For a long time, people tried to fit Vince Staples into boxes. In his early days, he was that Californian rapper close to the Odd Future crew; a version of Kendrick Lamar who never received the same mainstream recognition; a wealthy, semi-famous rapper who, like Donald Glover with Atlanta, stages himself in a series where his misadventures become a mirror for broader issues tied to racism, Black experience, and social fracture (The Vince Staples Show).

Over time, however, it has thankfully ... read more

Inferno is a record about contemporary spiritual and cognitive collapse seen through Boards of Canada’s long-standing historical obsessions: memory, time, manipulation, mental apocalypse, American mythology, and esotericism. But far from suffocating in grandiloquence or formal rigidity, the brothers constantly blur the lines, offering on one track pure, unmistakable BoC before completely reinventing themselves on the next, granting themselves the luxury of a dark and uncompromising vision ... read more

In music, if you want to reach people’s hearts, you first have to reach their ears. Countless artists have managed to leave a lasting mark on generations of music lovers in exactly this way. Among them stands the sublime Toni Braxton.

When the present feels uninspiring, it is sometimes worth taking a step back and rediscovering the artists who, like her, knew how to move us so deeply.

To do that, we must return to the context of the time: the “golden” 1990s.

At the ... read more

It is 1987, and a new sound that would soon sweep across America was still only in its infancy.

The ambitious young producer Teddy Riley, barely 20 years old at the time and already sharpening his craft with the group Kids At Work — who had released an album in 1984 — teamed up with Harlem-born singer Keith Sweat, then 26, who had already put out a few singles and was splitting his time between performing in New York nightclubs and working on Wall Street’s commodities market ... read more

From the very first track of his new album, Redstar Wu and the Worldwide Scourge, Genesis Owusu sets the tone. It is militant, political, and full of fury. Against the oligarchs of the world. Against those who plunder Gaza and still sleep peacefully at night. Against the charlatans of the American reactionary right, as well as the culture of disinformation and political decay.
The music mirrors the denunciatory lyrics: fast, intense, driven by extraordinary energy. Redstar Wu and the Worldwide ... read more

Might be my album of the year so far damn this shit’s good!

If you’ve never listened to this album and think you know anything about R&B, then you’re mistaken. We are dealing here with one of the most important albums in the history of music. The production, the vocal arrangements — there is absolutely nothing to criticize or reconsider. This album was also one of the very first I ever listened to, and let me tell you: hearing an album like this at such a young age changes you completely. It deserves to be placed in a museum as ... read more

Nineteen years old, already four years into a recording career, already a television star, and already carrying the particular burden of a debut that had sold four million copies in the United States alone. The expectations surrounding Brandy's second album were the kind that tend to make artists cautious, tentative, inclined to repeat themselves. What makes Never Say Never remarkable is that none of that pressure is audible in the music.

The key decision was Rodney Jerkins. Then still in ... read more

In 1988, New Edition had every reason to fall apart. Bobby Brown had walked out, Ralph Tresvant was weighing his options as a solo artist, and the group's previous album — a collection of fifties covers that nobody had asked for — had left them artistically adrift. The arrival of Johnny Gill, a singer of considerable talent whose solo career had stalled before it truly began, looked on paper like a band papering over its cracks. What followed instead was the finest album of ... read more

There exists a certain kind of greatness that does not seek to impress. The kind that does not announce itself, does not stake its claim, does not perform but simply settles in, slowly, with the quiet certainty of those who know exactly what they are doing and why. House of Music is that kind of album. Understated in its ambition, devastating in its achievement.

To grasp what this record truly represents, you have to understand where these three men come from. Raphael Saadiq, D'wayne ... read more

It’s a fucking classic.

Not just an R&B classic, but above all a classic of ‘90s pop music — and even of pop music as a whole. The Velvet Rope is indeed a thoroughly pop project, perhaps even a work of total pop music. Even though — or perhaps because — it is also an album that is not always an easy listen, and not merely on a sonic level. Janet, as we’ll get to, was going through an incredibly painful period in her life at the time, and her lyrics ... read more

The youngest of the Jackson family always knew how to prove that she could take control of her career without needing her family — and especially without needing her father. In 1986, she made that clear with “Control,” taken from the album of the same name. But with Rhythm Nation 1814, she would raise the bar even higher.

By reuniting with the duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Janet was already working on a new record. Rumors quickly started circulating, including one claiming ... read more

1986 was a pivotal year in many respects. Forever associated in the hearts of indie pop fans with the NME’s legendary C86 cassette, the period was just as important for African American music. Although the following year would see new jack swing fully modernize the North American r&b scene, the revolution was already rumbling beneath the surface in 1986. Artists like Cameo and Janet Jackson were inventing a new kind of digital soul. Word Up! and Control embraced the latest drum ... read more

The early 1990s marked a turning point for r&b. Hip-hop was no longer existing on the sidelines of Black music culture; it was becoming the center of gravity, slowly reshaping the sound, attitude, and image of the genre itself. While many r&b acts still embraced polished suits and romantic innocence, Jodeci arrived like a shockwave. They didn’t look like traditional singers. They looked like the guys standing on the corner outside the club, dressed in combat boots, leather, ... read more

The 1990s were a period of transformation for African American music. Hip-hop was becoming increasingly influential and gradually began blending with other genres. During that time, Jean Norris and Renée Neufville were students at a university in Philadelphia. They performed at a few concerts and sang at weddings, and it was there that Kay Gee, the leader of the rap group Naughty by Nature, discovered the duo Zhané. He produced their first single, “Hey Mr. DJ,” which ... read more

After the immense success of her second album, AALIYAH graduated from high school and slowly began pursuing an acting career with a small role in a crime television series, all while continuing to perform on stage. In 1999, she landed her first major film role alongside Jet Li in Romeo Must Die, a movie for which she also contributed several songs to the soundtrack, including the iconic “Try Again,” produced by TIMBALAND. Her third album took time to arrive as she immediately moved ... read more

Dropped by her record label following the scandal surrounding her marriage to R. Kelly and the world tour promoting her album Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number, singer Aaliyah quickly signed with Atlantic. The young New York artist found herself at a pivotal moment in her career: her uncle and manager first sent her to record a few ultimately unsuccessful projects with P. Diddy before pairing her with producers Jermaine Dupri and Rodney Jerkins. In search of a sound that truly reflected her ... read more

With Aaliyah, everything is a matter of precocity—first her artistic maturity, then her success, and finally her death. On August 25, 2001, the American singer from Detroit died at the age of 22 in a plane crash as she and her team were returning from filming a music video in the Bahamas. What remains is an image, and a discography that began in 1994 with a striking debut album, Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number, one that proves particularly compelling to revisit today. A product of ... read more

There are live albums that document. And there are others that transcend. Erykah Badu's Live belongs, without a shadow of a doubt, to the second category — those recordings that go beyond mere testimony to become, in their own right, a work of art.
Released in November 1997, just months after the explosion of Baduizm, this record captures an artist in a state of absolute grace, at a precise moment in her trajectory: the one where she is no longer a revelation, but not quite a legend ... read more

Erykah Badu is unquestionably an icon of Black American music in the 2000s. Her mesmerizing voice, her intricately conceptual albums, and her singular imagery have made her the absolute reference point of neo-soul. This fifth studio album had been highly anticipated for two years and follows the solid 4th World War installment in the New Amerykah series. While its predecessor leaned toward an almost abstract form of hip hop — notably featuring collaborations with Madlib and Sa-Ra Creative ... read more