Your Custom Text Here
Five more fabulous albums by Sault
New albums: An unprecedented five albums landing simultaneously without warning, and with a temporary free download period on the mysterious London collective’s website, producer Inflo (Dean Josiah Cover) and co have again brought untold riches in soul, funk, gospel, jazz, RnB, hip-hop, experimental and contemporary classical
Read more
Cakes Da Killa’s Svengali
New album: Slick, skilful, inventive second full LP, after a slew of EPs and past releases, by the New Jersey LGTBQ+ rapper Rashard Bradshaw, whose album captures a story arc of flirting, sex, relationship and breakup through superbly agile verbal delivery mixed with house and electronica
Read more
Marlowe 3
New album: A third album by the brilliant hip-hop pair packed with intelligent lyrics and killer beats, clever jazz and other samples including of riffs sci-fi film soundtrack clips and voiceovers, rhythm changes and sounds, offering a constant flow of originality and wit
Read more
Loyle Carner’s third album, Hugo
New album: The British rapper returns with one of his best LPs yet, a candid exploration of his own identity, from seeking out his estranged biological father, how that reflects back onto his own son, ADHD, being mixed race and fearing inner-city violence
Read more
Sudan Archives returns with her expansive, innovative second album
New album: The scintillating second album by Ohio’s LA-based multi-instrumentalist and singer Brittney Parks showcases her innovation across hip hop, R&B, electronica, jazz and beyond with looping ingenuity, improvisation, and sharp feminist, dark lyrics about life as a black woman
Read more
Sampa The Great’s second album reaches different heights
New album: A swaggeringly stylish, sharp, soulful, funny, proclamatory new release by rapper and singer Sampa Tembo celebrating her return to her native Zambia, with rebuffs to her previous home Australia and its music industry, and nods to Zamrock, lyrics in the Bantu language, and multiple African and other collaborators
Read more
Cheat Codes by Danger Mouse and Black Thought
New album: A superb collaboration between two hugely influential innovators – producer Brian Burton and rapper and co-founder of The Roots, Tarik Luqmaan Trotter – packed with fabulously sharp hip hop, soul and funk samples and guests, including a lost verse from the much missed MF DOOM
Read more
Tuck in to Pan Amsterdam’s tasty new salad of words, trumpet and beats
New album: Wonderfully entertaining, droll, humorous and articulate new LP by the persona played by Leron Thomas, the Texan New York-based rapper and jazz trumpeter who clever, food thematic hip hop with his chief instrument and beats by friend Damu The Fudgemunk
Read more
Lil Silva: Yesterday Is Heavy
Debut album: Strikingly innovative electronic and funk full debut by Bedford’s Tyrone Jermaine "TJ" Carter, who has been releasing singles and EPs for over a decade, but here includes guests including Sampha, Little Dragon, Ghetts, Serpentwithfeet, BADBADNOTGOOD, and Charlotte Day Wilson
Read more
Wu-Lu’s debut album Loggerhead
Debut album: A strikingly alternative and genre-defying release by the south London producer and multi-instrumentalist Miles Romans-Hopcraft with influences and echoes from grunge to grime, trip hop, electronica to jazz, dark 80s Factory Records era, Tricky to DJ Shadow to Slipknot
Read more
Moonchild Sanelly
New album: Stylish, charismatic, sexy, with a unique mix of South African dance music – gqom, amapiano, hip-hop, jazz and electronica, with a persona somewhere between Eartha Kitt, Nicki Minaj or Doja Cat, the starry, blue-haired Port Elizabeth-born rapper, model and designer’s fabulous second and double LP is all about ‘baddies’ and personal empowerment
Read more
Obongjayar’s debut album
Kendrick Lamar’s double album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers
New album: The Pulitzer Prize-winner’s first album for five years is a double LP magnus opus of mind-bogglingly rapid, candid wordplay, an assortment of jazz, rock, classical and more, with so much to unpack, but further cements his place as hip hop’s leading innovator
Read more
Ibeyi’s third album Spell 31
New album: The third album from Afro-Cuban French twins Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Díaz is a sensual, eclectic mix of R&B, hip hop and more, drawing on their rich heritage, and inspired by a passage the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead
Read more
The game is up: Bob Vylan’s rockin’ second album
New album: The second album from the British punk rock / hip-hop duo takes many uncompromising and catchily powerful pops at many aspects of broken scratchyard Britain, taking aim at cost of living, inequality, Tory and other corruption, and even the fast food industry
Read more
Kae Tempest: The Line Is A Curve
New album: An emotionally candid, tender, vulnerable and quietly declamatory fourth album by the writer-all-rounder, mixing hip-hop and spoken word with electronica and pop, with some nicely chosen guest appearances
Read more
Denzel Curry’s fifth album Melt My Eyez See Your Future
New album: This fifth LP by the fluid rapper from Florida harks back to an older, more mellow period of hip hop - smoother, jazzier, and subtler, with his gruff RZA-style voice making clever rhymes with an outstanding guest list, from Robert Glasper to Saul Williams
Read more
Man in the corner: Bakar – Nobody’s Home
New album: This eclectic LP of hybrid hip hop, soul, pop, indie, R&B, and even a dash of folk by the North London rapper singer-songwriter Abubakar Baker Shariff-Farr is full of influences from Blur to King Krule, Tame Impala to Amy Winehouse, and his Tanzanian immigrant mother
Read more
That floating feeling: Kojey Radical has Reason To Smile
Debut album: After many singles and four EPs, the British rapper’s and brand designer’s full debut LP is a stylish mix of hip hop, jazz and R&B filled with impressive braggadocio, reflections on his Ghanaian heritage, with songs love, crime, race, and the black experience, and talking excerpts by his beloved mother
Read more
FKA twigs’ CAPRISONGS
New album: Cheltenham’s innovative Tahliah Debrett Barnett returns with a fourth LP that’s more a mixtape of sensual, sexual musical sketches, her distinctive voice and style also very much reaching out to a more R&B mainstream
Read more