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McKinley Dixon: Magic, Alive!
New album: Classy, literary, cultured, narrative-rich, experimental, dramatic, dynamic and stylish hip-hop by the Richmond-born, Chicago-based rapper in this follow-up to the acclaimed Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? (2023) in a release exploring the fate of key characters and the idea of what constitutes magic in the turmoil of daily life
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Aesop Rock: Black Hole Superette
New album: The acclaimed Long Island rapper Ian Matthias Bavitz returns with another rich pageant of ingeniously rapid rhymes, ideas, beats and riffs, this one themed around invisible forces that shape our lives and psyches, featuring guests Lupe Fiasco, Armand Hammer, Hanni El Khatib, Open Mike Eagle and Homeboy Sandman
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Little Simz: Lotus
New album: The Mercury prize-winning London rapper and actress Simbiatu Ajikawo brings a powerful, playful as well as personal issues, defiant rage-filled articulate new sixth album, broadening her musical scope with collaborator and producer Miles James with a title inspired by the flower that blooms, despite a harsh environment in mud and swamp
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Chuck D Presents Enemy Radio: Radio Armageddon
New album: The Public Enemy frontman remains as important a voice as ever in a corrupt and troubled world, and this latest release is a tour de force of dynamic, dial-shifting hip-hop delivery, packed with brilliant breaks ‘n’ beats, his commanding, articulate voice, on race, politics, social media and culture, and a wealth of great newer guest rappers
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Emma-Jean Thackray: Weirdo
New album: A remarkable release of experimental p-funk jazz, soul and pop by the British singer and multi-instrumentalist, exploring the ups and downs of her neuro-divergence (autism and ADHD), and playing, writing and producing everything entirely on her own in her south London back-bedroom home studio
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Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs: Death Hilarious
New album: Thunderous Black Sabbathian doom by the wonderfully entertaining, if deafening, Newcastle Upon Tyne heavy rockers with their fifth album, one which captures dark, uncertain times shaped by neoliberism, an exorcism of anxiety by frontman and lyricist Mark Baty, and a guest appearance by Run The Jewels rapper EL-P
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Benefits: Constant Noise
New album: Super-sharp, angry and articulate, this is striking, vivid, social and political spoken word and hip-hop on a backdrop of cinematic electronica, dance and punk by the Middlesbrough duo of Kingsley Hall and Robbie Major – a scything sonic and verbal attack on western ills at home and abroad
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Greentea Peng: Tell Dem It's Sunny
New album: South-east London’s Aria Wells returns her second album after 2021’s Man Made with a stylish, dark, smoky fusion of trip-hop, hip-hop, reggae, neo-soul, R’n’B, and indie rock, with a variety of timbres and themes, but overall one of self-renewal and change
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clipping.: Dead Channel Sky
New album: Breathlessly brilliant warp-speed hip-hop with a cyberpunk, electronica and house music soundtrack by the trio fronted by rapper and actor Daveed Diggs, set in a sci-fi dystopian universe of multiple characters and stories
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Antony Szmierek: Service Station At The End Of The Universe
New album: Named after Douglas Adams’ satirical sci-fi Restaurant novel, the likeable Manchester spoken word poet’s debut LP is an entertaining, playful, richly observational mix of Streetsy stream-of-consciousness stories inspired by his home city through the classic sounds of 90s dance music and indie
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Bartees Strange: Horror
New album: A diversely eclectic, genre-hopping, powerfully emotional LP of soul, funk, hip-hop, rock, indie, country, house and pop by the Washington DC-based artist, produced by Jack Antonoff, with songs facing fears as a young young, queer, black person in rural America, and inspired by the likes of Parliament Funkadelic, Fleetwood Mac, Teddy Pendergrass, and Neil Young
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John Glacier: Like A Ribbon
New album: The Hackney, east London producer-vocalist and model, who presents a persona as evasive, oddball, deliberately obfuscating “20,000-year old” “alien”, releases an esoteric, at times beguiling debut of offbeat trip-hop, filled with talking, stream-of-consciousness vocals mixed variously with guitar, assorted samples and electronica, also co-produced by Kwes Darko and Flume
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The second part of our favourite albums of 2024
Favourite albums of 2024: Welcome to The Song Bar’s favourite albums of 2024 Part 2. Part 1 can be found here. There’s no such thing as ‘best of’ and everything is subjective, but please dig into this rich seam of originality and quality, and even suggest more of your own
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Doechii: Alligator Bites Never Heal
Mixtape review: Originally released in August, and more recently as a sample-rich, funk-jazz-sourced Flipout label edit version, this third Mixtape by the American rapper Jaylah Ji'mya Hickmon is fabulously feisty, filthy and packed with clever, witty wordplay
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Tyler, the Creator: Chromakopia
New album: American rapper and producer Tyler Okonma’s eighth LP is an eclectic, electric, eccentric creation featuring his oddball masked persona, and addresses subjects such as fame, getting old, and with several songs featuring his mother Bonita Smith
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OneDay: Formula OneDa
New album: The debut LP by the Mancunian rapper and poet with a Nigerian heritage is a punchy, powerful release fuelled by female empowerment, mixing hip-hop, drum’n’bass, afro-trap, and afrobeats, heralding one of the most charismatic British hip-hop artists since Little Simz
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Killer Mike: Michael & the Mighty Midnight Revival - Songs for Sinners and Saints
Lava La Rue’s Starface
New album: A brilliantly clever, rich, eclectic concept album and debut LP by the West London multi-media artist, fusing indie-pop, funk, hip-hop and glam rock, and themed around the character of a gender neutral alien who visits Earth to explore its self-destructivity only to get mixed up in it
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Berwyn: Who Am I
New album: A candid, uncompromising, starkly personal and powerful rap-folk-R&B LP by the Trinidad-born 28-year-old east Londoner Berwyn Du Bois, who among other emotions, captures his experiences of Britain’s hostile environment immigration policy since arriving in the UK aged 9 in 2005
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Lupe Fiasco: Samurai
New album: A fluid, nimble, articulate playfully smooth ninth short, snappy LP by the American rapper and record producer with a title inspired by the late Amy Winehouse comparing rap battles to Samurai word weapons in a meta release about the joy of his genre
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