hip hop
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... |
CD: Public Enemy – Man Plans God LaughsSaturday, 15 August 2015
Billed as the hardest hitting Public Enemy album for years, Man Plans God Laughs has a lot to live up to; as far as sonic sledghammers go PE have more than their fair share. However, with lone Bomb Squad member Gary G-Wiz at the controls and the... Read more... |
CD: Jill Scott - WomanSunday, 02 August 2015
Jill Scott albums should, in theory, be a bit of a chore. Everything about them, this one included, is like listening to a life coach: positive affirmations, exhortations to self-care, expressions of gratitude to the universe, homely snippets of... Read more... |
The Story of Funk: One Nation Under a Groove, BBC FourSaturday, 06 December 2014
There is a tradition in oral storytelling of individual embellishments and flourishes, of one tale taking many forms – the more it is told, the finer the detail. Characters are added and the narrative extended. In this way, stories stand up to near... Read more... |
