BE is the album in which BTS's sound crosses over to cement the type of legacy they're building – one that started in youth and is very proudly Korean, but that makes sense for any age or place.
David Menconi's Step It Up is an absorbing love letter to the artists, scenes, and sounds of North Carolina's contributions to American popular music.
Mysterious electrosoul ensemble SAULT's UNTITLED (Black Is) is a stellar, uplifting record informed by timeless struggle, solidarity, and pride.
A classically trained jazz pianist who spent five years with the Miles Davis Quintet, Herbie Hancock is also a practising Buddhist whose ideas about transcending the body are realized in his funky cyborg "Rockit" video.
Ill Scholars MC Mattic and Johnny Madwreck, among hip-hop's newest (though seasoned) progenies, offer an explosive debut album full of heavy, jazz-laden hip-hop.
Clipping's latest album, Visions of Bodies Being Burned, is a terrifying, razor-sharp sequel to their previous ode to the horror film genre.
When you feel bombarded with overpriced consumerism disguised as love, here are ten albums that look at love's hangover.
What It Is, the new album from multi-instrumentalist, producer, and Quantic collaborator Sly5thAve, represents a triumph of musicianship over genre conventions.
Unlikely purveyors of comfort music, Public Enemy offer a balm for an ominous future on What You Gonna Do When the Grid Goes Down?.
West London producer WheelUP reached across the pond to Brint Story to bring some rapid-fire American hip-hop to his broken beat revival on "Stay For Long".
Neo-soul singer Otis Junior teams with fellow Kentuckian Dr. Dundiff and his hip-hop beats for the silky, groovy "When It's Sweet".
Detroit-based electronic/industrial outfit, Konqistador team with Toronto hip-hopper HanHan for "Visaya", a song that blends darkwave and rap into an incendiary combination.
Jyoti's Mama, You Can Bet! is a revelation -- of time, of rhythm, of sound. It takes the free-ranging jazz sensibilities of Georgia Anne Muldrow's previous outings under the Jyoti moniker and gives them a next-level boost.
A sultry, locomotive shuffle of hip-hop and hot blue funk, Shabazz Palaces' "Bad Bitch Walking" features Ishmael Butler as a susurrating lover whose languid gaze of a woman is slowly supplanted by the erotic ellipses of female motion.
None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive finds Mike Skinner, aka the Streets, staring at his phone and ignoring what made him interesting all along.
As the go-to producer for everyone from Lizzo to Twenty-One Pilots, Ricky Reed is at the top of his game. Discussing his new solo venture, The Room, the hitmaker opens up about his inspirations, collaborators, and hopes for a better future.
Beyond NWA and Public Enemy: rappers have been sounding the alarm about police brutality since the birth of hip-hop.
Whipped Cream's debut is a perfect tonic to all the bottled-up rage and pent-up energy many of us are feeling this year while reminding our bodies of the dancefloors to which we will one day return.
Electro/hip-hop producer, Gromo teams with pop/R&B singer Rhea Raj for a beat-filled, Latin- and Indian-influenced electrosoul stunner, the winning "Slowly".
It's easy to depict the song's all English lyrics and music video tribute to Western pop culture icons as searching for Western validation, but "Dynamite" hints mostly at the type of semiotic disruption that BTS has been notable for.
With the release of Shabazz Palaces' The Don of Diamond Dreams, producer-rapper Ishmael Butler envisions yet another lunar world of sound disturbed by his anxieties and desires.
On Marlowe 2, L'Orange finds an inventive range, interleaving the hip-hop with textures that bring his landscapes into tuneful definition; Solemn Brigham, brings his deft skills as one of hip-hop's brightest poets.
In Jamila Woods' latest single "SULA (Paperback)", Toni Morrison and her 1973 novel of the same name are not static literary phenomena. They are an artist and artwork as galvanizing and alive as Woods herself.
On his latest work,The Sun, rapper Raashan Ahmad brings his irrepressible charisma to this set of Afrobeat-influenced hip-hop.
MaestroAeks' Sapodigo is a collection of blunted hip-hop tunes, sometimes nudging a fulsome boom-bap and other times trading on laid-back, mellow grooves.
Beyoncé's Black Is King's reliance on Afrofuturism recuperates the film from Disney's clutches while reclaiming Black excellence.
The idea that a female rap project is a failure for being one-note -- especially when that note is confident and sexy -- ruins what a project like Flo Milli's Ho, Why Is You Here? has to offer: fun in its purest form.
Fat Tony proves a bright, young artist making waves amongst the new generation of hip-hop upstarts.
Alice Ivy walks a fine line between chillwave cool and Big Beat freakouts, and her 2018 debut record was an electropop wonder. Now, in the middle of a pandemic, she tries to keep the good vibes going with a new record decked out in endless collaborations.
1991's best hip-hop songs lean more towards beats production than the era's increasingly popular gangsta rap genre.
Beats producer Mux Mool returns with Skulltaste II, ten years after the first and delivers the banging new single "Latest Sulk" as his statement of intent.
On the instrumental version of last year's Flamagra, Flying Lotus makes conspicuous variety feel coherent and ordered.
It was during the period between the Rodney King beating and subsequent court verdict that Ice Cube cut Death Certificate, a chilling glimpse into the anger and frustration South Central Los Angelinos were feeling.
The brilliant London trio Benin City return with the hard-hitting new track "Hostiles" that articulates what it means to be Black in the 21st century.
Run the Jewels have always had a taste for action-movie hyperbole, but as they've powered through their careers, the lines between slapstick and real have almost ceased to exist.
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