As made clear by the recent HBO documentary On the Record, chronicling hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and his alleged sexual misconduct, hip-hop in America has denigrated women for decades. The fact that, in 2017, Cardi B was the first woman rapper to top the Billboard Hot 100 with a solo song since Lauryn Hill back […]

Photography courtesy of Victor Victor Worldwide Today marks the release of Pop Smoke’s posthumous debut album. The notion of having an album that is both a debut and posthumous is a chilling thought in itself. Despite having not been in the music industry for even a year, Pop Smoke’s EPs Meet The Woo & Meet […]

Roughly 200,000 people are likely feeling bittersweet about the weather right now. While the blessing of the recent heatwave in the UK has seemed to collectively raise spirits slightly, there remains a dark cloud looming above: this would have been Glastonbury Festival weekend. 2020 would’ve marked the 50th anniversary of a music festival, with icon […]

Photography via Noname/Instagram The name everyone is talking about: Noname. Having called out male rappers in a now-deleted tweet from back in May that read: “Poor black folks all over the country are putting their bodies on the line in protest for our collective safety and y’all favorite top-selling rappers not even willing to put […]

When thinking about the music industry this week one theme struck me: reflection. Whereas other weeks have stood out in terms of Twitter feuds or cancel culture, this week felt both thoughtful and proactive. With the trauma of recent events, the music industry was quieter, allowing time for both grief and education. During this period, […]

This week the music industry led Black Out Tuesday, a day to pause and self-educate on systemic racism and racial injustice. Whether the day was successful or not, I can’t say. It became a talking point worldwide and heightened visibility for the fight against white supremacy, however clogging the #BlackLivesMatter feed meant that all the […]

It’s been a hard week. It’s impossible to reflect on it and not talk about George Floyd. After watching the video footage that led to his death I couldn’t stop crying. If I’m honest I don’t have the words to express how I’m truly feeling. Although it’s good to have video evidence of when atrocities […]

It can be hard to keep up with the rapid pace of events unfolding during lockdown. Though the outside world remains fairly still, with more time on our hands to express the thoughts in our heads, the cultural discourse feels dense and chaotic. But one topic that has managed to cut through the noise is […]

Women of colour are currently having a weird time in the music industry. On the one hand, we’ve dominated the charts, but on the other, we have been analysed, called-out and ridiculed. Doja Cat, Beyoncé, Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj sat at the top two only a couple of weeks ago, a feat that […]

What’s the first thing you do in the morning at the moment? It could be easing out of bed, drowning your sorrows in coffee as you remember the realities of lockdown. But Corinne Bailey Rae’s philosophy is that mornings are filled with possibility, and we can directly harness that through setting the mood for our […]

Today would have been the Eurovision Song Contest’s 63rd iteration. A competition that is perhaps more divisive than marmite. Personally, I hated it for many years. I thought it was long-winded and full of garish cheesy pop, however, my opinion changed slightly in more recent years. In 2014 we saw drag queen Conchita Wurst, often […]

In case you didn’t know it already, we’re in week eight of the coronavirus lockdown in the UK, and with the recent news that Britain has the highest coronavirus death rate in Europe, it’s not looking like we’ll be DLT brunching anytime soon. But people still need an outlet. Something to bring us together and […]