hip hop
theartsdesk on Vinyl 69: Andrew Weatherall, Courtney Barnett, Wings, Los Bitchos, Popol Vuh and moreSaturday, 05 March 2022
As the year starts to rev up, theartsdesk on Vinyl returns with over 7000 words on new music on plastic, a smörgåsbord of the kind you will find nowhere else. This month we also have a competition for the dance music lovers among you, a chance to... Read more... |
Album: Lady London - Lady Like: The Boss TapeWednesday, 19 January 2022
Virtual “mixtapes” are not proper albums. Their purpose is often to whet the appetite. Nowhere is this more so than in US hip hop and right now Lady London’s new teaser is much-vaunted.Off the back of a couple of hot tunes that woke her peers to her... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2021: Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be IntrovertThursday, 30 December 2021
It was two female artists who mainly soundtracked 2021 for me. And they couldn’t be more different. Although Off Off One by Kate Stables (aka This is the Kit) was recorded just before Covid changed everything, there are some ominous mentions in the... Read more... |
Yungblud, Barrowland, Glasgow review - pop chameleon gives the kids something to shout aboutFriday, 10 December 2021
According to local press, Yungblud’s fans had been queuing up outside the Barrowland throughout the day before each gig in his two-night Glasgow stint. If that was one indication of the reverence his following hold him in, another came early in this... Read more... |
Album: DJ Harrison - Tales From the Old DominionThursday, 02 December 2021
The Californian label Stones Throw has long specialised in inseparably folding together the most profound and most wilfully foolish Black American music. And that is truer than ever on these 17 tracks from Virginian singer / songwriter / producer /... Read more... |
Album: Katy B - Peace and OfferingsSaturday, 30 October 2021
“Flashbacks / driving in your car volume pushed right up to max / all those late nights I’d try to drink them back” These are almost the first words you hear on this record, coming in as South London Afrobeats producer P2J’s bass tones roll in on... Read more... |
Album: Nightmares On Wax - Shout Out! To Freedom...Saturday, 23 October 2021
George Evelyn is one of British music’s more interesting characters. With equal parts Yorkshire bluntness, hip hop swagger and cosmic dreams, he has filled Nightmares On Wax’s beat collages and soul grooves with soundsystem heft and endless... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 66: Etta James, BABii, George Harrison, Helloween, Cat Stevens, Gnod and moreMonday, 20 September 2021
As the summer folds away on itself, theartsdesk on Vinyl returns. Beset by backlogs at pressing plants and delayed by COVID, it's finally here, jammed to the gunwales with commentary on a grand cross section of the finest music on plastic. Dive in!... Read more... |
Album: Lil Nas X - MonteroFriday, 17 September 2021
Lil Nas X is good at being a pop star. Like, what could pop culture need more than a young, flamboyant, witty gay rapper from the deep south who can top the US country charts then just when it appeared he might not be able to live up to the success... Read more... |
Album: Drake - Certified Lover BoySunday, 05 September 2021
Certified Lover Boy is not a mixtape, a playlist or a collection of loosies, but an Album. With a capital A. This is a distinction Drake makes when it’s time to get serious, when he wants us to sit up and listen intently. Unfortunately, Drake Albums... Read more... |
Album: Mykki Blanco - Broken Hearts and Beauty SleepFriday, 18 June 2021
Broken Hearts and Beauty Sleep has been five years coming. It’s only a mini-album but is spiced with a range of guests, and offers an array of musical styles, the whole sound ably built with alt-tronic producer FaltyDL. The press release tells us... Read more... |
Album: Scotch Rolex - TEWARIWednesday, 26 May 2021
Ask someone in the early 2000s to predict which cities were going to be influential in electronic music in coming years, and it’s unlikely many would have picked Kampala, Uganda. But here we are. Across African countries, vernacular electronic forms... Read more... |
