If you spent any time in the Northeast this summer, it’s likely that you heard HoodCelebrityy’s “Walking Trophy,” which was a favorite of radio DJs. The track helped this Jamaica-born, New York City-based singer and occasional rapper earn a deal with Epic Records for a reported $600,000, and on Friday, …
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As Blood Orange, Dev Hynes uses the textures and tropes of Quiet Storm soul and New Romantic drama – styles not generally known for great creative depth – as vehicles for political consciousness-raising and channeling avant-garde pop ideas. It’s a slyly potent approach, as he proved on 2016’s identity-meditationFreetown Sound. …
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Over the last two years, this former Artist You Need to Know has been slowly emerging from the shadows while offering up brutally honest snapshots of young black womanhood in the 21st century. Her new EP – the first release since she revealed herself at June’s BET Awards – opens with a …
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Kiley Lotz has a voice like a bell, one that holds on to its strength and resonance even when she’s singing of knotty emotions like those that dominate her second full-length as Petal. Magic Gone opens with the anxious-musician chronicle “Better Than You,” which frames the Scranton-born songwriter’s rock-life zingers …
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David Byrne‘s distinctive vision – a winsomely-skewed clarity – is usually most compelling when trained on scary stuff, be it psycho killers, zealous baptism metaphors, warning signs of things to come, or the sudden strangeness of one’s beautiful house and beautiful wife. Lately, we’ve no shortage of scary stuff, and …
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The L.A. soul explorer’s fourth album creates a space where psych-funk splendor coexists with deep anxiety. It’s not all downers: “Pineapple Skies” punctuates its bubbly synths with speaker-rattling bass hits, as Miguel‘s amped-up vocals make his “everything gonna be all right” exhortations feel like a mantra. But uncertainty creeps in …
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