Miles into honing his craft and paying his dues, Josh Levi’s full-length debut Hydraulic  is a star-making vehicle for the Houstonian. When he opens the album over cybernated synths, testifying, “This ain’t my first rodeo,” the metaphor extends beyond romance. You can almost glimpse the roads he’s traveled to arrive at this moment in his flexible tenor. By the time cultural tastemaker and everyone’s favorite awkward Black girl, Issa Rae, signed Levi to Raedio (with distributi

In a 1995 review of Daydream , Vibe magazine wrote , “[Mariah Carey's] songs aren’t ones you’d make love to, give birth to, or more important, barbecue to. Hers are songs you’d take a shower to.”  First, I’d like to ask, what are “Emotions”, “Dreamlover”, and “Fantasy”, if not summery cookout jams? And secondly, Here For It All ( and her catalogue throughout the years) are full of anthems and hits you’d fall in love to, breakup to, praise God to, and more importantly, outlast

“I’m not in charge of submissions and I wish “Folded” could’ve gotten submitted for the main categories, but such is life. I’m grateful.”...

Toronto has given us the embattled but undeniable hitmaker Drake, the controversial Daniel Caesar, and perhaps its most underrated gem,...

Kehlani’s “Folded” has already cemented itself as one of the most covered and reimagined R&B tracks of the year — and there’s no question...

Mariah the Scientist’s music is an experiment in self-examination .  The studio is her lab, a space where, over three projects, the former St. John’s biology major has dissected herself and her relationships from every angle. On Hearts Sold Separately , she rises from beneath the harsh glare of surgical lights that once exposed every wound and scar on songs like “Spread Thin” and “Beetlejuice” serving as case studies in emotional vulnerability. Here, she sutures the past and

In Ryan Coogler’s horror thriller Sinners , the lone survivor of a vampire massacre, Preacher Boy, cheats death by lobotomizing a vampire...

Bryson Tiller’s The Vices  dropped during Mercury Retrograde (Friday, August 8th) — you know, that inescapable celebrity of astrology with social media in a chokehold every few months. While the planet appears to reverse its path from Earth, it’s said to disrupt everything from technology to communication, even tempting exes to spin the block. But beyond the memes and malfunctions, astrologers also frame retrograde as a time for reflection — a tug-of-war between indulgence an

Can your romantic history sentence you to imprisonment in the public eye? On “Is It A Crime,” Mariah the Scientist enlists Kali Uchis as...

The packed crowd at LIV in Las Vegas erupted—not for a bass-heavy banger, but as orchestral strings swelled into the winter-tinged soul...

Mariah Carey’s riding a wave of tropical passion on “Sugar Sweet,” the latest single from her upcoming 16th studio album Here For It All...