Hiphop
TRACK: Confucius MC – ‘Lanterns’: the first essential UK hip-hop of ’21 has entered the building
IT MIGHT just be the first properly essential UK hip-hop track of 2021, and it comes from Peckham’s Confucius MC, longtime friend of Kae Tempest, teacher, outreacher; and it’s a readymade headnod classic, fo sho, in which Confucius is joined in the flow by Sonnyjim, Verbz, and Jehst, a loop of bells glimmering over a …
ALBUM REVIEW: Madlib – ‘Sound Ancestors’: beats genii’s wide-eyed, wide-open odyssey
Madlib’s Sound Ancestors, produced by Four Tet, is the beats genii’s wide-eyed, wide-open odyssey. Like a fractal pattern, the deeper you focus and the more you pull out, the more you see
Meet: We interview North East artist Leddie MC
2020 saw a rebirth of North Easy artist Leddie MC. The year saw her starting again with her music, and gracing us with a new single each month before releasing an EP – Born Of Stone last September. (Read our review here) First of all, how are you? How are you coping with the pandemic? …
Track: Leddie MC – They Don’t Make ‘Em Like You (Ft Eve Conway)
To start the year off, North East artist Leddie MC has released a track from her EP ‘Made Of Stone’ which she released last year. (Read our review here) The track ‘They Don’t Make Em Like You’ features Eve Conway A sweet pop opening as Conway sings the chorus but then a more aggressive beat …
SEE: Niklas Paschburg feat. Ex Mykah – ‘Cyan’: a lush meshing of two worlds
NIKLAS PASCHBURG is a modern compositional pianist and composer who’s released two rather fine albums for 7K!, K7!’s mirror-image boutique ambient label, namely Oceanic and Svalbard. He’s now opening the doors to his piano work for outside interpretation, and in combination with Ex Mykah, the avant-pop project guise of Colombian-Cuban American artist Bryan Senti, he’s …
TRACK: The Damn Straights – ‘Blow It Up’: one minute fifty-eight of lyrical fire
THE DAMN STRAIGHTS: who they? I hear you say. Well, as if proving gestalt theory – if you’ll allow me to don my professor specs a sec, that a transactional whole is indeed more than the sum of its parts – it’s a two-handed, transatlantic collaboration between Exeter’s Adam Gibbons, aka the connoisseur’s modern soul …
SEE: Kid Cudi – ‘Heaven On Earth’: rapper drops visuals, announces expanded Man On The Moon set
KID CUDI, the Cleveland, Ohio-born lyricist who’s been straddling the Billboard charts for a decade plus, has finally unveiled the final part of his Man On The Moon trilogy, Man On The Moon III: The Chosen, which emerged three weeks ago. And as that album finally hit the racks – drawing together a triptych that …
SEE: slowthai – ‘Thoughts’: a raw, surprise lyrical drop
FOLLOWING his recent reveal that he’s got a new album, TYRON, primed and ready for February 5th, slowthai has surprise-released a new track which won’t be included on the album, the freestylin’ lyricism of “Thoughts”; watch the video below. It’s a stream of consciousness, heavy on the raw beatz, the “fucked-up shit in my cranium”, …
SEE: Robert Glasper feat. Denzel Curry – ‘This Changes Everything’: Grammy nominee’s future rhymes
HOT OFF the back of his recent, Grammy-nominated Fuck Yo Feelings mixtape (it was in the running for Best Progressive R&B Album), genre-spanning Houston writer and producer Robert Glasper has dropped the video for the tune “This Changes Everything”, featuring the lyrical flow of Denzel Curry. The video was filmed at Harun Cafe, in LA’s Leimert …
TRACK: 박혜진 Park Hye Jin & Nosaj Thing – ‘Clouds’: capping a fine year for Ninja
IT’S BEEN quite the year for LA’s South Korean rapper 박혜진 Park Hye Jin, who’s been dropping coolly sophisticated breaks right the way across the twelvemonth. Check her recent retake on “CALL ME” with Blood Orange; intelligent textures and an effortless shuffle, haunting piano, yearning lyrics. Then there was the How can I EP for …