Category: Features
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GoldLink: Get Familiar
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…
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Ibn Inglor: King of the Lost Children
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…
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Bipolar Sunshine’s Solo Ascent
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…
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Sam Smith: Get Familiar
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…
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Missed Calls, Guilt & Goodbyes #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…
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Music My Medicine, Yoga My Therapy #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…
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Sisqo talks Dru Hill’s conception and self-titled debut album #ReturnToTheClassics
Signed as a new act to Island Records back in 1996, Dru Hill were a young and talented vocal foursome with ties to gospel music who pretty much became an international success story overnight. Whether it was their authentic, honest musical delivery or their individuality as far as their image went, the boys from Baltimore…
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Looking For Myself: Jared Evan talks industry politics, discovering Hip-Hop, Boom Bap & Blues
“I’m a classic rock kid that fell in love with Hip-Hop.” There was a time that Jared Evan was considered a high priority artist by Jimmy Iovine, signed to Interscope Records via Polow Da Don’s Zone 4 imprint in 2009. After a mountain of money was poured into his development, some moderate success, a mixtape,…
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My Mother, by L. Michael Gipson #OKNotToBeOK
On January 16, 2013 my mother committed suicide. She was 55 years old, just two months shy of her 56th birthday. The suicide was her second attempt in three months following an eleven-month illness that several physicians and specialists failed to correctly diagnosis until eight weeks before her more successful suicide. While her physical illness…
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Chinua Achebe was my hero. | Tribute
Chinua Achebe was my hero. As a second generation Nigerian immigrant growing up in England, role models who I could genuinely identify with were few and far between – especially in the 1980s, when it was still a big deal to see a black face on TV. So much so that we’d receive phone calls…