Category: R&B

New Video: SHUB and Sebastian Gaskin Team Up on Sleek, Intimate “I Know”

Dan “SHUB” General is a Mohawk producer and member of the Six Nations of the Grand River, the largest First Nation reserve in Canada. As a co-founder of the trailblazing and acclaimed, Juno Award-winning Indigenous electronic music outfit A Tribe Called Red, now known as The Hallucci Nation, General has been instrumental in the development of powwow-step, a blend of the ancient rhythms of powwow music with scratching, hip-hop, and modern, bass-heavy electronic music production.

In 2014, General left A Tribe Called Red and stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist and producer. His debut, 2016’s six-song PowWowStep EP featured collaborations with the Northern Cree Singers, smoke dance singer Frazer Sundown and a Blackfeet Nation-based drum group, Black Lodge Singers. Th EP won an Indigenous Music Award for Best Instrumental Album and the Canadian Organization of Campus Activities (COCA) named him DJ of the Year in 2017.

Since then, the Canadian producer and DJ has released two albums, 2020’s War Club and last year’s Heritage (Part One). Conceived as part of a two-part series, Heritage (Part One) saw General stepping beyond the DJ both and boldly stepping forward as a composer, storyteller and artist dedicated to expanding the reach of Indigenous music on a global scale.

The second part of the series, Heritage (Part Two) is slated for a May 1, 2026 release. Across Heritage, SHUB brings together Indigenous artists across generations, using collaboration as a way to explore identity, community and continuity within contemporary music. The Canadian producer and artist is helping to actively expanding the space Indigenous artists occupy within modern music. Heritage (Part Two) completes that vision, bringing together voices across cultures and styles into a single body of work. “This album is about movement and growth,” SHUB explains. “It’s not trying to be one genre — it’s just where I’m at right now.”

Heritage (Part Two)‘s latest single “I Know,” feat. Sebastian Gaskin is a sleek, hook-driven bit of club friendly, contemporary R&B/contemporary pop featuring glistening synth arpeggios, thumping beats serving as a lush bed for Gaskin’s yearning and plaintive falsetto. While SHUB’s work has been known for being centered on blending traditional Indigenous sounds with electronic production, “I Know” is a deliberate and thoughtful shift in sound, stripping the more ceremonial aspects of his sound for an emphasis on intimacy and personal connection that will feel familiar — and universal.

The song also captures the organic and seemingly effortless chemistry of the duo’s collaboration. “Working on this one with Sebastian was one of those sessions where the chemistry was instant,” SHUB explains. “We actually ended up writing two songs that day, but this one stood out straight away. Sometimes a record just finds its own lane when the right people are in the room.”

That sense of connection carried into the song’s overall themes. “Shub & I wrote this imagining our cultures as a lover,” Sebastian Gaskin says. “It’s about returning to where we come from and remembering that our roots don’t just ground us — they hold us.”

Directed by Matt Guarrasi, the accompanying video for “I Know” feat. Sebastian Gaskin follows the duo through a late-night drive through Toronto, with the city’s light reflected on windshield that features stops on various rooftops for the duo to rock out on. Fittingly, the video further emphasizes the deeply reflective, almost brooding energy of the track.

New Audio: Thundercat Teams Up with WILLOW on Atmospheric, Quiet Storm-like “ThunderWave”

Acclaimed JOVM mainstay Thundercat will be releasing his fifth studio album — and first album in over six years — Distracted through Brainfeeder on April 3, 2026. Distracted was created in close collaboration with super producer Greg Kurstin with additional production from Flying LotusKenny Beats and The Lemon Twigs. The new album also features contributions from an all-star cast that includes A$AP RockyWILLOWTame Impala, Channel TresLil Yachty and a previously unreleased collaboration with Mac Miller

Thematically, the album vividly captures the uneasy tension between overstimulation and introspection. Thundercat is deeply skeptical of technological “progress,” especially the way it has narrowed our collective imagination instead of expanding it. He jokes about Star Trek and childhood dreams of space travel, then pivots to the horrible anticlimax of reality: drones without lasers, phones that only feature upgraded cameras, innovation reduced to spying and access. The disappointment isn’t about just gadgets; it’s about a vision of the world we were promised versus what we got right now. Sure, some forms of deep space travel may be difficult, if not impossible, but we don’t have flying cars or smart-alecky robots. We barely have high-speed trains or anything else. 

While the drawbacks of constant distraction are evident in today’s attention deficit economy, a true idiosyncratic like Thundercat can identity the ways in which it used to one’s advantage. You can’t spell “daydreams,” without dreams. “Sometimes you need to be distracted to focus in a different way,” Thundercat says. What the JOVM mainstay wants listeners to take from the album is remarkably, disarmingly simple: Just enjoy it and have fun and just know that the struggle is real and changes shape, but just to keep pushing forward.” 

Rather than instant and constant commentary, the JOVM mainstay offers something quieter, more radical, and maybe something more empathetic: The permission to be confused, tired and distracted — and yet still make something beautiful and necessary out of the noise. 

Distracted will include the previously released “I Did This To Myself,” feat. Lil Yachty “She Knows Too Much,” feat. Mac Miller, and the album’s latest single, “ThunderWave” feat. WILLOW. “ThunderWave” features Thundercat and WILLOW’s seamless harmonies floating and bobbing over Greg Kurstin’s ambient production, a slick synthesis of Peter Gabriel-like art pop, Jaco Pastorious-era jazz fusion/jazz funk and Quiet Storm soul, which includes the sound of waves lapping gently on the shore. The result is a moonlit-like scene between two seemingly doomed, endlessly yearning lovers.

Thundercat shared some thoughts about creating the track: “Willow, the weeping, the whimsy, the whispy, the wizard. Grateful for the opportunity to create and spend time with such a beautiful human. Our journey together has been quite a fun one. Creating this song together, felt very much like the real us. So happy to be able to share.”