hip hop
High Focus Records showcase, Brighton Festival review - smart hip hop, dodgy soundSaturday, 13 May 2017
The two main commands coming from the stage at this evening's Brighton Festival event are “Everybody jump, jump” and “Put your hands in the air and go side-to-side”. The crowd are mostly under 30 and emanate dancing energy from the moment the doors... Read more... |
CD: Mary J Blige - Strength of a WomanFriday, 28 April 2017
Mary J Blige has a voice that was built to age gracefully. Gutsy, churchy, sometimes rough, it was miles away from the over-trained melismatics of the Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston imitators of the Nineties, or the velvet-toned ingenues that... Read more... |
CD: Gorillaz - HumanzSaturday, 22 April 2017
For some of us Blur were an irritant during the 1990s rather than one of the decade’s premier bands. However, once Gorillaz arrived it was impossible to ignore Damon Albarn’s outrageous talent any longer. His golden touch ensured his cartoon group... Read more... |
CD: AYBEE - The OdysseySaturday, 29 October 2016
Berlin's electronic music world has been traditionally been very white. Sometimes, as with the inward-looking minimal techno of the 2000s, it could feel painfully so. Obviously a city can't really help the nature of its demographic, but monoculture... Read more... |
CD: De La Soul - and the Anonymous NobodyMonday, 22 August 2016
De La Soul are the posterboys for creative longevity in hip hop. While some contemporaries have maintained a presence by relying on “heritage” status while going in ever-decreasing circles musically (hello, Public Enemy), the trio – still in their... Read more... |
CD: Rae Sremmurd - SremmLife 2Wednesday, 10 August 2016
The duo of Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi – aka 21- and 23-year-old Tupelo Mississippi brothers Khalif and Aaquil Brown – are the epitome of everything that is baffling to ageing hip hop fans. Whisked from obscurity as teenagers by superstar producer Mike... Read more... |
CD: The Avalanches - WildflowerThursday, 07 July 2016
The weight of expectation can be a terrible thing to bear. When Since I Left You, The Avalanches’ patchwork party debut, was released in 2000, there was no sense of how long it had taken to make, just a collective intake of breath at the dense... Read more... |
CD: Paper Tiger - Blast OffSaturday, 25 June 2016
Around the turn of the millennium, two producers – the Californian Otis Jackson Jr aka Madlib, and the late James Yancey aka J Dilla from Detroit – started a revolution in hip hop: knocking beat patterns off the musical grid, searching further and... Read more... |
CD: Bugzy Malone - Facing TimeFriday, 27 May 2016
In 2016, grime is facing a new test of its ability to operate on its own terms. At the start of this decade the genre was flirting with major label crossover that resulted in a few great pop records, but all too often diluted its musical impact or... Read more... |
Vinyl, Sky AtlanticTuesday, 16 February 2016
You can almost hear the words ringing out in the dramatic pauses. “We should call it Vinyl. Like, y’know... when you could hold music in your hand... touch it... FEEL it. When it was really WORTH something. The Seventies – that was when music had... Read more... |
CD: Tricky – Tricky Presents Skilled MechanicsThursday, 21 January 2016
Tricky navigates a kind of penumbra, a fertile and ever-renewing source of inspiration in which his mixed-race, gender-fluid self can re-invent itself periodically, while staying true to his roots and his unique self-taught take on the world of... Read more... |
CD: Odd Nosdam - TrishWednesday, 06 January 2016
Originally available on cassette only, Odd Nosdam's Trish has now become the producer and former member of hip-hop pioneers cLOUDDEAD's first release for the Sonic Cathedral label. With six tracks coming in at just under half an hour, it falls... Read more... |
