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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
Wednesday Roundups #155: 25 New Projects You Should Listen to Now
Listen to new releases from The War and Treaty, PJ Morton, Tierra Whack, Dylan Sinclair, Glenn Lewis, Ama, Big Freedia & SOPHIE, Devin Morrison, RJ…
 • Shatter the Standards
Album Review: Divided Times by Qwel & Nightwalker
On Divided Times, teaming up with Nightwalker, Qwel raps about what’s killing people, from capitalism to his city’s blocks to the self.
 • Shatter the Standards and Harry Brown
Album Review: Water to Wine by Cashus King & Big O
Cashus King and Big O build fourteen tracks on the miracle at Cana. Addiction, grief, and Black history become his most exact writing yet.
 • Shatter the Standards and Lance “LX” Brooks
Album Review: Outside the Lines by Shabaam Sahdeeq & Es-K
Thirty years past the open mics, the Brooklyn vet raps his parasite detox, the quiet life, and the boombox his mother bought.
 • Shatter the Standards and Quinn Baptiste
Album Review: No Era for Margins by Rasheed Chappell
Active since 2009, Rasheed Chappell takes his time centering Christian, Five-percenter, and Islamic imagery, while Reckonize Real gives him low-lit…
 • Shatter the Standards and Phil
Album Review: Hate the Sin Not the Sinner by Jules Clay
Jules Clay found God on the way up and still wakes up reaching for his gun, and across Hate the Sin Not the Sinner, he won’t pick one over the other.
 • Shatter the Standards and Termaine M. Scott
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