It’s been an interesting week for music worldwide and the constant stream of releases remains intact. Doja Cat bags her first #1 position on the Billboard Charts, but Megan Thee Stallion still walks away triumphant in making history alongside her peers. This week’s bundle of sounds vary from sensational sonics from the islands right up to hyphy influences from Nigeria’s Odunsi The Engine. On top of it all, a whole load of soul oozes from the majority of these five selections so go ahead and take your pick.
Stalk Ashley – Open
Island girl Stalk Ashley puts her thoughts out in the open and slugs it out like a sleuth on ‘Open’. Cue in the corny love trope regarding love; the heart will forever want what the heart wants, which, on this particular song, is conveyed through the subtle tropical timbre and raw emotions poured out in soft, velvety tones.
The dreamy production revolves around soothing guitar play and sticky drums accentuated with the crackle of claps. The songstress bounces between a slew of questions and a hardened pitch in which she overflows emotive words like a suited auctioneer. Often times there’s a certain level of vulnerability lovers ought to tap into when handling the matters of the heart. ‘O-P-E-N,’ she spells out, imploring her lover to follow through. It’s with this kind of relatability coupled with a rousing bridge and vivacious chord progressions that seals the deal on this blissful song.
Odunsi – Body Count feat. Gigi Atlantis, Amaarae & Deto Black
The last time Odunsi hooked up with Amaarae, it was on his highly-decorated debut album ‘rare’. ‘Hectic’ marked their first collaborative effort, but on their second-leg match up Amaarae features alongside Gigi Atlantis & debutant Deto Black delivering a club anthem with ‘Body Count’.
Strung together with record scratches, ‘Body Count’ is a lady’s only affair in which the polarising artist Odunsi plays conductor as sole producer (bar the cool ad libs). Gigi Atlantis’ entrancing interpolations gel with the hypnotic keys and clapping rhythm in which Amaarae proceeds to ‘get hyphy.’ The layered synth keys lean towards the latter, but Amaarae’s glossy delivery muster up the spirit of Lil’ Jon. While Deto Black drops her glamorous demands: ‘don’t step if you ain’t got a lambbb (lambo)’, invoking the hustler mentality of a city girl on her savage verse.
Rimon – The Morning
Rimon is bound to make an impact once you press play on this endearing sonic. Turning heads around with enthralling lyricism elevated by soft blown notes which hit like a gust upon impact. ‘The Morning’ is a statement track from Rimon who kicks off the project with a bang.
Rimon is bound to make an impact once you press play on this endearing sonic. Turning heads around with enthralling lyricism elevated by soft blown notes which hit like gusts upon impact. ‘The Morning’ feels like you’re witnessing a live performance, courtesy of the vivid instrumentation composed of vibrating keys and roaring guitar riffs that lean towards Jimi Hendrix’s era. She opens with a gutting question: ‘Do you fuck with me?’ she asks, finishing with an equally risqué verdict ‘Might as well plant a seed.’ ‘The Morning’ throws you into multiple moods which swing from anxiety to brazen moments, to sum it up it’s a modern-day ballad.
Kenny Mason – Firestarter
Kenny Mason was clearly the kid amongst his peers who inhabited a youthful body with an old soul. Possessing the charm of an upcoming talent and the poetic essence of a straightforward wordsmith, the Atlanta-hailing rapper shares a visual for ‘Firestarter’, a film noir scored by a slow-building rock outfit.
‘A stack of money and a pistol make ‘em talk to me different,’ he raps to a guzzling bassline which pulls you down into his dark and dreary reality. Echoing a similar sentiment that favours the man behind the barrel, Mason’s aforementioned line is just one of many subject matters drawn from hood politics. His blunt raps tread on the haphazard texture and drum beats rupturing the production with each stroke. Images stitched together using lines, such as: ‘My patience thinnin’ like bulimia victims,’ are just one of many bars on his album ‘Angelic Hoodrat’ which is currently being hailed up on the internet.
Benjamin A.D – Oxytocin
Benjamin A.D’s penchant for delving into subject matter and cultivating wisdom into the words he packs on audio is therapeutic. Music is an equal exchange between listener and artist who uses it as a cathartic release, ‘Oxytocin’ is a rapper’s conscious bared over minimal melancholia.
Ample with his rap lines, Benjamin A.D’s words take a new form which is gently sung over a sparse production arranged with sonic droplets reverberating and mimicking a leaky faucet . Trust issues are a b*tch and the prequel to sad endings, but as Benjamin A.D states, ‘I know that you’re scared because you think you can’t trust, got a good thing and it’s going past us.’ It’s natural to ruminate on the negative, but not at the expense of a worthwhile opportunity. This one right here is soulful rap without the overt soppy structure curated by producer WAVSDNTDIE.
