Browsing Tag

Experimental Hip Hop

antwan_nawtna’s Experimental Hip-Hop Fever Dream, Mango Flavoured Lips, Hits with an 8-Bit Sugar Rush

Posted on 3 May 2026

The irreplaceably one and only hip-hop titan of experimentalism, antwan_nawtna, has dropped his new EP, AntwanWonka, and if you thought you heard it all with his carnivalesque, quasi-macabre 2025 LP, Cirque du Ghoul/Antwan’s Circus, the EP will force you to adjust the parameters of your perceptions of the artist and his limitless eccentricity.

Drifting into a dreamier, trappier, more psychedelically lush palette with the standout single, Mango Flavoured Lips, the independent emissary of quirky urban alchemy found himself in 8-bit territory; the tones are bathed in a celestial glow, adding a sense of fantastical scintillation to the production, which draws to a close and leaves you feeling like you’ve just awoken from the most sugary fever dream known to man.

There is a narcotic softness to the atmosphere, but antwan_nawtna keeps the track strange, playful, and unmistakably left of centre, letting the synth tones glimmer while the rhythm rolls through with a woozy late-night gait. The way he bends hip-hop into something so surreal and game-lit gives Mango Flavoured Lips its own unruly magic. Based out of the South Eastside of Chicago, antwan_nawtna continues to prove that underground rap still has plenty of room for imagination, oddity, and fearless tonal mutation when it’s in the hands of someone willing to warp the frame.

Mango Flavoured Lips is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Apple Music and Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Serena Elis Made Hip-Hop Beats a Temple in Her Sensually Divine Single, ‘WIFE OF GOD’

Posted on 13 December 2025

Serena Elis gave voice to the sacred feminine with fire-soaked sensuality in her latest single, WIFE OF GOD. Channelled through experimental hip-hop fused with a lucid wash of oscillating synths and glitchy production textures, the multidimensional artist reshaped desire as something far removed from objectification. Rather than lean into superficial seduction tropes, Elis unearths something far more potent—self-possession that glows brighter than lust ever could.

As her powerhouse vocal lines soar across the warped instrumental terrain, shifting from balladic ache to razor-sharp poetics, she makes it clear: divine femininity has no business grovelling at the altar of male gaze or genre expectation. The beat flickers with instability, mirroring the tension between bodily worship and spiritual autonomy, and it’s within that space Elis asserts full control.

More than just a musician, Serena Elis engineers her own mythos. As a producer, DJ, and visual architect, she’s been shaping the Elis Verse, her own multidimensional cosmos where sound and spirit coexist. Through AI-driven projects, immersive performances and future-facing sonic rituals, her creative vision moves like electricity through wire, illuminating the boundaries of genre and gender. WIFE OF GOD slots itself into this expanding universe as a statement of fury-laced grace, radical empowerment and devotion to self-elevation.

WIFE OF GOD is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 
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Review by Amelia Vandergast

Stephan Folkes Stamped His Signature on Boom Bap Revivalism with It’s None of Your Business

Posted on 14 September 2025

Stephan Folkes blazed a new trail with his bonus single, It’s None of Your Business, dropped alongside his debut LP, Hazard. This time, he dialled into the nostalgia of old-school boom bap hip-hop, gave it an infectious hook, and packed it with the high-voltage authenticity and experimentalism that’s quickly defining the career of one of the most genre-defiant artists in 2025.

By mashing the beats against synth-pop motifs and laying gruff bars over soprano harmonies, Folkes relays a mantra that makes you rethink reposting your entire life online. With his playful but pointed lyricism, he fiercely and eccentrically advocates keeping your world under cloak and dagger, refusing to voluntarily live in the 1985 dystopia.

It’s as infectious as hip-pop gets, and this release will undoubtedly land Folkes on the radar of a new demographic of music fans who like the beats to slap as much as the lyrics.

It’s None of Your Business is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

ESize’s Sonic Adrenaline Shot Lacerates the Loop of Perpetual Striving in ‘We Are Winners, We Got the Juice’

Posted on 17 April 2025

With We Are Winners, We Got the Juice, Chicago’s genre-morphing producer, ESize, tears through the tendency to think the next goalpost will always be greener. The hyped-up hip-hop anthem doesn’t settle into predictable territory for a second. It’s a sonic adrenaline shot for anyone who’s done bending backwards for unreachable goals and is ready to soak up the energy of their success.

ESize knows how to build something from the raw materials most would overlook. With an academic background in music theory from UIC and a professional portfolio spanning R&B chart-toppers, top-ten dance hits in the Midwest, and international licensing deals, he’s not short on accolades. He channels that experience into forward-motion rather than backward-gazing brags, giving We Are Winners, We Got the Juice its pace and punch.

After the harsh and caustically reverberant bass-drenched prelude, the track flips the script. Pop-soul vocals lift the production into unexpected choral territory before ESize delivers his signature gruff gravitas. His vocal force melds with instrumental layers that defy any textbook on hip-hop structure—rock guitar riffs crash against slick funk-charged synths, as the energy swells and contracts with eccentric precision. One ESize doesn’t fit all, and that’s exactly the point.

With four patents to his name and a mission to create music that cuts through the static—whether for sync placements or sonic statement pieces—ESize puts that inventive momentum into every beat.

We Are Winners, We Got the Juice is now available to stream on all major platforms, including SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

Del Shawn Armstrong’s ‘You’ is a Boom-Bap Love Letter Dripping in Cosmic Sou

Posted on 14 April 2025

Del Shawn Armstrong keeps an enigmatic profile online, but his latest single ‘You’ is all the identity he needs, with bars that boom just as boldly as the beats dragging hip-hop straight back to the boom-bap golden days. With plenty of soul and rhythmically salacious grooves woven throughout, Armstrong sets himself apart from typical lyrical waxers, refusing to play in anyone else’s league.

Armstrong’s lyrical persona exudes sheer presence, confidently carrying his verses through experimental electronic textures. Those instrumental touches deliver hypnotic cosmic kaleidoscopes infused with urban innovation, pushing beyond typical hip-hop conventions without ever losing sight of the genre’s roots.

The emotional narrative of ‘You’ cleverly refreshes the humble love song, draping it in stylistic swagger and rhythmic sincerity. Rather than succumbing to sentimental tropes, Armstrong delivers his affection through vivid wordplay and magnetic flows, crafting an impassioned earworm that demands repeat attention.

With ‘You’, Armstrong proves he’s comfortably outside convention, using lyrical dexterity and cosmic-inspired production to carve out a soulful lane of his own.

‘You’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Afton Wolfe – So Purple (feat. Brian Brown, Jack Vinoy Remix): A Blues-Rinsed Trip Through Psychedelic Hip-Hop Alchemy

Posted on 2 April 2025

Afton Wolfe’s latest single, So Purple, was never made for the skimmers, the distracted, or the easily satisfied. It’s a track built to grip your brainstem and hold it under a hazy, hallucinogenic spell. In the Jack Vinoy remix, Wolfe, alongside Brian Brown, brings a soul-soaked, genre-scrambling opiate for the audiophiles who don’t want their boundaries respected.

Wolfe’s vocal delivery alone is enough to trigger an inner chemical reaction. Gruff and thick with Southern blues nuance, his timbre never fights for dominance. It lounges. It drips. It carves through the synth-drenched backdrop like molasses sliding off a neon-lit glass. The production doesn’t bow to any one style—hip-hop is the main artery, but the heartbeat throbs with experimental jazz-blues fusion, swirls of soul, and psychotropic layers that wouldn’t feel out of place in a track built for a Lynchian lounge.

When Brian Brown’s rap bars slide in, they don’t disrupt the equilibrium—they challenge it. The cadence is sharp, the diction is clean, but it’s never ornamental. Brown brings the punch while Wolfe bathes you in smoke.

Vinoy doesn’t phone in his role either. His touch is the hallucinogen. Every snare, warped synth swell, and backmasked flourish is precision-placed to hypnotise. This isn’t your standard producer flex—this is a psych-laced sermon served on a vinyl platter made for the hedonistic and the heartbroken alike.

So Purple is a lucid dream on loop. It welcomes you, intoxicates you, then leaves you wondering if the high came from the sound or the space it created inside you. Wolfe is pushing past what’s comfortable, and it’s about time the rest of us caught up.

The remix is now available to stream on all major platforms, including SoundCloud. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Manchester beatmaker Mankub broke the mould with his unbroken wave of immersion, ‘Fly in the Ointment’

Posted on 24 December 2024
Fly In The Ointment (GOTM062) by Mankub

Manchester-based beatsmith Mankub broke the mould with his bold decision to release ‘Fly in the Ointment’ as a single 30-minute track rather than chopping his mix into separate cuts. It’s an ingenious move to keep the album format alive, providing an unbroken wave of immersion for hip-hop fans craving a continuous flow of classic boom-bap, breakbeat, and lo-fi edges. Every sample and beat is meticulously placed to weave a narrative through echoes of hip-hop’s golden era, letting the vibes steer the momentum of this instrumental LP, which was put out by Gold on The Mixer Records, and is now available on cassette and digital download.

Compiled from fresh material and unreleased beats, it merges skits, loops, and fragments of gritty vocal samples to form a loose concept that resonates with cinematic force. Strings, piano, guitar, and jazz motifs drift alongside hard-hitting drums, illustrating Mankub’s skill for building sound constructions that land somewhere between laid-back downtempo and era-defining breakbeats.

Every progression is a revelation—be it a deep, resonant bassline or a mellow section of lo-fi bliss—the release is all hits and no misses.

Fly in the Ointment was officially released on November 18; stream and purchase the single on Bandcamp now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Orizon waxed lyrical on the distorted gospel of twisted faith in ‘thanks/sorry/fuck you’

Posted on 20 December 2024
Orizon

With thanks/sorry/fuck you, a seminal single from Orizon’s sophomore album Unchrist, the Melbourne-based experimentalist crafted an Avant-Garde symphony of conflicted thoughts and chaotic cohesion.

It’s an invitation to stare into the sonic abyss of a mind wrestling with a triality of contradictions and witness how the track builds on drill foundations, brashy boom-bap beats, and jagged synth lines that buzz like electricity sparking between frayed nerves. The track mirrors the unrelenting tension as gospel vocal samples surface intermittently, a warped and distorted reminder of the artist’s roots in Catholicism, where sin and salvation continually collide.

As the track evolves, Orizon’s steady and scarred bars hold their ground amidst unpredictable turns. Breakbeats tear through the production like the rapture battering stained glass windows, while moments of erratic electronica ensure the listener never settles into comfort.  The crescendos may be cinematic, but there’s little resolve to be found here as Orizon stands as a Lynchian figure in the experimental hip-hop sphere.

While his previous projects—Stories of the Supreme and RADIO (INPINK)—toyed with loneliness and love, this final instalment tackles religion with raw introspection. Each note feels like an exorcism, but Orizon doesn’t stop at self-purging. He challenges listeners to confront their own faith and struggles with belief.

With thanks/sorry/fuck you, Orizon redefines what experimental hip-hop can achieve—not by neatly slotting into a niche, but by allowing unfiltered creativity to dominate. This is what happens when an artist lets the truth cut deep.

thanks/sorry/fuck you hit all major streaming platforms on December 20th; find your preferred way to listen and connect with Orizon via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Naakz broke beats and through the monotony of sonic hegemony in ‘Turn Around’

Posted on 11 December 2024

With Turn Around, the concluding single from his sophomore LP, Reparations, the icon of the underground Naakz detonated the obsession with convention in contemporary hip-hop.

The Māori artist, steeped in the philosophy of his iwi heritage, cast the first stone in the resistance against the sonic hegemony with his break-beat-driven production which sinks listeners into an introspective headspace where wavy lines of funk ripple into the chaotic shimmer of avant-garde psychedelia. The glossy luxe aesthetic is bent almost beyond recognition, leaving a warped yet magnetic invitation to question the systems we’re complicit in.

Rooted in experimental abstraction, Naakz’s work resonates with the influence of legends like D’Angelo and MF DOOM while channelling the beat-smith genius of Madlib and J Dilla and leaving room for his own sonic blueprint, which is amplified by the raw pulse of his SP404MK2, or as he calls it, his “Decolonisation Device.” If you want to break away from the mediocraty of the modern music industry, hit play.

Stream the Reparations LP in full on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Loose Change 10k became an unreckonable force in the Floridian hip-hop scene with their trippy hit, Haters

Posted on 19 October 2024

The Floridian hip-hop duo Loose Change 10k has once again proven its unreckonable mettle with the latest single and music video, Haters. The wavy and melodically trippy track instantly sets a mind-bending tone; once you’ve sunk into the saturated reflections of old-school hip-hop roots, the bars kick in and push adrenalized momentum into the hit with every syllable flexed.

The juxtaposition between the energy injected by the two MCs, O-Head and Danny Duke, and the catharsis of the experimentally catchy melodies leaves you cascading through a vortex of Loose Change 10k’s ingenuity.

With a sound that’s as fresh as it is fierce, they’ve reserved a space in the hip-hop pantheon with Haters, which vindicates anyone who has collected their fair share of haters simply by succeeding. If any track is going to convince you to take it all in your stride and leave them to stagnate, it’s Haters.

Stream the self-shot and produced video for Haters, which premiered on October 8th, via YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast