Empire Vinilo y CD

Review: Conway the Machine, the Griselda MC and CEO of Drumwork Music had fans waiting on tenterhooks for the arrival of his new album and when it dropped, Won't He Do It certainly did not disappoint. Producer and longtime collaborator Daringer worked on the album with him and the bars are raw, unapologetic and full of insight into street life. His own rags to riches journey is at the centre of the narrative, as is the loyalty he has towards his team. Plenty of his Drumwork associates feature as do top names like Benny The Butcher, Westside Gunn, Fabolous and Dave East to make for a vital new album that sits at the heart of the modern hip hop landscape.

Review: As any fans of smoochy neo-soul will know, Dinner Party is something of a super group. It is made up of the masterful contemporary talents of Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin, and 9th Wonder and is like a modern answer to the Soul Aquarians back in the neo-soul heyday. This is a CD version of their Enigmatic Society album which is a deeper, warmer work than their self-titled earlier work. Jazz and hip-hop and some great samples all get fused into sublime sounds for late night grooving and smooching and make it another essential outing from these musical powerhouses.

Review: Fresh, hot-off-the-plate yet classic-sounding gangsta rap from the collaboration of Free Nationals, Anderson .Paak and A$AP Rocky. 'Gangsta' flips the script of the genre, lyrically examining the hip-hop genre's historical obsession with gangsters, while more avowedly narrating the story of a 'wangsta' whose wannabe proclamations of realness have no match for Rocky and .Paak's authentic intuitions, owing to their true-blood, inherited street knowledge. It's a fresh, empowering new move from the LA-based hip-hop group, whose sound evinces a well-produced, jazz-flavoured and Dilla-eqsue wonk come clarity of sound, as ever.