Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings It's A Holiday Soul Party

Published Oct 30, 2015

The holiday album: occasionally classic; more often, a cash-in. As an audience, we mostly tolerate, rather than love, holiday albums. They d...

Kelela Hallucinogen EP

Published Oct 09, 2015

First announced in March with an intended May release date, Kelela's Hallucinogen EP's five-month delay may have something to do with her mo...

Souljazz Orchestra Find Their Voice for 'Resistance'

Published Sep 04, 2015

Most bands would rather not have to audition lead singers 15 years into their career, just as they are recording their seventh album. But fo...

The Souljazz Orchestra Resistance

Published Sep 02, 2015

"If you kick a dog long enough, the dog bites back."   That phrase is the central theme to Ottawa's Souljazz Orchestra's rise of the prole...

Foreign Exchange Evoke Chaucer on 'Tales from the Land of Milk and Honey'

Published Sep 01, 2015

"More than anything else, the biggest crime as an artist is to be boring." Phonte Coleman, the primary songwriter, vocalist and animated...

Alessia Cara Four Pink Walls

Published Aug 28, 2015

If any lyrics succinctly capture Alessia Cara's music industry experience so far, it's the very relatable refrain, "What am I doing here?" f...

The Foreign Exchange Tales from the Land of Milk and Honey

Published Aug 21, 2015

Every Foreign Exchange album is a departure, an abrupt turn from what you've come to expect that takes a minute to grow on you. Tales from t...

Lianne La Havas Blood

Published Jul 29, 2015

Blood seems like an odd title for Lianne La Havas' sophomore album. One's immediate word associations veer to the macabre, to violence, to p...

Azekel Raw, Vol. 1

Published Jul 17, 2015

Few things are as falsely claimed in popular culture as the word "raw." Raw was Eddie Murphy at his zenith; it was Big Daddy Kane when he wa...

The Internet Ego Death

Published Jun 30, 2015

On the most recent episode of their podcast, The Music Snobs asked if the Internet are the only band moving R&B forward. Much debate and dis...

​Lianne La Havas Reveals How Her Past Influenced 'Blood'

Published Jun 26, 2015

"I'm different now from what you've seen before," Lianna La Havas assures Exclaim! firmly as we discuss her new video for the song "Unstoppa...

Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment Surf

Published Jun 02, 2015

For the better part of a year, Chance The Rapper has been warning us about his crew the Social Experiment and their upcoming Surf album, the...

Nneka My Fairy Tales

Published May 26, 2015

"I've been a stranger in a distant land, I'll be coming home," proclaims Nneka on "Believe System," a tone-setting introduction to the diasp...

Laila Biali House Of Many Rooms

Published Apr 15, 2015

House Of Many Rooms is a collection of varied experiences, sounds and memories organized in some semblance of a place one might call home. L...

​Laila Biali Enters Her 'House of Many Rooms'

Published Apr 15, 2015

It's quite probable that we would have got Laila Biali's House of Many Rooms years earlier, but Sting got in the way. Well, so did Chris Bot...

Alex Cuba Healer

Published Mar 27, 2015

After raking in numerous Junos and Latin Grammys for his last few albums, Cuban-Canadian B.C. musician Alex Cuba is back with his fifth solo...

Mayer Hawthorne and Jake One Go Deep on the Origins of Tuxedo

Published Mar 11, 2015

Singer Mayer Hawthorne figures he and producer Jake One made the best Pitbull song ever. Of course, this was mostly by accident. In early 20...

Tuxedo Tuxedo

Published Feb 27, 2015

Tuxedo is the unlikely disco pairing of Seattle producer Jake One and Detroit crooner Mayer Hawthorne. Jake One is best known for being equa...

Korry Deez Imago

Published Feb 17, 2015

The early 2000s were perhaps the pinnacle of optimism for Canadian hip-hop. Our artists were getting signed, commercial radio finally began...

Exclaim!'s 2014 in Lists: Top 5 Reasons Toronto R&B Is Ready for Its Closeup

Published Dec 18, 2014

"Local" used to be a pejorative when it came to R&B in Toronto. When commercial urban radio first launched, they played good music and they...