Author: wazup

From her first video, 2012’s mesmerizing “Hide,” the singular focus of her vision was apparent, a holistic project that rendered FKA twigs’ operatic approach to club beats inextricable from her astounding art direction. In the seven years since, she has made her art into a kind of theatrical multimedia experience, crafting elaborate shows and videos that intertwine and smudge the lines of classici...

For the last several years, Davido has been reshaping the sound of Nigerian pop. As a prolific hitmaker and one of Africa’s biggest stars, he has pivoted away from global ambitions toward revamping the traditional sounds of his homeland. He released his debut album, Omo Baba Olowo, seven years ago and hasn’t released another until now. It feels like the stars aligned for it: Drake is still courtin...

Death metal glories in ugliness—rhythm guitars the texture of churned shit, leads like pig squeals, vocals like reverse peristalsis. But Blood Incantation do beautiful things with that ugliness. Their ugliness moves; within 40 minutes on their second album Hidden History of the Human Race, the Denver quartet brings death metal to exalted places, places it hardly ever goes, without ever losing the ...

Jeff Parker always writes parts that sound unassuming at first listen and unavoidable by the fifth. It’s the X-factor that the guitarist and master collaborator has brought to every project on his long and still-growing list of projects, jazz or rock or otherwise: Tortoise, Isotope 217, the recently reunited Chicago Underground Quartet, his solo work as a bandleader, his work as a soloist, and his...