jazz musicians turning to students as a means of sustainment.

That's not really the culture of the music. The music isn't really rise-and-grind. The culture is not even about success. People like Jimmy Heath expressed this to me: it wasn't popular. 

It's popular now, or it looks like it. A Love Supreme is this huge thing, right? But if you listen to Elvin Jones interviews and stuff, he talks about playing in these clubs, and there's, like, six people there. Four of them are waiters, and people were not trying to hear that noise.

The idea is that you're going to choose this music that's not really designed for mass appeal, but the motivation is mass appeal. It's kind of a conflicting direction. That's not to say it can't work; there's a lot of people making it work.

But we're all screwed a little bit. It might not just be a jazz musician thing, and it might not just be a musician thing, but we're all kind of in this place of Work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, and who works the most wins.

I don't want to live like that, and I find myself in that position at times. I'm going like, Something's got to give eventually. It's supposed to be more of a spiritual thing — a practice.

Kassa Overall. Photo: Patrick O'Brien Smith

You mentioned Kanye; I love the way he seemed to use collaborators as instruments on Donda. I get that same feeling from ANIMALS.

It's funny you say this. When I started working on this record — we're talking about 2019, even, some of these joints — I always pick a couple of albums to compete with. That's kind of one of my secrets. The last record was <a href="https://www.grammy.com/artists/calvin-broadus/14274">[Snoop Dogg's] Doggystyle and <a href="https://www.grammy.com/artists/2pac/7233">[2Pac's] All Eyez on Me. And this record was Dark Twisted Fantasy.

I haven't said this much in interviews, because I don't want to be like, "Kassa Overall drops album dedicated to Kanye!" [Laughs hard] But he was a huge influence on my process. 

You have these long-ass songs. It's an open-ended beat. And however many minutes [into Dark Twisted Fantasy], Rick Ross comes in. Or you have Paul McCartney working on the melody. That was the inspiration behind this. If you listen close to a lot of the sonics, you'll hear, Oh, this is in conversation with that production process.

A musician like Kris Davis, for example. An absolute weirdo. You sit down and talk with her — so stoic. Who she is in itself is an anomaly. And then the music she makes is so unique.

Somebody like her would never cross paths with Danny Brown, who's equally strange. Even just his voice; he was a weirdo in his world. He was signed to G-Unit. He came up in Detroit, street rap adjacent, but when he popped off by kind of busting out of that and embracing more of the weirdo myths of his art. He's a standout in his own space.

I look at those two artists as people that actually have more in common than you would think. They're similar because they're very different in their own spaces. I think the world that Danny Brown lives in is better with Kris Davis in it. And I think the world that Kris Davis and Vijay Iyer are in is better with Lil B in it.

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Among serious music fans, it's a common rite of passage to realize there's a lot more to Steely Dan than meets the eye. And a lot of that is biting, sardonic wit.

If you think Donald Fagen and Walter Becker's three-time GRAMMY-winning partnership is just the stuff of smoothed-over yacht rock, you could have a change of heart: Dan bangers from "Deacon Blues" to "Don't Take Me Alive" to "Hey Nineteen" are full of pitch-black character studies, acidic turns of phrase, and one-liners that may singe your eyebrows.

Sure, this component of the group is key to their conceptual essence. But in your dance with the Dan, take the next step: If you took away all the sarcasm, all the seediness, all the salt, Steely Dan would still be one of the greatest rock bands of all time. Because their musical sophistication was second to none.

For decades, connotations of soft-rock yuppiedom have calcified around Steely Dan; The Onion once summed it up with an article headlined "Donald Fagen Defends Steely Dan To Friends." But not only do they barely resemble yacht rock on any level; their compositions and playing were of a stunning level of sophistication. It's no accident that unquestionable musical godheads Wayne Shorter, Bernard Purdie and the Brecker brothers played with them.

Steely Dan is a tangled web indeed, and a new book illuminates every nook and cranny of their legend. Journalist Alex Pappademas and visual artist Joan LeMay's Quantum Criminals, arrived in May and  pulls apart the Steely Dan myth like Russian nesting dolls.

"We're all looking out at the world with a Donald and Walter-ish kind of dismay. So they make a lot more sense now," Pappademas recently told Rolling Stone. What seemed cold and remote and jerky about them back in the day — now, that's just the way people talk. They're also also writing apocalyptically about their time, and our time now seems so unavoidably apocalyptic.

In the same interview, Pappademas cited the final album of their original run, 1980's Gaucho. "Gaucho is the ultimate one because it's the slickest," he said, mentioning an ultra-complex drum machine they built to remove any vestige of humanity. "Eventually, the solution is, 'We're going to invent sampling so that we can reduce the amount of human error.'"

Of course, Steely Dan didn't literally invent sampling. But the comment at least tacitly bridges two worlds few know are bridged: Steely Dan and hip-hop. As Pappademas put it in the book — albeit in the context of a contentious royalties agreement — “Even if nothing about Steely Dan was hip-hop, everything about them was hip-hop… they were about that cash.”

According to WhoSampled, the Dan have been sampled 152 times; in a number of cases, those samples were in rap songs. Pappademas acknowledges this component of the Dan's legacy in the chapter "Peter/Tariq/Daniel" in Quantum Criminals.

In tandem with Quantum Criminals, let the following list of Dan-sampling rap songs elucidate this misunderstood band for neophytes: they were not only gritty lyrically, but conducive to musical grit.

De La Soul - "Eye Know" (1989)

Smack in the middle of De La Soul's debut album, 1989's 3 Feet High and Rising, is "Eye Know," which samples the Mad Lads' "Make This Young Lady Mine," Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay," and Lee Dorsey's "Get Out of My Life, Woman."

Underpinning it all is the clavinet from key Steely Dan hit "Peg," a single from their 1977  masterpiece, Aja.

"Hip-hop love this is and don't mind when I quiz your involvements before the sun," Pos raps over the burbling chords. "But clear your court 'cause this is a one-man sport." Between verses, a sampled Fagen bleats, "I know I'll love you better!"

Ice Cube - "Don't Trust 'Em" (1992)

Get past the… er, interesting cover art, and 1976's The Royal Scam is a jewel in Steely Dan's crown — a revisitation of their rock roots as they hurtled into ironic smoothness.

"Green Earrings," about a remorseless jewel thief, is a highlight, and Ice Cube incorporated a sped-up sample of its keyboard part in "Don't Trust 'Em," from his 1992 album The Predator. 

The crystalline-toned hook is woven into brutal storytelling, as the former N.W.A. MC details how a sexual encounter can get you hogtied in a trunk: "You can't trust a big butt and a smile," Cube sagely warns.

Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz - "Deja Vu (Uptown Baby)" (1997)

Aja's opener, "Black Cow," remains of one Steely Dan's all-time funkiest cuts, and it provides the engine for East Coast rap duo Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz's debut single, "Deja Vu (Uptown Baby)".

As Pappademas lays out in Quantum Criminals, Fagen and Becker would only clear the sample if they received 100 percent of the royalties. "People are under the impression that we put the record out and got sued," Gunz said, according to the book. "We didn't get sued. We got stuck up." "Deja Vu (Uptown Baby)" turned out to be Tarique and Gunz's one and only hit song, from their one and only album.

MF DOOM - "Gas Drawls" (1999)

Other MCs clearly got the memo on "Black Cow": it shows up early on the late MF DOOM's "Gas Drawls," from his 1999 debut album Operation: Doomsday, and pops up repeatedly throughout the song.

"You were very high!" Fagen crows just before Dumile punches in, in media res: "By the way, I re-up on bad dreams, bag up screams in 50s/ Be up on mad schemes that heat shop like jiffy."

Kanye West - "Champion" (2007)

Like Ye's cartoon-bear mascot on the cover of 2007's Graduation, "Champion," a cut from that album, blasts into the air — buoyed by a vocal sample from Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne."

"Did you realize/ That you were a champion in their eyes?" Fagen croons as the song's chorus, giving "Champion" its thrust as well as its title. At first, Fagen and Becker were reluctant to clear the sample; they relented after West sent Fagen a heartfelt, handwritten letter.

Today, the verse resonates in the rapper now called Ye's legacy — not only for this particular song, but because it seems to sum up his rise and fall. Clearly, Pappademas was right: Steely Dan has nothing to do with hip-hop. Steely Dan is hip-hop.

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Long before Jack Harlow was one of rap's buzziest stars, he was making music for his middle-school classmates. Even at just age 12, he knew the art of collaboration, teaming up with a friend to create his first album, and later creating a rap collective with other pals. Fast forward 13 years later, and he's teaming up with some of the biggest stars in the industry.

Harlow has counted several superstars as collaborators since signing with Atlantic Records in 2018; just the track list of his second album, 2022's Come Home the Kids Miss You, featured the likes of Drake, Lil Wayne, Justin Timberlake, and Pharrell Williams. So when Harlow surprised fans with the announcement of his third studio album, Jackman, just days before its April 28 release, it was easy to assume he'd deliver more star-studded tracks. 

But upon the album's arrival, there was not a collaboration to be found. Based on Harlow opting to use his birth name as the title of his latest release, it's not all that surprising that he opted to take the no-features route this time around — and even without collaborators, he sounds more confident than ever.

Although Jackman didn't add to Harlow's reputable lineup of guest stars, he has quite the roster already, whether from his own projects or featuring on another artist's track. To celebrate Harlow's new music, GRAMMY.com revisits some of his most memorable collaborations so far.

DaBaby, Tory Lanez, and Lil Wayne — "Whats Poppin" (Remix)

Harlow released six mixtapes and two EPs in the many years leading up to his breakthrough hit "Whats Poppin," the lead single off his debut studio album, 2020's Thats What They All Say. Though "Whats Poppin" certainly isn't the only of Harlow's raps to reflect on the joys of being rich and famous, his hard-hitting delivery on the new remix verse is a standout among the rest.

And with the help of DaBaby and Tory Lanez on the remix as well, the song reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 — an impressive feat for his first-ever entry on the chart. Not only did the song's commercial success put him on the map, but it nabbed Harlow his first GRAMMY nomination in 2021, for Best Rap Performance.

Drake — "Churchill Downs"

Named after Louisville's iconic racetrack, "Churchill Downs" is a heartfelt ode to Harlow's hometown; the music video was even filmed at the 2022 Kentucky Derby. Backed by a flute-driven beat, the standout track off Harlow's sophomore album, Come Home the Kids Miss You, is a perfect embodiment of his humble beginnings: "All that time in the kitchen finally panned out/ I put some flavor in a pot and took the bland out/ I know my grandpa would have a heart attack if I pulled a hunnid grand out," he raps.

Meanwhile, Drake's guest verse — which calls out the pitfalls of fame — is considered one of his best in recent years, likely due to the level of vulnerability the Canadian rapper is showing nearly two decades into his career.

The rags-to-riches tale resonated with fans and critics alike: "Churchill Downs" cracked the top 10 of Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, and earned the pair a GRAMMY nomination for Best Rap Song in 2022.

Lil Nas X — "Industry Baby"

Lil Nas X recruited Harlow for his multi-platinum single "Industry Baby," a pulsing track laden with triumphant horns and braggadocious lyrics. Accompanied by a provocative music video where both rappers break out of prison while donning bright pink jumpsuits, the song strategically followed Lil Nas X's legal battle with Nike. But the Kentucky rapper's verse arguably steals the show with brow-raising bars, including "I sent her back to her boyfriend with my handprint on her a— cheek."

The boisterous tune helped Harlow earn his first of two No. 1s on the Hot 100; his second came in 2022 with his solo track "First Class."

Saweetie — "Tap In" (Remix)

Harlow was one of three rap stars Saweetie recruited for the remix of her Too Short-sampling single "Tap In," which also featured Post Malone and DaBaby.

While the SoCal rapper isn't shy about flaunting her physical attributes ("Lil' waist, fat a—") and being able to "bag a eight-figure n—," Harlow just seems happy to be there. "I just crossed over to Top 40/ I can't even say 'Whats poppin?' now 'cause it got corny," he spits before telling listeners that his verse for Saweetie got him "horny."

Big Sean — "Way Out"

A solid single choice following "Whats Poppin" and "Tyler Herro," Harlow and Big Sean's "Way Out" is as straightforward and braggadocious as it is club-ready. Just under three minutes in length, Sean's guest verse does not disappoint — it's packed with punchlines, such as "I'm anointed, I'm the boss/ I done came out of pocket so much/ You thought that I was disjointed."

Lil Wayne — "Poison"

Lil Wayne was no stranger to AutoTune before teaming up with Harlow, but some critics disapproved of his use of it on "Poison," a track from Come Home the Kids Miss You. Even so, his rhyme about stealing someone's girl is pretty iconic: "I might have to jack your b— 'cause I be on my Harlow sh—."

Despite what critics have to say, clearly Wayne enjoys working with Harlow — "Poison" marked their third collab, following the "Whats Poppin" remix and 2020 single "P— Talk" alongside City Girls and Quavo.

Pharrell Williams — "Movie Star"

On "Movie Star," Harlow ditches his humble persona to rap about enjoying the perks of his then-newfound superstardom: money, women, and designer clothes. "Can't imagine being you, ooh, I'd hate to be it / I'm done fakin' humble, actin' like I ain't conceited / 'Cause, b—, I am conceited," he declares on the track produced by the legendary Pharrell Williams, a true indicator that an artist has made it in the music industry.

After Williams adds some of his flair to the chorus, both stars trade off rhymes in the song's final verse. "But do it jiggle though?" Williams asks. Harlow's response? "I feel like the whole damn city know."

Justin Timberlake — "Parent Trap"

The dark side of fame theme resurfaces in "Parent Trap," a collaboration with Justin Timberlake, who lends his signature southern drawl to the chorus. "Every sky can't be blue/ It's hard to see when you're walkin' in the grey/ So many flights, look at how the time flew," he sings.

Though it may not quite measure up to Harlow's top-tier duet with Drake on "Churchill Downs," which tackles similar subject matter, the collab is a fitting one — Harlow referenced NSYNC in "Tyler Herro" just two years prior.

Eminem and Cordae — "Killer" (Remix)

In late 2020, Harlow told GQ that he "grew up listening to Eminem" and idolized him, so it must have been surreal and full-circle when he got to join forces with the 15-time GRAMMY-winning rapper a mere six months later.

Rising to the challenge, Harlow holds his own alongside Em and then-fellow newcomer Cordae, demonstrating strong lyrical wordplay — particularly with lines like "I'm eatin' pizza in Little Italy, damn, I used to hit Caesars."

Even alongside his biggest heroes, Harlow has proven his natural ability to command attention — and though it's just him on the mic on Jackman, he seems poised and ready to see who's next.

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Dance music wouldn't be the same without Daft Punk. In 1993, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo joined forces, not knowing they would become trailblazers of the decade's French house movement.

The duo took their name from a negative review of their former band Darlin', in which their music was criticized as "a daft punky thrash" — and so Daft Punk was born, living up to their name by merging creative absurdity with liveliness. The duo made few public media appearances, quite literally shrouding themselves in mystery through a sci-fi aesthetic accompanying their prolific, contemporary sound.

From their 1997 debut studio album Homework to collaborations with The Weeknd decades later, the duo built their extensive discography on a fearless restyling of electronica. Contributing to dance music popularization in North America with their 2006-2007 tour, Daft Punk is credited with ushering EDM into the mainstream.

Although the duo disbanded in 2021, their influence is everlasting: colorfully blending house with every genre from techno to synth-pop, Daft Punk has proved their creativity knows no limits.

In honor of the 10-year anniversary of the GRAMMY-winning duo's "Get Lucky" and their 30-year career span, take a listen to these 9 funky essentials by Daft Punk.

"Da Funk," Homework (1997)

Tripping into acid house, Daft Punk's single "Da Funk" is a glaring highlight from the duo's debut, Homework. Featuring a squirming, snappy 303 bass line and refreshing disco-inspired sound, the lyricless track is a '90s house classic.

"Around The World," Homework (1997)

Daft Punk's dynamic sounds are staples in clubs all over the world, and part of this is due to the smash success of their single "Around The World." The second single from their debut hit No. 1 on dance charts worldwide, its only lyric — fittingly, "around the world" — repeated 144 times to reach full earworm potential.

"One More Time," Discovery (2000)

Daft Punk regards "One More Time" as the bridge between Homework and Discovery, and this song speaks to the duo's timeless, overarching creativity. Spotlighting their signature auto-tuned vocals and futuristic production, the song is a full-blown celebration. Upon release, the track tied with "Around The World" by hitting No. 61 on the Billboard Hot 100.

"Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," Discovery (2001)

An instant influential hit, "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" combines the keyboard riff from Edwin Birdsong's 1979 funk song "Cola Bottle Baby" with heavily vocoded vocals. The song has been remixed, sampled, and covered dozens of times, and a live version of the track — from Daft Punk's live album, Alive 2007 — took home a GRAMMY for Best Dance/Electronic Recording in 2009.

"Digital Love," Discovery (2001)

Led elegantly by a Wurlitzer and filled with prolonged harmonies, this Daft Punk essential sloshes through a dreamy electropop soundscape. Longing pulses through the textured, technological track, and its softness cushions the song's outlined fantasy in a graceful way.

"Robot Rock," Human After All (2005)

Wonderfully mechanical, Daft Punk's "Robot Rock" is a staple of electronic rock. Its central and only lyric — "Rock, robot rock" — repeats over and over, meshing with a looping synth-led riff and electric guitar power chords. Filmed on VHS, its music video glitters as the first video to star Daft Punk exclusively.

"Starboy" - The Weeknd, Starboy (2016)

The title track from The Weeknd's third studio album, "Starboy," strays from Daft Punk's signature electronic sound, determinedly wandering into edgy pop and R&B. Surprisingly, the collaboration is Daft Punk's first and only No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

"Get Lucky" featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers, Random Access Memories (2013)

Pulling in a couple of legends for collaboration, "Get Lucky" strikes a perfect groove as a disco-pop banger about staying up 'til the sun. Starring Nile Rodgers' radiant guitar riff and Pharrell Williams' funky vocals, the experimental song won Record Of The Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 56th GRAMMY Awards.

"Derezzed," TRON: Legacy (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2010)

Who better than Daft Punk to craft the soundtrack for a sci-fi film? The pair's robotic aesthetic and futuristic music perfectly complement the 2010 Disney cyberworld film Tron: Legacy, and "Derezzed" stands out as an especially immersive track. At the 54th GRAMMY Awards, TRON: Legacy (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) was nominated for Best Score Soundtrack Album For Visual Media.

"Lose Yourself to Dance" featuring Pharrell Williams, Random Access Memories (2013)

Pharrell Williams returned to work with Daft Punk for the groovy "Lose Yourself to Dance" in 2013. His vocals float through the song's funky production, and partway through, a multi-layered clap imbues the track with new, crowd-sourced energy.

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