Hubert Adjei-Kontoh
Pitchfork
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Listen to Owijo’s “BEACH BLONDE”: New Rap Music Today
Owijo - “BEACH BLONDE” Content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Owijo hails from Hawaii, and you can hear it in his music. The oceanic production of “BEACH BLONDE,” a standout track from his recent album BELAC, pounds your eardrums with its stuttering drums and backmasked vocals. While the vastness of this sound feels indebted to Clams Casino, Owijo’s style feels… → Read More
Listen to industry poet’s “BLACK FACE”: New Rap Music Today
industry poet - “BLACK FACE” Content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. industry poet, a Manchester-based musician, makes slowcore hip hop. On “BLACK FACE,” he unhurriedly recites his lines over a ruminative guitar riff swiped from Duster’s “time glitch.” He’ll mix quotidian worries–like looking like his father because of his dreadlocks–with a poetic description of… → Read More
Listen to Lords of the Thrift’s “75 on 610”: New Rap Music Today
Lords of the Thrift - “75 on 610” Content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Lords of the Thrift have a strong, straight-ahead style. The duo (made up of Houston rappers Lord Canti and Lord Mickey) combine laidback rap with wavy G-funk and Southern hip-hop inspired production. They use this laconic aesthetic to unpack the world around them. “75 on 610” is a good… → Read More
Listen to Kofi’s “Baobab”: The Ones
Content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Kofi’s work is often inscrutable–whispered deep in the dark as if he’s trying to excise his innermost demons. “Baobab” is no different. Produced by lxdxp, the beat is precariously built, set up on rickety sub-bass and low-bit rate percussion; the cavernous aura it creates pairs well with Kofi’s strange flow. His voice is low… → Read More
Listen to “GRAVE YARD” by Jon E Cash
This loosie from the UK producer is bass music at its most destructive. → Read More
Listen to Blaq Kush’s “Long Island Acid Jazz”: New Rap Music Today
Blaq Kush - ““Long Island Acid Jazz” Blaq Kush is content to reside in his own corner and watch the rest of the world go by. He has a conspiratorial eye, but he balances paranoia with humor. On “Long Island Acid Jazz,” a recent loosie, he raps over a guitar riff that feels like it was left over from MF DOOM’s Born Like This sessions—it’s heavily distorted and it sounds like it was taken from a… → Read More
Model Home: both feet en th infinite Album Review
Isolating the rhythm at the center of their work and tapping into a new physicality, the Washington, D.C. experimental duo find joy in improvisation and liberation in the body. → Read More
Listen to “Message in a Hammer” by Obongjayar
The Nigerian singer’s latest single is a lacerating protest of state corruption made potent by his powerful voice. → Read More
Listen to Von Miles’ “Time”: The Ones
There’s an art to expressing melancholy without drifting into self-pity, and Von Miles’ “Time” has it. Over Shepps’ deeply downbeat production, the Los Angeles rapper ruminates on the grinding path in front of him, embracing difficulties but not dismissing them. Backed by resonant keys and bass swells, he lights a candle and uses its flame to guide him through the darker recesses of his mind.… → Read More
Space Afrika: Honest Labour Album Review
A genre-spanning collection of cryptic transmissions, interludes, and asides, the Manchester duo’s second album gets at emotion in an oblique fashion, remaking your desires as it plays. → Read More
Listen to “Open the Gates” by Irreversible Entanglements
With atonal horn melodies and rattling percussion, the revolutionary jazz group confronts the obstacles that stand in the way of personal and political growth. → Read More
Listen to BOOMANSANTO!’s “GILGAMESH” [ft. POTHEAD]: The Ones
BOOMANSANTO! - “GILGAMESH” [ft. POTHEAD] Bronx-based rapper BOOMSANTO! (aka BA PACE) raps deliberately. On “GILGAMESH,” the closing song from his new WHATS THERE ??? EP, he lays down his particular words of wisdom (“All I know is that life is just preparation for death”) over Muddy Waves’ leisurely boom-bap production. As horns swell and samples permeate the mix, POTHEAD joins him and steals… → Read More
Listen to Lynx Cane’s “Don’t Mind Me”: The Ones
Lynx Cane - “Don’t Mind Me” On “Don’t Mind Me,” a recent loosie by Lynx Cane, the London rapper sounds like MIKE and Roots Manuva. Like the former, he’s willing to interject murmured vocalizations into his own rhymes, and he shares the latter’s ability to dominate the mic like an MC toasting over a sound system. His shifting styles are mirrored in the production: The first 30 seconds are a… → Read More
Pink Siifu: GUMBO’! Album Review
The genre-defying rapper’s third album pays tribute to the artists who helped shape his sound—and sounds like something else altogether. → Read More
Listen to DOMD’s “IMA BITE HER NECK 2”: The Ones
DOMD - “IMA BITE HER NECK 2” DOMD lives right at the border of the serious and the absurd. “IMA BITE HER NECK 2,” the sequel to the indie-rock sounding “IMA BITE HER NECK,” blurs that line even further. “Welcome to fucking hell vampire gang,” a computerized voice says at the top, before DOMD launches into his sing-song flow. Greafer’s morose trap drums and ambient washes of piano hint at… → Read More
Listen to Kofi’s “THE VIEW”: The Ones
Kofi’s music doesn’t follow any strict template. On “WIMTBTI,” he let the production play for almost a minute before he deigned to speak. His new song “THE VIEW” reverses the structure: He raps for the first minute or so, mutters a bit after that, and then drops out entirely, letting the psychedelic sample loop itself out. Yet Kofi manages to supply all this strangeness with a purpose. Over… → Read More
Listen to Kaya’s “Affair of My Heart”: The Ones
Kaya - “Affair of My Heart” Kaya’s voice is almost a whisper on “Affair of My Heart,” a song about getting your bearings and moving forward on a path of your own. The Brooklyn-based rapper moves deftly from telling off a vain acquaintance (“You ooze like wound for attention/Let your head spin”) to analyzing her own approach to life (“Fall back on my poetry it’s owning me”). Enveloped in a warm… → Read More
Listen to Reaper Mook’s “Plug Language”: The Ones
Reaper Mook - “Plug Language” Reaper Mook carries himself with authority. He doesn’t need to yell to be heard, and he delivers his lines as if they were cold statements of fact. On “Plug Language,” the Long Beach rapper muses over an elegant slice of smooth jazz. “I just smoked a wood that remind me who I was/A nigga with genius in everything he does,” he brags over a horn loop. Where others… → Read More
Listen to “Michi No Eki” (ft. Taigen Kawabe) by Foodman
The Japanese producer’s programmed percussion has a lightness of touch that feels organic. → Read More
Dean Blunt: Black Metal 2 Album Review
The sequel to 2014’s beloved Black Metal is a brief but thrilling project from the mercurial artist, featuring the most approachable music of his career. → Read More