"Clearing Out My Mind"

Between “Life is Good” and the leak of “Desires” and a suspected full project being leaked on DatPiff early last week. It is almost abundantly clear that Drake and Future are gearing up a release to act as the follow-up to What a Time to be Alive, in the very near future. And although I am eagerly anticipating this project and can’t wait to hear what these two legends have in store, the impending release got me thinking about collaboration albums more broadly. In thinking on this, I came to the conclusion that honestly, less is more. In the last 5 year we’ve seen a lot of artists attempt this collaboration album model to varying degrees of success. And although everything pales in comparison to Kanye West & JAY Z collaborating on the masterpiece that was “Watch the Throne” in 2011, there have been a number of these projects which have reached great heights and produced some great music. Of course, the aforementioned “What a Time to Be Alive” , was an almost instant class...

  In my lifetime I don't remember a time where the UKs scene and its influence has been greater. Stormzy's out here doing press runs with Hot 97 and Charlamange. Mo Gilligan had his Netflix special in the US top 10 for stand-up comedy. And Everyone and their uncle was learning about street life in the UK from Top Boy. Britain's influence in music, and entertainment more generally, has been, and is, growing to astronomical levels. With that however, there becomes a lot of risks and issues that are set to arise which I believe, in the past, and in the future have the potential to hamper British artists and the UK from having its desired impact and influence globally. Thus, with that I mind, I’ve identified a few issues which need be addressed within the UK scene in order to avoid falling into some of the same traps which have derailed the British artists in the past from having an even greater global influence. Firstly, PAY PRODUCERS AND ENGINEERS. I have seen too ma...

Having finished off 2019 recapping the artists and sounds which dictated the previous decade, I wanted to start off 2020 looking forward over the next ten years and predict who I feel is set up to take over this new decade. I took into account a number of factors in considering this, mainly age, output and how versatile I believe the artist can and will be. There are a great number of artist who I think are set for astronomical success over the next ten years. I firmly expect the likes of Da Baby, Roddy Rich, Rapsody, Tierra Whack & Dave to have a huge influence on the state of rap music throughout this decade. However, I’ve singled out YBN Cordae, as the artist who I feel will greatly define rap over the next ten years. In saying this, I do still expect the current big names such as Drake, Travis Scott, Kendrick Lamar and Tory Lanez to continue to have a significant hold upon hip-hop music, especially within the first 5 years of this decade. And if I had any faith tha...

My Favourite Male R&B Albums of the Decade: Okay, one last one for the road. Last week was the women, this week I go through the men. In a very eclectic and wide-ranging decade for R&B as a genre the men were more than did their fair share to push the genre further and further. Same rules as always, 1 album per artist. And again these are purely my favourite albums. #10 Album:                                                 American Teen Artist:                                                  ...

My Favourite Female R&B Albums of the Decade: Following on from last week's list I felt it only right to go back an explore my some of my favourite albums from my second favourite genre R&B. Now since last weeks list was void of any women I wanted to take this time to give credit to the female voices I've been rocking with throughout this decade. Similar to last week, I chose to only allow 1 album per artist. And again similar to last week, this is my favourite albums. I am by no means commenting objectively on which projects are the best. #10 Album:                                     A Seat at the Table Artist:                               ...