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2024’s been an unbelievable year for hip hop, and there’s a good chance you already know this. Of course, it’s a colossal one for the culture, with Kendrick Lamar finally dragging rap out of the “Drake era,” but there’s been an endless outpouring of phenomenal records from every other corner of the genre too.
There was a particular era of indie culture back in the late 2010’s that some might rather forget: Odd Future merch everywhere, an influx of “soft boy” fashion, and suburban youth all over America bumping this zany new boy band called BROCKHAMPTON. They sounded fresh as hell, but they might’ve been the kind of thing you had to just be there for. Over half a decade later, most of the artists that defined this period have moved on to other ventures—but as evidenced by Chasing Moving Trains, there’s one still hung up on it.
Sampling has always been at the core of hip–hop. DJ Kool Herc knew it when he threw the first ever hip–hop party in 1973. Back then, sampling was already about who could find the most unique records and mix together the newest sounds. But by the '80s and '90s, production was a whole different game. Wu–Tang Clan started sampling kung–fu films, MF DOOM sampled Marvel villains, and Eric B. and Rakim put out "Seven Minutes of Madness," one of the craziest sampling compositions ever released.
If you’re a classical music enthusiast like myself, Philadelphia is the city to be.
A pretty clear line can be drawn tracing Yeat’s musical evolution since he first blew up in 2021. Initially, there was the incredible run of 4L, Up 2 Më, and 2 Alivë: a seamless melding of hungry delivery, bouncy and hypnotic beat selections, and playfully tongue–in–cheek lyrics, half of which stuck in the form of inescapable vocal stims (“I been spinnin’ off these percs like I’m a laundromat”was generational shit). 2023’s AftërLyfe took an abrupt turn, with fewer memorable bars, but a fruitful dip in experimentation and introspection.
“Can the basement that they run p*tchfork out of just collapse already,” Halsey tweeted after reading the publication’s review of her 2020 album Manic—a review that said her newest work reminded them of “sitting miserably in the backseat of a Lyft.” This tweet was promptly deleted after Halsey found out that Pitchfork operates out of the World Trade Center. Halsey quickly tried to remedy the issue by claiming she was joking and was attempting to “poke at them back with the same aloof passive aggression they poke at artists with.”
Siren–like synthesizers. The heady pulse of house. Punchy 808s that strain my cheap and overworked bluetooth speaker. The bubblegum–lilt of a K–pop track. As the semester enters a lull after the frenzy of midterms, I’ve swapped out my instrumentals and brown noise playlists for my cache of music to get ready to. On the weekends, I hook up my ailing JBL portable to a charging port as one would prepare an IV for a sickly patient, open up Spotify, and sing along as I power through my makeup routine, always slightly behind schedule.
I still remember when Lil Uzi Vert first dropped Eternal Atake. It was the week before COVID–19 lockdowns, and I was a freshman in high school walking to my world history class when suddenly, everybody went rabid. The outer–space, alien–themed album had been delayed, hyped up, and mourned over for nearly two years before it was finally released with zero warning. As a student in the Philadelphia school district, a part of Uzi’s hometown, it’s safe to say that it was all anyone could talk about or listen to that day.
Kapacity calls itself Penn’s premier Korean rock band, but it's not one to be pigeonholed—its setlists span ‘70s hard rock epics, 2000s emo classics, top–of–the–charts K–Pop, and heart–rending balladry. Long divorced from its primarily international student beginnings, now the band’s only focus is quality music, and it’ll reach out to any corner of the world to attain it. I saw this quality for myself at its show in March, and I knew I had to talk with the members—so I sat down with three leading members of the band in their regular rehearsal room to discuss their goals, inspirations, and creative process.
As I took my seat on Friday night at the Academy of Music’s cozy Perelman Theater to hear chamber orchestra Sphinx Virtuosi, I reflected on other concerts I’d attended in this very same venue. Generally reserved for chamber ensemble performances (consorts, quartets, the occasional Baroque soloist), the Perelman is intimate, seating 650 as opposed to the 2,500 that its sister concert hall, Marian Anderson Hall, can manage. I’ve most often received an overwhelming impression of comfort from Perelman concerts: safe musical choices, small ensembles with a homespun feel, cute but at times banal performances … from regional youth orchestras to masterful but familiar solo pieces performed by Yo–Yo Ma, I’ve left the Perelman smiling in appreciation but never in astonishment.
The roll out for Halsey’s fifth studio album, The Great Impersonator, was anything but subtle. For eighteen days prior to the release, Halsey posted pictures of herself on Instagram dressed as her greatest musical influences. Amongst the greats they dressed up as were Dolly Parton, David Bowie, Fiona Apple, PJ Harvey, Bjork, Britney Spears, Joni Mitchell, and Bruce Springsteen. It was clear from the start that Halsey wanted us to get up close and personal with The Great Impersonator, revealing the significant figures that influenced each track—but this would only be the tip of the iceberg. In The Great Impersonator, Halsey truly rips themselves open, revealing all the light (as well as the darkness) that exists within them and recounting their past few years spent battling with illness, coming to terms with motherhood, and finding love. While some of the tracks, or “impersonations”, on this album fall flat at times, the album as a whole is Halsey's most earnest, intimate, and deeply personal work yet.
Phil Elverum is no stranger to misery. His long career as an indie–rock storyteller began with the band D+, before he shot to prominence with The Microphones, singing about the impermanence of life in breathy tones over hot, oppressive instrumentals.
There’s never a dull day in the K–pop universe, and that’s been especially true this past month, which saw a string of Ws for NewJeans against all odds, Bruno Mars’ first Korean music show win, and an appallingly bleak situation regarding RIIZE’s Seunghan. Even past all that, there’s been an unprecedented flow of drops from third, fourth, and fifth–gen titans alike—and like last time, I’ll be going over and reviewing some of the most notable ones.
In 2024, Philadelphia radio has been dominated by two types of content—Eagles highlights and the same three election ads aired ad nauseum on every station. Amid such distractions, it’s hard to separate the signal from the noise—but why rid ourselves of the noise that fills our lives at all? After all, 2024 has been a banner year in music, from industry veterans finally breaking into the ultra–mainstream (you know exactly who I’m talking about) to new acts shaking things up deep underground. Whether you’ve had a BRAT summer or a Cold Visions year (a phrase I just invented—pass it on), Street has you covered with all the highlights from this year’s music scene.
“I was up late night ballin'” at Vince Staples’ Black in America Tour. As hundreds of people swarmed to Franklin Music Hall to see the Californian rapper, all you could see on the stage was a lone, mighty American flag—and considering how much Staples criticizes America in his music, the irony was not lost on fans. It’s safe to say that we were feeling pretty patriotic for Vince.
Anna Shoemaker is many things: a proud cat owner, a SoundCloud sensation, “Brooklyn's own Olivia Rodrigo”—the list goes on. In the seven or so years she’s been signed to Plus 1 Records, the singer has carved out a “crying in the club”–girl image—relatable and deeply unapologetic, she’s the kind of artist whose lyrics feel like a page from your diary. Her discography is nothing if not brutally honest, a conglomerate of songs on self doubt, young adulthood, and of course, heartbreak. But in the couple years since her debut album Everything is Fine (I’m Only on Fire), the (temporarily) Los Angeles–based pop confessionalist has uncovered another aspect to her accomplished identity—it only took her a couple thousand miles to get there.
One thing that every Tyler, the Creator fan loves about him is that his marketing campaigns are short, sweet, and honest. So when he teased “St. Chroma (ft. Daniel Caesar)” on Oct. 16 with a short video and no other context besides the word “Chromakopia” at the end, fans became very excited for new music. The next day, he officially announced Chromakopia was set to release on Oct. 28, teasing merch and singles up until then. For fans like me, even waiting the short 11 days up until the record came out felt like waiting for the light to arrive after sitting in darkness for nearly three years. It’s safe to say that I went to heaven when the record finally dropped.
The crowd stands shoulder to shoulder. Adults in their 40s stake out the back of the venue. Behind them, signed posters of Bruce Springsteen, vintage guitars, and faded Stone Pony flyers dating back 50 years wrap the walls. The younger fans swarm as close to the stage as possible. Inhaler concerts will always be a melting pot of generations, from older fans eager for the live sound of Bono, the 64–year old father of Inhaler’s lead singer Elijah Hewson, to Gen Z enthusiasts hungry for the band’s distinct basement rock sound, which echoes the Arctic Monkeys, Catfish and the Bottlemen, and the Strokes.
A little fire is lit in the courtyard behind Van Pelt.
For the last few months, I felt like one of the only people left in the damn world who actually got BRAT.
Solutions by The State News