Browsing Tag

Pop Rap

faesymphony builds a neon galaxy for the emotionally overloaded on ‘ineedabreak’

Posted on 1 October 2026

The hyper intensity of ineedabreak by faesymphony is enough to blast you into another dimension. The New York City-based singer-songwriter, recording artist, actor and performer took elements of hyper-pop and threw them into head-spinning overdrive, joined by storming intersections of happy hardcore, DnB, EDM and pop-rap adrenaline.

If you stood at the pinnacle of escapist music, you would be rubbing shoulders with faesymphony and his turbulently adrenalised strokes of neon synaesthesia. The track moves with larger-than-life force, propulsed by the painfully recognisable exhaustion of being young, empathetic and awake in a climate where the bad news never stops refreshing. Rather than sinking into that darkness, ineedabreak builds a sanctuary from it, a new galaxy where you can shake off the weight long enough to believe in the good again.

The production has the sugar-rush extremity that will hit for fans of Charli XCX’s blown-out club-pop moments and the maximalist mischief of 100 gecs, but faesymphony’s trained vocal presence gives the track its own performance-born electricity. His voice rides the manic acceleration with proper live-stage confidence, keeping the song human beneath all the digital combustion.

ineedabreak is a step forward in faesymphony’s sound and identity: immersive, business-minded, artistically wired and ready for clubs, festivals, game soundtracks and anyone who needs an energetic reset. Sometimes you hold on too tight; faesymphony reminds you to let go and fly.

ineedabreak is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Sams Beatz – Blue Lights: Hip-Pop Cinema for Anyone Outrunning Their Demons

Posted on 29 July 2026

As the ultimate renegade of genre fusion and beyond-contemporary crystalline production, Sams Beatz makes every feat in his discography feel like a cinematic session in pure emotion-driven scintillation. His synaesthesia-dripping mash-up of 90s pop, trap and ahead-of-the-curve hip-hop, Blue Lights, is hauntingly evocative, with every production choice sharpened until the atmosphere feels nocturnally metropolitan and psychologically scarred.

Under all of the modernistic touches and luxe urban aura of the release, the central narrative of feeling lost, alienated and dogged by insecurity and inadequacy remains sharp. The beat never overpowers the confession; instead, it gives the pain somewhere stylishly lit to breathe. The low-end lands with velvet pressure, the melodic details glimmer through the mix, and the vocal treatment gives the track its disembodied, late-night transmission of intimate spiralling.

After years of producing, collaborating and contributing to the Norwegian music scene, Sams Beatz has returned with a self-contained creative vision, writing, composing, arranging, producing, mixing and mastering his own releases. His custom digital voice operates like an instrument inside the wider emotional architecture, giving Blue Lights its distinctive identity.

For everyone who knows how it feels to try and outrun the devil and inner demons, Blue Lights is salvation in the form of communally acknowledged pain, a testament to the fact that suffering is no anomaly in the human experience.

Blue Lights is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Anthony Levone & Fooly23 – Tears for You: A Raw Rap Revelation of Hindsight Set to 80s RnB Neon-Lights

Posted on 26 June 2026

Anthony Levone and Fooly23 lit an ‘80s R&B glow around emotionally hard-hitting rap bars in Tears for You, which became a vessel to carry the heartbreak of post-relationship hindsight.

There are countless songs about walking away from relationships stained by selfishness and immaturity, but Tears for You captures the other side of the narrative, exploring how it feels to be the one who drove their own way to loss and loneliness.

The beat sets the emotional temperature first, brushing old-school RnB warmth against the future-facing contours of hip-hop. Levone leans into the confession without hiding behind bravado, letting every bar sit inside the uncomfortable recognition that love can be damaged by the person who claimed to protect it. His delivery carries the embarrassment, regret and self-inventory of someone finally forced to see himself as the architect of the hurt.

For Levone, a West Palm Beach artist returning after a four-year hiatus, the single lands as both reintroduction and reckoning. He has always placed brutal honesty at the centre of his work, and here that honesty feels sharpened to a needle point. Fooly23’s presence deepens the track’s high-energy melancholy atmosphere, helping Tears for You become an admission that will undoubtedly tempt many towards accountability.

Tears for You is now available to stream on all major platforms. You can also watch the official lyric video on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

From Hitmaker to Icon in His Own Right: The Ruggedly Electric Appeal of Cooper Hill’s Debut Alt-Pop LP, They Control the Volume

Posted on 8 April 2026

If it has been a while since you last heard a release sticky-sweet enough to give you goosebumps, jump on the hype amassing around Cooper Hill and his debut album, They Control the Volume. Kicking off with a folksy indie pop rap firestorm of emotion, PLAY, which screams with the same crossover appeal of Mumford & Sons through its ruggedly electric, melodically magnetic acoustic guitar chords and arresting vocal inflexions, the LP instantly pulls you in, hook, line and sinker. The Nashville-based producer evidently bypassed cheap production tricks in favour of a candied charisma and has locked fans into a total sonic sugar rush.

Don’t let the debut status of the LP fool you. Hill’s songwriting chops have been honed to the nth degree during his tenure as a hitmaker for others, including his work on gold-certified records. With a voice as sweet as honey, carrying a nuanced southern twang without ever hitting notes of saccharine insincerity, your soul would have to be stone-cold to resist its affecting propensities.

Throughout the record, Hill exhibits the dynamism of his tenderness, moving from piano-driven ballads like inevitable to the storming synth-pop vulnerability in 1D. It is a masterstroke of a release that positions this former behind-the-scenes force as an icon of alt-pop intimacy in his own right. People won’t know whether to grab a tissue or a pen and paper to write a love letter to this self-aware, genre-fluid visionary.

They Control the Volume is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Connect with Cooper Hill on Instagram.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

PTtheGospelSpitter signed, sealed, and delivered salvation in his neo-soul hip-hop sermon, Good News

Posted on 23 March 2026
PTtheGospelSpitter

PTtheGospelSpitter became a conduit of pure resolving soul in Good News; a synthesis of Gospel, RnB and Hip-Hop shaped to break through the slew of fake news and transmissions that chip away at the soul on a 24/7 cycle. The single arrives augmented with transcendence, built to remind listeners that illumination is still possible when international atrocities sit on every horizon. Even in a warped world, clarity, warmth and steadying forces are there for the taking, and it’s available in spades in Good News.

Switching between richly velvet spoken word sermonic versing and falsetto harmonies that drift with feather-light serenity, the Atlanta-based singer-songwriter layered infinite emotional depth into a track that carries swathes of arcane power and enough enlightenment to chase away the shadows for listeners who need a reason to lift their gaze again.

Behind this moment sits a long history of dedication and triumph. PTtheGospelSpitter honed his voice across radio-charting milestones, from Kingdom to Save Your Soul, climbing Christian Voice Magazine and Cashbox rankings with a consistency that reflects his drive and the community that gathers around his messages. Years spent shaping his sound into a vessel for uplift have culminated in Good News, an alt-rap revelation created to steady minds and nourish anyone who needs a reminder that spiritual resilience is still possible.

Good News is now available on all major streaming platforms. Find your preferred way to listen on PTtheGospelSpitter’s official website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Setty Waxes Lyrical on Modern Malaise in Lookin for Peace – a Hip-Hop Aesthetic That Blurs All Borders

Posted on 16 July 2025

In Lookin for Peace, Setty locked into the cultural zeitgeist with a wavy aural aesthetic that blurs the borders between pop, trap, RnB and hip-hop until those lines are deliciously indistinguishable. Setty waxes lyrical on the weight of the collective psyche, using flex and tension in his bars to bring grit to the forefront of the track. Underneath it all, Lookin for Peace holds up a mirror to the pressure cooker reality so many of us are living through, asking, quietly but insistently, for respite from the boil.

The beauty of this playlist staple is how the production leaves space for your own strain, your own insomnia, to seep into the soundscape as you bounce to the metric precision in Setty’s charisma-soaked performance. There’s a cheeky, offhand charm to Setty, a vibe that explains why his streaming stats are racking up by the thousands. With an after-hours mindset stitched into every hook, he keeps things simple, catchy, and locked into late-night energy that is impossible to resist.

A product of Las Vegas by way of the internet, Setty (Seth Ortiz) has built his rep through cinematic tracks like “Penthouse” and “Didn’t Mean 2.” The Teeny Boppers EP sees him stepping up his evolution, serving three tracks that cover lazy confidence, fashion flexes, introspection and ambition.

Lookin for Peace is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 


Review by Amelia Vandergast

904 Rewrote the Rhythm of Reality with Their Kinetically Charged Electro-Funk Hit ‘Like a Film’

Posted on 30 May 2025

904’s latest track, Like a Film, doesn’t just soundtrack life through a lens, it reprogrammes perception through a fusion of funk, pop, rap, and indietronic disco grooves synthesised to make you move with the relentless momentum of the beats and equally as kinetically energising synths and vocals, which bring the smooth with the frenetic to keep the energy to the nines.

With all the hallmarks of a definitive funk pop earworm and rap verses that allow the up-and-coming outfit to wax lyrical with a euphoric pulse, Like a Film is cinema for the rhythmic pulses. The structure is tight, but the sound is anything but contained. It unfolds like a visual montage of hedonistic highs and sweat-slicked dancefloors. From the first drop, the rhythm is built to incite motion. The swagger in the bars amplifies the groove rather than halting it, making space for flex and finesse to co-exist without compromise.

904 are already proving their ear for what hits hardest without falling back on nostalgia or gimmicks. They charge ahead with total conviction, keeping production values on par with their ambition. If your playlists are littered with artists in the vein of Daft Punk, you won’t hang around finding a place for 904 on your radar. But even without the sonic references, the magnetism in this single will do the heavy lifting.

Like a Film is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.


Review by Amelia Vandergast

Xocoa McGee Torched the Past and Soundtracked Sovereignty in the Alt-Pop Firestorm ‘Bye Bye Ali’

Posted on 21 May 2025

Xocoa McGee, a veritable renegade in the alt-contemporary pop scene with her so-raw-it’s-off-the-bone rap verses and cinematically augmented drops, struck the airwaves with the impact of a meteor on Earth in Bye Bye Ali. When she isn’t waxing lyrical with the conviction of Cardi B and Minaj, Xocoa McGee is proving she’s no stranger to pitch-perfect harmony. Lyrically, Bye Bye Ali strikes a far more empowering chord than the iconic hit Flowers by Miley; consider the track as the antivenom equivalent to remedying your world after it has been ran through by someone who paraded pain as love – if your breakup playlists are missing this hit, it’s time to amplify the vindication of riding solo and on your own terms.

Raised in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, and musically forged through formal training at the Royal Northern College of Music, McGee builds entire emotional terrains. As the sister of Ben Jolliffe from Young Guns and the niece of a member of Tangerine Dream, her lineage practically hardwires her to thrive in a world where storytelling and sonic impact collide. She pulls from the past and the now with equal potency, wrapping visceral narratives in contemporary production that leaves bruises and clarity in its wake.

Bye Bye Ali is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Embrace the nostalgically chaotic empowerment in Melody Key’s hyper-bubblegum-pop hit, College Groove, ft 0mili0us:

Posted on 2 December 2024

Melody Key’s official debut single, College Groove, featuring British rapper 0mili0us, is an explosion of Y2K pop nostalgia ignited by unapologetic hyper-pop ferocity.

Formed virtually through TikTok in 2022, the trio—Kitty, Shanti, and Bella experimented with their creative synergy by recording tracks on Bandlab and releasing them on Soundcloud. After a year of digital experimentation, they’ve graduated to the big leagues with a debut that’s impossible to ignore.

Sticky-sweet bubble gum harmonies form the earworm’s anatomy, but its soul thrives in its feminist grit. Between the euphoric bursts of neon-coloured melodies, 0mili0us delivers rapid-fire rap bars that sharpen the edges of this otherwise sugar-coated anthem.

By injecting Y2K aesthetics with a progressive punch and proudly wearing their serotonin on their sleeves, Melody Key became the ultimate conduit of female empowerment with their anthem that crashes onto the airwaves like a fresh feminist wave.

TikTok virality may have been their genesis, but Melody Key proves they’re more than a digital gimmick. They’re a powerhouse with enough energy to keep their fans craving more.

Whether you’re here for the nostalgia, the empowerment, or the unapologetic chaos, Melody Key delivers it all with an infectious swagger that commands attention. It’s pop, but not as you remember it—this time, it’s here to stay.

Stream College Groove on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The rhythms rolled hot and heavy in PRES3T’s latest pop hit, Love Me Like That

Posted on 16 May 2024

Love Me Like That is the latest hot and heavy pop hit from the up-and-coming visionary, PRES3T, who has been working his way through the industry ranks from a young age and now has a safe foothold to serve as a platform for his stylistically rich rap-adjacent hits.

The solid backbeat kicks intently through the moody atmosphere of the modernised wavy-with-reverb production that throws back to 90s pop aesthetics while simultaneously envisioning the future of the pop genre. If you couldn’t get enough of the taste of Ed Sheeran’s Are You Entertained or Lil Nas X’s DON’T WANT IT, you’ll be obsessed with the flavour in Love Me Like That.

Thailand-born singer, songwriter, recording artist and producer PRES3T delivered his debut LP from his home studio at the age of 16 before receiving national radio airplay and attending the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Before working on his new material, which is steadily waterfalling onto the airwaves, PRES3T cut his teeth working on projects with tens of millions of streams on Spotify alone. We have no doubt he has exactly what it takes to achieve the same in his solo career.

Stream Love Me Like That on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast