Shatter the Standards

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Album Review: Movin’ by Selah Sue & The Gallands
A Belgian pop-soul singer handed her worst year to a jazz father-son duo, and they gave her back songs that know the difference between sadness and…
 • Shatter the Standards and Osei Addae
Album Review: Joy by MT Jones
After years of busking, gigging, and backing up other people’s ambitions, MT Jones finally wrote his own album. He has melodies built to last and a…
 • Shatter the Standards and Imani Raven
Album Review: R3SET by Mike WiLL Made-It
Mike WiLL Made-It lost everything on two hard drives and spent nine years figuring out what to build next. R3SET is the answer, and Atlanta is the…
 • Shatter the Standards and Chinedu Faulkner
Milestones: Breezin’ by George Benson
George Benson left the jazz purists behind in 1976. Three days at Capitol Studios produced the genre’s first platinum album.
 • Shatter the Standards and Rosa Delgado
Milestones: Kollage by Bahamadia
A masterclass in cool from a rapper whose loyalty to the culture doubled as her artistic compass. The production pedigree alone would sell the record…
 • Shatter the Standards and Tabia N. Mullings
Tenderness, Control, and a Strong Sense of Self
These five R&B albums from 2011 that stayed close to the body and the voice, then kept deepening over time. Some came in quietly, but none of them…
 • Soulpolitan
Album Review: Good Intentions by Ego Ella May
A South London songwriter turns prayer, diaspora grief, and unglamorous love into her sharpest record yet.
 • Shatter the Standards and Ameenah Laquita
Wednesday Roundups #141: 25 New Projects You Should Listen to Now
Listen to new releases from Olive Jones, Cities Aviv, Miranda Rae, Self Proclaimed Narcissist, sky, Charlotte Colace, Blessing Jolie, Jamal Gasol, Leven…
 • Shatter the Standards
Album Review: Comfortably Suffering by Duncecap & Samurai Banana
On their first album together in a decade, the Queens rapper and his longtime producer reunite with sharper teeth and heavier bags under their eyes.
 • Shatter the Standards and Mina Abdel
The Handguide to Lucky Daye
David Brown left a cult at eight, got cut from American Idol at nineteen, and starved in LA at thirty. Lucky Daye is what happened after all of it…
 • Shatter the Standards and Janelle K. Moore
So Plush on Rodney Jerkins, Darkchild Records, and the Making of Their Debut Album (2001 Interview)
Rodney Jerkins has been tearing through the R&B charts across the turn of the century. The first act on Darkchild, the label he established under Epic…
 • bmr
Milestones: I Want You by Marvin Gaye
Leon Ware built the body; Gaye dressed it in sweat and falsetto. I Want You is a slow-burning desire, a borrowed collection of songs that became the…
 • Shatter the Standards and Imani Raven
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