Ciara and Jackson Wang join forces in XG’s ‘Left Right’ remix

Chinese pop superstar Jackson Wang and R&B legend Ciara 

The rising global girl group XG has released the highly-anticipated remix to their infectious R&B smash “Left Right” with Chinese pop superstar Jackson Wang and R&B legend Ciara. Retitled “Left Right Remixx” (feat. Ciara X Jackson Wang // Prody by Jakops), the piece was first hinted at during the 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival following Wang and Ciara’s electrifying Sahara Tent performance.

The message then was that all three music acts had joined forces to showcase their captivating talents and chemistry on the remix, effortlessly grooving over mesmerizing synth loops and trap beats.

Rising global girl group XG 

The original “Left Right,” with over 43 million Spotify streams and 24 million YouTube views, has made its way up the Mediabase Top 40 Radio Airplay Chart in the United States for a record-breaking nine consecutive weeks.

This achievement marks a historic first for a Japanese female artist/group.Recently, XG has been actively releasing several other projects, including launching their first remix featuring rapper Rico Nasty, “Shooting Star Remixx (Prod by Jakops JAKOPS),” on April 7.

Presently, the group is unveiling its documentary series, “Xtra, Xtra,” which chronicles its five-year journey leading up to its debut.

* * *Filipino-Australian rising star grentperez

Filipino-Australian rising star grentperez has announced his highly anticipated forthcoming EP, “When We Were Younger.” To mark the release, the Western-Sydney bedroom pop phenomenon also released his latest disco-drenched single, “When The Day Is Done.”

It is out everywhere via Fast Friends & AWAL. Saturated in disco-soul, grentperez describes the new single as “a timeless classic that the whole family can listen to. Or as my dad would say, ‘The song I can dance to.'”

Picking up the pace dramatically from his most recent single and drama-rich ballad, “Us Without Me,” “When The Day Is Done” ends in a completely different place to where you started — gradually building up to a punchy syncopated pre-chorus melody before letting loose into an unstoppable roller-rink ready boogie.

“This track embodies the line ‘there’s no place like home,’ and when all is said and done, I just want to get back home and to the feeling of family having your back no matter where you are,” he said. Every lovingly crafted detail — from the stacked harmonies on the bridge to the roiling congas to that one delayed beat drop in the final chorus — emanates pure joy. Conceived as a means to get out of a songwriting rut, “When We Were Younger,” which will be out on June 2, is a seven-track song cycle centered around the concept of nostalgia. It is motivated by the desire to stave off cynicism and embrace the carefree creativity of childhood.

“We would have these super wholesome outdoor writing sessions as we were putting the project together,” he shared.

“Connecting with what I remember as a really lovely childhood grounds me in the real world and keeps me thinking of the important friends and family in my life. It keeps me from getting ahead of myself.”

Taking listeners on a series of unexpected yet intuitive sonic detours, grentperez fuses the signifiers of a wide variety of nostalgic sounds across the EP: infusing his beloved bossa nova with sprightly Philadelphia soul and the swelling strings of golden-era Hollywood and taking inspiration from the soundtracks and general vibe of ’90s rom-coms.

Multi-media artist, singer-songwriter and producer grentperez’s handcrafted DIY pop instantly soothes on a series of releases that have helped endear him to rapidly growing audiences at home in Australia and further afield in Southeast Asia, North America and Europe. His debut single, “Cherry Wine,” released in September 2021, shot up the Spotify viral charts across the globe, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam, and swept up the No. 1 spot in Singapore soon after its release.

In less than two years, grentperez’s catalog has seen over 200 million streams to date, and over two million monthly listeners on Spotify, with hundreds of new fans discovering him daily. Born in Australia, grentperez grew up as the youngest of three kids in a Filipino family.

He was raised on a diet of The Eagles, The Beatles and Queen, thanks to his dad, before moving on to the likes of Musiq Soulchild. When he received his first nylon string acoustic, he taught himself Jeremy Passion’s “Lemonade,” learning chords, shapes, and plucking patterns. At the end of 2013, he launched his YouTube channel, which currently sits at over half a million subscribers.