In this week’s program: Princess Nokia shares two albums, 2Baba 9th studio album, Brazilian rapper Emicida strikes back and more.
Everything is Beautiful / Everything Sucks
Princess Nokia
Princess Nokia has dropped two albums: Everything Sucks and Everything is Beautiful. The LPs are her first new releases since 2018’s A Girl Cried Red mixtape. Everything Is Beautiful features 12 tracks, including a collaboration with Terrace Martin. Everything Sucks is comprised of 10 tracks with production handled by Chris Lare.
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I THINK I’M GOOD
Kassa Overall
Seattle-raised, Brooklyn-residing Kassa Overall is a jazz musician, emcee, singer, producer, and drummer. He belongs to a rare class of musicians naturally fluent in both jazz performance and hip-hop production. I THINK I’M GOOD is a window into the real life of Overall. He’s confronting his experience with mental illness, which included a manic episode and subsequent hospitalisation when he was a student. Themes of incarceration and claustrophobia weave through the record, but never drown out the feeling of a fragile but vital hope.
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Grey Skies Are Smoke screens (GAS)
Sizz The Truth
We still know very little about this Ghanaian artist, close to the American soundcloud rapper wave. GAS, his second project after The Whole Truth, leaves once again the mystery hanging over this underground rapper, whose music is clearly not in line with the current Ghanaian trend. On a hovering instrumental background that has nothing to envy to American beatmakers, his new 5-track EP is an aerial and vibrant ballad evoking the main elements in the life of an emerging artist in Accra: the motivation to succeed, friendships, girls and smoky parties. An artist to follow whose mantra can be summed up by the last track of the project: Be Yourself.
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Siti’s of Unguja
Siti Muharam
Siti Muharam’s golden timbre has been allowed to soar for the world to hear. Sublimate by Sam Jones’ production and studio overdubs let Siti Muharam’s bright voice ensure the legacy of Swahili romance and music of her Great Grandmother live on. This unique project came from the assistance of Fumba Town Development, a groundbreaking project that is providing sustainable homes to a new generation on Zanzibar built in line with the principles of permaculture.
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AmarElo
Emicida
The Brazilian rap heavyweight returns with AmarElo, his fifth album to date with the same ambition to focus on a positive message of Love, in all its forms, as our common bond. AmarElo includes contributions from a wide range of Brazilian musicians including, Dona Onete and Zeca Pagodinho, and more contemporary artists like Drik Barbosa and Pabllo Vittar. International contributors include the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra and the Afro-French Cuban sisters, Ibeyi
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Warriors
2Baba
Followed by the mention “20 years a king”, the title of 2Baba’s album, formerly 2Face, takes on its full meaning. Warriors because this 9th studio album echoes 20 years of career in the Nigerian Afropop, marked by timeless classics such as African Queen, released in 2004 and still playing at parties and weddings. This comeback after a 5-year break demonstrates above all the singer’s incredible capacity to renew himself musically. Indeed, accompanied by the top of the industry (Wizkid, Tiwa Savage, Burna Boy, Olamide…), 2Baba delivers here a very up-to-date project, carried by singles such as “Oyi” or “Amaka”, already hits for the young West African audiences. In an setting more abundant and competitive than ever, 2Baba is still ready to go to the battlefront 20 years later.
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Live In Paris (1975)
Pharoah Sanders
Live In Paris (1975) was recorded by the Pharoah Sanders Quartet on November 17, 1975, at the Grand Auditorium/Studio 104 of the Maison de la Radio in Paris. The cosmic tenor saxophonist had at his side Danny Mixon on piano and organ, Calvin Hill on double bass and Greg Bandy on drums to play some of his most iconic tracks such as “Love Is Everywhere” and “The Creator Has a Masterplan”. First official release with the full permission and cooperation of the National Audiovisual Institute, Live In Paris (1975) include exclusive liner notes and pictures by Christian Rose on this classic gatefold deluxe edition.
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