By the time singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Aaron Earl Livingston released his first full-length album as Son Little in 2015, he’d already worked with genre-bending artists such as the Roots and RJD2 and produced the 2015 Mavis Staples EP Your Good Fortune (he also wrote its first two tracks). In keeping with the musical openness of […]
Tag: R&B
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TheMIND celebrates the deluxe version of Don’t Let It Go to Your Head with his first Chicago headlining gig
Chicago singer and producer Zarif Wilder, aka theMIND, has lent his gilded vocals and carefully crafted instrumentals to more hip-hop and R&B releases than I could possibly list here. He’s worked with practically every important rapper to emerge from the city in the past decade, including the three in the supergroup Ghetto Sage: Smino, Noname, […]
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Rising Chicago pop artist Yesterdayneverhappened packs a year’s worth of parties into The Demon at Dusk
Angel Day makes freewheeling underground pop as Yesterdayneverhappened, and their new second album, The Demon at Dusk (Loveshock/Daybreak), zips around with such restless energy you might think they never sleep. The Chicago producer and vocalist has a knack for bricolage and an ear for the cutting edge, evident in the album’s effusive collision of dance […]
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Tink finds her sweet spot again with Pillow Talk
Singer, rapper, and songwriter Tink broke out of Chicago’s hip-hop scene about a decade ago, becoming one of the constellation of new stars lighting up the city. Like many local artists who emerged around the time of drill’s first wave in 2012, she signed to a big label—in 2014 she closed a deal with Mosley […]
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Stranded Civilians have made one of the best Chicago hip-hop releases of 2022
Chicago rappers Tony Santana and Aubry know that all the talent in the world can’t make a hip-hop duo work if the MCs don’t click. As Stranded Civilians, Aubry and Tony rap off each other like they just hang out and vibe 24-7—and their second mixtape, February’s self-released Obsidian, will make you wish you could […]
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Blue water road to Chicago
Kehlani’s fans discuss the queer R&B artist’s music and impact.
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Shifting priorities
How parenthood and the 2020 uprisings impacted Tiara Déshané’s approach to music
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Kehlani sails into perfect sun-dappled R&B
Kehlani’s second album, 2020’s It Was Good Until It Wasn’t (Atlantic), features the brooding, moody, left-of-center R&B that’s become their signature. The singer’s new LP, Blue Water Road (released this spring on Atlantic), is still left-of-center, but its musical palette is significantly lighter and more eclectic, with tinges of folk and orchestral pop. To that […]
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Sharp Chicago rapper F.A.B.L.E. tries on different stylistic hats with Green Room
Emerging Chicago rapper Christopher Horace charmed me a couple years ago with the first EP he released as F.A.B.L.E., (IX) The Hermit. His downy voice makes his playful raps sound more intimate than he can spell out with words, lending them the air of a confession shared between friends–and his gentle performances fit into his […]
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Chicago R&B singer Ravyn Lenae makes a play for stardom on Hypnos
In 2015, when Chicago R&B wunderkind Ravyn Lenae was just 16, she self-released a sophisticated, vigorous EP called Moon Shoes, singing about romance and longing with the grace and lucidity of an artist who understood herself. Now 23, Lenae has grown considerably from that already auspicious start. On her new debut full-length, Hypnos (Atlantic), her […]
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Nigeria’s Joeboy makes life-affirming pop music
Throughout the next few months, Chicago will host several concerts featuring contemporary Nigerian pop stars, and Joeboy in particular is a must-see. Born Joseph Akinwale Akinfenwa-Donus, the 24-year-old singer attracted international attention in 2019 for his summery single “Baby,” a love song with a loping chord progression and an overarching yet understated chipperness that’s ready […]
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Chicago rapper, producer, and singer ’Kechi maps his future through his family roots
Chicago producer, rapper, and singer Ikechi Chijiuba Ihemeson, aka ’Kechi, performs as though his entire life has led up to the moment he steps to the mike. He started recording his new full-length, ’Kechi Tunez (Ojuba Music), in 2020, though he traces the album’s roots back to a year he spent in Africa a decade […]
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Dreamer Isioma yokes their wildly maximalist aesthetic to their pop-star ambition on Goodnight Dreamer
In March 2020, Chicago singer-songwriter Dreamer Isioma released their breakthrough EP, Sensitive, whose slyly funky title track became a slow-burning hit—in a little under two years, it’s racked up nearly 70 million Spotify streams. Isioma is clearly a pop star in the making, and treats the history of recorded music like a grand buffet: they […]
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The modern soul of the O’My’s sounds smoother than ever on No Swimming
As the O’My’s, singer-guitarist Maceo Vidal-Haymes and keyboardist Nick Hennessey carefully control the heat they apply to their luxurious contemporary take on soul, so that it smolders instead of burning off the roof. The Chicago duo mostly stay cool and low-key on their latest EP, No Swimming. During the songs’ hushed passages, Vidal-Haymes’s almost hornlike […]
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Chicago rapper SoloSam finds new reflections in grief on Principles to Die By
We’ve all felt it at some point during the 19 months and counting of the pandemic: an anguish amplified by loss, even if we’ve been lucky enough that no one close to us has died from the virus or developed long COVID. (If your life since March 2020 has been absolutely untroubled, I have to […]