The last column I wrote featured a limited scope in genre, but with Halloween just around the corner, I want to provide a mixed bag of treats this time around. Below are some of my favorite R&B and rap songs I have been listening to over the past couple weeks.
As always, email me with anything else you all have been listening to.
Laila! — “Could Be”
As my brother said to me the other day when we were texting: I guess Laila!’s musicality just runs in the family. The daughter of the legendary Yasiin Bey (Mos Def), Laila! broke out on the scene with the snappy Tik Tok-ready hit “Not My Problem,” a song so effortlessly disdainful and bubbly, it will have you dancing out of that crappy gas station job you work at after slapping the two weeks’ notice on your boss’s desk.
The song set the tone for her fantastic debut album Gap Year!, but it sure did not define it.
My personal favorite on the album is “Could Be,” which is a total 180-degree turn from the unbridled energy of “Not My Problem.” Laila!’s lissome singing flutters along the electric piano like a butterfly navigating the forest on a cloudless spring day as she ponders whether an effusive dream can be a reality: “Could I be everything you’d ever seen?/Could the both of us live outside of a dream?”
The track’s sparseness reminds me a lot of Blonde-era Frank Ocean.
Listen to “Could Be” here: youtube.com/watch?v=mrLAhDKGcew.
Vintage Lee — “BULGARIAN”
I usually roll my eyes whenever someone says that an artist’s voice is “almost used as its own instrument,” because it feels like trite observation at this point. Heck, I’ve probably used that description in my past writing, too.
And yet, here I am, describing Vintage Lee’s voice as another instrument on her new JORD4NEVERDIED (a prior column denizen!)-produced song “BULGARIAN,” because it really does!
Just listen to Lee’s technique on this one; the way her airy vocals fight gravity alongside the plucky guitar riff, or the way she runs abreast with the pounding 808s that eventually pummel the floor beneath you. I hate when people diminish this type of rap because very few people can flow like the Roxbury native. Her precision and skill are two major reasons why the Roxbury native landed a song on an NBA 2K soundtrack and in an episode of “Euphoria.”
Check out the music video here: youtube.com/watch?v=6fSjAiy4eb4.
Cashcache — “Coolin” (feat. NASHA)
In a previous column, I wrote a cursory description of what the pluggnb is: https://tinyurl.com/47tdr7x4.
This time around, I want to give a shoutout to a producer who’s been instrumental (no pun intended) in keeping the genre going beyond the 2010s. Over the past few years, Cashcache has released a series of tapes featuring different artists bringing their own takes on the genre.
His newest project, I Still Love Cashcache!, once again falls in that spirit across 17 songs. For me personally, “Coolin” is the best track because NASHA grabs the lush beat from Cashcache and launches it to celestial heights with lilting vocals so fluffy, you would think you just landed on a heap of golden-brown pancakes.
Check out “Coolin” here: youtube.com/watch?v=iHkkF4SzLPM.
