Nilufer Yanya’s “Cold Heart” and 10 other great songs out right now

Each week, The FADER staff rounds up the songs we can’t get enough of. Here they are, in no particular order. Listen on our Spotify and Apple Music playlists, or hear them all below.

“At the end of the day, I’ma need some respect,” Vayda raps at the start of “ruth” over jazzy synth chords that bloom from rattling trap drums. Her lively bars as the track goes on more than justify her demand to be taken seriously, especially as her self-produced beat explodes into double time, bringing the song home with a flash of finesse. —Raphael Helfand

On the standout opening track from Niontay’s new album Fada, the NYC-via-Florida MC moves slantingly on a slow-riding piano beat, his mumbly bars spilling over the instrumental in an immaculate flow. “I don’t wanna hear your war stories, that’s karaoke,” he raps, addressing the frauds in the game he simply has no time for. —RH

“Mucho drama, como una telenovela,” Isabella Lovestory raps confidently on the chorus of her new single, “Telenovala.” She struts across a booming beat from producer Chicken, comparing her crew to Barbarella and warning off anyone who dares to mess with them. Accompanied by a mini-telenovela music video, it’s a pure assertion of dominance from a pop star at the top of her game. —RH

Announcing an LP titled And I Know I Can Feel Bad When I Get in a Bad Mood, Copenhagen-based artist Minais B shared “A Drink Tonight.” Here, he sings mournfully about a tortured love that simultaneously turns him on and makes him cry. “Forgive me a drink tonight,” he concludes in the chorus, as cello and vocal samples converge on the steady guitar arpeggios that anchor the song. — RH

One of quinn’s most significant talents as a rapper-producer is that she not only knows how to tease unexpected emotion out of sample in the instrumental, she can do it a second time in her rapping. The result is rich, multi-layered music the Atlanta-based artist has become known for since her pioneering hyperpop days that now feel so distant, thanks to songs like “no time no mercy.” Taken from her new EP of the world (available to stream under her sometimes-alias p4rkr), it samples SWV’s “Love Is So Amazin’” and creates a far more brooding song than the original: quinn is full of resolve, heartache, and bitterness, and they’re all fuelling a flex that sounds like life or death. —Jordan Darville

It’s safe to say that the doomscroll has escaped our phones and become an ambient cultural force, generating a false sense of powerlessness and self-hatred. Its insidiousness is felt acutely on the rousing new single from the Mississippi synth-punk band MSPAINT: “I saw an angel last night, dosed in gasoline” vocalist Deedee barks, a line that could be a slogan for the genocidal era unfolding on social media. “There’s no control, just controlling yourself” he repeats, drawing resilience from a growing bloom of brawny electronic melodies. —JD

New York City band Kassie Krut put out one of the best electronic EPs last year, a kinetic storm of technical prowess that often subsumed vocalist Eve Alpert’s disaffected lilt. On a new remix of “Hooh Beat,” one of the EP’s standout songs, Panda Bear now pushes her paranoid lyrics to the forefront, replacing her voice with his melodic warblings about a “bad man” that give the song a new emotional edge. —Steffanee Wang

Danish musician Gustav Berntsen’s 2024 album Gusse Music was an austere but alluring mood piece filled with beautiful melodies and a melancholic air. He’s set to follow it on May 23 with a new EP, Ressed / Falter. Lead single “Fiction Memory” sets the scene with bittersweet vocals and crunchy guitars that come together in an uplifting direction. —David Renshaw

Shallipopi’s “Laho” was already on its way to being a song of the summer contender so consider this remix a certificate of authenticity. Burna Boy joins Shallipopi on the hypnotic afrobeats song, adding a laidback swagger with his slick verse. —DR

Written after touring her guitar-heavy 2024 album My Method Actor, “Cold Heart” is built on a foundation of rolling percussion and strings that lend the song an epic feeling. Once again Yanya shows her versatility and ability to pull something airy and bright from the very depth of her feelings. —DR