hip hop
Best Albums of 2018Wednesday, 31 October 2018![]() Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why. Baxter Dury, Etienne de Crécy and Delilah Holliday - B.E.D. ★★★★★ A small... Read more... |
CD: Ex Mykah - 16, 17Wednesday, 24 October 2018![]() Ex Mykah is a multi-instrumentalist and producer on the LA music scene who’s worked with the names such as Mark Ronson and Miike Snow. His own debut album sounds very far from either of those. Instead it comes from the warped, alt-hip hop end of the... Read more... |
CD: Neneh Cherry - Broken PoliticsSaturday, 13 October 2018![]() Collaboration clearly suits Neneh Cherry. From co-writing with husband Cameron McVey, to projects with Youssou N’Dour, her band cirKus, The Thing and RocketNumberNine, the give-and-take of partnership has produced some stunning work that has always... Read more... |
CD: Tom Morello – The Atlas UndergroundMonday, 08 October 2018![]() Tom Morello is an angry man – and he has a lot to be angry about in these "interesting times". From the righteous rap, metal and rock of Rage Against the Machine and supergroup Audioslave to folk protest songs in the guise of The Nightwatchman (and... Read more... |
CD: Ariana Grande - SweetenerSaturday, 18 August 2018![]() This may be tempting fate, and minutes after publication of this she'll probably be arrested for stabbing a dog or something, but Ariana Grande seems like an abnormally benevolent presence in the superstar stratosphere. Even leaving aside her... Read more... |
h 100 Awards: Music - an impressive range of qualityTuesday, 07 August 2018![]() One of the banes of music culture is over-categorisation. It always has been. The statement that there are only two types of music, good and bad, has been apocryphally attributed to a wide range of figureheads – most especially Louis Armstrong – but... Read more... |
CD: Death Grips - Year of the SnitchMonday, 06 August 2018![]() Death Grips are a self-proclaimed “conceptual art exhibition anchored by sound and vision” who are forever threatening to split up, but don’t let that put you off. Year of the Snitch, their sixth album in as many years, is an experimental hip hop... Read more... |
CD: Iggy Azalea - Survive the SummerSaturday, 04 August 2018![]() In basic creative terms of the ingredients that make it up, this is not a bad record. Hip hop production is in extraordinary period right now, and the six tracks on this EP have the best production that money can buy: woozy, narcotic, digitally... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Camp Bestival 2018 - from Astley to apocalypseWednesday, 01 August 2018![]() Gusting. It’s not a word I’ve ever given much thought. You hear it on weather forecasts but I’m not a farmer of a fisherman so when they say it’ll be windy “with possible gusting speeds of up to 45 miles per hour” my brain doesn’t really register... Read more... |
CD: Drake - ScorpionMonday, 16 July 2018![]() This is Drake’s account of his astrological sign, the only one to be represented in multiple forms: an eagle and phoenix as well as the poisonous creepy-crawlie. (At an unwieldy 25 songs, on a kind-of double album, divided into two kind-of halves,... Read more... |
CD: Big Narstie - BDL BipolarThursday, 05 July 2018![]() The Bass Defence League campaigns for mental health. As with everything Big Narstie does, there are serious points in this release wedged next to the broadest comedy, and it’s no coincidence, as we learn from the vivid parody of “BDL Protest” intro... Read more... |
CD: Gorillaz - The Now NowWednesday, 27 June 2018![]() It’s hard to know who to write about when reviewing a new Gorillaz release. According to the official line, the band have shorn their usual guests to focus on the core creative team: vocalist 2D, drummer Russell, guitarist Noodle, and new bassist... Read more... |
