In a surprise reveal, pop music icons Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars have come together as musical duo Silk Sonic. They announced their intent to release a joint album together titled An Evening With Silk Sonic, and the first taste of it has already dropped with “Leave The Door Open.”

The song has a vintage, timeless air to it. Anderson .Paak sings the verses with a magnetic grip over the tongue in cheek wordplay, but it is Mars’s heady vocal performance in the track that steals the show and giftwraps Silk Sonic’s first release. The song is in many ways a disparate, wholesomely new direction for both artists. With the song being so riveting and sensual in nature there are nods all over the place to the likes of The Commodores and Marvin Gaye. “Leave The Door Open” was produced by Mars and D’Mile, and written by Bruno, Anderson, D’Mile and Brody Brown.

The music video for the track is similarly stylish, but with a graceful touch of levity. .Paak and Mars toy with their new identities in the video, with more nods to the old pantheon of R&B classics in the way that they gyrate and sway to the ebullient vibe they’ve curated together.  With no release date set quite yet for An Evening with Silk Sonic all fans new and old can do is await future announcements from the collaborative duo.

Don’t miss out on Anderson .Paak’s highly regarded 2020 single “Lockdown” which released on Juneteenth. Solo endeavors by Bruno Mars have been tempered in recent years, but he recently launched his new clothing brand with Lacoste called Ricky Regal.

photo credit: Stephen Hoffmeister