london r&b singer pip millett shares message of healing in the effortless “make me cry”
New from London R&B singer Pip Millett, “Make Me Cry” is a vulnerable and vibrant track about self-love and healing. The song is a gentle, comforting embrace for anyone who has experienced dealing with depression and anxiety.
Deeply personal lyricism is belted out by Millett’s soaring, but controlled vocals, words just vague enough to resonate deep within us all. Stream the effortless, “Make Me Cry” now.
alt rocker tyler cole’s ‘we’re in love & the world is ending’ is the existential masterpiece the world needs
Tyler Cole’s We’re in Love & the World Is Ending is fucking rad. It’s 10 tracks of one of the best songwriters and producers to come up in the last few years stretching his arms and showing what he can do.
The conflict in the title runs through the songs which flip between love ballads and tear-down-the-system ragers. Sometimes over the course of a single track. Usually over the course of a single track. The best of them “The Government Song” and “Blow Up Your TV!” take that conflict to extremes. The world is a fucked up place and it seems to be getting more fucked by the minute, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t beauty in it. It’s an anti-nihilist statement about finding the good in life to find the strength to fight the bad. And it doesn’t hurt that hooks are huge.
“I’m on the verge of blowing up / I’m sick of seeing Donald Trump.”
Some may come for the ballads (“Sidney Poitier” and “Next to Me”) others for the brawlers, but the songs where Cole smashes both into conflict are where the album becomes something special. The audacity of tracks like “Experimental Drugs” and “Bones Part Two” where transcendant strings waft in and out of existential crisis music is like nothing anyone else is doing right now. Look, when a Willough or a Dev Hynes guest spot isn’t even the highlight, you know you’ve got something going on. Don’t sleep on this one.
watch sza’s touching video for ‘broken clocks’
Childhood nostalgia is on the menu of SZA’s latest visuals for ‘Broken Clocks’.
+ SZA will play AFROPUNK Paris 2018!
celebrate worldwide resistance with afropunk mixtape #40 feat. the fever 333, young fathers, dookoom, mélissa laveaux, and more
Resistance is nothing new. We’ve been resisting against white supremacist cis-hetero patriarchy since day one. On our latest Mixtape #40 “The People Resist”, we celebrate resistance worldwide, with artists representing the US, Haiti, South Africa, France, the UK, Germany, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cameroon. This is the sound of a resistance beyond hashtags and symbolic gestures. It is the sound of liberation.
Resistance is survival, not just a hashtag. But if it’s going to be a social media call to political arms, let’s make that fucker count!
‘The People Resist’ is our motto for this year’s AFROPUNK festivals. Paris, New York, ATL, get ready! afropunkfest.com
* Artwork photo by Dennis Manuel
01. Intro
02. THE FEVER 333 – Made An America
03. Shopping – Suddenly Gone
04. NoMBe – Can’t Catch Me
05. Interlude (The People)
06. Young Fathers – Turn
07. Pleasure Venom – Seize
08. KOKOKO! – Tsongos’a
09. Rhea Blek – Teenage Dreams
10. Interlude (The People)
11. Maramza – Uwrongu (ft. Bonj Mpasa)
12. 10LEC6 – Augusta (ft. Dvno)
13. Dookoom – Bloodclart
14. Bad Wolves – Zombie
15. Interlude (The People)
16. Mélissa Laveaux – Nan Fon Bwa
psychedelic funk singer nombe’s debut ‘they might’ve even loved me’ is an eclectic tribute to the women in his life
“I’m Oscar Wilde with with lights and chrome.”
NoMBe is not the sort of artist you can put in a box. Over 17 tracks, the singer-songwriter-producer skips from lo-fi folk to punk rock to Prince-inflected future-funk to chillwave and R&B. He credits They Might’ve Even Loved Me as a tribute to the women in his life (including his godmother, the immortal Chaka Khan), kicking off with the feminist anthem “Man Up.” As the record skips between genres and sounds, NoMBe’s skill with a hook (and some seriously sweet guitar tone) transcends his musical meandering, tying it all together in a way that could easily fall apart in another artist’s hands.
Highlights like the retro rocker “Can’t Catch Me” find NoMBe not just exploring a sound, but making it his own. While the nostalgic trip to a certain late night double feature picture show puts the spotlight on NoMBe’s guitar and voice for a truly heart-melting tribute to a highschool love. The glam-inflected “Signs” boasts one of the records strongest hooks, while “Bad Girls” is so ambitiously off-beat it’s hard not to love. Who knew the world needed some 60’s French pop by way of late 90’s God Lives Underwater with electrofunk vocals? They Might’ve Even Loved Me is electrifying and eclectic; one of those rare records that’s hard to categorize but couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else. Through the highs and lows of love, nostalgia, sex, and regret, NoMBe’s singular voice and effortless charm carries it. Stream it below on SoundCloud.
navigate the madness of love & heartbreak with retro-soul singer danii roundtree’s ‘memoirs’
Brookyn may be snow-bound (again), but down in Atlanta, Danii Roundtree’s making her own heat. The throwback singer’s latest record Memoirs is full of the kind of jazz and blues numbers that immediately turn any room into a smoke filled speakeasy. The record tells the story of a romance gone bad, starting with the seduction and ending with the broken heart. Roundtree and her band tend to be at their best in ballad mode, like the longing “Magic” and the standout heartbroken anthem “Dys – Funk – Shu – Null.” The bouncy and infectious “Crave” meanwhile finds the right balance between the modern and vintage for a cut that’s impossible not to love.
Banner photo by @wreckless.etc
kelela’s dope sims-inspired animated video shows how to dump your toxic boyfriend
“It’s about leaving your ex with the wind in your hair while acknowledging a curiously complex feeling of pain that he has left you for a white woman”, Kelela told Rolling Stone about her new ‘Frontline’ video. She developed the clip’s concept with Mischa Notcutt; animation and visual effects by Claudia Matè.
alt-r&b singer mélat digs deep on her massive collaboration with jansport j ‘move me ii: the present’
The best artistic collaborations are the ones that are bigger than the sum of their parts, where the collaborators don’t just work well together, but bring out the best in each other. That’s definitely the case with alt R&B singer Mélat and producer Jansport J. On their latest collaboration, the unwieldily titled Move Me II: The Present, the two are like raspberries and chocolate. Or french fries and chocolate. Or anything and chocolate. Mélat’s melting soprano swirls around J’s beats, each taking turns pulling focus.
The record is rich in hooks and textures. Whether singing about some late night regrets (“4AM, Call Me I’m Up”), a new boy (“Beautiful Black Boy”), or police violence (“Worries (Revelation 8:3)”), the duo digs deep. Jansport J’s sun-stained soul samples keep Mélat’s soaring voice grounded while giving her room to fly when the song calls for it. Nodding to MC Lyte’s classic “Lyte as a Rock,” the closer “Too Good To Last,” saves the biggest hooks and most inventive beat for last. With a sober eye towards a relationship, Mélat recognizes that the best things may not be meant to last, but that’s no reason not to love it while it’s here.
bold sounds and indelible hooks overflow on st. beauty’s debut ep ‘running to the sun’
You don’t listen to St. Beauty, you immerse yourself. Alex Belle and Isis Valentino’s lush soundscapes and ear-melting melodies drape you in sounds of heartbreak, resilience, and a refusal to let the bullshit of the world drag them down to its depths. “Can’t nobody tell me who I’m gonna be / I’m breaking free / Show love like my momma told me” they sing on the highlight “Colors.” Their debut EP is overflowing with bold sounds and indelible hooks. Songs like “Stone Mountain” showcase their unique talent for music that you can just dissolve into with insightful and introspective lyrics. “Lately I’ve been too hard on myself / blaming my problems on somebody else” they sing in a moment of honesty. It’s fitting that their last track is called “Lucid.” The whole album has the feel of a lucid dream, the washed out sound-scapes blurring everything before evaporating in moments of emotional clarity.
The EP is out now and streaming via Soundcloud.
video premiere: reject conformity with beautiful dance video by soul singer dara carter, “sadderdays”
When you’ve been making music for as long as R&B artist Dara Carter, it becomes more than just ear-pleasing. Having began her musicianship at the tender age of three with classical piano lessons at RPM Studios, Carter went on to perform at the historic Apollo Theater in New York twice at fifteen, and has since performed and studied with musicians such as Phil Davis, Sean Michael Rae, Dan Wilson, Jacob Slichter, Speech of Arrested Development, Julie Dexter, and more.
Also a budding philanthropist who has done extensive work on anti-bullying campaigns and with the local N.A.A.C.P youth chapter, the Atlanta-native seems committed to the idea that music can change the world, and the music video for her debut album’s first single “Sadderdays” tries to do just that.
Carried by the artists angelic voice and a gorgeous dance sequence that tells the introspective story of finding oneself, “Sadderdays” is just what you need to recommit to your mission in a society that does everything it can to knock you off-course.
“The video represents the world today and the people in it,” Carter explained to AFROPUNK. “We are born with a light and many of us initially enjoy our own dance, but through domestication and conformity, we find it more acceptable to fall into step with everyone else, and we kill our own light. This video represents the doom that we face if we do this. We kill our true selves by conforming and being anything but ourselves.”
Check out the powerful video for “Sadderdays” below!