december 2024
#72: doechii | armando cusopoli | oddisee + ken starr | dar disku + asha puthli | everything is recorded | robbie williams
quick december highlights to round out the year!
nissan altima - doechii
if for some reason you didn’t see doechii’s npr tiny desk performance, i truly truly implore you to watch it, at least a couple of minutes. and then keep reading obv!
her tracks, like nissan altima and denial is a river, are fantastic—something about her flow reminds me of the kinda of storytelling from monie love on e.g. monie in the middle but SO SHARP on the beat, so clean. the tiny desk performance elevates them and flips them on their heads, accompanied by an incredible live band (obsessssseeeedd with bassist zuri appleby, she fuckin kills it). the jazzy version of denial is river adds to the comedy of the lyrics, the harder rock energy on catfish, and the soulful, gospel vibe of black girl memoir was something else. no one is doing it like doechii.
non c’è sole - armando cuspoli
funky neapolitan version of bill withers’ ain’t no sunshine. sì, sì, per favore, signore!
this is hip hop - oddisee & kenn starr
at the end of november, i ended up with 10 bus tickets that had to be used by christmas eve (the reasons? boring and complicated). i decided to use a couple to treat myself to a trip to grub for a browse one december saturday, suffering through a journey full of screaming and sneezing on the 76 only to find it was closed 🤡 i went home and browsed discogs instead, coming across this compilation 7 Heads R Better Than 1: No Edge Ups in South Africa vol. 1. fairly straightforward early 00s brooklyn hip hop—i really like the tone. i’ll have to go and pick it up. don’t scoop me!
baar baar - dar disku ft. asha puthli
i got into the dar disku album too late to give it its due in the 2024 round up email, but i do like it. dar disku are djs and label owners (from bahrain, based in london) who centre middle eastern/arabian music of all genres and flavours in their mixes and releases. this is exactly as you’d expect (complimentary) from their self-titled debut album and asha puthli is a big name get who works very well.
losing you - everything is recorded ft. sampha, laura groves, jah wobble + yazz ahmed
i had to include this because there are like fuckin four screenshots in my phone from radio programmes and shazams i did in 2024 of everything is recorded songs, most of which they haven’t released (on streaming, at least). but they did release this, so yes - shout out to everything is recorded, i am on the album countdown (february).
millennium - robbie williams
i guess this was technically the first song i heard in january 2025, at the nightowls party at sidney and matilda, but i’m folding it into december. i had never been on the dancefloor for the new year before! a mixture of house parties, quiet couple-y events and staying in shetland getting roasted for fancying jackie bird by my brother—tbh, mostly the latter—had been the extent of my life’s hogmanay efforts. i’m unsurprised to learn it’s fun to go out and dance with ur lovers and friends. still crying recollecting the look of HORROR on people’s faces at the three-scottish-guy pre-midnight ‘here we / here we / here we fucking go’ chant; i did the macarena?; if you’re the guy who fist bumped me and innes for snogging - happy new year to you too!
i haven’t seen the robbie williams movie and i don’t think i will, but i will always HOWL along to him at any given opportunity. i was doing it at new year. i was doing it in a karaoke booth in glasgow five years ago. i’m doing it right now!
shout out to jen for being the barely visible but equally emphatic other half of this, err, forceful duet (and to ruth for the video). if anyone watching this wants to do karaoke in 2025, i’m available to be tuneless but 100% committed to the bit.