Video and Audio: Can't write if you can't relate
"Now what's the point in keep on having kids if she just gone be raising them? That's just pure laziness"
Yahritza y Su Esencia: “Soy el Único”
Baseball-capped mid-teen, accompanied by her 12-string and bajoloche-playing brothers, belts about the love-gone-bad of slightly younger teenagers, except unlike Taylor who cribbed from Shakespeare, she’s cribbing from TikTok. Punk!
Konke, Musa Keys, Nkulee501, Skroef28, Chley: “Kancane”
With all of mainline amapiano sounding basically the same even to me, it can be hard to pinpoint what makes a song a hit. Here it’s easy: the percussion is a little busier than usual, Chley singing with rapper-like rhythms, and the schicky-chicky-chickies.
Armani White: “Billie Eilish”
Novelty gangsta rap smash of the year identifies commonalities in dress sense between women trying to make men not notice them and men trying to make other men not notice their handguns. The cultural exchange in the video is richer.
Summer Walker: “4th Baby Mama”
The one song on Still Over It that helps me understand why she’s become one of the three or four biggest women in R&B over the last year and a bit. “I wanna start with your mama, she should’ve whooped your ass” is just the first épée thrust that leaves London’s blood on da tracks.
Kottarashky & the Rain Dogs: “Drunken Fish”
Trumpet and sax and a shouty guy lurch wordlessly over the slo-mo drums like a drunken… person, silly, fish don’t get drunk.
Dry Cleaning: “Gary Ashby”
Didn’t expect them to become a “but there’s one song on the album that shows they’ve still got it” band so quickly, and really didn’t expect that one song to be about something. If a stumpy-legged tortoise doesn’t activate your suppressed melodic side, what would?
Big Boogie: “Pop Out”
A rarity in 2022: street rap that’s genuinely weird, with airhorns and a growly flow and occasional purring and slurping like a tomcat.
KDDO, Cassper Nyovest: “eWallet”
Oh shit, there’s been a movement called “Afropiano” around for two years already? Why couldn’t I have picked a continent with an easier genre tree to follow?
Brent Faiyaz: “All Mine”
Suddenly a star after hanging around for years, Faiyaz has a classic loverman voice: smooth and slippery as he passes in and out of falsetto. If “you come here, I’ll knock your p*ssy out the damn frame” is what the kids consider romantic these days, that’s up to them.
Jeffrey Lewis: “What I Love Most in England (Is the Food!)”
Well it’s not the football innit. Hoping to visit Brexitland next summer so feel free to send in tips for gastro- and not-so-gastro pubs.
Sonja: “Fuck, Then Die”
“I just wanna fuck all day and night/Nuclear warhead ready to strike.” Who ever said metal lyrics aren’t relatable?