“SUGAR” by Brockhampton

"SUGAR" came off GINGER, the fifth studio album from hip-hop boy band Brockhampton, in 2019, and it's the crew at its most unguarded, a slow jam that folds hip-hop, pop and R&B together over a looping acoustic guitar, with Ryan Beatty singing as a guest. Romil Hemnani and Jabari Manwa produced it, Chuks Chiejine added guitar and extra production, and the writing credit is shared across the band. Under the sweetness, the lyrics wrestle with drug abuse, codependency and the strain of an uncertain future.

It went to US pop radio as the album's fifth single in November 2019, and a viral TikTok dance challenge did the rest, pushing it to number 66 on the Hot 100 and double platinum at home. Kevin Abstract directed two videos: a sci-fi oddity in which an alien crashes a sex scene as a cartoon sun looks on, and a plain sound-stage performance with Beatty.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.