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As in the tattoo: slowthai’s third LP UGLY
New album: The abrasive but exciting Northampton rapper Tyrone Frampton’s third LP is a powerful, heady concoction, containing this time less grime and politics, more punk and post-punk, rock guitars, and focusing on personal issues, with a paradoxical facial tattooed title acronym meaning U Gotta Love Yourself
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The Go! Team: Get Up Sequences Part Two
New album: Ian Parton’s Brighton band return, in their follow-up to 2021’s Part One, with a truly joyous, upbeat and vibrantly colourful, wham-bam wonder tour of worldwide cultural vocals and samples ranging from Benin to Japan, France, India, Texas and Detroit
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Young Fathers’s fourth album, Heavy Heavy
New album: There’s nothing quite like them. Joyous energy and endless invention, the Edinburgh trio’s fourth LP is filled with soulful, emotional vocals, fabulous oddball, dynamic beats and sound textures, and already an album of the year contender
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Santigold: Spirituals
New album: Inspired by African-American folk and gospel, this powerful, feverishly intense, emotional fourth LP released in September by the singer-songwriter brings an electric mix of punk, hip-hop, funk, afrobeat, electro-pop, and reggae wrapped in rage, anxiety and reflection
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From the cover art of Iota by Lous and the Yakuza
New album: After her hard-hitting 2020 trap, pop and Congolese beats debut, Gore, the Belgian-Congolese rapper, singer, model and artist Marie-Pierra Kakoma returns with a dreamy, smooth eclectic mix of rap, pop, and electronica
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Stomzy returns with his most mellow and candid album yet
New album: Smooth, mellow, self-healing, candid, with many nods to his faith, the third album by the south London rapper is far from his edgier grime origins, and particularly mixes soul, R&B and spoken word alongside gospel choir and keyboards
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DJ Yoda: Prom Nite
New album: A clever, inventive fusion of modern and retro , London DJ and producer Duncan Beiny’s new project captures heartbreak 50s American doo-wop song samples with live performers through soul, hip hop, harp, strings, and guest vocals from House Gospel Choir, Lily James, Homeboy Sandman, Jamie Cullum and Beardyman
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Five more fabulous albums by Sault
New albums: An unprecedented five albums landing simultaneously without warning, and with a temporary free download period on the mysterious London collective’s website, producer Inflo (Dean Josiah Cover) and co have again brought untold riches in soul, funk, gospel, jazz, RnB, hip-hop, experimental and contemporary classical
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Cakes Da Killa’s Svengali
New album: Slick, skilful, inventive second full LP, after a slew of EPs and past releases, by the New Jersey LGTBQ+ rapper Rashard Bradshaw, whose album captures a story arc of flirting, sex, relationship and breakup through superbly agile verbal delivery mixed with house and electronica
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Marlowe 3
New album: A third album by the brilliant hip-hop pair packed with intelligent lyrics and killer beats, clever jazz and other samples including of riffs sci-fi film soundtrack clips and voiceovers, rhythm changes and sounds, offering a constant flow of originality and wit
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Loyle Carner’s third album, Hugo
New album: The British rapper returns with one of his best LPs yet, a candid exploration of his own identity, from seeking out his estranged biological father, how that reflects back onto his own son, ADHD, being mixed race and fearing inner-city violence
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Sudan Archives returns with her expansive, innovative second album
New album: The scintillating second album by Ohio’s LA-based multi-instrumentalist and singer Brittney Parks showcases her innovation across hip hop, R&B, electronica, jazz and beyond with looping ingenuity, improvisation, and sharp feminist, dark lyrics about life as a black woman
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Sampa The Great’s second album reaches different heights
New album: A swaggeringly stylish, sharp, soulful, funny, proclamatory new release by rapper and singer Sampa Tembo celebrating her return to her native Zambia, with rebuffs to her previous home Australia and its music industry, and nods to Zamrock, lyrics in the Bantu language, and multiple African and other collaborators
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Cheat Codes by Danger Mouse and Black Thought
New album: A superb collaboration between two hugely influential innovators – producer Brian Burton and rapper and co-founder of The Roots, Tarik Luqmaan Trotter – packed with fabulously sharp hip hop, soul and funk samples and guests, including a lost verse from the much missed MF DOOM
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Tuck in to Pan Amsterdam’s tasty new salad of words, trumpet and beats
New album: Wonderfully entertaining, droll, humorous and articulate new LP by the persona played by Leron Thomas, the Texan New York-based rapper and jazz trumpeter who clever, food thematic hip hop with his chief instrument and beats by friend Damu The Fudgemunk
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Lil Silva: Yesterday Is Heavy
Debut album: Strikingly innovative electronic and funk full debut by Bedford’s Tyrone Jermaine "TJ" Carter, who has been releasing singles and EPs for over a decade, but here includes guests including Sampha, Little Dragon, Ghetts, Serpentwithfeet, BADBADNOTGOOD, and Charlotte Day Wilson
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Wu-Lu’s debut album Loggerhead
Debut album: A strikingly alternative and genre-defying release by the south London producer and multi-instrumentalist Miles Romans-Hopcraft with influences and echoes from grunge to grime, trip hop, electronica to jazz, dark 80s Factory Records era, Tricky to DJ Shadow to Slipknot
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Moonchild Sanelly
New album: Stylish, charismatic, sexy, with a unique mix of South African dance music – gqom, amapiano, hip-hop, jazz and electronica, with a persona somewhere between Eartha Kitt, Nicki Minaj or Doja Cat, the starry, blue-haired Port Elizabeth-born rapper, model and designer’s fabulous second and double LP is all about ‘baddies’ and personal empowerment
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Obongjayar’s debut album
Kendrick Lamar’s double album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers
New album: The Pulitzer Prize-winner’s first album for five years is a double LP magnus opus of mind-bogglingly rapid, candid wordplay, an assortment of jazz, rock, classical and more, with so much to unpack, but further cements his place as hip hop’s leading innovator
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