''Late Nights'' (released with the subtitle ''Late Nights: The Album'') is the third
studio album
An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...
by American singer
Jeremih
Jeremy Phillip Felton (born July 17, 1987), known professionally as Jeremih ( ), is an American Contemporary R&B, R&B singer. He embarked on a musical career after meeting record producer Mick Schultz in 2008, and signed a recording contract wi ...
. It was released on December 4, 2015, by
Def Jam Recordings
Def Jam Recordings (also simply known as Def Jam) is an American multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It is based in Manhattan, New York City, specializing predominantly in hip hop, contemporary R&B, soul and pop.
The l ...
. The album serves as a sequel to his mixtape ''
Late Nights with Jeremih'' (2012) and the follow-up to his second studio album ''
All About You'' (2010). Recording sessions took place during 2013 to 2015. The production on the album was handled by several producers, including:
London on da Track, The Mekanics,
Soundz,
DJ Mustard,
Needlz,
Vinylz
Anderson Hernandez (born September 2, 1989),Rys, Dan (July 11, 2013)"‘Magna Carta Holy Grail’ Behind The Scenes: Five Producers Who Helped Craft The Album". '' XXL''. Accessed on July 11, 2013. professionally known as Vinylz, is an American ...
and
Frank Dukes, among others. The album features
guest appearance
The term guest appearance generally denotes the appearance of a guest in an artistic or pop-culture setting.
The guests themselves (referred to as guest artists, featured artists, guest stars, or guest fighters, depending on context), are disting ...
s from
Ty Dolla Sign
Tyrone William Griffin Jr. (born April 13, 1982), known professionally as Ty Dolla Sign (stylized as Ty Dolla $ign or Ty$), is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, and record producer. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Griffin gai ...
,
Jhené Aiko
Jhené Aiko Efuru Chilombo (; born March 16, 1988) is an American Contemporary R&B, R&B singer and rapper. Aiko embarked on her musical career in 2002, as a backing vocalist and music video performer for the R&B group B2K. She was signed by the ...
,
Migos
Migos () were an American hip hop group founded in Lawrenceville, Georgia, in 2008. The group was composed of rapper Quavo, his nephew Takeoff, and their "cousin" friend Offset. Quavo is from Athens, Georgia, while Offset and Takeoff were bo ...
,
Juicy J
Jordan Michael Houston III (born April 5, 1975), known professionally as Juicy J, is an American rapper and record producer. Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, he is a founding member of the Southern hip-hop group Three 6 Mafia, established ...
,
YG,
Twista
Carl Terrell Mitchell (born November 27, 1973), better known by his stage name Twista (also known as Tung Twista), is an American rapper. He is best known for his Chopper (rap), chopper style of rapping and for once holding the title of fastest ...
,
Future
The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently ex ...
,
Big Sean
Sean Michael Leonard Anderson (born March 25, 1988), known professionally as Big Sean, is an American rapper. He met Kanye West as a teenager, and signed with his record label GOOD Music, an imprint of Def Jam Recordings in 2007. He gained popul ...
,
J. Cole and Feather. ''Late Nights'' was supported by four singles; "
Don't Tell 'Em
"Don't Tell 'Em" is a song by American singer Jeremih from his third studio album, '' Late Nights''. It features American rapper YG, and was released as the first single from the album. The song peaked at number six on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 ...
", "
Planez", "
Oui" and "
Pass Dat".
Background and release
The album was originally intended to be called ''Thumpy Johnson'', and was supposed to be released in 2013. In August 2014,
Jeremih
Jeremy Phillip Felton (born July 17, 1987), known professionally as Jeremih ( ), is an American Contemporary R&B, R&B singer. He embarked on a musical career after meeting record producer Mick Schultz in 2008, and signed a recording contract wi ...
announced that he was changing the title of the album to ''Late Nights: The Album'', being a sequel to his 2012 mixtape ''
Late Nights with Jeremih''. During an interview with
XXL, he explained his decision to change the title: On August 4, 2014, Jeremih released a mixtape called ''N.O.M.A. (Not On My Album)'', containing recorded songs not included on ''Late Nights''. On September 26, 2014, Jeremih released promotional single "Nobody But U" produced by
Cashmere Cat, but it did not make the album.
During an interview with ''
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...
'', Jeremih explained how his personal issues were the reason for the delays of the album's release. He said: Jeremih also expressed some frustration with his label. "
Def Jam
Def Jam Recordings (also simply known as Def Jam) is an American multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It is based in Manhattan, New York City, specializing predominantly in hip hop, contemporary R&B, soul and pop.
The ...
is hesitating and not being on my side," he explained. "I see other artists and how they're supported. It's hard when I'm on a roster with
Rihanna
Robyn Rihanna Fenty ( ; born February 20, 1988) is a Barbadian singer, businesswoman, and actress. One of the List of music artists by net worth, wealthiest musicians in the world, List of awards and nominations received by Rihanna, her vario ...
,
Rick Ross
William Leonard Roberts II (born January 28, 1976), known professionally as Rick Ross, is an American rapper. An influential figure in modern Hip-hop, hip hop music, Rick Ross has become known for his "Wiktionary:booming, booming" vocal perfor ...
and
Kanye West
Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer and record producer. One of the most prominent figures in hip-hop, he is known for his varying musical style and polarizing cultural and political commentary. After ...
".
On May 15, 2015, in a separate interview with ''Billboard'', producer and frequent Jeremih collaborator
Mick Schultz confirmed that the originally released track listing and album cover had been changed and was no longer accurate.
On November 21, 2015, the official album artwork, release date and track list was leaked by music streaming service
Deezer
Deezer is a List of companies of France, French music streaming service and media service provider founded in 2007 that provides users with access to a vast library of music tracks, podcasts, and radio stations. It offers streaming services in ...
. The following day, snippets of the album were leaked to the internet. With no announcement or promotion to confirm its release prior, the album was officially released to digital platforms and streaming services on December 4, 2015.
Singles
The
lead single
A lead single (or first single) is the first single to be released from a studio album by an artist or a band, usually before the album itself is released and also occasionally on the same day of the album's release date.
A similar term, "debut ...
, "
Don't Tell 'Em
"Don't Tell 'Em" is a song by American singer Jeremih from his third studio album, '' Late Nights''. It features American rapper YG, and was released as the first single from the album. The song peaked at number six on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 ...
" featuring
YG was released on June 6, 2014. The single became his third top 10 hit and eventually went triple platinum. The second single, "
Planez" featuring
J. Cole was released on January 22, 2015. The single reached top 10 on urban and rhythmic radio and later went triple Platinum. "
Oui" was released as the third single from the album on October 30, 2015. The single reached number 19 on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100 becoming his fourth top 20 hit as lead artist. "Pass Dat" was released as a promotional single, along with the album's pre-order on December 1, 2015. The track was sent to
urban contemporary
Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban contemporary r ...
radio on April 12, 2016, as the fourth single.
"
Tonight Belongs to U!" featuring
Flo Rida
Tramar Lacel Dillard (born September 16, 1979), known professionally as Flo Rida ( ), is an American rapper and singer. His 2007 debut and breakout single "Low (Flo Rida song), Low" was number one for 10 weeks in the United States and broke the ...
was released on April 21, 2015, but was scrapped from the final tracklist. The first promotional single, "Royalty" featuring
Big Sean
Sean Michael Leonard Anderson (born March 25, 1988), known professionally as Big Sean, is an American rapper. He met Kanye West as a teenager, and signed with his record label GOOD Music, an imprint of Def Jam Recordings in 2007. He gained popul ...
and
Future
The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently ex ...
was released October 29, 2015. The second promotional single is "Peace Sign" featuring
Fabolous
John David Jackson (born November 18, 1977), known professionally as Fabolous, is an American rapper. Raised in Brooklyn, he first gained recognition for his ability upon performing live on DJ Clue's WQHT, Hot 97 radio show. Jackson then signed ...
and
Red Cafe
Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...
was released November 18, 2015 but didn't appear on the album. Jeremih expressed in an interview with German music journalist Malcolm Ohanwe, that he had plans to issue "Impatient" with
Ty Dolla Sign
Tyrone William Griffin Jr. (born April 13, 1982), known professionally as Ty Dolla Sign (stylized as Ty Dolla $ign or Ty$), is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, and record producer. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Griffin gai ...
as a single. Despite never being released, the track was certified Gold by the
RIAA
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
in 2017 and later double platinum in 2020.
Critical reception
''Late Nights'' was met with generally positive reviews from
music critics
Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on ...
. At
Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which assigns a
normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an
average
In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...
score of 78, based on seven reviews.
Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave ''Late Nights'' 7.4 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.
Meghan Garvey of ''
Pitchfork
A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials.
The term is also applie ...
'' said, "''Late Nights'', in its subtle seduction, feels all the more special in an era that increasingly rewards artists who shout the loudest. Jeremih makes you shut everything else out so that you can hear him whisper in your ear. It was worth the wait."
David Sackllah of ''
Consequence of Sound
''Consequence'' (previously ''Consequence of Sound'') is an independently owned New York-based online magazine featuring news, editorials, and reviews of music, movies, and television.
History
''Consequence of Sound'' was founded in Septem ...
'' said, "Jeremih's vision is astounding, and the places in which he gets to indulge in adventurous risk-taking more than make up for the safe plays that surround them."
Brooklyn Russell of ''
Tiny Mix Tapes
''Tiny Mix Tapes'' (also ''TMT'' or ''tinymixtapes'') is an online music and film webzine that focuses primarily on new music and related news. In addition to its reviews, it is noted for its subversive, political, and sometimes surreal news, ...
'' said, Jeremih's a night owl, not a lark, and on ''Late Nights: The Album'' — his first in a lustrum — he retreats even further from the spotlight he seemed predestined for, carefully crafting an album that surprisingly finds tranquility in the 28-year-old's thrill-seeker ways."
Colin Joyce of ''
Spin
Spin or spinning most often refers to:
* Spin (physics) or particle spin, a fundamental property of elementary particles
* Spin quantum number, a number which defines the value of a particle's spin
* Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thr ...
'' said, "It's a haze, reflective of the real world consequences of living out the entirety of your life in the twilight hours. Or maybe it's just the head trauma, from the setbacks and knockdowns that threatened to abort this record before it had a chance to even enter the room. Either way, the beauty's in the blur."
Shirley Ju of ''
HipHopDX
''HipHopDX'' is an online magazine of Hip hop music, hip hop music criticism and news. ''HipHopDX'' has over 3.5M monthly readers, the website encompassing hip hop news, interviews, music, and reviews. The website's founder and CEO is Sharath C ...
'' said, "Song after song limbers as you go through them and guest appearances from some of the game's hottest artists ensures that he doesn't feel years late. In truth, he doesn't need them, delivering apple-pie-like R&B like the retro futurist he's been trying to be. ''Late Nights'' is exactly what Jeremih needed to get his career moving."
Andy Kellman of ''
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
'' said, "Despite the winding path that led to it, ''Late Nights'' is together, neither tentative nor overcooked. It's apparently truer to Jeremih's vision than his first two albums, though only the most attentive listening reveals an artist with more dimensions – or more vocal ability – than the one who sang "Birthday Sex" and "Down on Me."
Accolades
Commercial performance
''Late Nights'' debuted at number 42 on the US
''Billboard'' 200, selling 19,000
album equivalent units, and 10,000 pure album copies in its first week. Despite the album's initial soft debut, On March 15, 2016, the album was certified
gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
by the
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
(RIAA) for combined sales and
album-equivalent unit
The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, often shortened to just unit, is a sales metric in the music industry that defines the number of streaming media, songs streamed and music download, songs downloaded equal to one Record sales, tradi ...
s of over 500,000 units in the United States. Later on March 20, 2018, the album was certified
platinum
Platinum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a density, dense, malleable, ductility, ductile, highly unreactive, precious metal, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name origina ...
.
Track listing
Credits adapted from Jeremih's official website.
Notes
* signifies a co-
producer.
* signifies an additional producer.
* signifies a vocal producer.
* signifies an additional vocal producer.
* "Pass Dat" features additional vocals by Starrah.
* "Giv No Fuks" features background vocals by Herbert Travis.
Sample credits
* "
Planez" contains interpolations of "
Put It in Your Mouth" written by Akinyele Adams, Reginald Hargis and Kia Jeffries, as performed by
Akinyele.
* "
Oui" contains samples from "
If I Ever Fall in Love
"If I Ever Fall in Love" is the debut single by American R&B-soul quartet Shai, released by Gasoline Alley and MCA Records in September 1992 from their debut album of the same name (1992). The song, both written and produced by Carl "Groove" M ...
" written by C. Martin, as performed by
Shai
Shai (also spelt Sai, occasionally Shay, and in Greek, Psais) was the deification of the concept of fate in Egyptian mythology. As a concept, with no particular reason for associating one gender over another, Shai was sometimes considered femal ...
.
* "
Don't Tell 'Em
"Don't Tell 'Em" is a song by American singer Jeremih from his third studio album, '' Late Nights''. It features American rapper YG, and was released as the first single from the album. The song peaked at number six on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 ...
" contains interpolations from the composition "
Rhythm Is a Dancer
"Rhythm Is a Dancer" is a song by German Eurodance group Snap!, released in March 1992 by Arista and Logic as the second single from their second studio album, ''The Madman's Return'' (1992). It features vocals by American singer Thea Austin. ...
" written by B. Benitez, J. Garrett and T. Austin, as performed by
Snap!
SNAP! is a German Eurodance group formed in 1989 by producers Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti. The act has undergone several lineup changes over the years, featuring American singers, songwriters, and rappers such as Thea Austin, Turbo ...
* "Giv No Fuks" contains samples of "Ophelia" written by André Popp, as performed by
André Popp
André Charles Jean Popp (19 February 1924 – 10 May 2014) was a French composer, arranger and screenwriter.
Biography
Popp was born into a family of German-Dutch background, in Fontenay-le-Comte, Vendée. He started his career as a church ...
.
* "Actin' Up" contains an interpolation of "Rain Dance" written by
Jeff Lorber, as performed by
The Jeff Lorber Fusion.
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Release history
References
{{Authority control
2015 albums
Jeremih albums
Def Jam Recordings albums
Albums produced by Mustard (record producer)
Albums produced by Vinylz
Albums produced by Murda Beatz
Albums produced by Frank Dukes
Albums produced by Needlz