Jams of the Week: Normanton Street, Oshun, Princess Slayer, Pete Philly, Jess Connelly

This week we’re slip­ping, slid­ing and can­non­ing from the past to the future with hip hop-soul group Nor­man­ton Street (pic­tured), we enjoy soul­ful cuts from Oshun and Jess Con­nel­ly, chase down 120+ BPMs with Princess Slay­er, and cel­e­brate the return of Dutch hip hop artist Pete Philly.

*** Lis­ten to even more new music on The Fresh List playlist ***

‘2014’ by Normanton Street

Since we dis­cov­ered Nor­man­ton Street, we’ve been nod­ding along to their music at every oppor­tu­ni­ty – if you haven’t heard the infec­tious ‘Ange­lene’ go lis­ten to it right away. Jazzy, hip hop-soul is this Brighton group’s ethos. Dri­ven by the sound of live instru­ments, their unique blend of male-female vocals brings the atmos­phere of the streets straight to your synaps­es. That’s true of ‘2014’, a sto­ry about their jour­ney so far and the all-impor­tant ques­tion: “where do we go from here?” Don’t sleep on Nichol­son, Ned and Phoebe: give this track, and their recent­ly released Long Road EP, a listen.

‘My World (feat. Jorja Smith)’ by Oshun

Sis­ters Thandi­we and Niambi Sala are Oshun: a hip hop, neo-soul duo from Wash­ing­ton, DC. In 2015, the sis­ters released the phe­nom­e­nal mix­tape Asase Yaa, which, among oth­er things, showed the sister’s embed­ding Yoru­ba cul­ture in their art and cap­tur­ing the imag­i­na­tion of lis­ten­ers with their mes­sages about peace, love, wom­an­hood and black­ness. The sis­ters recent­ly released their debut album, Bit­ter­sweet Vol 1. The sen­su­al, Jill Scott-esque ‘My World’ is one of our favourites. It fea­tures gor­geous vocals from the sis­ters and guest singer, Jor­ja Smith, over a dar­ing­ly sim­ply, yet ter­rif­i­cal­ly smooth, groove.

‘At the Harbour’ by Princess Slayer

Bridg­ing the gap between UK garage and drum and bass are Princess Slay­er. The Sur­rey group – led by Casey Lim (vocals and lyrics) and Vince Welch (beats and pro­duc­tions) – meld bright vocal hooks with fre­quent­ly rapid BPMs in a style that exists some­where between Groove Arma­da, Mas­sive Attack and Nois­ia. ‘At the Har­bour’ is the fourth sin­gle they’ve released in the lead up to their forth­com­ing full-length project in Decem­ber. Start­ing slow­ly at first, elec­tron­ic key­board tones grad­u­al­ly become a rush of ener­gy, Lim vocals weav­ing in and out as it inten­si­fies. Just awe­some. One for your fit­ness and gam­ing playlists.

‘Favorite Song’ by Pete Philly

There’s a lot more to say about Dutch hip hop artist Pete Philly than we have space for right now. A ris­ing star last decade as part of the now-defunct duo Pete Philly and Perquisite, the per­former looked set to bring his ener­getic, con­scious raps to the world. Being diag­nosed with Lyme dis­ease halt­ed his plans – give The Inde­pen­dent’s inter­view a read for more. Fast-for­ward to 2018, and Philly has begun releas­ing new music after a sev­en-year hia­tus. ‘Favorite Song’ is a lush, upbeat song that is, in words of Del the Funky Homosapi­en, “funky, funky sh*t!”

‘Mine’ by Jess Connelly

We’re still hooked on the lat­est sin­gle from Mani­la R&B singer Jess Con­nel­ly. Pro­duced by her long-time col­lab­o­ra­tor, Crwn, ‘Mine’ is a smooth and seduc­tive R&B song, which lovers of Jhené Aiko or Jor­ja Smith will adore.

*** Lis­ten to even more new music on The Fresh List playlist ***

Image: cour­tesy of Nor­man­ton Street/PR