Month: March 2018

While their rise to fame was somewhere between fast and meteoric, the Atlanta trio Migos are steeped in the Southern tradition of hip-hop groups, having come together over their shared love of acts like the Hot Boys and OutKast. Members Offset, Quavo, and Takeoff, who are all related, grew up together and first started making music in 2009 under the name Polo Club, with the name Migos becoming official in 2010. In 2012, they released the mixtape No Label, which featured the cut “Bando,” a regional hit that caught the attention of producer Zaytoven and Kevin Lee, aka Coach K, the manager who launched the careers of Gucci Mane and Young Jeezy. The year 2013 was a whirlwind as June saw the group drop its Young Rich N*ggas mixtape, which featured the instant hit “Versace.” That same year, Coach K got them on the Hot 107.9 Birthday Bash, a popular Atlanta festival where Migos came across their newest fan, Drake. The rapper added a verse to the “Versace” remix and put the cut on his 2013 album, Nothing Was the Same. Featuring the hit single “Fight Night,” 2014’s No Label II was the group’s next high-profile release, as it was […]

Astor Piazzolla’s wild, sensual Las Cuatro Estaciónes Porteños (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires) combines the sultriness of the tango with the coolness of classical modernism for a vivid portrait of the heat and energy of his native city. Virtuoso bandoneon player Julian Rowlands provides the Latin foil to the Santiago Quartet’s passionate playing, full of ardour and considerable technical skill. In contrast, contemporary British composer Will Todd’s Birthday Quartet explores themes of human struggle—love, loss, resignation—in gentler music of sublime beauty. Both works, in their unique, personal ways, speak directly from the heart. Get more HOT new releases at Apple 

Platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated rapper Kendrick Lamar is one of the rare artists who has achieved critical and commercial success while earning the respect and support of those who inspired him. A native of Compton, California, Lamar originally rapped as K. Dot and released a series of mixtapes under that name. Youngest Head Nigga in Charge (2003), issued when he was only 16 years old, caught the attention of Top Dawg Entertainment and led to a long-term association that helped raise the rapper’s profile. Training Day (2005) and C4 (2009) also preceded his decision to go by his birth name. The latter was issued the same year he became part of Black Hippy — beside fellow Top Dawg artists Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, and ScHoolboy Q — a group whose members, for the most part, appeared on one another’s mixtapes and albums. Overly Dedicated (2010) was the first Kendrick Lamar mixtape and fared well enough to enter Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart that October. His first official album, Section.80 (2011), was released as a digital download the following year and entered the Billboard 200 at number 113. By that point in his career, Lamar’s reputation had been strengthened through guest appearances on dozens of […]

Born Agassi Odusina in 1992, in southwest London, this inventive rapper combined grime with Afro-beat and dancehall influences to create a sound that sporadically graced the U.K. singles charts from 2011 onward. Sneakbo got his first break when the Play Hard management company/label — home to fellow London artist Chipmunk — took interest and he was ultimately signed to their label. His debut single, “The Wave,” was issued in late 2011, during the brief period that he was imprisoned following charges of aggravated assault. When he was released, Sneakbo focused on building upon that single’s success by recording new material and making live appearances throughout Europe. Jetski Wave, his own clothing line, soon began to flourish and by the end of 2012, he had guested on D’banj’s U.K. Top Ten hit “Oliver Twist” and had his first solo Top 40 single in the form of November’s “Zim Zamma.” Continuing to work with production duo Ill Blu, Sneakbo enjoyed further success in summer 2013 with the Shabba Ranks-sampling “Ring a Ling.” In 2014 he guested on another U.K. pop hit, “Dr. Who!” by Tujamo and Plastik Funk. He also released his full-length Certified, which featured several tracks produced by Ill Blu […]

An imaginative and stylistically dynamic rap artist who emerged during the early 2010s, Logic launched his career through uploads and independent mixtapes prior to reaching the mainstream with a Def Jam record deal. Born Sir Robert Bryson Hall II in Gaithersburg, Maryland, the rapper, singer, songwriter, and producer dropped a mixtape as Psychological in 2009, then shortened his name. After the 2010 release of Young, Broke, & Infamous, Logic joined the independent label Visionary Music Group. A one-tape-per-year schedule continued with a trilogy of Young Sinatra releases, a period during which he toured internationally without label support and was selected for XXL magazine’s Freshman Class of 2013. Additionally, Logic and Visionary Music Group worked out a contract with Def Jam. Logic released his major-label debut album, Under Pressure, in October 2014. Executive produced by No I.D., it didn’t need any guest appearances to enter the Billboard 200 chart at number four, and was eventually certified gold by the RIAA. The Incredible True Story, an ambitious concept album based 100 years in the future, arrived in November 2015 and peaked at number three on the Billboard 200. The following year, Logic embarked on the Endless Summer Tour with G-Eazy, YG, and […]

With hair that looks like red-hot cheese curls and the wild Atlanta ATLien style to match, Miles McCollum — best known as singer/rapper and Sailing Team leader Lil Yachty — bounces between the feel-good positivity of D.R.A.M. and the druggy weirdness of Future with the greatest of ease. Part of this is due to the use of two personas, the wild Lil Yachty and the stern but strange MC Lil Boat. He began to break in 2015 when Drake’s OVO Sound Radio show aired his bizarre, singsongy number “Minnesota.” In early 2016, his other persona became the name of Lil Boat, his debut for the Capitol- and Motown-affiliated independent Quality Control. The mixtape featured “Minnesota” along with “One Night,” a woozy party cut that reached number 30 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart and cracked the Hot 100. An appearance at Kanye West’s Yeezy Season 3 fashion show followed soon after, along with an appearance on Chance the Rapper’s Top Ten mixtape Coloring Book. A second Quality Control mixtape, Summer Songs 2, arrived that August and debuted on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart at number 44. By the end of the year, Yachty scored a hit with D.R.A.M.’s playful “Broccoli,” which peaked at […]

Tory Lanez was one of the more versatile commercial artists to surface during the early 2010s. A songwriter and producer who flits between and fuses R&B and rap — his vocals alternate between swift and rugged boasts and smooth and sensitive come-ons — he made steady strides toward the mainstream with numerous mixtapes, guest appearances, and self-directed videos. He spent parts of his early life in Toronto, his birthplace, as well as in Montreal, Miami, Atlanta, and New York. Although he was known underground well before his 20th birthday, and was supported early on by Sean Kingston, he made some of his biggest moves in 2014. During that year, he was featured on “Me & My Bitch” — a track off YG’s Top Five album My Krazy Life — and among his own tracks that circulated in 2014 was “The Mission,” his first cut to hit Billboard’s Twitter Emerging Artists chart. In July 2015, after he had signed an Interscope-affiliated deal with Benny Blanco’s Mad Love label, he released “Say It,” an R&B slow jam that sampled Brownstone’s mid-’90s hit “If You Love Me” and peaked the following February at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. A handful of […]