GRUNGECAKE

Category: Music Reviews

  • Listen to Los Angeles-based artist Spill Tab’s fierce genre-blending debut album ‘Angie’

    It’s finally here ❤

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    Yesterday, French-Korean songwriter and record producer Spill Tab released her vibrant and palatable debut album ‘Angie’, which we thoroughly enjoyed for its experimental, creative edge. Aside from being influenced by various musical styles like R&B, Electro-Pop, Rock, and Jazz, she does an incredible job at execution. Not to mention, she sings in French on ‘Assis’. The opening record ‘Pink Lemonade’ is my favourite from the bunch, followed by ‘Athlete’.

    [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX_apfYZZuE&h=315]

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    Raised by a French Algerian composer father and a Korean pianist mother, Spill Tab spent her early years immersed in music at her parents’ post-production studio, absorbing Jazz, Classical, and other diverse influences. Following a childhood spent between Los Angeles, Thailand, and Paris, where she picked up guitar and soaked in a variety of musical traditions, she developed a distinctive sound blending raw-edged guitar confessionals with anthemic Pop hooks. 

    About her first album, Spill Tab tells Hanuman Welch, “I think I’ve always had this goal where I’m trying to represent myself the fullest of my ability in a two-minute song, and I think I’ve been realising through the process of EPs that that’s not possible. I do feel like this album, as much as I possibly could, represents not only where I’m from, but where I want to go and the music that I’m listening to now, the music that I’ve been listening to for the past 10 years.”

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    About the album, she continues, “Those conversations, musically, are what make me the most excited about musicmaking. So to me, this album is that conversation in action, but also shows my evolution with that music and production, and being able to work with all these incredible collaborators has just made me a better artist.”

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    Spill Tab’s tour starts next week (May 23) at the Le Weekend Des Curiosités Festival in Toulouse, France. Look below to see the rest of her performance dates and play the album.

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    Spill Tab Tour Dates

    May 23 – Le Weekend Des Curiosités Festival – Toulouse, FR
    May 26 – SWG3 Poetry Club – Glasgow, UK
    May 27 – The Deaf Institute – The Lodge – Manchester, UK
    May 28 – Oslo – London, UK
    May 30 – Green Door Store – Brighton, UK
    May 31 – Rough Trade – Bristol, UK
    June 7 – We Love Green Festival – Paris, FR
    June 11 – Night Club 101 – New York City, NY
    June 12 – The Drake – Toronto, ON
    June 14 – Beat Kitchen – Chicago, IL
    June 17 – El Cid – Los Angeles, CA

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  • Watch Mexican Regional artist Edén Muñoz’s official video for ‘Lejos Estamos Mejor’

    Not bad for a talented man, who hails from Los Mochis, with a population of less than 400,000.

    Eight days ago, Mexican Regional star singer-songwriter and record producer Edén Muñoz released the official music video for his latest track, ‘Lejos Estamos Mejor’. It appears to be a song in Spanish that details a past relationship between a man and a woman. As covered by Quadratin, ‘Lejos Estamos Mejor’ is a powerful ballad of self-love and resilience—a modern anthem for anyone choosing to let go and embrace personal growth. And sometimes, putting space between yourself and a former partner is the healthiest path to healing and rediscovering your best self.

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    To date, the video has over three million views on YouTube. Check out the music video below. If you’re wondering, Edén Muñoz is a big deal. Last year, the Sinaloa, Mexico-bred star released the official video for ‘Como En Los Viejos Tiempos’, which has one hundred eighty three million views today.

    Not bad for a Regional Mexican talent, who hails from Los Mochis, with a population of less than four hundred thousand. The artist is on tour; ending in Atlanta City at the Surf Stadium on August 31, 2025.

    [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5qxHhVmYSY&h=315]

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  • GIVĒON brings fresh dandy vibes to striking ‘Rather Be’ visual: Watch

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    Today, R&B/Soul star GIVĒON released the official music video to his song ‘Rather Be’. In the opening scene, the couple stands in a quaint building structure, night falls, and the pair enjoy a drink. After toasting to a seemingly celebratory moment, the singer-songwriter heads to a performance rehearsal with his dapper or exquisitely dressed bandmates. Watch the music video below to see how it all pans out. Does the baritone vocal artist keep his lady happy, or does he stick around and hurt her? You’ll have to wait and determine it for yourselves.

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    [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd1smtHpxaY&h=315]

    The new single and its Loris Russier-directed music video are above.

  • Hear Chuck D’s awaking 14-track effort ‘Radio Armageddon’, from the legend’s ‘Chuck D Presents Enemy Radio’ series

    The GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement award recipient has something real and heavy to say, as the living legend did in 1985.

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    From Snoop Dogg’s surprise album ‘Iz It a Crime?’ to Xzibit and Ice Cube’s collaboration track ‘For the Love’ featuring Lorine Chia, our elite rapping forefathers are making gracious comebacks in the effervescent market. To my pleasant surprise, I woke up to an email in my inbox from Chuck D’s record label, Def Jam, about his masterly executed new musical effort aptly called ‘Chuck D Presents Enemy Radio: Radio Armageddon’.

    How does it sound? It reveres a time in Hip-Hop (The Golden Era) when lyrics were delivered clearly and passionately as if their lives depended on it. Fully crammed with juicy sampled audio from live shows, classic movies, deejay scratching, sirens as heard on the streets of New York City and scattered vintage radio snippets, and more, the Public Enemy founder’s resonant carries in stereo and feels like your father or intelligent and experienced big brother peels back the curtains on.

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    Described as “a seismic broadcast of truth, rhythm and resistance, uniting Hip-Hop’s pioneers and new gens alike in a militant soundtrack for the times”, it is something that I hope he continues to do by releasing more ‘Radio Armaggedon’ episodes and that he introduces younger people to artists/wordsmiths they’ve never heard of from the eighties, nineties, and further out. I’m excited!

    To the Hip-Hop heads out there, Chuck D’s ‘Radio Armageddon’ is also officially available on compact disc and vinyl. For the ones who listen to music on streaming services, take your dose of in-your-face truth below. It’s said to be fourteen tracks with soul-stirring, hard-to-hear messages for the times, targeting the younger generations and Black people in particular. (See: ‘Black Don’t Dead’ with DJ Too Tuff and ‘New Gens’ with Daddy-O)

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    About the project, Chuck D shares, “Radio Armageddon is not just an album, it’s a frequency. This project is a broadcast of resistance, revolution and rhythm. I’m proud to have these warriors alongside me on the dial.”

    According to the press release, the album was produced and mixed by C-Doc for DefBeat Posse Productions, ID! and co-produced and deconstructed by DJ MROK for Philly Wicked Productions with vocal engineering and additional production by JP Hesser at Castaway 7 Studios, Ventura, California.
     

  • André 3000 shares new instrumental project ‘7 Piano Sketches’, released after Met Gala 2025 red carpet appearance

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    Categorised under “Alternative” on Apple Music (and tucked into the same corners on your favourite streaming services), André 3000’s new seven-track offering feels less like an album and more like a late-night letter scribbled in melody. Each title—deliciously disarmingly long—reads like a stream of consciousness, a thought unfurling in real-time. According to the press release, this Atlanta legend stripped everything back to one instrument, one room, one soul—solo piano pulses carrying the weight of a lifetime. It follows on the heels of ‘New Blue Sun’, the shapeshifting project that snagged him three GRAMMY nods—including the nearly mythical Album of the Year slot.

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    What does it sound like? Imagine slipping into your childhood home at dusk. Your aunt is tinkling the keys in the living room, unsure whether she’s performing for an audience or simply proclaiming where her heart has roamed. That intimate moment—when a piano’s resonance feels like a whispered conversation—hovers throughout ‘7 Piano Sketches’. It’s the kind of record that makes you ache for the dialogues you never had, the confessions you never heard, the silences you’d give anything to break. And maybe, just maybe, that yearning is the point.

    Clocking in at under twenty minutes, this body of work is brief, but seeing André 3000’s name across the tracklist is unexpectedly comforting—like finding an old friend in a new place. Here, the artist who once redefined Hip-Hop with OutKast is rediscovering the spacious freedom of pre-fame experimentation, and it feels both radical and beautiful. He dropped ‘7 Piano Sketches’ at 8 PM EST, mere moments after stepping onto this year’s Met Gala red carpet in a custom piano-inspired ensemble by Burberry x Benji Bixby (all lower-case, like the album), styled by Law Roach under the Superfine: Tailoring Black Style theme. What began almost a decade ago—in a sparsely furnished Texas house with nothing but a piano, beds, and flickering TV screens—finally sees daylight in spring’s promise of rebirth.

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    André 3000 himself called this “The Best Worst Rap Album In History”—“worst” because there are no lyrics; “best” because it’s the free-est he’s ever felt. As he prepares to receive an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee on May 10 and join the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in November, ‘7 Piano Sketches’ stands as a gentle reminder: even legends need space to play. Press play. Let the conversation begin.

  • Listen to BIA’s new power-punching anthem ‘We On Go’

    She’s bad-ass!

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    Today, BIA released her new power-punching anthemic single ‘We On Go’. On the track, the Massachusetts musical starlet calls out people for stealing her tones, being watched on replay like a Reel on Instagram, and explains why her competitors cannot be her equal in this lifetime. The song is so good and competitive that it was handpicked by the worldwide leader in sports, ESPN, as a marquee soundtrack for the WNBA and NCAA Women’s Final Four broadcasts starting in April. How impressive?!

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    The infectious single was produced by the pioneering legend, Da Honorable CNOTE (born in Michigan and rose to fame in Atlanta).

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  • Watch popular Nigerian artist Shallipopi and Burna Boy’s official video for ‘Laho II’

    Three days ago, Shallipopi—real name Crown Uzama—and Port Harcourt’s multiple GRAMMY-winning bad boy Burna Boy dropped the official music video for their name jam ‘Laho II’. In the picture, both artists flex their statuses and I must say, the subtle yet inspiring drip levels are through the roof! Burna Boy’s donning a heavenly white crop top, light denim affixed with an exquisite silver belt and dark footwear, whilst Shallipopi wears a cunning tan Louis Vuitton bucket hat, dark designer shades, light denim and an array of chains in the main performance shot.

    [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNW7zPzZNtE&h=315]

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    Before that, Burna Boy, one of Africa’s thriving global superstars, brought out Benin City-bred artist Shallipopi to join him onstage to preview and perform ‘Laho II’ to a crowd of 80,000 music fans in Saint-Denis at the national stadium Stade de France.

    [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBitkPl27Sk&h=315]

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    About a month ago, Shallipopi released the official music video for the original version. Watch the video treatment below. It is currently the #9 Top Music Video on YouTube.

    [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qARrn7G067w&h=315]

  • Watch British rappers Abra Cadabra and Clavish present ‘Facts Not Cap’ in new visual

    “Millionaire and I still got my pole”

    Three weeks ago, British rapper Abra Cadabra released the official visual for his song ‘Facts Not Cap’ featuring fellow artist Clavish. From the start of his verse, the Londoner gloats about how great his life is now and shares how happy he is that he doesn’t have to resort to drilling any longer.

    “Life’s good so I don’t even drill no more”

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    The Tottingham-born talent clarifies that he doesn’t want to risk his freedom and that’s probably because he no longer has anything to prove. Following the theme of the record, the Stamford Hill-born musical artist (formerly signed to Polydor Records) added to the storyline with an explanation about how people want him to clarify if what he raps about is authentic or factual. The “BRIT nominee” says he has changed his life like Abra Cadabra. He doesn’t drill any more.

    Without further ado, check out the nighttime music video directed by directed by Toxic below for the M3NACE and Beneskrap production. You may see a cameo by his fellow OFB member, Headie One.

    [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc8x5JFVTbM&h=315]

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    If you will be in Kelowna, BC, Canada, this month (May 11), Abra Cadabra will perform live at Kelowna Community Theatre in the afternoon.

  • Watch Emotional Oranges video for ‘Candy Gum’ featuring Jessie Reyez and Becky G

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    Starting in what appears to be a trendy hotel hallway, Emotional Oranges singer Vali “V” Porter (known as a vocal coach for Adele) walks around with Becky G and Jessie Reyez. In the song, seemingly, the ladies carol about someone who flew them out—making them act “bougie”. Now, we aren’t sure if the gentleman’s gesture was for all ladies or if two friends are happily celebrating a friend’s moment. After all, she came for merrymaking and loving.

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    [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpFukKwx2jQ&h=315]

    It isn’t the first time they linked up. On April 13, 2021, Emotional Oranges released a single called ‘Down to Miami’ featuring Becky G.

  • Watch Girlfriend ride in the back of a moving truck with love on the brain, co-starring Tierra Whack

    Last week, Girlfriend released the official music video to her song ‘Bon Voyage’ with Tierra Whack. In the back of a moving truck, the young singer-songwriter and rapper born Kenya Edwards stands in a beige pea coat, updo, red lip, black shirt and matching boots to plead her case about feeling distant from her partner and making an effort to be in their midst. As Girlfriend continues to sing her mind, the young artist represents herself well, wearing a brown lumberjack shirt, graphic tee, and three-quarter shorts to express how stressful long-distance relationships can be.

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    [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K-iloOJg90&h=315]

    Eventually, the Mississippian burgeoning artist changes into another boyish outfit — wearing a Carhartt overall set and a tee. Watch the three-minute visual below to hear what she’s jealous of: There’s a hint. It isn’t a human being. Before today, Girlfriend has teamed up with fellow artists like Bay Swag for ‘Tell Me Again’ and Maiya the Don for ‘Feelin’.