After months of waiting, Silk Sonic has finally come through with the new music.
The R&B super duo, made up of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, took to social media on Wednesday to cordially invite followers to their “summertime jam.” Although the announcement was fairly vague and cryptic, fans immediately began speculating that the artists were set to drop the follow-up to Silk Sonic’s debut single “Leave the Door Open,” which arrived nearly five months ago.
“Skate” comes about a month after Silk Sonic performed “Leave the Door Open” at the 2021 BET Awards, where .Paak briefly trolled fans by teasing new material: “Do y’all wanna hear a new song? Do y’all wanna hear a new song off the album?” he asked the cheering crowd, before squashing their hopes. “Nah, we gon’ run it back. Let’s go!”
The songs will land on the group’s much-anticipated debut studio album, An Evening With Silk Sonic, which was seemingly completed as far back as February. Mars and Anderson have yet to announce an official release date for the project, but it’s expected to arrive sometime this year. The duo spoke about the album during an interview with Zane Lowe earlier this year, saying it began as a jam session with friends and just “snowballed” from there.
“It was like, ‘Well, want to come back tomorrow?’ And we kept coming up with music,” Mars said. “It felt like why you fall in love with music in the first place. And jamming with your buddy … There’s no plan, just working out the parts and trying to excite each other … I’d never created music like that, with drums being the focus. Andy is this monster behind the drums and you’re going to hear that all over the album.”
In addition to dropping off the song, Silk Sonic also shared a music video for “Skate.”
Check out the Bruno Mars and Florent Dechard-directed video up top and stream the track below via Spotify.
Bruno Mars linked up with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1’s New Music Daily and revealed how the new single came about.
“Me and the team was thinking about what if we were performing in the middle of a roller rink, what would that baseline be doing?” Mars said. “What would the guitar be doing? What would the drums be talking about? And I wanted to play congas and that’s what you get. You get a song called ‘Skate.’ Talking about I’m trying to float. I’m trying to glide.”
Stay tuned as more details about An Evening With Silk Sonic become available.
