In a TikTok last night, British alt-pop singer songwriter PinkPantheress posted a snippet of an unreleased new song. The artist pushes back against comments she’s received about her dance skills in live concert performances. Most of the singer’s concerts have consisted of ‘no choreography, background dancers, or pyrotechnics’, though from this post, she seems to be changing this. She explains in an interview with THE CUT magazine that her lack of theatrics in live performances is due to how she describes herself as an artist: “I can’t perform like a pop artist. I can’t sing like a pop artist. I don’t have the style or the media training to be a pop artist,”. This is apparent from her initial rise to stardom on TikTok where she changed the game for bedroom pop artists.

In her recent TikTok, the artist states, “I had to learn how to dance to beat the no stage presence allegations”, while showcasing her fresh new choreography with soft, precise dance moves that will surely go viral on the app. The sound used also reveals a snippet of a new yet-to-be-named song, though it has a dance beat and soft hyperpop club feel which has left fans anticipating more.

@pinkpantheress i had to learn bow to dance to beat the no stage precense allegatiions and i dont know if jts gonna work tho #newmusic ♬ original sound –

On her YouTube channel, PinkPantheress also posted an Official Mixtape Trailer. In this fun promotional teaser, there are several actors donning her iconic sleek straight haircut and forward fringe. The singer photographs them and a snippet of a song plays, which sounds reminiscent of her hit collaborative single ‘Boy’s a liar Pt. 2′ with Ice Spice.  The version of this that features in her Mixtape Trailer is remixed to have the familiar sound of a 2000’s ringtone, another link to the sound of her new music considering her connection to Y2k aesthetics.

The pop pioneering artist, known for the short length of her songs, with songs such as ‘I must Apologies’, from her album ‘Heaven knows’ being only 1,47 minutes long, releases this Mixtape Trailer of 0.38 minutes. In a TikTok posted by a fan, many have joked in the comments that the trailer will be longer than any of the songs yet to be released.

@journeyseditss OH IM SO SAT #pinkpantheress

CAPRISONGS is my journey back to myself through my amazing collaborators and friends.

CAPRISONGS… it’s bronzer in the sink, alco pop on the side, a cherry lolly, apple juice when ur thirsty, friends in the park, your favourite person, that one sentence somebody said to you that changed everything, a club pre-game, your bestie who is always late but brings the most to the party, meeting a friend at the airport, just togetherness. my world, London, hackney, la, new york, jamaica.

it’s my stubborn caprisun ass telling me to work thru my pain by delivering at work, don’t think just go studio and create.

my saggi moon being the enigmatic temptress craving the club, to dance and to be social and my pisce venus hot mess disastrous heart falling in love all over again but this time with music and with myself”

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A post shared by FKA twigs (@fkatwigs)

The 17 song mixtape features 9 artists including FKA, with global influences and sounds. The 7 tracks featuring artists are “Honda” featuring Coventry rapper Pa Salieu, Tears in the club featuring Canadian superstar The Weekend, “Papi Bones” featuring UK rapper, DJ and songwriter Shy girl, “Which Way” featuring Dystopia an all-female 3 piece band from East London, ”Jealousy” featuring Nigerian alte-artist Rema, “Careless” with Canadian RnB singer Daniel Ceaser, and “Darjeeling” feature the most interesting features Unknown T and Jorja Smith.

FKA Twigs will also have 10 tracks on the project that hse will feature on alone. Fka Twigs is an interesting artist who mixes sounds and genres, as well as being a singer she is also a dancer, producer, songwriter and actress. FKAs features on her new project don’t line out exactly how the project will sound as if she has a mix of sounds from all different pockets of the globe. Her track alongside Te Weekend titled “Tears in the club” has already been released and currently sit on just over 12 million Spotify streams. The last project from fka came in 2019 in the shape of an album titled Magdalene, the singles she has released in 2021 included the track alongside The weekend and two other singles featuring UK drill rappers Central cee for their track for the Kingsman tracklist and “Don’t judge me” featuring Headie One.

FKA Twigs mixtape Caprisongs is set to be released on the 14th of January and is available to preorder here.

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A post shared by SavO (@jsav.cgm)

The pair have been releasing music for nearly 4 years, first appearing alongside fellow west Londoner Digga D under the name 1011. The pair have gone on to build their own personal career as solo artists, but in recent months have paired together to release a number of tracks alongside each other including “Plugged in with Fumez” which currently sits on 2.4 million views.

In 2018, a drill rap group in London were issued with a court order that banned them from making music without police permission. The move was highly unprecedented and saw the group called 1011 banned from mentioning death or injury, and from naming postcodes in a gang context. The five members of the West London group 1011 were Digga D, Sav’o, Horrid1, Mskum and TY. The injunction also meant the group would have to inform police 25 hours before any new drill video was uploaded online and would have to give 48-hour notice of the time and location of any performance. At the time this saw the group’s “Next Up” freestyle being taken down from youtube after amassing over 20 million views, the track stayed on streaming sites with part 1 and part 2 currently sitting on a combined 81 million Spotify streams and featured Digga D, TY and Sav’O.

The siblings have had many legal battles and have both spent time in jail in the last 3 years, which has had a big impact on their music careers. The pair have been consistent, having released 5 tracks together in the last 3 months including a Grm Daily Duppy which was released 4 days ago, and currently sits on just over 400 thousand views.

The west London duo’s mixtape Violent Siblings is set to release on the 14th of January and is available to preorder here.

The sibling Daily Duppy is available to watch here:

The new project was announced on Instagram, captioned “My gift to my hotties 10/29“, “freestyles y’all been asking for plus a few unreleased songs from my archives to hold y’all over for the rest of the year“. In a description of the nature of this release, Megan Thee Stallion replied to a fan on Twitter saying “If it’s over an original beat it will be there”.

Megan Thee Stallion has had a busy year. since dropping her debut album late last year, she has released numerous freestyles on YouTube. Starting with “Southside Forever Freestyle” in February, she, later on, followed it up later that year with two freestyles, “Outta Town” and “Tuned In”, complete with visuals, in the same month. See her most recent freestyle, “Tuned In”, below.

In addition to these recent freestyles, she was recently involved in a collaboration with DJ Snake, Ozuna, and LISA of BLACKPINK, in a long-awaited track titled “SG”. A frenetic mix of different talents, the track mixes between Spanish and English over a high-energy beat. Within 12 hours, the track amassed an impressive 12 million views. Listen to “SG” below.

With her high work rate and, now with “SG”, a truly global appeal, Megan Thee Stallion’s new mixtape is sure to gain traction, especially as many of the freestyles are of a length optimised to TikTok, a platform she owes a significant amount of her success to.

To accompany the release of her mixtape, she is performing twice on the days before and after the project due date, one at the Rolling Loud festival in Queens, NYC, and the other at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA. See her ticket information here.

Pink Pantheress is the latest TikTok sensation to make it big, her track “Just for me” took the online platform by storm with having been used by 2.2 million users on the app, as well as being remixed by West Londons Central Cee on his track “Obsessed with you” which sits at number 4 in the official charts with just over 28 million Spotify stream. The track was also performed by American RnB artists Giveon at his London show as well as at his 1xtra live lounge.

The 20-year-old is currently studying at a University in London and keep it authentic still creating music on Apple’s Garageband.

The artist took to her Instagram to share the cover art with her 551 thousand followers, the cover photography shot by Brent Mckeever shows the singer outside of a house at night with lighting in the background and the singer staring into the distance.

Pink Pantheress set up a website in the layout of  the old social media site myspace to keep  fans updated on her work, there is a current note on the site which read “I’m so excited for you guys to hear my mixtape , i hope it takes you through a pleasant journey, if it doesn’t then may i offer a rose as consolation?”

Her upcoming mixtape is 10 tracks long and features previously released tracks such as “Pain” and her viral hit “Just for me”. The tracklisting for To Hell With It reads as “Pain”, ”I must apologise”, “Last Valentines”, “Passion”, “Just for me”, “Noticed I cried”, “Reason”, “All my friends Know”, “Nineteen” and “Break it off” which is listed as a bonus track.

In the Instagram post announcing the project the singer thanks Mura Masa, Oscar Scheller, 3scphil, Kairos Laferme and Johnny Breakwell for their help in putting the project together.

The caption posted with the album cover is lengthy and reads, “hello everyone ,im releasing a short mixtape (not album), TO HELL WITH IT on the 15th!!! this year has been a madness from me being in a four by four room not being able to produce and singing on top of chopped up instrumentals to working with some of my favorite people for this lickle collection of songs! big love to @the_mura_masa, @oscarscheller, @3scphil @kailaferme @jonnybreakwell for helping me put together my first project !! thank you everyone for making this the best and most fun year of my life, i could shed a wee tear.”

Pink Pantheress debut mixtape is available to preorder here.

The rapper took to his Instagram to share the news with his quarter of a million Instagram followers, with the caption “Trapo the mixtape 10/09/21”.

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The announcement came with little information, aside from the release date the only other information on the tape comes from the cover art where writing on a cd reads “49 mins recorded at thousand8 studios”. The project announcement comes just 2 weeks after the gipsy hill rapper released a random drop on his youtube, the track titled “Music” saw Trap rapping over an m1onthebeat beat that had put a drill twist on the Billie Eilish song “Ocean eyes” and was recorded at Thousand8 studios.

 

 

 

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K trap more recently dropped his new single “Pick and mix” where the talented drill rapper returned to the mask-wearing appearance that he often wore before his reveal in 2019 on his hit “Big mood”. This single was released on the K-Traps youtube channel and sits on 140,000 thousand views just 3 days after its release and the video heavily advertised for the Thousand 8 studios where Traps new mixtape was recorded.

Trapo comes just nine months after the release of K-Traps debut album Street side effects. The project charted at 26th on its debit on the charts and has gained Trap a Grm rated awards nomination for album of the year.

K-Traps new mixtape Trapo is set to drop on the 10th of September.

Watch the video for his new single “Pick and mix” here:

Among the line-up are Fontaines D.C., with a slow, melancholic cover of The Beach Boys’ ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’. The Beach Boys sometimes have that effect where in completely the right mood they’re perfect – otherwise they’re kind of sickening. Not this cover. The last four lines, which tend to just fade into outro in the original, are haunting. You can catch a clip of it here:

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We recorded a version of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by The Beach Boys for @deezer “Inversions”. Listen exclusively on Deezer.

A post shared by Fontaines D.C. (@fontainesband) on Oct 6, 2020 at 2:48am PDT

This is what they had to say about it: “Covering a Beach Boys song has always been a scary thing considering the genius arrangements, their playing, their harmonies, everything about it … So ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ we saw this kind of naive perspective towards love and marriage in the lyrics, and we were quite curious to see what would happen when you contrasted that approach with a darker musical palette. So we kind of slowed down the tempo and created a draggier tune for those lyrics to sit on top of.” 

A cover is an art form, there’s no doubt about that, and it’s always struck me as a great way to really get to know a band. What Fontaines D.C. say above, for example, shows just how much they understand their industry, and their craft. Perhaps Deezer picked the line-up for InVersions for exactly this reason.

InVersions also presents Arlo Parks’ first song in French: ‘Ta Reine’ by Angèle. Parks explains why this is so special: “I picked ‘Ta Reine’ by Angèle because I find her voice completely mesmerising and soft, and I feel like the topic the song discusses is very important. I’ve always wanted to sing in French since my mum is French and I’m generally just enthralled by this song and her delivery. I hope I can do it justice.” 

Really there is nothing to distinguish one moment from another – all of these covers are spectacular. For me, other honourable mentions go towards Alfie Templeman’s ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’, which retains the feel of the original while simultaneously softening everything. It perfectly suits the style that Templeman is really making his own.

Likewise, Orla Gartland’s ‘Nothing Compares to You’ is ambitious – intriguingly, her powerful voice seems to be set against a Radiohead-inspired, subtly electronic take on the melody. When the music falls away for the final refrain, Gartland shows nothing but pure talent.

Robyn we frikin love u @robynkonichiwa & this gem of a song so we made our own version of dancing on my own for @deezer listen here : https://t.co/esJwBHkW6b pic.twitter.com/rh80Xt84P4

— Dream Wife (@DreamWifeMusic) October 6, 2020

But, for me, Dream Wife’s ‘Dancing On My Own’ steals the show. It has all the chills of the first time you heard it. It absolutely puts a spotlight on why we all unexpectedly fell in love with Robyn in 2010. This is not because it’s a carbon copy, though; Dream Wife retain all of the best of Robyn’s original, while giving it a spin of their own. If you listen closely, you catch an endearing whisper of “in a galaxy far far far away” just before the bridge.

InVersions could not be more exciting as a music project, but it also feels like a positive force in these bleak times for the music industry. Nigel Harding, who is Deezer’s VP of Global Artist Marketing, explained the thinking behind InVersions. “We all know the music community has been hit hard by the pandemic, especially Indie artists who rely on live gigs. During this tough time, we wanted to do our part and offer support to Indie and Alternative artists with our new Inversions album … I’d love for music fans from all over the world to discover some new favourites on our InVersions album.”

You can stream it here.

NSG is made up of six members – Kruddz, ODG, Papii Abz, Dope, Mxjib, and Mojo – and their collective name has many meanings, including ‘New Sound Group’ and ‘Never Stop Growing’, both of which are very apt given the group’s work. They wrote a message to their followers upon the release, which reads, “Our debut mixtape ‘Roots’ is out now! Thank you for having faith in us and our journey so far!”

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Our debut mixtape ‘Roots’ is out now! Thank you for having faith in us and our journey so far! [Link in Bio]

A post shared by NSG Entertainment (@nsg_music) on Jun 18, 2020 at 4:02pm PDT

With themes from political rebellion to influential women, the rappers offer insightful lyrics set to strong beats, making it clear why their music is so popular. But, for listeners who are just hoping for a good time, track 6 ‘Why Stress’ is a chilled out embodiment of summer.

Lead single ‘Options’, a collaboration with Tion Wayne, came out all the way back in 2018, and is their biggest song to date, reaching number 7 on the UK Singles Charts and 79 million streams on Spotify. This was followed by ‘Ot Bop’, ‘Trust Issues’, ‘Ourself’, ‘Porshe’, and ‘Grandad’, released throughout 2019 and 2020. The last has only been out since yesterday, already gaining over 80,000 views on YouTube.

Each single came with a music video, as the group was lucky enough to film before the lock-down was put into place. ‘Options’ has 28 million views and shows the group members in various London scenes – some are with fans or at gigs, while some are in front of city landscapes.

While ‘Roots‘ is NSG’s first mixtape, they have an album entitled ‘Grown Up‘ which came out in 2017 after the release of first singles, all of which were taken from the album. As said by member Kruddz, NSG is “a lifestyle, it’s a movement” which symbolises their journey.

Prior to the release, Buzzworl put out three promotional singles: ‘Eastenders’, ‘Winnners’ featuring C. Biz and H Moneda, and ‘A.M.B (InTRILL)’. Each was released in the weeks leading up to the album, and has gained a music video as well as thousands of views and streams. The former, ‘Eastenders’, reached 400,000 views with its creative narrative as the rapper names every member of his social circle and where they have ended up since he last saw them.

Overall, the album is a commentary on the life of black men (and women) living in London, using Buzzworl’s own experience to write his songs. This comes at an incredibly important time, especially for the UK and the USA, following the killing of George Floyd by a police officer.

Having participated in Black Out Tuesday on 2nd June, the Camden artist wrote a powerful and saddening message to followers just before his album was officially made available to fans. In 2017, Ambush Buzzworl’s own cousin Nuno Cardoso died in police custody, so Buzzworl expressed his shock, writing “it’s mad cos when he died I was convinced the officers were gonna get convicted. I rah thought his death had to mean something like they have to change the Pattern cos of Neenz that’s gonna be His Legacy because otherwise why would God let such a Thing happen.”

He even commented on the timing of his album, saying “I don’t know what’s happening but a lot more people are listening. It’s Mad how it’s on the same night that my Tapes dropping I come in to This.”

They Got Neenz and My Auntie front page of the Camden New Journal it’s mad cos when he died I was convinced the officers were gonna get convicted. I rah thought his death had to mean something like they have to change the Pattern cos of Neenz that’s gonna be His Legacy. #BLM pic.twitter.com/0MvNTl56BA

— A.M.B (@ambushbuzzworl) June 4, 2020

Despite not creating new music for a number of years, Buzzworl’s remix of ‘Jumpy’ featuring Skepta and Chip peaked at 81 on the UK Singles Chart, fielding attention from listeners and millions of streams. The song has a similar theme to ‘Ask My Brother’.

Featured performers on the album include D Double E, Ra, Presi Pros, C. Biz, H Moneda, and Giggs, who appears on two tracks, ‘Silly Events’ and ‘Mass On Sunday’.

Following a string of single releases The Streets released the song in tandem with the announcement of an upcoming mixtape due to be released later this year, which will be the first Streets project in 9 years. 

Unexpectedly the new single is a collaboration with psychedelic Australian outfit Tame Impala. On a post on his Instagram Kevin Parker said “This is a pretty big honour and a dream come true.” This collaboration is one that was not foreseen by anyone and came as a welcome surprise to fans of both artists alike. 

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If you know me well you know that i fucking love The Streets. So this is a pretty big honour and a dream come true. And i know many others join me in being fairly happy he has returned. Full vid on youtube.

A post shared by Tame Impala (@tameimpala) on Apr 13, 2020 at 6:51pm PDT

The video was also released which featured some of the artists who will appear on the mixtape such as Greentea Peng, Ms Banks and Donae’o. It was shot in multiple locations such as a ski resort, Western Australia and London. Watch the video on YouTube below.

Fans of The Streets will be over the moon with the announcement of a new mixtape as they have been waiting on new material from Skinner for years, with his last full length project being 2011’s Computer and Blues which was met with a lukewarm response from critics. 

This is a backtrack on his own words as Skinner revealed in a 2011 interview that there would not be another Streets album. He said “I do not feel any sadness, I would feel frustrated if I had to make another one.”

In the meantime, Skinner has turned his attention to other projects such as releasing music under the moniker The Darker The Shadow, The Brighter The Light and has even tried his hand at acting.

Given the circumstances we collectively find ourselves in, the announcement of an upcoming mixtape will excite a lot of people and, during a time in which a lot of artists are postponing their releases, it’s good to see Skinner announcing releases during the lockdown. All we have to do now is do as The Streets once said; ‘Stay Positive’.