Friday 26 April 2013

Shola Ama

Shola Ama, who's collaborated with Toddla T on records such as the superb garage of Take It Back, has now cut a new hype track of her own.  The results are a pretty slick and sultry  rnb tune

Boyfriend is the record and is streamable below:


Tuesday 23 April 2013

New Janelle Monae, Erykah Badu & Kelis

Two new tunes announced on the same day from some heavyweight RnB artistes today included the collaboration between sharp suited songstress Janelle Monae and Erykah Badu titled 'Q.u.e.e.n' , taken from new album Electric Lady (dropping in time for Festival season). A decent promo for the new album  and the Monae rap at the end of this 5 minute record is worth waiting for.

And just hours later a new, less sassy; more soulful Kelis announced her return with 'Jerk Ribs'.  First thoughts are the melody's a bit hard to get to grips with and it lacks the punch of some of the records from her Tasty album, but early days all the same and nice to have Kelis back.







Friday 19 April 2013

Isle of Magic



This arrived to my headphones very recently but i've played it through almost every day since. If you like your Afro-Jazz and looking for something that sounds deeply authentic then look no further than the Isle of Magic album. The Italian producer Andrea Benini is the man behind Mop Mop and worked on the album with Anthony Joseph and JB's legend Fred Wesley.  The album was recorded between Germany and Italy with the use of vintage analog equipment to achieve a sound with all the “warm” qualities of vintage analog tape recordings, part of the reason this moody foray into percussive rhythms, chanting and Caribbean flavours works so well. Check out an album sampler below


Wednesday 17 April 2013

Lewis Parker- The Glass Ceiling


Breaking news in the hiphop world today as Lewis Parker announced the follow up to The Puzzle Pt 1 with The Puzzle Episode 2- The Glass Ceiling'. With Parkers cinematic, sample heavy beats and sharp lyrics, this could end up as one of the years best scene records.

For a preview of the tracks and a sneak of the  deluxe vinyl edition with tee shirt click here !


Monday 15 April 2013

Playlist: Boombox Soul



Along with music, radio is one of my first loves, and at home i have my own Sharp GFGF 9090 ghettoblaster , produced in Japan between 1977 and 1979.

So to celebrate I put together a playlist of hiphop i'd be happy to play on this boombox, (all on cassette of course!)

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Saturday 13 April 2013

The North Borders

So many good albums have been released in the last month including Charles Bradley, Night Moves, Mop Mop and Bonobo as the year starts to hit it's stride for superb albums.

So starting off then with Bonobo who on North Borders, his follow up the masterful Black Sands, is a further excursion into cinematic dance music, drawing upon dubstep, the oriental and his own textural approach to electronica.

Track 1 'First Fires' might be more reminiscent of SBTRKT who themselves were probably influenced by Simon Green's thematic, addictive sound. Guests on the album include the ever excellent Eykah Badu on Heaven For The Sinner, a two step glitch and a yearning melody and vocalist Grey Reverend (Cinematic Orchestra). Then there's the clockwork of Cirrus, whilst Emkay sways towards Mj Cole (no bad thing) amongst the 12 tracks here. An artist at the peak of his powers right now and a worthy follow up to Black Sands.



Like this? Check out the new Mount Kimbie album, released on May 27th. Taster track 'Made To Stray' is downloadable here: http://bit.ly/WZmmU0