When Nashville’s one of-a-kind art school rap enigma, $avvy puts out a new single, it’s time to put on a smile with your high-fashion babushka and get weird. Most recently, Calling It Quits came to fruition, putting on display his quirky and addicting approach to hip-hop at an even more grandiose scale than we’re accustomed to. Gleaming with the juxtaposition of a deep bass, and mellow keystroke beat, Calling It Quits grants $avvy the auditory space to meander...

Take a little bad boy glam, add a string of falsetto perfection, blend it into a filmic nonreality, cut jet black with neon color, and stamp it with the exclamation point of a panty-dropping, face-melting guitar solo. In that artistic space, JMSN’s cinematographic marathon, Love 2 U, beams. Like a James Bond intro merging with the Neo-Noir holographic lust of Blade Runner under a cinematic banner where the timelessness of Soul music soundtracks all, his new visuals...

Pink Siifu wanted to make an album that reminded him of the music he and his crew used to listen to while cruising through the country towards Birmingham. He wants you to play it loudly. He doesn’t want to be put in a box. Pink Siifu decided to make GUMBO’!

Tethered together by the jazz-oriented, mellow keystroke, and heavy bass production that transcends from his club bangers to his introspective spells of wordsmithery, The House Is Burning is Isaiah Rashad’s third bright success in as many attempts when it comes to crafting an album that plays in perfect run-on composition from beginning to end. But, unlike his earlier work, The House Is Burning also sees Rashad abandon any sort of formulaic construct for his own sound. As popular as his slow-burning therapy session verses and melodically addicting hooks are –  he has even more to offer.

One: a dynamically mellow composer of the modern method, infusing everything he touches with the subtle intricacies of his signature production. The other: a lyrically pervasive wordsmith curating spellbinding verse to the thought-provoking mark of his mastery. Together, Sango and Waldo craft Lake Effect, spurring a new age for the pointedly poetic leanings of modernly minimalist, albeit at times explosively experimental hip-hop...

A decade ago, young British soulstress, Dionne Bromfield was expanding her horizons. Having recently signed to her Godmother, Amy Winehouse’s label, Lioness, and releasing her debut project, Good For The Soul, the sky was the limit as she backed up her idol on tour. But then, tragedy struck. Now a decade since the passing of Amy Winehouse, and Bromfield again finds herself at a crossroads, albeit this time, one of opportunity, growth, and penultimate closure...

2014 feels like a lifetime ago. We were all different people seven years in the past, and that includes Isaiah Rashad. Yet, his illustrious breakout album from the same year, Cilvia Demo, still bleeds of newness, detailing the image of an enigmatic hip-hop force battling through his emergence by way of the current scene’s most experimentally daunting and ultimately influential debut. And now, just days away from his tertiary Top Dawg Entertainment LP, The House Is Burning, it’s time to take at least one last listen to where it all began....

Sliced from the greater weight of his forthcoming debut album, UK-Ghanaian producer and commanding influence on the global rise of Afrobeats from its diasporic pillar in London, Juls is releasing the first of his leading singles alongside a flurry of collaborative forces. Wicked – which comes in tow with a fiery, rum-fueled neon visual directed by the keen eye of Ray Fiasco, who has also worked with names like Kojey Radical, M. Huncho, and Aitch – folds in the flows of Knucks, Sam Wise, and Kadiata for an upbeat party anthem....

Love 2 U feels like being immersed in one of his live performances where steamy guitar solos tend to take center stage, sharing the limelight and the voice of JMSN’s expressly romance oriented scope. It’s the kind of lengthy tracks that can play over and over again without even noticing where it once ended and where it began again. And it’s yet another example of why not only R&B and Neo-Soul need JMSN, but ultimately why every corner of music can use his influence in the same way that every corner of his own musicality draws from such a wide range of stylistic breadth....

Naturally, a rangy artist like Langston Bristol attracts other creatives towards his own creative spaces, and his latest single, Activate is a perfect example of his collaboration with others, and ultimately with the differing ends of his own artistic spectrum. Marlon Craft and redveil join the ranks with verses of their own on the warm weather anthem, where Bristol himself delivers and opening verse and a sing-songy hook perfectly curated for a Summertime drive....

There have been a number of solo singles since 2017 from Phabo, the LA songwriter who has spent the greater part of his creative career behind the curtain – behind the lyrics – of a slew of fellow soulstresses and R&B kings on their own rises. But now is a different season – a different zodiac – a different moon rising for music: Soulquarius. It’s his debut album, and for those that don’t know, the songwriter is also one hell of a vocalist, igniting reminiscence of R&B’s Golden Era with his crystalline pitch....

For Shady – in the same way that JID or EARTHGANG signing to J Cole’s Dreamville felt so well-curated and acutely designed – the lyrical ferocity of Grip merging with such an established and pervasive lyrical rap co-op is eye opening and exciting for any fan of the hard-hitting, lyrically-founded dynamism of the no-fucks-given pillar of rap’s history. Grip – along with his new friends and collaborators at Shady Records – may very well have a death grip on the future direction of that edge to the greater hip-hop spectrum...

There is something inherently telling about a great artist’s self-titled project coming nearly decade into their career. It speaks to a sense of vulnerable self-renaissance, to a desire at making something genuinely theirs, towards honesty in their music; honesty in their words. And to be fair, Vince Staples has always boasted a knack for being up front and honest. His spoon-fed, effortless flair at delivering penmanship more encapsulating and immersive than most has long left him with the label of a street poet....

For Snoh Aalegra, it always starts with the heart, the keystrokes, and the bass. Distorted vocals spewing poetic stanzas provoking a listener’s thought merge with underwater synth strokes, and some signature bass to open a different kind of album for a different kind of Snoh. And just who is this different Snoh Aalegra? Listen and you’ll find out. She’s nothing if not an open book, and unendingly open to pushing new creative boundaries. From beginning to end, Temporary Highs in the Violet Skies is more than just another new album from one of R&B’s most signature contemporary names...

From its opening keystrokes, crafted and delivered by the steady hand of producer and all-around creative, JosephFiend – who also produces the rest of the project – OGTHAGAWD’s LIFE OF A GHOST 2 breathes of a rangy newness steeped in tradition that defines the entirety of a burgeoning Nashville hip-hop underground. Jazzy influence, Southern roots, lyrical depth, and experimental nuance in its production and in the deliveries of its fronting artists grant the scene an emerging signature that leaves its listeners from the old-school and the new....

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Where MFnMelo’s fiery bars drive intensity into the tape, squeakPIVOT’s cool keystrokes douse them in equilibrium. Where MFnMelo’s established artistry saw just another day in the studio, squeakPIVOT’s pervasive, youthful energy in the creative process pulled both artists into their respective sweet spots. And from beginning to end, En Route – true to its name – is a Summertime case study on the producer-rapper relationship through more than just one project, but through life and towards a continuously emerging future for Chicago’s always influential soundscape...

Haram! as a whole is undeniably unique, surprising a listener expecting any of the many roads GoldLink’s indefinably influential career has traveled in the past. But, with a great sound system and an open mind, it’s also yet another boldly experimental patchwork of risks taken successfully sure to have a monumental impact on the scope of hip-hop’s futurist texture....

There’s something hip-hop has been necessarily missing from its most prominent names in the most recent years. It’s an intersection of a grungy imperfection in its production, some lighthearted poeticism in its penmanship, and a timeless relatability to any fan of the scene through almost any era. Call Me If You Get Lost – channeling the fast-paced, rap-heavy, antic-laced audacity of Goblin – quenches the drought of a wider hip-hop try-hard main stage by reintroducing a tried-and-true formula with a new twist....

It wasn’t the art on the walls or the photos in the plastic greenhouse; it wasn’t the curated DJ set or the conversation pit upstairs; it wasn’t the breaks for reposado in the truck or a smoke break outside; it was instead, the confluence of it all. VSNR’s For The Culture beamed with a self-awareness of the scene it represents, where artistry and community are tethered to one another in a delicate dance of creative experimentation and emerging genius that at times, because of its prominence, is easy to overlook....

It seemed a fitting place – a tomato garden – to take photos of Nashville’s Ron Obasi. Not just any garden, but that of friend and producer, Coleman (@mixedbycole) whose lady boasts an unendingly green thumb. Drenched in sun, resonant of growth, teeming with life, and quietly calm, the setting was a reflection of the subject. For those that don’t know, Ron Obasi is a mellow human with a mellow, oft-melodic rap delivery boasting a thought-provoking dichotomy in the work ethic endured and the real life lessons explored in his art....

10 reasons why the instrumentalist, songwriter, vocalist, and experimental transcendentalist of style is also one of the most stylish people alive.

A refined, timeless confluence of 70’s funk and modern hip-hop drives the expansive direction of Topaz Jones’ new album, Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma. The album, that’s auditory aesthetic bleeds crystal clear of its influence when paired with the mirroring visual aesthetics of its accompanying Sundance award winning short film directed by Jones himself and directing duo, Rubberband….

A refined, timeless confluence of 70’s funk and modern hip-hop drives the expansive direction of Topaz Jones’ new album, Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma. The album, that’s auditory aesthetic bleeds crystal clear of its influence when paired with the mirroring visual aesthetics of its accompanying Sundance award winning short film directed by Jones himself and directing duo, Rubberband….

A refined, timeless confluence of 70’s funk and modern hip-hop drives the expansive direction of Topaz Jones’ new album, Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma. The album, that’s auditory aesthetic bleeds crystal clear of its influence when paired with the mirroring visual aesthetics of its accompanying Sundance award winning short film directed by Jones himself and directing duo, Rubberband….

A refined, timeless confluence of 70’s funk and modern hip-hop drives the expansive direction of Topaz Jones’ new album, Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma. The album, that’s auditory aesthetic bleeds crystal clear of its influence when paired with the mirroring visual aesthetics of its accompanying Sundance award winning short film directed by Jones himself and directing duo, Rubberband….

A refined, timeless confluence of 70’s funk and modern hip-hop drives the expansive direction of Topaz Jones’ new album, Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma. The album, that’s auditory aesthetic bleeds crystal clear of its influence when paired with the mirroring visual aesthetics of its accompanying Sundance award winning short film directed by Jones himself and directing duo, Rubberband….

A refined, timeless confluence of 70’s funk and modern hip-hop drives the expansive direction of Topaz Jones’ new album, Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma. The album, that’s auditory aesthetic bleeds crystal clear of its influence when paired with the mirroring visual aesthetics of its accompanying Sundance award winning short film directed by Jones himself and directing duo, Rubberband….

A refined, timeless confluence of 70’s funk and modern hip-hop drives the expansive direction of Topaz Jones’ new album, Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma. The album, that’s auditory aesthetic bleeds crystal clear of its influence when paired with the mirroring visual aesthetics of its accompanying Sundance award winning short film directed by Jones himself and directing duo, Rubberband….

All alone, save for anywhere from one to four instrumentalists and the closing support of powerhouse vocalist, Adria Kain, Terrell Morris spends a smooth fifteen minutes across four of his favorite local stages as an homage to place, to people, and to the music that will eventually rekindle the two in confluence of one another.

We admit that we’re spoiled here in Colorado. The weather, the scenery, the weed, the music. Most notably, all of those elements come together at Red Rocks Amphitheater, and for the first time in such a long time, so many came together at Red Rocks for some reminiscence on normality – or rather, the abnormality of a feeling what was once in the not so distant past so normal for us all: a concert.

We live in the era of the quick come-up. From technological advances that have allowed anyone and everyone to create their own music, to social media that has allowed any artist to share their work with the world, one hit heard by the right pair of ears can take off and propel its artistry into the stratosphere. Case and point: A1xJ1….

A refined, timeless confluence of 70’s funk and modern hip-hop drives the expansive direction of Topaz Jones’ new album, Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma. The album, that’s auditory aesthetic bleeds crystal clear of its influence when paired with the mirroring visual aesthetics of its accompanying Sundance award winning short film directed by Jones himself and directing duo, Rubberband….

Tune into Nashville these days and find yourself immersed in an impossibly broad creative and stylistic spectrum, bending the arts and the culture to the will of an emerging class of skillfully transcendent rappers, vocalists, designers, photographers, videographers, educators, and community activists. Truthfully, it feels like not a sole contributor to Nashville’s hip-hop and Neo-Soul oriented underground does one thing.

If you don’t yet know Nappyhigh, you’re about to. Not just through the length of our conversation with him here, but through the undeniably West Coast yet indefinably wide-ranging aesthetic in his signature sound, the LA-rooted producer, DJ, musician, songwriter, and rapper finds himself today at the cusp of greatness alongside a short list of other talented names whose refined sounds attract any and every rapper and vocalist to be a part of the sonic worlds he builds. Those worlds – four albums – WeekDaze, Orange, Villains, and Yellow....

With Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma, Topaz Jones is merging the many cultural lanes that have long inspired his artistry and continue to drive the larger cultural web of the US and the world. And at the focal point of that larger cultural web has always existed a hypocrisy of embracing Black music, Black art, Black genius, period, without really embracing Black culture. Now, that choice no longer exists, and all of us undoubtedly have something to learn and to love from the upcoming release...

After their acclaimed 2020 FlySiifu’s – the duo’s collaborative debut that doubled as an immersive concept album painting both artists as blunted employees of a milk-crate record shop dropping bombs – not bars – in the back of the store, $mokebreak hinges on that same storyline, as an explorative albeit pointedly removed continuation of the plot and the range of sounds from where it is rooted. $mokebreak as a title itself, in accompaniment of the project’s cover artwork that sees Fly Anakin and Pink Siifu posted up amongst shelves, crates, and banker’s boxes overflowing with vinyl...

Beneath the mire of jazz and soul samples of the past, funky key progressions, West Coast synths à la Dre’s genius, and the entangled mosaic of his many featuring modern guest artists, exists Channy Cardenas. And Channy Cardenas is a product of his environment. Born in Fresno, raised in South Central Los Angeles, and residing in Palmdale, his was an upbringing of the same environment that raised many of modern hip-hop’s most notorious influences. Everything about that seems obvious in his sound today...

Backdropped by bass-heavy beats that seem to always find flight in the playful keys of their production, ELHAE spends the duration of the 11-track ‘AURA III’ seamlessly meandering his own musicality and his own mind. From the hard-hitting verses, to the vocally vulnerable croons, to ELHAE’s comfort in the moving middle grounds, his sound knows less boundaries than ever before...

JVCK JAMES recently released his JOYRIDE EP. The 6-track project – his second behind 2019 debut collection, DETOUR – is, as he says, his ‘best work to date.’ It feels pretty undeniable to say so, as the London vocalist has spent much of his four-year limelight run largely outside of it altogether. A bit illusive, JVCK JAMES’ emergence has been defined by occasional singles that, though rare, have still successfully soundtracked everything that romance, sunsets, and beach vacations have touched along the way...

New name, same silky sound. ALIAH – formerly Aaliyah Allah – is here with the first single under her redefined moniker, and expectedly it’s a springtime R&B anthem. Overtop an electro-nuanced progression from A Billion Young that blossoms with the subtle synth strokes, poppy keys, and an echoey backdrop we’ve come to expect in ALIAH’s foundation, the rising Chicago soulstress puts on display exactly why she’s one of the most intriguing and unique names anywhere in today’s R&B scene...

The collaborative single is one that puts on an exhibition of just how insanely talented and wide-ranging today’s indefinable R&B and hip-hop grey areas really are. Opening silkily with an expectedly sultry and smooth chorus highlighting Masego’s off-kilter register, and quickly diving into one, and then another sex and lifestyle ridden verse from Elhae himself, the single emerges as the kind of Spring into Summertime anthem to soundtrack warm weather and sun soaked drives with the crew or the Bonnie to your Clyde...

At nine songs, Until We’re Free is a powerful, poetic half-hour bleeding with tales of Black struggles and pushing for a continued fight for equality and equity. When you hear Brown’s voice, it calls to mind the powerful and clear registers of so many modern soulstresses whose music, too, tends towards social justice. Almost 50 years since its release, her voice rings anthemic, her fight continues on, and her timeless album – goldenly so for its musical genius, painfully so for society’s frustrating lack of progress...

Aware of the range and influence in Detroit’s past, Langston Bristol exists today as both a student of that musical breadth, and a continuation in its evolution. His is a largely indefinable texture – one that during our hour-long chat, he casually referred to as a hip-hop, R&B-ish sound – that is much more nuanced and detailed than he makes it seem. An instrumentalist in the church growing up, and a talented vocalist along with the rest of his family, he eventually discovered hip-hop, started making beats, and writing rhymes by the time he was a teenager...

The Manchester wordsmith is dynamic - on the cusp of timelessness through the lens of hip-hop and poetry, speaking his peace, pushing for change, and using the platform of his arts to inspire others to do the same. Whether through music or the barebones emotionality of a spoken word performance, his is a stream of consciousness more vocabulary driven and thought provoking than just about anyone else on the modern rap-poetic spectrum. As alongside others on that spectrum, 2020 was especially challenging, and in response, an especially artful year...

With new project, Pit of My Dreams, April + VISTA are again exploring and exhibiting music’s most intuitive human adherences, albeit in a completely reoriented direction. If You Are Here was a celebration of and an auditory drug aiding in a listener’s relationship with the idea of presence, Pit of My Dreams explores another overlooked human relationship with self: dreams. The project feels, and thus inwardly connects, to the opposite end of the human spectrum than did April + VISTA’s debut...

A sun-soaked reminiscence has always tethered the auditory aesthetic of California soulstress, Joyce Wrice not only to the Golden State, but to the Golden Era. It’s not to say that she’s not a figment of Neo-Soul modernity – having been a collaborative name and a standalone artist on the rise for something like half-a-decade – yet, her music could have ornamented the wavy birthstones of R&B as we know it, and no listener would dare question its placement in the 90’s or early 00’s. It’s her era of influence, after all. A young talent with the immeasurable grace and grip of the veteran she really is...

Aside from the fluidity of their collective East Coast sound, what feels most standout about the album is just how far it pushed Kota the Friend to exist beyond his oft-subdued, always at peace demeanor. Though never an aggro-rapper, there is a side to Kota that any fan of hip-hop has been hoping to hear at length, only previously emerging in a hard-nosed occasional poetic punch. But alongside Statik Selektah, and pylons upon the heat of the producer’s fiery timelessness, Kota found an album’s-length flame from which to spur a new take on his lyrical dynamism...

If the most underrated lyricist in modern hip-hop isn’t Saba, then that’s only because he’s finally getting the high-flying acclaim he’s deserved since before his melodic 2016 Photosynthesis birthed his limelight presence. Most recently, on a tear of A-Side / B-Side releases dating back to last year, he’s been putting the stretch of his rangy sound to the test. And most recently of the A-Side / B-Side drops – 2-packs that beg for an artist to shine a light on the dichotomy on their auditory aesthetic – is Ziplock / Rich Don’t Stop...

Wouldn’t it be crazy if reggie worked a collaboration with Monte Booker? What about one with Kenny Beats? Well, the explosively up-and-coming Houston rapper is killing one track with the two high-flying producers in new single, AIN’T GON STOP ME. Expectedly, the beat – highlighted by a complex layering of choir samples, keystrokes, bass, tricks, and trades only a veteran alchemist could craft – is nothing if not the work of two of hip-hop’s most exciting producers. But even more expectedly, the short track – that’s only fault isn’t being more than 90 seconds...

In a collaborative follow-up to 2019’s Gray Area taken from illustrious – and now Grammy-award-winning BUBBA, Mick Jenkins and KAYTRANADA are again teaming up for the fast-paced, lyrically prolific, and unendingly head-bobbing Designer Frames. Expected descriptors for the Chicago rapper and Montreal house producer? Absolutely. But that doesn’t make the track and less welcome. An upbeat, chime and keyboard beat by way of KAYTRANADA always makes the perfect backdrop for a rapper...

The poetically meditative, yet stylistically meandering flow that comes by way of Chicago’s Myquale eternally bridges the thought-provoking and the wavy. And alongside fellow Chicago modernist, Trapo, his latest single is his newest must-listen since 2020’s Passport Package. Overtop a dark, unnerving beat also of his making with credit, too, due to Renzell, Myquale and Trapo trade off-kilter deliveries line-by-line for 3-minutes of shimmering Lake Michigan experimentalism...

At the tail end of a short run of singles this year, Toronto’s – hip-hop’s – most experimentally masterful name, Clairmont The Second has reached a culmination of sorts – or at least another exclamation point. Upon the foundation built from 2020’s It’s Not How It Sounds – one of the most unique and dynamic projects anywhere in music through the year – Clairmont is now releasing a trio of tracks as an additional B-Side to the already expansive medley. Leading towards the B-Side’s release, he dropped two 2021 tracks: Hands & intres-ting...