Articles By Michael J. Warren
-
Reviews
Surprise Chef All News Is Good News Published Nov 07, 2019It's hard to square the realities of 2019 with the title All News Is Good News, the debut from Australian instrumental soul band Surprise Ch...
-
Reviews
Rapsody Laila's Wisdom Published Sep 26, 2017Snow Hill, North Carolina only has 1,614 residents, but one of them has five mixtapes, three albums, a To Pimp a Butterfly Grammy and, now,...
-
Reviews
Tangina Stone Elevate Published Sep 26, 2017Elevate is the debut album from Ohio-born, Brooklyn-based Tangina Stone, the followup to her EP The Fall, and the first release on Anastasia...
-
Reviews
Mali Music The Transition of Mali Published Jun 02, 2017Even after 2014's Mali Is… earned him two Grammy nominations, Mali Music is still humble enough to overtly reintroduce himself mid-song. It...
-
Reviews
Will Sessions Deluxe Published Apr 21, 2017Many will have first heard the name Will Sessions when they acted as the backing band for Elzhi's 2011 album, Elmatic, a recreation of Nas's...
-
Reviews
Tuxedo Tuxedo II Published Mar 24, 2017Tuxedo II is the conspicuous continuation of 2015's Tuxedo, the lauded then-side project of Mayer Hawthorne and producer Jake One that found...
-
Reviews
Ronald Bruner Jr. Triumph Published Mar 01, 2017It's a shame there's no music industry equivalent to the academic practice of adding letters behind one's name to signify learned experience...
-
Reviews
Saba Bucket List Project Published Nov 02, 2016Chicago, the apparent poster child city for arts incubation, has again staked its claim to 2016 with the release of Saba's Bucket List Proje...
-
Reviews
Kadhja Bonet The Visitor Published Oct 21, 2016On the surface, Kadhja Bonet's The Visitor appears as a throwback to an era of gentle '60s-tinged jazz records. Over strings and buried drum...
-
Reviews
NxWorries Yes Lawd! Published Oct 19, 2016Anderson .Paak and producer Knxwledge's Yes Lawd! feels in many ways like the spiritual successor to Below the Heavens, the 2007 collaborati...
-
Features
NAO Takes Control Published Aug 22, 2016"I was learning about my sound quite publicly," NAO says, reflecting on the progression between 2014's So Good EP and last year's February 1...
-
Features
NAO Stakes Her Own Claim with 'For All We Know' Published Jul 29, 2016NAO wants to set the record straight. "Essentially, everything about the album — and I don't think it's arrogant to say — the album definite...
-
Reviews
NAO For All We Know Published Jul 27, 2016Two weeks before the release of her debut full-length album, UK R&B singer NAO was worried. The perpetual rumour mill of pending Frank Ocean...
-
Reviews
Oddisee Alwasta Published Mar 29, 2016We are told to separate the art and the artist, but Oddisee makes that proposition difficult. His work is so rooted in his development as a...
-
Reviews
Esperanza Spalding Emily's D+Evolution Published Mar 02, 2016On her fifth solo album, Esperanza Spalding asks, what if her younger self had not gone on to pursue jazz greatness and instead embraced her...
-
Reviews
BJ the Chicago Kid In My Mind Published Feb 22, 2016BJ the Chicago Kid's EP of D'Angelo covers last month wasn't a dramatic reimagining of the material; there was no attempt to update the perf...
-
Reviews
KING We Are King Published Feb 05, 2016Five years after first introducing themselves to the world, KING wish to do so again with the plainly stated We Are King, the group's debut...
-
Reviews
Adrian Younge Something About April II Published Jan 22, 2016Los Angeles law school grad turned self-taught composer extraordinaire Adrian Younge has had a stealthy ascent following 2012's Something Ab...
-
Reviews
Kae Sun Oceans Apart EP Published Nov 20, 2015Oceans Apart is the latest offering from Ghanaian-Canadian singer/songwriter Kae Sun, critically acclaimed for his 2013 Afriyie album. But t...
-
Reviews
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings It's A Holiday Soul Party Published Oct 30, 2015The holiday album: occasionally classic; more often, a cash-in. As an audience, we mostly tolerate, rather than love, holiday albums. They d...