music
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Our Rating 10/10 Some songs arrive loudly, demanding attention. Others move differently. “Intimacy” doesn’t push its way in. It draws you closer, slowly, until you realise you’ve stepped into something far more exposed than expected. This is Loah working with intent and control. The production is stripped back but deliberate, built around space rather than…
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Our Rating: 8/10 “Body” knows exactly what it’s trying to do, and to its credit, it commits. Built on a fluid Afro Fusion foundation, the track leans into rhythm as its driving force. There’s a physicality to it that makes sense once you understand Mighty Koba’s approach. This is music designed to move first and…
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Our Rating: 10/10 “I Like Her” is built on instinct. You can hear that immediately. There’s a looseness to it that comes from its origin as a freestyle. The melody sits naturally, the hook is simple but effective, and the rhythm carries that familiar Afrobeat pulse that makes the track easy to fall into. It’s…
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Our Rating: 7/10 “Battle Chatter” positions itself as a moment of reclamation, not collapse. That much is clear from the first listen. Built on a dark pop foundation with trip-hop undercurrents, the track moves with a slow, deliberate pulse. It doesn’t rush. It doesn’t explode. Instead, it builds a kind of controlled intensity that mirrors…
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Our Rating: 7/10 There’s a quiet confidence to “Homegirl” that doesn’t shout for attention, and that’s both its strength and its limitation. Built around warm acoustic guitar, soft harmonies and that lightly percussive xylophone line, the track leans fully into a kind of storybook folk aesthetic. It’s gentle, melodic, and intentionally small in scale. You…
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Linda Coogan Byrne is a leading publicist, DEI strategist, and author. She also is the founder of Why Not Her?, a gender equity campaign aiming to challenge systemic bias in media and the music industry. In a new Frontiers in Communication article that presents an analysis of gender-based exclusion in the Irish and UK music industries between 2018 and…
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The Ivors have announced the nominations for 2026, with 61 songwriters and composers recognised across seven categories, celebrating music released in the UK in 2025. The awards take place on 21 May at Grosvenor House in London. The Ivors 2026 nominations are in. Peer-judged by songwriters and composers, this is still one of the only…
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Our Rating: 7/10 Bea Elmy Martin’s “Anouk” lands as a deeply personal study of friendship, but what gives it weight is how deliberately it has been allowed to evolve. Written about a close friend and shaped over time, the track holds that tension between distance and connection that comes with real-life relationships, especially when lives…
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A new UK Music report titled “Black Music Means Business” quantifies what has long been understood but rarely measured: Black music is not a category within the UK industry; it is the foundation of it. The data now makes that impossible to ignore. This report proves that Black music isn’t just a category—it accounts for…
The Industry Review 