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26 Mar

Posted at 17:56h in Features, Get Familiar, Music
Born in D.C, raised in Maryland and now living in VA, rapper GoldLink entered the hip-hop climate last year awarding us a handful of experimental tracks that left most of us somewhere between outer space and Ginuwine. GoldLink calls this “Futuristic Ass Bounce” or “Future Bounce” for the more conservative among us, although ‘conservative’ isn’t quite in his vocabulary.

06 Jan

Posted at 19:11h in Features, Interviews, Music
Ibn Inglor doesn't live here in the present. There's a place in the distant future where sunlight has vanished leaving only neon lights, decaying buildings and apocalyptic soundscapes. This is where Ibn Inglor lives. Over the past year the Chicago emcee has been able to paint this dynamic, ominous picture with two highly-acclaimed pieces in the form of GawdsSpeed and New Wave and as we enter 2014, Ibn's rise to relevance may not be that far away in the future as first thought. Interested in the unique persona Inglor has crafted and music that could quite easily feature as a soundtrack for a possible Spike Lee Sci-fi horror, Dave Reid set out to find out what the Chicago artist is all about. From Akira to obnoxious bloggers to a project that almost never happened, Ibn Inglor needs to be heard and the time is now.

01 Jan

Posted at 19:20h in Features, Interviews, Music
Cold, wet and dreary; a typical winter's night backdrop was apt for our interview with Manchester's rising starlet Bipolar Sunshine. Emerging from the 2012 split of Kid British, Adio Marchant has moved from strength to strength with his modest yield of tracks that transfer you between soaring euphoria and taxi arguments with your girlfriend. Whether it's the dark orchestral optimism of "Fire" or the affable reassurance of "Love More Worry Less," Adio has carved a warm affinity with his work and its listeners, one that has made so many fans over the past year. But where, what and why? Intrigued and allured, Dave Reid decided to find out from the man himself - one of the UK's most legitimate and captivating emerging artists of 2013.

11 Nov

Posted at 15:55h in Features, Get Familiar, Music
You've probably heard of Sam Smith by now. This 21-year-old British singer's name has been on everyone's lips of late: the no-brainer of new music; President-elect for pop superstardom in 2014.  You might've heard his star-making turns on Naughty Boy's "La La La" and Disclosure's "Latch" - the former remains one of the biggest selling singles of the last year whilst the latter is perhaps the best 'dance' song of the last ten. He can count Maxwell as one of his biggest fans, after the soul music titan spent the entire summer gushing about the Brit to his millions of fans online, and he's sold out shows in New York and LA; all without an album or even a proper single release to his name.

01 Oct

Posted at 21:50h in Features, Health, OKNotToBeOK
It was the last Bank holiday in May, a Monday morning, 8am, and I received a text from one of my closest friends asking if it was okay to call. I got that sinking feeling. Firstly, because close friends don't ask permission to call. Well, not mine anyway - they wake my ass up at all hours for things ranging from nail varnish colours (anyone who knows me knows how ridiculous this is), to juice recipes, needing my AA cover to get towed home or just to say hi. My first thought - are the kids ok? My second - is she? My third - what the fuck's wrong! I don't recall the beginning of the conversation, or if there were any pleasantries or formalities. I don't know if she heard the panic in my voice, that I always try to play down, and is often mistaken for nonchalance, when I really do care. I just remember the softly spoken voice of a usually cheeky and often loud friend saying, "David passed away."

27 Sep

Posted at 06:55h in Features, Health, OKNotToBeOK
Mental health issues were never unusual to me. In fact, they were pretty normal and still are. When I was seven or eight my cousin attempted suicide and I walked in on her crushing pills into the bathroom carpet. I didn’t know exactly what was happening but I alerted my parents by saying she was "crushing chalk." I never saw my laid-back dad move out of that bed and into the bathroom quicker in my life.

25 Sep

Posted at 08:00h in Interviews, Music
The majority of us were introduced to Naughty Boy's sounds a few years before we ever caught a glimpse of him. Having taught himself to make music from the shed in his parents’ garden on a Watford estate, the British producer and songwriter, real name Shahid Khan, began furnishing homegrown rappers with beats - Bashy, Devlin and Tinie Tempah among them - before connecting with a then little-known Scottish singer, Emeli Sandé. Their chance meeting led to an engaging musical partnership that resulted in him producing and co-writing all tracks, bar five, on her multi-platinum selling debut Our Version Of Events, which became the UK’s best-selling album of 2012. 18 months on and Naughty Boy’s own album, Hotel Cabana, debuted at number two this summer, tugging Khan to the forefront. On a mission to delve into the character of the man behind the hits, SoulCulture sat down with Naughty Boy over a tasty curry in Covent Garden to discuss developing his craft, learning from Emeli Sandé, avoiding the industry, growth of the UK music scene and adjusting to prominence.