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Cover from the forthcoming collaborative Keleketla! album
Song of the Day: Embracing the South African musical protest style toyi-toyi borne out of anti-apartheid, this new track fuses dance, jazz, gqom beats, hip hop and Afrobeat featuring Tony Allen alongside collaborators Coldcut, Soundz of the South, DJ Mabheko, Tenderlonious, Afla Sackey and Afrik Bawantu
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Run The Jewels: Killer Mike and El-P
Song of the Day: With the early launch fo of the hip hop duo of Killer Mike and El-P’s fourth album RTJ4, proceeds of which go towards legal support for activists for social change, the final heartfelt track about fear, violence and love
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Cover of Wilma Archer’s album A Western Circular
Song of the Day: Taken from the British producer and multi-instrumentalist’s album, A Western Circular, this wonderfully eclectic fusion of classical and jazz intertwined and MF Doom’s unmistakable rapping, tells a tale of a New York drug dealer
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Sandi Shaw
Song of the Day: To capture the current state of farcical flux and political impasse over Brexit and US government shutdown, a classic written by Lionel Bart for the musical Oliver!, which also became a feminist 60s pop hit for the female star
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Brooklyn’s 3rd Bass from the early 1990s
Song of the Day: After R.E.M.’s The Wrong Child, a more discursive number about teenage problems, ranging from drugs, gangs, sexual abuse, to depression and suicide by one of the finest New York rap outfits from the golden age of early 90s hip hop
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Frankie Smith and friends twirl the rope
Song of the Day: After Malcolm McLaren and echoes of The Boyoyo Boys, another skipping-related number, a 1981 funk hit less about the music, more notable about the first use of "izzle" hip hop stylings
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The single cover of Double Dutch
Song of the Day: From yesterday's song about whooping and clapping by Mahlathini & The Mahotella Queens, a nimble act of skipping – and controversial sampling – by the Sex Pistols impresario from 1983
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When things get out of hand in politics …
Song of the Day: In the heat of farcical parliamentary Brexit manoeuvrings and Trump trampling through the ruins of international relations, here's a clever reimagining of a white-collar high-level meeting if it was a street-gang brawl
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Reggie Watts. A performer of infinite jest.
Song of the Day: Following Childish Gambino's laceration of American history and culture, let's move into loopier acerbic perspective with the comedian, rapper and singer from his 2010 album Why Shit So Crazy?
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Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover in a still from the video by Hiro Murai
Song of the Day: Continuing our ongoing edgy theme, this time on a different plain – a super-sharp, ironic cultural commentary with one of the most talked about videos in years by the US rapper, actor and comedian, aka Donald McKinley Glover Jr.
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Cover of the 12inch version of Juice by Eric B. and Rakim
Song of the Day: After Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five's The Message, another hip-hop classic, varying the topic around the edges of violence, but this track tells the tale of a young man who falls off it
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Get The Message ....
Song of the Day: Next episode on our edgy mood songs is one of the most influential of all time, a brilliant 1982 pioneering hip-hop number that captures the stress and flashpoints over inner city poverty in the Bronx
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Maybe nine can win? Fabulous family band The Sylvers
Song of the Day: After yesterday's Ty Segall/Hot Chocolate cover comparison, more material playing on the topic of who or may not be the winner in a relationship from the brilliant hip hop and jazz producer and the 70s funk and soul family group
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The Goats … old-school political Philly hip hop
Song of the Day: Continuing our loose, four-legged bearded animal theme, a change of pace going back to 1992, and one of the forgotten and much under-rated hip hop bands of the period, a Philadelphia trio
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A Tribe Called Quest's original quartet
Song of the Day: Two superb tracks that span the career one of the genre's most revered groups, from 1991's album The Low End Theory to 2016's We Got It From Here … Thank You 4 Your Service
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De La Soul and co, from 1991's Roller Skating video
Song of the Day: Saturday, it's Saturday! What better way to enjoy the weekend that with the humorous upbeat work of the Long Island hip hop trio, from their second album De La Soul Is Dead (1991) plus and earlier one from '89? Produced by Prince Paul, alongside Dave, Maseo and Posdnuos it features A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip and R&B singer Vinia Mojica
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The Pharcyde. 1992-95 was a golden age for hip hop.
Song of the Day: Two songs from the first half of the 1990s, for many still the golden age of hip hop, exemplified by the innovative south central Los Angeles rappers who also worked with J Dilla
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Danger Doom, aka MF Doom, left, and Danger Mouse. Of course.
Song of the Day: Connections abound with our last two songs in another Danger Mouse collaboration, here with the brilliantly inventive rapper MF Doom from their album of 2005, The Mouse and the Mask
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From the video for Let There Be Horns
Song of the Day: Echoing yesterday's great drum break, let's now celebrate the work of the Ohio multi-instrumentalist and hip-hop artist, who is behind the theme tune to Mad Men, and so much more
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The Transplants
Song of the Day: Following yesterday's Fall number, a track from a very different origin but with its own brand of shouty catchiness, and a superb piano hook. This 2003 release from Tim Armstrong (Rancid), Rob Aston (Death March) and co from their first eponymous album, and bizarrely, was used on a Garnier Fructis TV commercial
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