Words by Brian James
Brian James is a former co-host of the Best Song Ever podcast and contributor to Off Shelf along with other music publications. As a lifelong enthusiast, he has been a fan of hip-hop and r&b since middle school and now enjoys keeping up with mainstream and underground releases, and diving deep on the sampled and influencing sub-genres.
March brings about many things for many people: be it St. Patrick’s Day when the weather starts to finally feel like spring (at least in Michigan), celebrating Easter with egg hunts and dyeing and Reese’s and various other egg activities, and of course, it’s ultimately the month we all sink into madness as a result of having so much basketball to watch you can’t possibly do anything else or just getting sick and tired of hearing about basketball.
It truly is a special month and it’s generally the first time in the year I really start to take stock of the state of the union of new releases as it marks the end of music’s first quarter. Thankfully, this March started to heat things up musically speaking, especially in the hip hop / R&B world. Below you’ll find some of the stand out releases from the month and the sources that pointed us in the right direction of wonderful new music discovery.
Bandcamp
Be it their Album of the Day posts every weekday, the Essential Releases of the Week posts every Friday, or their Best of the Month genre specific posts after each month, Bandcamp is truly one of the best sources of information for new music releases out there. This month, I discovered two essential albums to listen to from their various features.
Mary Sue is a rapper from Singapore who seemingly appeared out of nowhere in 2022 and has been releasing stellar underground hip hop ever since. This year’s Voice Memos From a Winter in China has the potential to be my favorite release of his yet. Somehow I had missed that he put out an album until I saw an illuminating feature on him at Bandcamp. Definitely for fans of MIKE, Wiki, Earl Sweatshirt, and other similar artists.
Chuck Strangers is a brand new (to me) rapper and I’ve been so excited to dive into his new album A Forsaken Lover’s Plea, which I discovered when it was featured as an Album of the Day. What really caught my attention is that Chuck produces most of it himself but also has guest producers including Alchemist and Animoss.
Brooklyn Vegan
Brooklyn Vegan’s Notable Releases posts every Friday are one of my absolute favorite sources to check. There are some Fridays where I camp out on their site, refreshing the page every couple of minutes until the new post appears and I get a nice hit of dopamine straight to the dome. There was one of these posts in particular that pointed me in the direction of two albums from two hip hop legends, which are both really fantastic.
Roc Marciano is such a compelling figure. Early in his career he was briefly affiliated with Busta Rhymes’ Flipmode Squad, but has gone on to have an amazing solo career as MC and producer, collaborating with everyone from Q-Tip to Ka to Action Bronson. While the collaborating artists have been all over the place stylistically, Roc Marciano has established a sound all his own and when you start one of his albums you know you’re in for dope beats, amazing lyricism, and top tier rapping. Marciology keeps the trend going strong and is in immediate consideration for hip hop album of the year.
Shabazz Palaces has been the incredibly rewarding project of Digable Planets member Ishmael Butler for the past 15 years or so, offering an ever shifting soundscape from one of the most influential figures in rap music history. Seeing Shabazz Palaces having a release is an immediate drop everything and listen moment for me, and that was definitely the case when I saw their name on a Brooklyn Vegan notable albums of the week posting this month. Exotic Birds of Prey embraces auto-tune vocals in a way that feels fresh and is just a heady, dense listen overall and well worth your time.
Hip Hop Golden Age
Lukah is a Memphis based rapper who I’ve been excited about for a while now. I first heard him featured on a Cities Aviv song and dove deeper during a process I call “Feature Mining.”
I guess I should take a moment here, since this post is about new music discovery methods, to talk about Feature Mining. It’s a pretty simple concept, when there’s a lull in new music releases I like to look back at the recent rap albums I’ve liked and see the featured artists who appear on said album, to then look and see if they’ve released anything themselves.
This is how I discovered Lukah and I’ve been anxiously awaiting the moment when he would release a fully fleshed out, really amazing album. When I saw that he had a new album on Hip Hop Golden Age’s best albums of 2024 ongoing list I was immediately excited and the album Temple Needs Water. Village Needs Peace is without a doubt one of the best rap releases of the year so far.
Pitchfork
Well, Pitchfork was going to get mentioned at some point. Definitely the biggest name in indie music reviews and also one of the more divisive entities for a myriad of reasons. Personally, I still check the site everyday and find lots of good new music through them. I don’t read all the reviews, but every now and then I read through a Best New Music review that captures really well what I love about an album/artist. Such was the case this month with Pitchfork’s review of For Your Consideration by Empress Of. I’ve long been a fan of Empress Of and seeing this stamp of approval gave extra incentive to check out this amazing album.
You Know I Got Soul
One of my newer site discoveries continues to pay dividends by introducing me to Kenya Vaun, an exciting new voice in R&B. Kenya covers a lot of sonic ground on The Honeymoon Phase, showing vocal range and genre stylings sure to please most fans of R&B music. From old school R&B, to hip-hop leaning tracks, to straight up pop jams, Kenya does it all!