After A 6-Year Hiatus, NxWorries Drops “Where I Go” Featuring H.E.R.
Image credit: Stones Throw Records
On Wednesday, after 6 years of inactivity, NxWorries — the LA-based supergroup composed of singer-songwriter Anderson .Paak and hyper-prolific hip hop producer Knxwledge — released a new single out of nowhere, and it proves once again what we already knew about the duo: they don’t miss.
After NxWorries reached the climax of their output in 2016 with their fantastic debut record Yes Lawd!, the group seemed to fall off the face of the earth, but its two members remained productive. I’m not surprised they took a break — Anderson .Paak has seemed way too busy to work on any more side projects. Since the release of Yes Lawd!, he’s dropped two solo records and the wildly successful Bruno Mars collab album An Evening With Silk Sonic, provided tons of features on other artists’ songs, and even started his own record label (APESHIT, Inc). Knxwledge, meanwhile, has released so many mixtapes and albums since then that I literally don’t know how to count them all. Despite that, Yes Lawd! has remained his most successful album-length venture due to, if nothing else, .Paak’s sheer star power.
For the past couple of years, I’ve had the feeling that NxWorries was following the route of many other hip hop songwriter/producer duos like Madvillain (MF DOOM and Madlib) by dropping one classic album and never releasing anything else together. Still, after six years of dormancy, they proved me wrong — “Where I Go” (feat. H.E.R.) came out on Wednesday, and it makes it seem like they were never gone. Although he can be known for his sample-driven beats and rough sonic textures, Knxwledge went with a smoother joint for the song’s production, letting dreamy guitars and a booming bass drum set the scene for .Paak, who suavely croons about hooking up with a special someone. It’s their first song with a featured vocalist, and while H.E.R.’s time on the song is short, her vocals meld so flawlessly with their existing style that it makes it feel like NxWorries has been a trio since the beginning.
I’ve missed NxWorries in the time since they’ve been gone, and this track is definitely headed into heavy rotation for me. On top of this surprise release, there’s a whole new album from them coming (according to .Paak in an Instagram caption) that he promises will be worth the wait. After all this time, let’s see if they can hold up to the hype and deliver just as well as they did 6 years ago.
-Nathan Hausspiegel
