tue 24/06/2025

hip hop

theartsdesk Q&A: Sally Anne Gross and Dr George Musgrave, authors of 'Can Music Make You Sick?'

Today is World Mental Health Day and of course that means an awful lot of hugs and homilies, thoughts and prayers, deep-breathing exercises and it’s-good-to-talk platitudes from people speaking from positions of immense privilege – ranging from the...

Read more...

Album: Glass Animals - Dreamland

It’s been a hell of a four years for Glass Animals since their last album How to Be a Human Being, from a well-deserved Mercury nomination to drummer Joe Seaward requiring neurosurgery after a near-fatal bicycle accident. But while Human Being was...

Read more...

theartsdesk on Vinyl 58: Joy Division, Alma, Prince, African Head Charge, Wargirl and much more

Lockdown’s easing and the record shops are opening here and there. So, to help vinyl junkies on their way, here’s 7000 words of reviews, capturing the best of the last couple of months’ releases on plastic. As ever, the sounds go everywhere, from...

Read more...

Glastonbury Festival 2020: Beyoncé, Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E., marijuana and time travel

Coronavirus blah blah blah. Glastonbury cancelled. What to do? Didn’t go to the 2010 festival for reasons too tedious to go into. Suffered the worst FOMO of my life. This is different. There is no Glastonbury. But sitting around at home… we’ve all...

Read more...

Hamilton, Disney+ review - puts us all in the room where it happened

The movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights was meant to hit cinemas this summer, but, in response to Covid-19, has been put back to 2021. Instead, we get the early release on Disney+ of Miranda’s Hamilton – filmed, NT Live style,...

Read more...

On the Record review - #MeToo turns its lens to the music industry, gives the mic to women of colour

On the Record, the latest documentary from Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering (acclaimed directors of The Hunting Ground), dives into the sexual misconduct allegations against music mogul Russell Simmons, the so-called ‘Godfather of Hip Hop.’ It...

Read more...

New Music Lockdown 12: Glastonbury Festival Special

This morning at 9.00 AM would be when Worthy Farm opened its gates to the hedonistic hordes. The weather is scorchio and Glastonbury 50 would have been such a party. Instead, that will all be Glastonbury 2021. So right now, those who love their...

Read more...

Album: [MONRHEA] - her[ART]

The debut album from one woman outfit [MONRHEA] shows off the seriously impolite electronica that’s blossoming in East Africa. Electronic sounds from Africa are over-represented in Europe by jolly pop and elegantly faceless house music, but there’s...

Read more...

New Music Lockdown 10: Download Festival, Isle of Wight Festival, Gorillaz and a 48 Hour EDM Rave

With festival season upon us but rendered null and void by COVID-19, green field events are looking for ways to present themselves and, this week, in different ways, a couple are doing just that. Also there’s new material from Gorillaz and a virtual...

Read more...

The Songs of Coronavirus and Lockdown Life

At the start of March an obscure alt-metal outfit called Cegvera released a concept album titled The Sixth Glare. The physical album featured the headline “DISEASE” alongside a photograph of a woman in a protective facemask, and the sleeve notes...

Read more...

Album: Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes - What Kinda Music

We can all do with a dopamine hit right now, given the current lockdown, and those feel-good hormones kick in the instant you hear Yussef Dayes’ tight backbeat on the opening title track of What Kinda Music. A collaboration between drummer and...

Read more...

Album: The Weeknd - After Hours

Let’s talk about “Blinding Lights”. What a sleek single, like an escapee from the acclaimed soundtrack to the film Drive, a polished riff on mid-Eighties synth-pop, ripe for 21st century dancefloors, one of the songs of the year so far, all topped...

Read more...
Subscribe to hip hop