Category: W.M.E Music Blog Radar

EDITORS’ NOTES “Most of my mixtapes all had songs I’d written while I was in jail,” Fredo tells Apple Music. “This is all different. I was free the whole time and put a lot of time and thought into it. This is my first album, and my first piece of work I’ve been out here…
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EDITORS’ NOTES AJ Tracey knew his own mind when approaching his long-anticipated debut album. “I’m versatile and I do what I want,” the West Londoner tells Apple Music. “If people don’t want me to branch out and try new things, they need to not listen to my music.” The album is a confident flexing of…
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EDITORS’ NOTES What do you do when things fall apart? If you’re Ariana Grande, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and head for the studio. Her hopeful fourth album, Sweetener—written after the deadly attack at her concert in Manchester—encouraged fans to stay strong and open to love (at the time, the singer was newly…
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Sigala is the musical nom de plume of Bruce Fielder, a London-based house DJ, producer, and remixer. Born and raised in Norfolk, England, Fielder began playing piano as a child, and played in various bands after graduating university. He found work as a producer, and co-wrote Ella Eyre and Sigma’s 2015 U.K. hit single “Good…
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Bastille have never been afraid to use other artists’ songwriting as a canvas. Since 2012, the Other People’s Heartache series has experimented with different sounds and genres through covers. While Pt. III veered away from covers, the UK quartet’s fourth instalment returns to mash-ups and samples, parlaying garage, pop and R&B standards into a lo-fi,…
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“I’ve been doing this for 12 years,” Benny Blanco tells Apple Music. “After that long, it’s good to switch it up.” You might not know Blanco’s name, but you know his work. A prodigious songwriter from suburban Virginia who apprenticed under Dr. Luke, he’s written so many hits for so many stars (Rihanna, Sia, The…
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Thomas Dunford began studying the lute at age 9. He was enrolled in the class of Charles-Edouard at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris, where he won first prize with honors in 2006. He continued his studies with Hopkinson Smith at the Schola Cantorum in Basel. He has performed internationally as a soloist and as a…
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One of the most acclaimed R&B artists of the 2000s, Ne-Yo entered the mainstream as a songwriter in 2004 with Mario’s “Let Me Love You,” a number one pop hit. By the time Billboard determined that the romantic ballad was the eighth most successful single of its decade, Ne-Yo had racked up a career’s worth…
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Taylor Swift is that rarest of pop phenomena: a superstar who managed to completely cross over from country to the mainstream. Other singers performed similar moves — notably, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson both became enduring mainstream icons based on their ’70s work — but Swift shed her country roots like they were a second…
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Quoting both the ’90s rap group Sporty Thievz and dancehall don Beenie Man on his breakthrough hit “Dem Boy Paigon,” U.K. rapper J Hus exploded on the scene in 2015 with a sound that mixed rap, reggae, and the new wave of electronic Afro-beat. Born and raised in the London Borough of Newham, the amateur…
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Essex, England-born Anne-Marie Nicholson was no stranger to performing by the time her debut EP dropped in 2015, having shared the stage as a 12-year-old with none other than Jessie J in a West End production of Whistle Down the Wind. She also auditioned for Les Misérables without telling her parents, and was offered a…
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With her omnivorous musical tastes and cheeky attitude, London-based pop singer/songwriter Lily Allen made a name for herself almost as soon as she released her demos on the Internet. The daughter of comedian Keith Allen, Lily spent most of her childhood bouncing from one school to another; in fact, she attended 13 different schools between…
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In the span of three short years, Kanye West went from hip-hop beatmaker to worldwide hitmaker, as his stellar production work for Jay-Z led to a major-label recording contract and, ultimately, a wildly successful solo career. West paired his beats with tongue-twisting raps and a self-assured, flamboyant personality. His dapper fashion sense set him apart…
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Jorja Smith is an English R&B singer/songwriter whose soulful, jazz-tinged cadence, heartfelt lyrics, and retro sound invoke names like Alunageorge, Nao, Lulu James, and Amy Winehouse, the latter of whom the Walsall-based artist cites as her biggest influence. Smith issued her debut single, “Blue Lights,” in 2015, but it was 2016’s powerful “Where Did I…
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Kanye West’s solo album released one week prior, was him proudly shouting about his superpower—bipolar disorder—from the peak of a snow-capped mountain, KIDS SEE GHOSTS is the fireside therapy session occurring at its base. Both Kid Cudi and West have dealt with controversy and mental illness throughout their intertwined careers. It’s all addressed here, on…
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Rapper Lil Baby grew up in Atlanta hanging with friends like Young Thug, Coach K, and Pee, tending more toward a life of petty crime and street hustling while his friends went on to thrive in the music industry. In 2015, at age 19, Lil Baby went to prison for two years for a probation…
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