Shatter the Standards

Shatter the Standards

Home
Album Reviews
BLAST
Blackpolitan
Lists
Milestones
Soulpolitan
Wednesday Roundups
bmr
Words Past da Margin
Album Review: TERRA COTTA by Joseph Solomon
A song cycle built on rebooked flights and half-apologies follows one couple from takeoff to the end of the world. Joseph Solomon turns the distance…
 • Shatter the Standards and Chinedu Faulkner
Album Review: O.Y.N by Maxo Kream
Handing every track to JPEGMAFIA, Maxo Kream writes from an older man’s vantage, and his bravado and his grief finally pull in the same direction.
 • Shatter the Standards and Murffey Zavier
Album Review: No Sleep In Paradise by Naomi Sharon
Sharon’s second album follows one relationship from the first pull to the door she takes. Her writing about power and the unsaid turns a familiar…
 • Shatter the Standards and Ameenah Laquita
Milestones: Songs In A Minor by Alicia Keys
Alicia Keys left Columbia at sixteen and bet her career on a piano. Nothing else in 2001 R&B sounded like it.
 • Shatter the Standards and Tori Hammond
New Music Drops: June 26, 2026
As new albums and singles get constantly flooded into our radar, look no further than skimming through the release week of June 26th. We know it can be…
 • Shatter the Standards
EP Review: and all pride aside by kwn
kwn opens this EP claiming she could put any woman on all fours and ends it praying over someone she’s losing.
 • Shatter the Standards and Marjani Fields
Milestones: Peace Beyond Passion by Meshell Ndegeocello
The album that named homophobia with a slur and Christianity with a question mark was too honest for a music industry that preferred its Black women…
 • Shatter the Standards and Darryl Keyes
Milestones: Keith Sweat by Keith Sweat
Four million copies of unchanged Keith Sweat, arriving when everyone counted him out. The begging worked better than the reinvention.
 • Shatter the Standards and Jamila W.
Milestones: Call Me If You Get Lost by Tyler, The Creator
Tyler asked the Grammys why he couldn’t be in pop, then made a Gangsta Grillz album. It won Best Rap Album anyway.
 • Shatter the Standards and Phil
Milestones: Reasonable Doubt by JAŸ-Z
The drug dealer’s debut built a billion-dollar empire. Thirty years later, nothing else in his catalog sounds this hungry or this scared.
 • Shatter the Standards and L. Ari James
The Handguide to R&B Concept Albums (‘70s Edition)
By the decade’s end, the “concept album” had become a proving ground where Black artists negotiated technology, politics, and commerce on their own…
 • Shatter the Standards, Brandon O'Sullivan, and Phil
Milestones: 4 by Beyoncé
The most important Beyoncé album is the one nobody was ready for. She made a whole record about loving one man, and it rewired everything that came…
 • Shatter the Standards and Tai Lawson
© 2026 Shatter the Standards, LLC. · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture