Browsing Tag

Hip-Hop

Jah-Sun Collier futuristically reconfigured old-school boom bap in his latest single, RICH THOUGHTZ!

Posted on 16 September 2023

A blast of retro boom bap hit the airwaves when the latest satirically sharp rap track, RICH THOUGHTZ!, dropped as a courtesy of the ultimate urban antagonist, Jah-Sun Collier, who is also well-known as a popular YouTuber, actor, and video editor.

By futuristically reconfiguring the retro tones and adding a further lyrical trajectory to the evolution of hip-hop, the US rapper and record producer did far more than revisit vintage sounds with his tongue-in-cheek track that points out how contrived society has become through its obsession with capitalist gains.

He set the resilience to mercenary vanity bar transcendently high with the introspection-rich hit that proves that being rich in any real sense has no correlation to numbers on a screen, the brand names on your clothes or the car you drive.

RICH THOUGHTZ was officially released on September 1st. Stream it on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

P wE$t pushed away pretence in his latest trap hit, This Side of Me

Posted on 14 September 2023

Since stepping onto the airwaves in 2020, the trap trailblazer, P wE$T, has run a successful campaign with his singles and debut LP, Permanent Timing. His latest single, This Side of Me, is an aphrodisiacal installation of exotic urban rhythmics, which delivers indie RnB guitars and Afrobeat flavours around his wavy with autotune rap bars that run evocatively hard.

Lyrically, This Side of Me strips away all sense of pretence to introduce the authentic P wE$T, free from facades and guises. The melancholic sting of the candour is potent, but with the intricately melodic Spanish classic guitar motifs, the blows are cushioned by the accordance.

This Side of Me dropped on September 7th; stream it on Spotify and join P wE$T’s 11.5k followers on Instagram to stay up to date with his new releases; there’s always something new in the artist’s dynamic pipeline.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Emanuel Arzumanyan freed his listeners from the comparison trap with his hip-hop track, Gotta Get Mine ft Mr Maph

Posted on 10 September 2023

For his latest single and most popular hit to date, Gotta Get Mine, the Antwerp, Belgium-based beat maker, hip-hop producer, guitarist, and audio engineer, Emanuel Arzumanyan, collaborated with the London-based trailblazer of a lyricist and vocalist Mr Maph to deliver a high-octane rap track that will leave you adrenalized with inspiration.

The reprise “gotta get mine, gotta get yours” over the cinematically Grammy-worthy hip-hop orchestration is an efficaciously succinct way to veer listeners away from envy and the comparison trap and towards determination that doesn’t revolve around anticipating and facilitating the downfall of others.

Gotta Get Mine evades all of the usual tropes to unravel as a hit that delivers introspective gold over each of the expertly crafted hooks that will remain sharp enough in your mind to necessitate making Gotta Get Mine a playlist staple.

Stream Gotta Get Mine on Spotify and follow Emanuel Arzumanyan on Instagram.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The debut single, Defective by Design, from r.a.g.s. is a wavey lo-fi outcry of poetic raw emotion.

Posted on 10 September 2023

With a sound that will draw in fans of Kae the Tempest and George the Poet like a moth to a flame, the visceral with uninhibited candour single, Defective by Design, from r.a.g.s. and tee fisher is a gravitational force in and of its hip-hop self.

Experimentalism was in no short order in the chilled wavey lo-fi outcry of poetic raw emotion. While the title gives a few clues as to what the lyrics allude to, there’s no preparing for the intellect in the wordplay, which finds profound new ways to illustrate the frustration of feeling as though you were always fated to live a life bookended with mental cognitions that will always lead you down the wrong path of perception and action.

r.a.g.s. started his musical journey by learning Indian classical keyboard at age five; he took his immersion in the music world a step further by enrolling at Leeds Conservatoire studying jazz and learning how to produce his own music. His debut single effortlessly distinguished him as an artist who will never leave authenticity by the wayside. Naturally, we can’t wait to what lingers in his obscure pipeline.

Defective by Design hit the airwaves on August 28; stream it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Jaeya poured the perfect sonic summer cocktail in her genre-fluid hit, 510

Posted on 9 September 2023

Taken from her seminal retrowave hip-hop EP, BAYANI, the up-and-coming artist, Jaeya’s slick with sublime style standout single, 510, is a melodic cruise through ingenuity and gripping grooves that will hold your rhythmic pulses like a vice.

Her sun-kissed amalgamation of RnB pop vox and tropic hip-hop beats unravels as the perfect sonic summer cocktail that you can savour time after time to devour her witty wordplay and the introspection that allows her bars to hit so resonantly hard.

Even at a young age, the Bay Area Filipinx artist’s creativity knows relatively few bounds; she’s made herself known in Cali and beyond for her songwriting and emcee skills. Her debut EP flawlessly exhibits her cultural contribution to the music industry, and her ability to fuse urban genres until they’re an intoxicating pool of refreshingly curve-transcending bliss.

Stream 510 on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Lana Volkov shared her ‘Fast Lane Fever’ in her debut trap track, ft Ayobaro

Posted on 4 September 2023

By putting the melodies in her debut trap pop track, Fast Lane Fever, into first gear, the up-and-coming artist Lana Volkov only needed half the duration of your average pop hit to craft the ultimate driving anthem.

With the collaborating artist Ayobaro in the passenger seat, Volkov orchestrated a sultry testament to her ability to stay in her own lane when it comes to creativity. The hypnotic textures within Fast Lane Fever will pull you right into the alluringly immersive mix that seamlessly progresses from hyper-pop momentum to trippy wavey ambient interludes that allow sensuality to take the wheel.

If her sound is this polished in her debut release, we can’t wait to hear what is in the pipeline; she ticks all the right trap boxes with her intoxicating vocals, absorbing melodies and infectiously siren-esque energy.

Fast Lane Fever hit the airwaves on 11th August; stream it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Push your perception in a rose-tinted direction with Marquis Storm’s latest single, Grateful, ft M Stacks

Posted on 3 September 2023

For his latest track, Grateful, the trailblazing rapper Marquis Storm collaborated with M Stacks to create a dualistically high-fire feat of hip-hop that prays at the altar of gratitude to definitively prove that life is little more than perception, and you can shift yours if you make blessed more than a hashtag.

The Cleveland Heights-born and raised rapper and songwriter always runs his rap bars through deep introspection to forge his hits with lyrical gold that will leave you inspired by his energy, wordplay, and insights; Grateful is no exception. As the instrumentals weave through the melodic grooves and spill colourful catharsis with every progression, Storm adrenalizes the mix with his fiery-with-soul bars that leave you with no choice but to soak in his wisdom.

Storm has been cutting his teeth in the industry since the age of 13 and he’s made major waves in the industry since. His hits have been picked up by international press, and he’s opened for everyone from Stevie Stone to Yelawolf. He’s also made appearances at the Grammy Awards and the NBA All Star Weekend in 2022.

Grateful hit the airwaves on August 25; stream it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

justMusic radiated originality in his stylised and cinematic hip-hop track, MORNING SUN

Posted on 2 September 2023

The Virginia & Florida-hailing hip-hop pioneer justMusic pays no loyalty to coastal sub-genres; he drifts between stylings and pulls in inspiration and creativity where he imaginatively sees fit. His latest cinematically soulful single, MORNING SUN, is the perfect introduction to his tendency to colour outside of the archetypal melodic lines to paint an urban picture of pure originality.

As the synthesised orchestral strings cut through the immersive atmosphere, justMusic pulls it back together with his harmonised vocal lines that soak the soundscape in soul between the dripping-with-conviction rap bars.

When the singer and rap artist isn’t cooking up hits to supplement his already eclectic discography, he’s using his passion for success in his highly accomplished skateboarding career but he’s stepped off the board for long enough to work on his latest project MuX. 

MORNING SUN hit the airwaves on August 25; stream it on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

SUNDIARA ran visceral vindication right through his seminal single, The Zipped Head

Posted on 28 August 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8ccC8ySbTc

With rap bars that deliver as much vindication as the ones that flow from B. Dolan’s volition-driven singles and instrumentals that ooze contrasting upbeat tones under the gruff vocals that will be a hit with any fans of Busta Rhymes, the latest single, The Zipped Head, from SUNDIARA is a visceral Tour De Force that you will want to immerse yourself in time after time for the affirmation that you’re not alone in the contempt you feel for our sociopath-breeding social fabric.

The artist formerly known as DONNIENOTBRASCO, Young Don, and D.O.Nquixote has stepped into a new guise to bring in a new era of his creativity; with The Zipped Head, he perceptibly made his freshly honed new mark on the industry. For all too long, we were told that haters hate. We weren’t told how they can be the closest people to you and how they flip the narrative to attempt to desecrate everything you’ve built and gaslight others into seeing a maleficently fabricated version of you.  Thankfully, SUNDIARA has arrived to empower people into a position of affirmative action when it comes to cutting toxic ties.

Check out the official music video for The Zipped Head on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Navy the General is off the melodic hook in his old-school hip-hop track, If I Had a Lifeline

Posted on 27 August 2023

Mixing the attitude of old-school hip-hop with the experimentalism of new wave trip-hop, the latest single, If I Had a Lifeline, from Navy the General is enough to get anyone off the ennui hook.

The poetically sharp flow of the smooth and steady rap bars and the succinct melodicism of the downtempo instrumentals invite the listener to dip their toe into a cathartic pool of originated hip-hop that works its way deep into the psyche.

The reprise of “if I had a lifeline, I’d call on you” gives the track a soulful touch, but there’s no obliterating the grit that spilt into the soundscape as a courtesy of the up-and-coming artist’s Queens, NY roots. If I Had a Lifeline is a sign of even bigger things to come from Navy the General, it won’t be long before he makes a perpetual mark on the NY hip-hop map.

If I Had a Lifeline is now available to stream on Spotify; for more ways to listen, follow this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast