Terrace Martin’s sound is still evolving, and that’s because he doesn’t only have one. Like everyone on this planet, he’s complicated. But unlike anyone on the planet, Terrace Martin has found a way to explore the depth in each and every of his complexities to the tune of a damn good record. His soundscape is complex because his sounds are many, and his draw is simply that he’s omnipotent in exploring new directions that are simultaneously so very rooted in sounds of the past.

2021 was an incredibly influential year for music, but now that it's officially in the past, let's take a look forward to discuss the 25 projects that we need in 2022.

For an artist, releasing one album is enough of a challenge. Sometimes a project can take years. Sometimes, a masterpiece can take a decade. But for the Birmingham-born rapper and all around experimentally creative tour-de-force that is Pink Siifu, one album – albeit a masterpiece two other albums in the making, at the end of a string of Gulf Coast underground exhibitions that have shaken hip-hop to its avant-garde core – is small change.

The ones who did the most.

True to her rangy roots, Overgrown brims without any boundaries of stylistic scope. And perhaps a play at her own sweet time taken in its release at last, the album’s name, too, is an admission that all of her time exploring music has left her own musical prowess vining over the fence to continually seek nourishment in newness. Here, Overgrown basks in its sunny stylistic transcendence.

The ones we couldn't stop listening to.

At all times, his sound breathes of the storied past of the West Coast beat narrative, and yet, his sound is also undeniably new. A new chapter for transcendent production that brings together a rangy scope of artistry across genre and era; that brings to mind the genius of other modern names like Kaytranada, Sango, and the Free Nationals. Nappyhigh is the kind of new artist so necessarily rooted in the past while willing to take liberty with it, that his impact will be greater than just about any other by the time it’s all said and done.  

The ones who introduced themselves to a new audience.

Some context: the film is at once a visual representation of Topaz Jones’ 2021 album of the same name; an immersive short film dictated by the transcendent soundscape of hip-hop, funk, soul, and jazz; a collection of diary entries pulled from the Jones family archives; a documentary brimming with the insight of Black community leaders; and a reinvention of the Black ABC’s: a 70’s Chicago-founded flashcard system that helped Black youth learn the alphabet through visual motifs born from relevance in their own lives.

The ones we couldn't stop watching.

During Miami Beach’s annual installment of Art Basel, a mosaic of artists, fashion designers, and musicians descend on Wynwood, even when they and their work aren’t linearly connected to the gala. And of them in 2021, it was Belgian-born and based Robin Velghe – better known as his project name, RhymezLikeDimez – whose illustration and animation brought to life the most fitting of identities to land itself in Wynwood.

Art Basel’s 2021 Miami Beach Edition, where the palpable creative energy of the city, and of artists and creative minds from around the world, come together to exhibit and celebrate far beyond the walls of Basel’s own extensive gallery held within the awe-inspiring modernity of Miami Beach Convention Center. Around the rest of the expansive city, from the charming antiquity of Little Havana to other rising neighborhoods eager to share their own art – their own stories...

Even amongst a string of original Warhols and a gallery room dedicated to immersing viewers in the provocative etchings and sculpture of Basquiat, the neo-cultural transcendentalists – rapped about over trap beats, written about on Highsnobiety, collected by hyebeasts – found themselves and their work stealing the show and the conversation at Miami Beach in 2021; at the onset of a new age merging the analogue with the digital, transcending the boundless spectrum of artistry and redefining its definition at a macro scale.

No one viewer can claim that they see – that is to say that they aesthetically appreciate or even understand – everything on display. Instead, Art Basel’s immense expanse at its Miami Beach edition alone grants any and all attendees the opportunity to immerse themselves in art and whittle down their specific yet undeniably always evolving taste for aesthetics, experience, and their intertwined paths that bring about inspiration and awe...

It’s always a party when Uncle Larry rolls into town. The son of musicians, exposed early in life to the vibrantly unique and rapidly expanding soundscape around him, the ardently West Coast lyricist and father of his own particularly mellow take on Bay Area hip-hop has been developing that skillset and texture since youth. Elevating both his own style and subsequently – through years of consistent releases and much-deserved growth – that of the modern West Coast cloth and all of hip-hop at large...

There’s a bone-chilling vernacular that bleeds from every darkly poetic, silkily sewn corner across the timeless discourse of funk, hip-hop, and soul. You know it when you hear it even if it can’t be defined in straightforward terms. It’s simply there. It is simply is, it simply was, and it simply always will be echoing of human emotion, projecting of something deep within our hearts and, for lack of a better word, our soul...

‘I don’t even see myself as a bridge, honestly. I’m more of an intersection. We’re all supposed to meet at some point. I just make it a little more intentional on showing love while we are all at this particular red or green light. Really, I’m just the crossing guard,’ he said when we asked him to speak on connectivity. Ask any Nashvillian to discuss creativity or traffic metaphors, and you’re sure to get a thought-out response.

As a short EP should be, it’s a deep-diving exhibition on the complexities of his creative sphere, predominantly as a rapper with a whole lot to speak on. For Floss and through Oasis, that hip-hop palette emerges clearest through the traditional pillars of rap: the rhythm and the poetry; the written and the delivered; the thought-provoking, the emotion-evoking, and ultimately, the connected to.

What makes Sevyn Streeter one of the most stylish artists alive? Find out here.

It has always been a challenge to define what it is that Dijon does. Music, absolutely, but beyond that, the immersive scenes he sets accept – rejoice within – an air of illusive indefinability. Opaque in their nature to belong anywhere specific, yet simultaneously gleaming with specificity towards the most curious of musical moment, lyrical detail, the Maryland-raised, Los Angeles-based songwriter thrives in an ability to liken his debut album to the anonymity and surprise of a roll of disposal film being developed.

From Chicago with one of the most unique sounds across the hip-hop landscape, Femdot is Not For Sale. Musically, creatively, personally, and at a grander scale, socially, his sound, and his thematic discourse, too, have detailed the balancing act between rising notoriety in the creative sphere through a medium that has long thrived on braggadocio and hype with a continued obligation to his community and those in the community and beyond who listen to him, look up to him. 

The slow, meditative, traditional R&B with a new-wave cut is Summer Walker’s bread and butter. Poetically navigating the rest of the album with a layered expression of emotion wallowing in the constant relationship struggles that plagued her debut album, and though evolved, continue to plague her current one, too, she constantly proves worth the hype of staying in sad on a Saturday night. And really, there’s not much more we can say that hasn’t already been said...

‘For me, identity is always important. I’m not saying that you have to look at my work and see me in it, but somehow a part of me belongs on it. And I feel like that could be the reason that I draw the way I do. When I used to draw cartoons and stuff, I was just bored, and it was just doodles. Now I actually draw with intention. Now that I have this style, and this that I want to convey, and this that I want to do, the intention is there, so the Senegalese roots play a part in it.’

The first round of mutual aid applicants are applying for a musician wellness mutual aid grant that ‘prioritizes Black and Brown women and gender-queer artists with audio-based soundscapes, providing micro-grants and mentorship.’ As a first generation, bi-sexual, Indian woman and artist, she’s aiming to support those with a complex identity like her own who can in turn shine a light – like she does – on the art of underrepresented peoples...

I Love Ugly. It’s a bold central affirmation from which to outwardly cultivate a brand, let alone to build a brand into one of the most intriguingly design motivated and understatedly consistent collectives in the underbelly of an oversaturated streetwear market. And yet, without a glimpse in their portfolio that any eye would likely consider ugly, the New Zealand brand, born and bred, has spent more than a decade curating a blend between the idyllically minimal and the omnipresent statement...

As a person and as an artist, he aims to push his boundaries, and with a voice like his, he also has the ingrained opportunity to push the boundaries of music and expectation altogether. At the end of the day, it seems that during the curation of his new chapter, his complexities leaned more toward the rooftop than the bedroom, and the outcome flies in the face of expectations on R&B music today; defying, too, that one can even label Kyle Dion as an R&B artist without completely undermining what is it that he’s building...

Walking through South Denver’s Washington Park, Jerney’s stoic nature was the first thing to notice. A mosaic of changing leaves stood at all times cohesive with the pale pink military jacket he sported, either juxtaposing or just matching enough the color already on display. And yet, from hearing his music – most recently his new collection, Motion Picture Season 2 – the natural aesthetic vibrancy meeting head-on with his mellow stoicism made a lot of sense...

Make sustainable footwear, make it look good and high-quality, use its conscious pedestal to make it stand for even more, and then make it all cyclical. With Virón, Matt Rombaut, his entire creative team, the brand producers in Portugal, and their collaborators in Berlin are making some of the most aesthetically dynamic, environmentally sustainable, morally founded, ethos-centric, futuristically designed, and collaboratively intertwined footwear anywhere in the world today...

What makes Joyce Wrice one of the most stylish artists alive? Find out here.

The 21-year-old enigma of breadth is a product of many places, many sounds, many looks, and many passions. A musician, a rapper, a vocalist; a model and a designer. $avvy at once breathes of a creative maturity and an easy-going youthfulness that leave him in a place to create freely while also doing so with an exactitude of direction. And so early on in his career, the bountiful range he already exudes is sure to continue to bloom. But for now, we speak to him on his roots, his influence, and the depth of his vision...

Above all else, the album’s amalgamate auditory journey exists within the walls of a long night spent dancing at a club in Accra; an early morning emerging from a South London basement party where the DJ, like Juls – or maybe Juls himself – bleeds of a musical understanding that is especially wide-ranging. Tethered akin with a case study on West African rhythm, the highlife of beachy guitar strums tied to choral progressions...

Out with the saloon piano, in with the playful key progressions. In with Terrace Martin and Robert Glasper, along with Nate Mercereau and Ricky Reed who oversee the album’s production at large. And with the legendary composer-producers, in, too, with the modernity of hip-hop basslines, jazzy composition, digitally perfected production, and subsequently, a new sound of Leon Bridges – something more stylistically aligned with Funk and Rhythm and Blues than influences from the earlier decades that his foundation was built upon...

Through its twelve tracks, Shades Of Indigo first and foremost lives up to its name. A rainbowic exploration of all the color in Chuck’s expansive sound, the EP is one that should be handed to a listener when they first stumble across his ever-expanding soundscape. A one-of-a-kind vocal register that bleeds through the music whether he’s delivering his words rapped or sung; the ability to harken onto that register and deliver soulful bouts and hooks throughout; the knack – perhaps the sharpest tool in his bag – to envelope a listener’s attention with poetic, prophetic penmanship and immersive...

Even amongst the almost entirely positive stream of emotion and connection that concerts have in our lives, there are generational acts that bring an even greater sense of awe than others. Of them, it would be hard to argue that in the modern touring circuit, any artist brings more gusto hand-in-hand with an atmosphere that can only really be described as positive, fun-loving, inviting, and enticing, than Los Angelino, Acid Jazz playwright, and Neo-Funk virtuoso with an 6-string bass, Thundercat.

Summit, Denver | September 25, 2021

Theo Croker’s innate ability to capture the essence of stumbling downstairs to a late night venue where the subtle blaring of a trumpet bleeding out from the walls of a graffiti stained alley acts as the warmest of invitations, all the while merging with the soulful genius of his collaborators, places his 2021 album in the permanently downloaded folder of so many jazz fans on the lookout for their next staple go-to...

When it was released in February, and in every moment since, Homegrown was already one of the best projects – in any stylistic realm – to come out of a 2021 stacked with R&B masterpieces in particular from Joyce Wrice’s Overgrown to Snoh Aalegra’s Temporary Highs in the Violet Skies. Now, with the release of its Deluxe Edition, the album proves that the future of R&B’s sheen lies in sourcing from its golden past, that no one is doing that better than VanJess, and that they’re just getting started.

Amongst a canon with more depth and consistency than just about any other rapper in the modern hip-hop scene, it’s hard to detail just where it is that Dom Kennedy’s From the West Side With Love series of tapes and albums falls into the equation. Rather, into the greater algorithm of unapologetically West Coast hip-hop over the past decade-and-a-half, Dom’s lackadaisical flow and lyrical ferocity juxtapose one another with distinct fervor and Summer-tinged sunshine through the sequence of projects that now number three and span an eleven-year stretch...

The Mile High City has always had an intersectional sort of luxury built on a central location and a long list of venues ranging from the cozy and charming to the modern and moving, that have made the city an overwhelmingly underrated hub for live music, for years. Just like the cattle trails, trains, and interstates that have historically crisscrossed from coast-to-coast, comfortably bow-tying at Denver’s mid-country hearth, bands and artists on tour, too, find themselves always passing through....

Heals Me exists in substance as what it is that JMSN’s self-made stylistic scope, suspended in artistry by slappy basslines and juxtaposed falsettos through a sort of spinning Neo-Soul spectrum reaching both back in time and setting an untouchable precedent for the future, means to his personal sensitivities. It is a culminative marriage between the man and the artist – an uncalculated expression of truths that define his duality...

Walking into the grounds of an all-day, outdoor concert series these days comes with even more of a serotonin-fueled feeling of non-reality, escape, and simultaneous immersion than it did before our world was left in concertless limbo for the entirety of 2020’s absentee Summer run. This Summer, for better or for worse when it comes to our collective health both mental and physical, has been one brimming with the restored magic that Summertime concerts have long stamped as seasonal exclamation points...

From its opening drum intro, iNTRO’s new project, Welcome To Next Year, bleeds of the rangy, analogue, and oft jazz-oriented mosaic that the Nashville hip-hop scene is beginning to script as signature. Removed from any singular sound that can be ascribed to the city’s overarching auditory aesthetic, unlike certain movements that other cities and other scenes have been host to past and present, Nashville’s underground hip-hop and soul sounds seem almost always loosely tethered to its jazz and blues oriented past...

HXRY grew up listening to his mother play records from Mary J. Blige, The Isley Brothers, and a whole lot of disco. He grew up to his dad supplying the rock, blues, and hip-hop. “But, it wasn’t until [he] started linking with other producers on SoundCloud who had super electronic backgrounds that inspired [him] to keep experimenting,” he told us in 2020 in an effort to delineate to some extent the incalculably wide-ranging sound that he boasts today.

Beyond the party busses humming and the chaotic human low points reached every minute by another lost soul on the stretch of Lower Broadway, everyone truly standing up for Nashville – really working in and representing the city – and its surrounding webs of townships and neighborhoods, is seemingly an artist or involved in the artsy undergrounds to some extent, working on one or two extracurricular explorations of their passion, be it musical, visual, stylistic, photographical, or otherwise....

If the energy in orbit around Deep Tropics’ minimalistic secondary stage called Congo – tucked into a corner of the grounds, sparsely decorated with tropical houseplants, and accidentally cut with bear-trapping holes – is a sign of things to come, Nashville’s hip-hop scene is a powerful force just beginning to peak its wide-ranging glimpse out from the underground, with its eyes set on the top...

Photos of Live Music. Check it out.

What is perhaps most daunting about Reflections is not only the emotional range HXRY so effortlessly explores through eleven tracks, but that he ultimately ties them together both stylistically and through the lines of his story being told. Track to track beyond the leading singles and through all six new songs and intermissionary snippet, Teknikal Issues, pain and emotion at its deepest to passionate explosions in the opposite direction, HXRY proves yet again, and with his debut album...

'Reflections' Release Party | Chicago, Illinois | August 23, 2021

What On A Virgo Mind is can be spoken about in terms of its inadherence to the traditional boundaries of style or genre hand-in-hand with a consistent adherence to emotional tranquility and overarching sense of calm. The project – true to its title – breathes of the placated assumptions that the zodiac generation makes of Virgos like the Maryland transcendentalist. Humble, natural, kind, sympathetic, the emotion rings true through the album’s calming, meditative, and introspective half-hour...

Old school but new wave, timeless but speaking on the modern issues of long-distance relationships held together by a screen, delicate, worldly, and experimental, This Little Screen is everything that is right with modern R&B music, even if it dissects everything that is wrong with human relationships as they intersect technology....

From the very beginning, the hyper-lyrical, consciously rooted raps of front man, Steve ‘Zumbi’ Gaines danced across the framework of electronically nuanced beats from DJ and producer, Amp Live. Undisputedly ahead of their time when it came to infusing a signature sound with cyber-punk keystrokes that left a listener suspended sans gravity in a futurist sonic space, Zumbi’s raps acted as a balancing act, carrying more than enough gravity to bring a listener not only back to Earth, but into their own mind....

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...

To see how Chroma sees is to grasp the abstractly innate in something seemingly straight forward, pulling out an inner, oft-sensitive identity from a web of studied but necessarily assumed postulations, meticulously curating a visual re-understanding of a subject who was at first captured by a photographer or by the cultural cloth at large, and then redefined – rebirthed – by the artist’s digital brush strokes...

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...

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...

10 reasons why the rising UK R&B star is also on of the most stylish people on the planet.

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....

What's been your favorite?

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.

An early detour from Tyler, the Creator led Odd Future’s roots, Syd – an impeccably crystalline soulstress and songwriter – and Matt Martians – a productive and percussive wizard often behind the curtain, act as the band’s bookends. And between them have also emerged only icons. Guitarist, Steve Lacy. Bassist, Patrick Paige II. Percussionist and mixer, Christopher Smith who himself is the only member not to have (yet) carved out deep notoriety as a solo act. Together the five....

. A fan of R&B is a fan of the emotional responses that the music evokes in our day-to-day lives. And a fan of that emotional vulnerability will find a lot of reminiscent comfort, while at the same time, a whole lot of experimental newness in the interwoven artistic force of Kaleem Taylor and The Code. Both artists are such raw products of the past – raw R&B vocals, 80’s synths, 90’s drum patterns, and the timelessness of heartbroken penmanship – and yet both forge new paths not only in the respective stylistic lanes...

10 Reasons why the young hip-hop superstar is one of the most stylish young men alive...

From top to bottom, her newest EP is an exhibition of a sound that has come to exist only by her hand. No one else in this world is making music so infused with the specific blend of stylistic influences that she is. And though only a seven-track EP, AZEB is an explosion of late Springtime anthems coordinated in tumbling perfection in accordance of one another. Drawn akin by silky vocals, thought-provoking raps woven effortlessly into them, calming guitar riffs, and perfectly suited production surrounding it all, the entirety of ‘AZEB’ in many ways feels like one run-on composition...

a perspective photo essay on one year of protest & movement since George Floyd’s death, and how America’s continued fight for social justice and racial equality unendingly intersects a necessary understanding of Black America’s dominant influence on global music, art & culture at large....

through its 45 minutes, that knack for immersion and fluid flexibility is something that defines If I Fail Are We Still Cool?; defines Patrick Paige II as its creator; defines its creator as one seemingly always exploring self-reinvention with one hand firmly on the album’s aviatic theme and the other on his affinity and knack for a hip-hop oriented exploration of his myriad inspirations. Both points are unexpected. Both are welcome...

Altè becomes defined by its mellow albeit emotional existence as something new for anyone looking for exactly that. And on the verge of Summertime where all of us aren’t only looking for something new after a year wrought with pandemic and quarantine pain and monotony, but where all of us have, too, been forced into a new perspective – one more inward-facing, introverted, and emotionally disconnected from what existed before this break in modern history – we owe it to ourselves to allow Altè into our daily lives...

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...

10 Reasons why the prolific Brooklyn lyricist has a personal style that can match his mellow demeanor.

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...

10 reasons why the emerhing Prince of R&B is also one of the most stylish people alive...

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...

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...

Collaboration between Patrick Paige II and Devin Morrison wouldn’t only be a fluid exploration of Soul, Funk, and R&B; of wide-ranging instrumentalism, focused production, and broadly understated vocalism, it’s probably also imminent. Both artists have been steadily collaborating with more and more artists in one another’s respective circuits because, frankly, their circuits are intertwined. As would be their tethered sound. With sultry basslines from Paige II and playful synth strokes from Morrison, the instrumental backdrop from the two would alone transcend eras...

Largely incognito since their dynamic 2018 debut project, You Are Here, experimental FutureSoul duo, April + VISTA are back again with a new single, The Receiver. The vocalist-producer twosome have crafted – either through their own music or through collaborations like 2019’s Love in the Sky with McClenney – robustly unique aesthetics that span the range of the influences – Hip-Hop, Funk, R&B, Soul, Folk, and beyond. With The Receiver, the may be taking their most risk-laden and ultimately game-changing lane yet...

Rappers with a lot to say don’t always put out a lot of music. Malik Elijah, on the other hand, is nothing if not both thoughtfully and creatively prolific. From Maryland with a lot of range and a broad vocabulary, Malik Elijah crafts across his taste for stylistic depth anchored always to his robust knack for raps. His latest single on a string of many going back to last year and reaching apex with the drop of sophomore project, Free Lemonade, is SFTS...

From a groovy corner of the Southern underbelly, 24 (stylized as 24.) is crafting Electro-Soul jams ringing with flavors from hip-hop, R&B, and beyond. A Nashville native based in Huntsville, Alabama, 24’s is not necessarily a Southern sound, instead defying geography and blurring the lines of myriad stylistic nuances from the past and present. Latest single, CAN’T STOP feels productively reminiscent to something KAYTRANADA would build, or that GoldLink would rap over, bleeding with wavy synths, house tastes, and...

Smino released ‘blkswn’ on March 14, 2017. His sophomore collection behind 2016’s ‘blkjuptr,’ and his debut album, the St. Louis rapper and vocalist had been carving out his unendingly individualistic sound for years. In the four years since its release, ‘blkswn’ remains a paramount exploration of the possibilities when an artist willing and able to take the risks, takes them so fervently. Nothing more harmoniously experimental and successful has come from any artist since (or maybe even before).

His name is Sean, but the lens through which he sees, and the kaleidoscope of artistic range with which he creates is that of The BlackSon. His sound breathes of the many ‘somethings’ he and his his fellow Nashville artists have to speak on. Lyrically embedded through a past of spoken word poetry, his is a lyrically dominant brand of emceeing that carries on a distinct lineage of rappers really rapping. And through a barrage of recent singles, a promise for more in the clutch, and a firm refusal to hint at a perspective project, a telling yet mysterious identity hangs in the balance of our interview...

Riding the rails of a bouncy, synth and bass circling beat that folds in complex layers of his own vocal runs and crooning moans, Naji’s new single, You feels reminiscent from the jump. That’s because anyone that knows the creative powerhouse and founding name of digital creative collective, Play Nice, knows that his sound – production, vocals, and their brash intertwining nature with one another – is unmistakable...

Twin brothers Marshall & Parker are Mulherin. Mulherin craft silky, duetic R&B beckoning towards the sensual pop sensitivities of the 90’s that bloom expectedly of heart and heartbreak. And from the oft-illusive duo comes their first single of the year, and first single since 2020 EP, Blurry – Your Turn. The piano-laded, drum machine, electronically nuanced beat lays a perfect foundation for a cooling barrage of vocalism. And...

Mavi is a force of seeming familiarity unlike anyone who has ever attempted the craft. And in that delineation exists his underlying genius – the reason why any fan of his seems to be not only a fan for life, but a fan of hip-hop’s storied and continuing lineage. For any rap listener, there is more than something and instead many things about the steady spring in Mavi’s meditative gait that make him a force to follow to the END OF THE EARTH.

Highlighting 16 women to watch in music, carving out their kingdoms and claiming their crowns one track at a time.

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...

A capable, and ultimately timeless writer whose songs – though also rangy in thematic discourse – breathe of a simple relatability that speaks to the hearts his small, yet ever expanding audience, his is a folky sort of understanding on how to really connect with his listeners. Oh, and he can rap, too. All in all, he’s a keymark representation of post-genre independence, and Fern is a shining exhibition of what happens when multi-pronged talent is hinged to artistic freedom and the vibrant emotionality – and oft-simple sweetness – of love...

For Pink Sweat$ - so named for his simple fashion choices harboring comfortability over anything else – the ability to delineate his own mosaic of sonic textures, and tell stories of timeless love and an ever more inclusive modernity, seems to be what Pink Planet represents to the Neo-Soul and R&B realm in a pop-heavy post-genre moment. Musically, emotionally, texturally, it’s broad. And yet, for such a young artist boasting such a dynamic sound, it’s also incredibly focused...

A recap of all releases you need to hear from the seventh week of 2021, including a whole lot of R&B hits from K. forest, Syd, JVCK JAMES, and Brent Faiyaz, as well as another new single from the illustrious Serious Klein...

Appearing from seemingly nowhere last year with a maturity to his differentiating auditory aesthetic and a professionalism about the production, the videography, and the whispery, mellow ease with which he marks every rap, every note, and every visual adaptation, $avvy has been a name worth watching for his sound worth knowing since the very beginning. And at the beginning of 2021, he’s here with his debut collection...

From start to finish, whether a fan of the old-school or the new; whether a fan of hip-hop or R&B; whether a fan of the upbeat and lyrical or the slow-moving and melodic; the mixtape is a fluid exploration of the range of an artist whose sound knows no stylistic or epochal boundaries and therefore knows no one who doesn’t find something(s) to love about it all. So, who TF is Langston Bristol? There’s no better way to find out than listening to M-Side Odyssey 2...

A recap of all releases you need to hear from the sixth week of 2021, including a 90's inspired single from Brooklyn soulstress, Raveena; a collaborative drop from Freddie Gibbs & Schoolboy Q; a mellow release from Brooklyn's Soft Glas; the first single in years from Topaz Jones; and a continuation of R&B experimentation from underground Toronto R&B crooner, Marvin Dolo.

Mostly bass-heavy, addicting R&B infused with Sy Ari’s tendency to sew raps between his vocally laden hooks, It’s Not You, It’s Me plays both of his stylistic lanes in persistent, liquid harmony. Even in the project’s slower tracks – the kind of ones that find themselves both thematically and instrumentally leaning towards the romantic edge of a classic, sexy R&B sound – Sy Ari weaves in and out of differing cadences and flows with such fluid effortlessness that it becomes clear he is neither a rapper or a singer, but a post-genre existence of both folded into one unique lane.

Homegrown as a whole speaks to the dialed range of their one-of-a-kind sound. Each track – many of which are spurred by the aesthetics of myriad collaborators – speaks to the knack of their range merging with others who, too, possess a unique and vibrant redefinition of R&B’s past merging with its nuanced future. Homegrown always finds its way home, to the intersectionality of VanJess’s retrofuturistic R&B experimentation. Their role in the cycles and the circles of it all continues.

In 2018, the Chicago rapper was searching for another way to make a difference. He had been telling his story, and bringing relatability and hope to anyone listening, since his debut project, King Dilla, in 2014. And with each release, and each’s release’s subsequent success, came a larger and sturdier platform for him to speak his peace. So, as with music, he again looked towards his own life – specifically towards his education and the challenges he saw so often in the mirror and in the trials of others when it came to affording that education – for his next passionate venture.

A recap of all releases you need to hear from the eighth week of 2021, including a danceable offering from KAYTRANADA, an expectedly positivist mellow pop jam from Still Woozy, a Valentine's anthem from Leo Pastel, and a lesson Black History and Black history in the making from Dreamville rapper, JID.

Fire by fire’s many modern meanings, No Roads is mostly up-tempo, vivacious hip-hop from a rapper who lives and dies by the sharpness of his tongue. Thankfully for him, and for everyone listening, there is not a breath wasted in the hour-long exhibition of prose and poeticism; power and painstaking craft. From beginning to end, adjacent to crafting a cohesive narrative, Reaux’s musicality is ripe with a dominating display of lightning-fast bars. Infused with meaning, each line delivered is a line meditated and crafted in the shadows of an emerging Nashville scene for years.

A recap of all releases you need to hear from the fifth week of 2021, including a collaboration between Brant Faiyaz and Tyler the Creator, the second solo single from CO-NY rapper, Big Trip, a joint single from Sango and Curtis Williams, a dynamic electro-pop collaboration between Kito, VanJess & Channel Tres, and another lyrical bout from Nashville rapper, The BlackSon.

Straight away, it’s clear that Roses is going to be different for Da Vinci, for The House, and for Chattanooga. From its psychedelic cover artwork to its opening Intro, the project takes a sledgehammer to any expectations. Removed from the meditative flow and oft hard-hitting aesthetic he brings to releases like last year’s single, Roid Rage with Nashville rapper, OGTHAGAWD, Da Vinci instead enters a realm of trippy, melodic soundscapes still brimming with bars, but founded on the precipice of something more experimental and ultimately broad strokes.

A recap of all releases you need to hear from the fourth week of 2021, including a new single from Toronto hip-hop experimentalist, Clairmont The Second; a debut EP from Afro-Fusion Star on the Rise, Ayra Starr; a hard-hitting drop from Maryland rapper, Malik Elijah; and a live Soul cut from James Tillman and Flwr Chyld.

This collaboration would be nothing if not a liquid exploration of two artistries whose prior work is already fit for the same playlist. Both Khruangbin and Raveena are modern, experimental takes on the timelessness of soul, funk, rock, and R&B intersecting with a broader worldview of from where the true greats of the past were really making music. Together, Khruangbin and Raveena would effortlessly craft fluid, funky, soulful, experimental, and ultimately timeless psychedelia exploring the world and celebrating its myriad cultures through music...

beneath the most popular, radio-hit emcees, a mosaic of dynamic scenes from cities and regions big and small brimming with the raps from an endless sea of artistry is proving that rap – real rap – remains central to hip-hop’s continued lineage. Real rap always prospers, one need only to look a little harder to find it. And that’s exactly what this playlist is all about. We’re all for the real rappers – especially the underground emcees – of today making waves and putting into focus just how lyrically dynamic hip-hop remains...

With Hands – a single and a visual project as is so often the case from one of the most ubiquitous hip-hop visionaries aware of the range in his artistry – there is – as is always the case – an incredible nod to the balancing act of his craft. Clairmont’s penmanship, production, and ultimately, the way he conveys it all on screen receive equal weight, and tell a broader story of his creative breadth. Fiery bar after bar leaves no room for a hook through the three-minute barrage of lyrical angst...

With Hands – a single and a visual project as is so often the case from one of the most ubiquitous hip-hop visionaries aware of the range in his artistry – there is – as is always the case – an incredible nod to the balancing act of his craft. Clairmont’s penmanship, production, and ultimately, the way he conveys it all on screen receive equal weight, and tell a broader story of his creative breadth. Fiery bar after bar leaves no room for a hook through the three-minute barrage of lyrical angst...

From the third week of the near year, we discuss new releases from K. Forest, dvsn, Esmé, The BlackSon, and Kelechi. Check it all out here, and make sure to keep an eye out for future weekly installments of the Weekly.wav...

There is more than something genius about the business of Lyrics to GO – there is ultimately something trailblazing about it, too. In a reverse engineering of sorts to the fabled glory of visual album’s like Beyoncé’s Lemonade or – not to pull from the same family, but these are the two that immediately come to mind – Solange’s When I Get Home, that translate a timeless album into a short film, Kota is crafting a chapter of visual stories celebrating hip-hop’s timeless simplicity into a curated EP...

Hers is a particular and largely unequivocal direction for modern R&B artists to take. Without mentioning those few, that are too, taking their own independence and emotional intelligence into account when crafting experimentally driven music, RyAnne is redefining what the future of R&B, of Neo-Soul, and of Nashville can sound like, not by looking forwards, but instead by weaving her seeming fondness for acoustic notes, instrumentalism, and all-encompassing musical softness into a still-emerging hotbed for lyrically-focused Southern hip-hop and jazz oriented soul...

From the second week of the near year, we discuss new singles from retro R&B duo VanJess, Chicago's up-and-coming wordsmith Just Adam, Nashville's jazzy hip-hop savant Case Arnold, and an Emotional Oranges collaboration with Chiiild. Check it all out here, and make sure to keep an eye out for future weekly installments of the Weekly.wav...

Jazmine Sullivan’s Heaux Tales breathes of the kind of complexities, rawness, and brash feminine energy that modernity is coming to expect more and more as counterpoint to the masculinity and overt sexualism that has defined mainstream hip-hop and R&B albums for years. And though Sullivan is no stranger to relatable tales of relationships, heartbreak, sex, and prevailing trauma, this project is particularly poignant, relatable, and thought-provoking. Heaux Tales is a celebration of sexuality, self-love...

After the release of last Spring’s Burn One, Tap In, Zone Out – a ten-track deliverable that like its recent predecessors, My Brother’s Keeper, Delirium, and Nahforreal’ brimmed with the soundscape of an artist defined by lyrical dominance and stylistic breadth – Demo’s life changed. He drew inwards to focus on a growing family. But, true to himself and his natural existence as a poet unparalleled in lyrical ferocity or stylistic fluidity, his Hiatus didn’t seem to come without a deeper dive into his craft...

From the first week of the near year, we discuss a new EP from Nashville's Reaux Marquez featuring Brian Brown, Lul Lion, and A.B. Eastwood; a New single from DC rappers, Ciscero and Oddisee, and an unexpected collaboration between UK Neo-Soulstress, Nao and Nigerian Prince of Highlife, Adekunle Gold. Check it all out here, and make sure to keep an eye out for future weekly installments of the Weekly.wav...

The challenges of 2020 hit the music scene in a special way. As up-and-coming names continued to make music and release full-length projects from the quiet of quarantine and on the fire of social issues, many established names whose album drops usually require grandiose teams and ultimately precede a tour remained quiet. So, as we look towards 2021, here are the 25 projects we need from the up-and-comers who made a name in 2020, and the popular names who had us all holding our breath....

2020 was a lot of things. But fuck all of the negativity. So much of the good in 2020 belonged to Nashville. A cultural renaissance in the Music City revolving around a few arenas of art and music turned the Ville into the world’s emerging creative capital to watch. Hip-hop, Neo-Soul and R&B – all of which have strong roots not only in the South, but in Nashville, too - paved the way for their orbiting cultural spheres – fashion, videography, photography, and social statement – to likewise thrive at a communal scale.