Belynda – “On Point”:
Nigerian born, Austrian raised and UK-based AfroPop singer, songwriter and artist Belynda returns to the Nigerian music landscape with the brand new video for her latest single, the electrifying club banger “On Point“, which is produced by OY Productions (Olamide, DRB LasGidi, Kida Kudz), and comes on the back of her critically acclaimed debut single “Kileleyi” featuring LKT.
Doubling up as a dance floor filler, Belynda’s ‘On Point’ is also a life-affirming female-empowering record, which seesBelynda calling upon herself as well as her listeners to be ‘on point’ in all that they are and do. The video for “On Point”, directed by KSweez Visuals, also carries the same message and expands upon this theme of girl power, and brings it further to life for our viewing pleasure. Enjoy it below.
Rihanna – “Towards The Sun”:
Rihanna has released a new single from the soundtrack for DreamWorks’ forthcoming animation Home. She stars in the animation alongside Jim Parsons (Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory), Steve Martin and Jennifer Lopez. Rihanna’s discography to date has been rather dark or at least on the adult side of pop music, so a children’s animation seems a strange arena for the “S&M” singer’s talents.
However, the song is fittingly uplifting and epic; it shows a different side to Rihanna. Though new to voice acting, the R&B singer is not a stranger to Hollywood as she has previously starred in Battleship, 2014’s Annie, and as herself in This Is The End alongside Craig Robinson. Home, an adaption from Adam Rex’s book The True Meaning of Smekday is due in cinemas on the 27th of March. Listen to “Towards The Sun” below and purchase it here.
Kanye West – “All Day”:
Just two days after footage of his nine minute acceptance speech at the 2015 BET Honors was released, Kanye West performed his new track “All Day” at last night’s BRIT Awards, giving us another taster of his upcoming, as-of-yet untitled album. In his speech at the BET Honors award ceremony, he joked about his reality star wife’s former lovers and gave some interesting insights into the racism he feels, he and many other black Americans are facing today. Between the monotony of awkward jokes and boring acceptance speeches, Kanye made the ceremony interesting at least this time, without dragging on ‘all day’ with another long winded rant.
During his ferocious preview of his new album at the BRIT Awards last night, West was joined on stage by Theophilus London and Allan Kingdom who also contributed to the performance, and strangely the likes of Skepta, Stormzy, Novelist and Krept and Konan were part of a large posse behind Kanye, all of whom were dressed in black and moshing throughout.
With flame throwers shooting fire into the air Kanye delivered a, quite literally, explosive performance of one of his first real Hip Hop songs since the release of 2013’s Yeezus. ITV did however mute his live performance for large periods of the song, as it would seem Kanye couldn’t help himself from saying the N word several times. Honestly, from what I heard of it, I liked the sound of this new track and I look forward to hearing the studio version when his highly anticipated new project finally drops.
Purity Ring – “bodyache”:
Canadian dream-pop duo Purity Ring (Megan James and Corin Roddick) has added the third teaser off their new album Another Eternity onto their YouTube channel, following on from “Begin Again” and “Push Pull”. It’s entitled “bodyache” and once again the song is intriguingly in a lower case typesetting and continues their departure from their post dubstep-meets-futuristic chill-wave found on debut Shrines into something more consistently lively, catchy, energetic and danceable.
It’s propelled them from hipster blogger favorites to Radio 1 playlisters and similarly, the new single will continue to push them further down that path with its punching basslines likely to cause backaches. Although, the album cover for their second album Another Eternity looks meaningful and elegant and is out on the 3rd March, and if you’d like to see their purity before your eyes, watch them at Shepherds Bush on April 30th. To pre-order the album and book tickets for their show, go here. Listen to the new single “bodyache” below.
alt-J – “Pusher”:
Alt-J have released a video for their latest single “Pusher” from their second studio album This Is All Yours. The idea for the dark video came from Joe Newman, front-man of the band, and was directed by Thomas Rhazi. This is another music video filmed in a ‘One Shot’ style, following in similar vein to recently released videos such as Sam Smith’s “Lay Me down”, and Pussy Riot’s “I Can’t Breathe” – this trend does seem to be growing. The video depicts a hero trying to change the society he lives in but he fails and graphically commits suicide. You can watch the video here.
A$AP Ferg – “Swipe Life”:
Just months after his Ferg Forever mixtape dropped, A$AP Ferg is back already with a new song titled “Swipe Life”. The Harlem rapper and famed member of hip hop collective A$AP Mob remains pretty similar to the style we’ve heard him exhibit on his previous projects, keeping his trademark unusual delivery and braggadocios personality as he raps over another trap flavoured beat which were so common on Ferg Forever and Trap Lord.
Ferg also recently released a star studded video for one of his Ferg Forever songs “Dope Walk”. The visual features appearances from Cara Delevingne, Kanye West, Rihanna, Russell Simmons, P Diddy, Big Sean, Justin Bieber as well as several members of the A$AP Mob. “Swipe Life” is featured on DJ Spin King’s new mixtape The Connect which contains tracks from many other famous artists including Ty Dolla $ign, Jadakiss and Tyga. You can listen to “Swipe Life” below.
Words by Ayo Adepoju, Chris Hyde, Tom Syme, and Matt Hobbs
