New Music

There are some splendid offerings in the pipeline that should be hitting a record store near you in the next month. Faith Evan's ‘First Lady’ is some sweet soul music, mixed with a little Motown flavour. And come on, that voice? The former Mrs Christopher Wallace still has one sickalicious set of lungs.
Teedra Moses is also becoming increasingly one to watch - though the new album didn’t quite live up to the promise of its preceding mixtape, there are still some corkers on there - partic the Raphael Saadiq and Jadakiss assisted Tame Me and You'll Never Find A Better Woman respectively. Biggity Big.
Also been fortunate to hear a version of the new Roll Deep album due out early May. Not sure if the grime purists will be 100%happy but as a R&B/hip hop head, this album is one of the years finest so far for me. The salsa and '80s influences may come across as commercial but personally I think they're as experimental as any eski-beat. I really hope people get behind 'In At The Deep End' and recognise it for the influential, experimental and tight 13tracker it is.
Finally, like no one already knows, I'm just getting more and more excited about 'the kid' Saigon. Copped a mixtape from The Hat Man in Birmingham (shout out Erroll), Abandoned Nation. Featuring the Kool G Rap featured Letter P (remix) (check out my review of it in iD if you fancy) and some crazy Just Blaze beats, this new tape hightens the already high expectations resting on Sai’s shoulders . Saigon is, dare I say it, the future of hip hop, in the same way as 50 was when he dropped '..Is The Future. He is on a whole nother level lyrically, with wordplay that makes you - gasp - think. Team that with ice-cold flow, amazing rhyme patterns and suddenly I don't worry so much about the state of hip hop. It's in good hands after all.