Category: Hip Hop

Common has one of the most distinctive voices in hip-hop, and it goes hand in hand with one of the game’s most storied careers. Over the course of three studio albums he had established himself as a lyricist with few challengers, so when it came time to record his fourth studio album, Like Water For Chocolate, he stepped in once again to hit a hard reset on the state of hip-hop.

An artistic transformation

In the wake of influential releases like The Roots’ Things Fall Apart and Mos Def’s Black On Both Sides, Common’s Like Water For Chocolate was part of an ongoing cultural renaissance in hip-hop. A sprawling opus that spans everything from funk to hip-hop, bebop, and cool jazz, the album marks the point where the Chicago MC started transforming into the artist we know today, and finds him taking the chance to honor the black trailblazers that came before him.

Released on March 28, 2000, Like Water For Chocolate is a long but rewarding listen at 78 minutes. This wasn’t uncommon for albums of the era – if there’s room, fill it up, seemed to be the ethos of a lot of artists when they started recording for the CD format. But Common uses the album’s length to his advantage, coming at his subject matter from all angles, often creating characters to do so.

He touches on familiar subject matter, especially for the boom-bap and “conscious” rap of the era: race relations, gender roles, economic disparity, love, and hope. But Common didn’t limit himself to the traditional themes. Even among his peers, he was unique. No one else was out there making seven-minute-long, album-ending songs about Assata Shakur, the Black Panther activist and Tupac’s godmother; a masterwork from MC, it featured CeeLo Green on vocals and would tie Assata’s legacy to Common’s for years.

Thrilling storytelling

The album’s title, Like Water For Chocolate, is a bit of a Trojan horse. It sounds pleasant, smooth, relaxing, and if you weren’t paying attention to the lyrics, the production can be just comforting. But in reality, the title is a reference to water that has hit its boiling point and then gets used to make hot chocolate: the channeling of something harsh, something potentially destructive, into something sweet and desired. In Common’s case, he turned harsh life experiences turned into rap, into poetry and into spoken word. While Common had earned a reputation as a “conscious rapper,” he wrestled with the dichotomy of “consciousness” and more traditional rapping throughout the album.

Listen to Like Water For Chocolate on Apple Music and Spotify.

Like Water For Chocolate’s most electrifying moment is in its most thrilling storytelling, “Payback Is A Grandmother.” Common’s flow is at both its most playful and its most sinister here, and he’s clearly aware this is one of the more entertaining tracks on the album. The tracks finds him receiving a call from his grandmother: she got robbed while playing cards with her friends on a riverboat, and the thieves went as far as forcing some people to “strip naked.” Like Water For Chocolate is rife with details like this: fleshed-out moments that make the album come alive.

Throughout the record, Common created a whole world of characters, complete with rich dialogue and vivid vignettes. He has likened “Payback Is A Grandmother” to a Hardy Boys mystery, as he goes around looking for clues and suspects, before tracking them down. The song gets drowned out in gunfire – mission accomplished.

A collective effort

Largely a collective effort by The Soulquarians, Like Water For Chocolate boasts an enviable roster of talent consisting of D’Angelo, Questlove, DJ Premier, James Poyser, frequent Q-Tip collaborator Jay Dee, and, most importantly, J Dilla.

Dilla is credited as a producer on over two-thirds of the album, anchoring the grandiosity of Common’s vision. But the album’s impressive guestlist goes beyond just production. Its first single, “The 6th Sense,” was an instant classic, thanks to DJ Premier’s bumping instrumental, Bilal’s vocal hook, and Common’s tight flow. Elsewhere, MC Lyte and Mos Def team up with Common on the hilarious “A Film Called (Pimp)’ and “The Questions,” respectively, while Slum Village show up on “Nag Champa (Afrodisiac For The World),” as Common takes a stab at his own image.

Like Water For Chocolate is critical to understanding Common’s growth as an MC. He’s had such a storied career – one that’s now crossed into acting, writing Academy Award-nominated songs, and philanthropy – that it’s actually becoming difficult to trace just how much he’s done.

Many of his fans discovered him long after this era, but, at the start of the 21st century, Common laid the foundation for a new direction in hip-hop.

Listen to Like Water For Chocolate on Apple Music and Spotify.

Browse Common’s music on limited edition vinyl and CDs here.

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When they released their debut album in 1973, The Pointer Sisters played on the then-current nostalgia for the previous generation. For Anita, Ruth, Bonnie, and June, it made sense: Their tight harmonies were tailor-made for a revamp of 1940s, big-band jazz swing. When critic Vernon Gibbs’ wrote about a performance by the group in the NME, he peppered the review with words like “vintage” and “tradition.” Writer Ellen Willis saw the same show, and said the group’s nostalgia was “fantasy that didn’t risk getting too real.”

For at least a few years more, though, the Pointers found it useful to keep one foot in the 1940s and one in the future. Their self-titled debut mixed laments that “they’ve taken my memory lane and made it a six-lane freeway” and the New Orleans funk of Allen Toussaint’s “Yes We Can.” Their next album, 1974’s That’s a Plenty, followed the same blueprint, with a selection of harmonized jazz standards (“Black Coffee”), slick R&B (“Love in Them There Hills”), and country (the Grammy-winning “Fairytale”). But what can you be when you’re everything at once?

Listen to The Pointer Sisters’ “How Long (Betcha’ Got a Chick on the Side)” now.

That was the question that the Pointers attempted to answer with their third album, Steppin’ (1975). As Ruth wrote in her 2016 autobiography, Still So Excited! My Life as a Pointer Sister, “The Pointer Sisters’ nostalgia act was starting to get a little stale.” They wanted to show the public who they were, “our own spirit,” as Ruth put it. And if you’re going to show them, show them.

That’s just what they did on their first single from the album – “How Long (Betcha’ Got a Chick on the Side)” – written by Anita, Bonnie, and David Rubinson. This isn’t a song that looks back. This is a unique style, combining all the pieces of funk, R&B, and disco that make those genres great. This is lush strings punctuating funky guitar. This is a beat that builds and builds, waiting to explode. It begs for dance floors and house parties. The signature harmonies that made them famous are there throughout, too. They show up again in the whispered refrain, with Ruth’s deep alto holding down Anita’s lead. The result is powerful, assured. The song would score the Pointers their first (and only) R&B number one.

They’d made something special, and they knew it. “The album was a mother,” Ruth writes. With songs written or co-written by Stevie Wonder (“Sleeping Alone”), Isaac Hayes (“Easy Days”), another Toussaint (“Going Down Slowly”), and appearances by both Wonder and Herbie Hancock, Steppin’ tapped into something new for the Pointers, something that both artist and audience could feel. With the album, “We planted our flag as true song stylists,” Ruth writes. “We felt our days as a gimmick act were coming to a close.”

Listen to The Pointer Sisters’ “How Long (Betcha’ Got a Chick on the Side)” now.

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You didn’t need to hear a single note from Quincy Jones’ The Dude to know it was going to stand out. All you had to do was look at the album cover and see that unique South African sculpture on the front. Jones once said he found it while visiting a Los Angeles art gallery with Henry Mancini. “It was as if it yelled over at us and said, ‘My brother, take me home.’” He bought it immediately, saying the statue “had an attitude like I’d never seen before.” And that’s the key word for what you hear on The Dude: attitude. It was a statement of worldly, unquestioned confidence.

Jones was part of a generation that introduced the world to the idea that a producer could be an artist too. He had the chops to back it up. He learned from brilliant orchestrators like Gil Evans and Igor Stravinsky, and cut his teeth with bandleaders such as Lionel Hampton and Count Basie, eventually taking center stage as the ultimate pop music alchemist and matchmaker.

Buy Quincy Jones’ The Dude now.

By the early 80s, Jones was riding high, with a clutch of excellent solo albums created in between producing blockbuster albums such as Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall, George Benson’s Give Me The Night, and The Brothers Johnson’s Light Up The Night. As if that wasn’t enough, he masterminded a film score to the hugely successful mini-series Roots and worked on what – at the time – was the most expensive film musical ever made, The Wiz.

So, when it was time for Quincy to record his next solo project, he didn’t have much to prove. The album was simply one of his tightest realizations of all of his talents: orchestration, arranging, sequencing, and talent scouting. The talent scouting was especially key, as the album was a unique composite of dance, bebop, pop, and balladry. Its genre can scarcely be defined.

And it was a time when some genres were in a state of flux, especially in the wake of the enormous backlash to everything disco. The Dude‘s multi-faceted moods and complex arrangements became a pacesetter for the R&B, boogie, and pop that was to come. The lilting, floating “Velas,” elevated by the keening harmonica of Toots Thielemans, had shades of smooth jazz and Quiet Storm, while the lightning-fast bombast of “Ai No Corrida” showcased how much African syncopation would filter into pop and dance music for years to come.

It works thanks to Jones’ a-team of musicians, like keyboardists Herbie Hancock and Greg Phillinganes, trumpeter and horn arranger Jerry Hey, drummer JR Robinson, bassist Louis Johnson, and star-making vocal performances from Patti Austin and James Ingram.

The Dude introduced Ingram’s distinctive baritone to the world, showing off the emotive delicacy and tenderness of “Just Once,” the soaring smoothness of “One Hundred Ways” and his signature masculine heft on the title track.

But perhaps the real superstar of The Dude was songwriter Rod Temperton. The Heatwave keyboardist known for composing classics like “Always and Forever,” Michael Jackson’s “Rock with You” and George Benson’s “Give Me the Night,” Temperton wrote four of the album’s nine cuts, exploring the full range of his theatrics. “Razzmatazz” and “Turn on The Action” were clinics of rhythmic urgency, while “Something Special” displayed atmospheric harmonics that created a delightfully understated passion. Patti Austin’s vocals take Temperton’s songs to their apex, thanks to her melding of razor-sharp technique and instinctive sensuality. She might be at her best, though, on Stevie Wonder’s serpentine funk composition, “Betcha Wouldn’t Hurt Me.”

The mortar that held all these bricks together was engineer Bruce Swedien. Aside from his savant knowledge of microphone science, Swedien’s innovative technique, dubbed the “Acusonic Record System,” provided a nearly endless potential of recording range that gave each recording a celestial sheen. When you heard something Swedien had a hand in played on the radio during this time period, you simply felt the difference.

Quincy Jones’ infectious leadership and charisma helped The Dude go platinum and earn three more Grammys for his already overflowing trophy shelf. Perhaps more importantly, though, the album, alongside Michael Jackson’s Thriller, proved to be a template for pop music for decades to come. The right amount of sophistication and spontaneity, or as Jones himself stated, “soul and science.”

Buy Quincy Jones’ The Dude now.

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Last year was a big one for Coco Jones, and this one is shaping up to be huge. After wowing audiences with her performance at Super Bowl LX last month, the R&B singer and actress has released “LUVAGIRL,” her first new studio recording of 2026.

Produced by Shae Jacobs, “LUVAGIRL” is powered by thunderous drums and regal brass, calling back to classic moments in early 2000s R&B as it creates a blustery atmosphere for Jones’ declaration of love. “Strangers think we’re straight out of a movie/ Way you look at me and move me,” Jones sings. “Baby, I’m a new me/ And I think I like the way that it’s hittin’.”

“LUVAGIRL” arrives with a music video that lives up to the song’s flashy sound. In the clip, Jones portrays a number of different characters, each a different type of “luvagirl.” She spelled out the different modes in an Instagram post. The lady who’s “FULL OF ‘IT’” calls for “romance; with receipts. She believes in love; she still needs consistency,” while the “SUPER FLIRT” is “soft; with intent. Feminine is the weapon; sweetness is chosen.” Jones stars in a stylized poster for each of the eight archetypes too.

The release of “LUVAGIRL” follows Jones’ acclaimed appearance at the Super Bowl in Santa Clara, where she sang “Lift Every Voice And Sing” before the big game. A recording of her performance is available to stream now.

Last year, Jones released her debut album Why Not More? The project featured adult R&B smash hits “Here We Go (Uh Oh)” and “Taste,” cementing her place among the brightest young stars in music today. A few months after the album’s release, she shared some personal news to go along with her professional success, announcing her engagement to NBA star Donovan Mitchell after two years of dating.

Shop Coco Jones’ music on vinyl and CD here.

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When guitarist/bassist Carol Kaye took her first gig as a session player in 1957 for a Sam Cooke session, she simply saw herself as a working mother who needed to provide for her children. “I knew it looked like money, and I had two kids to pay for,” she once told Far Out.

Kaye was born to working-class, professional musician parents and grew up in a housing project during World War II. At the age of nine, her parents divorced, and she began working to help make ends meet, paying for her own guitar lessons. By the time she was fourteen, she was already a professional – assisting her guitar teacher with lessons and playing jazz gigs in the Long Beach area.

The jazz work led to the Sam Cooke session, and from that sprang a career that encompassed over 10,000 sessions on both rhythm guitar and bass for artists like The Beach Boys, Nancy Sinatra, Herb Alpert, Quincy Jones, Cher, and Joe Cocker as well as scores for film and television.

As one of the few women to find consistent work in the session world, she is viewed today as a trailblazer who broke the glass ceiling for other women musicians like June and Jean Millington, Bobbye Hall, and Sandra Crouch.

Kaye maintains, however, that her focus in those years was less lofty: “I never thought of myself as a woman at all. I knew I was a woman because of the way men looked at me, but not as a guitar player. The guitar was my voice, so I used my guitar to play and make money with. I was born in 1935 and my parents were not extremely poor, but there were times that we didn’t have enough to eat. When you work on that basis, it changes everything.”

Glen Campbell – Wichita Lineman

“‘Wichita Lineman’ is one of my favorite records,” Kaye once said. “I got to improvise most of my bass line on that….We just had a chord chart to work from, and they came up with a lead-in line…so they asked me to ‘start it with a pickup on bass’…and what you hear is what I invented.”

Brenda Holloway – You’ve Made Me So Very Happy

Kaye played on more than 175 tracks for Motown artists like Diana Ross & The Supremes, the Four Tops, Martha & The Vandellas, Stevie Wonder, and others between 1964 and 1971. Her bassline undergirds this slow burner that hit the top 40 of Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1967. It became an even bigger hit for Blood, Sweat & Tears, peaking at the number 2 position on the same chart, two years later.

Righteous Brothers – You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling

Produced by Phil Spector, Kaye played rhythm guitar on this recording that hit the number one position on both the American and British charts in February 1965. Kaye recalls of the Spector sessions, “The room would usually hold a crowd of musicians, Sonny Bono would sit in with the percussion section playing tambourine until Phil would call him saying, ‘Telephone, Sonny.’ Then as soon as he was out the door, we’d do the take (to the gratefulness of the percussionists). The booth was constantly crowded with people. What a scene, but fun!”

Tina Turner – River Deep, Mountain High

This 1966 Phil Spector production was no ordinary session, costing $22,000 to record with over twenty musicians. Kaye provided the song’s memorable bassline. She told Songfacts, “It felt like another thing that was going to be a hit, but to walk in the booth and there’s a ton of people in the booth, and there’s a ton of us out in the studio, it almost felt like a party.”

Wonder Woman (Theme)

It seems fitting that Kaye would receive the call to play on the theme song for The New Adventures of Wonder Woman, starring Lynda Carter, which aired on CBS from 1976-1979. Kaye’s bass is prominent in the mix alongside session royalty like Emil Richards, Joe Porcaro, and Tommy Tedesco.

Looking for more? Check out our series of articles on the greatest sessions musicians ever.

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FLO has shared a playful new single titled “Leak It.” The track is about reclaiming power and owning one’s hotness. “This one’s gonna teach my ex a lesson/This one’s gonna get my boyfriend’s attention/This one’s just for me, myself and I,” the London-based trio sing in their signature harmonies and vocals.

In the song’s video, directed by Olivia De Camps (Tokischa, Marina), the girl group enroll in an unusual wellness retreat where artists are trained in the unspoken rules of modern fame.

FLO—Renée Downer, Stella Quaresma, and Jorja Douglas— said of the single and video: “‘Leak It’ unlocks a core memory of being a young girl, listening to girl group music and feeling empowered!”

“The video is iconic! And we’re proud that it’s ours. This is the video we dreamt of having as teenagers. We’re cunty, we’re funny, we’re bold, we’re FLO. We hope everyone loves it as much as we do.”

“Leak It” caps a historic year for the British Pop-R&B trio. Their 2024 debut album Access All Areas was the highest-charting album for a British R&B girl group in 23 years. Alongside a Top 3 chart position in the UK, the trio debuted on Billboard Top 200 and earned a nomination for Best Progressive R&B Album at the Grammy Awards, marking the first nomination for a British girl group in 20 years. The group’s headlining Access All Areas Tour was the biggest US headline tour by a British girl group in nearly two decades, alongside their largest sold-out shows to date in London and across the UK and Europe.

FLO recently stopped by NPR’s Tiny Desk, where they performed their breakout track “Cardboard Box,” which found viral success in 2022 and appeared on their debut EP, The Lead, as well as songs off Access All Areas, and two unreleased tracks.

Buy FLO’s debut EP The Lead on vinyl here.

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Elmiene’s debut album is almost here. In the meantime, he’s given us another enticing preview.

“SAVIOUR” is the latest single from the British-Sudanese singer-songwriter’s debut album songs for someone. Produced by Sampha, the album is set for release March 27 on Def Jam and Polydor.

“’SAVIOUR’ is me calling to my childish desires and not just brushing them away, but taking them for as serious as they really really are” Elmiene says. “We all just want a hero. Word to Enrique Iglesias. Since I was addressing childhood issues, I needed my big brother Sampha to see me through to the end.”

In addition to the funky, effervescent studio recording of “SAVIOUR,” Elmiene has released a live performance video featuring Sampha. With Sampha on piano, the song is transformed into a heartwrenching ballad as Elmiene grabs a mic and channels powerful emotions. His soulful, fluttering vocals put him in continuum with greats from Stevie Wonder to Frank Ocean, but his voice and perspective are all his own.

Elmiene’s road to songs for someone included previous singles “HONOUR,” “Reclusive,” “Cry Against The Wind,” and the bonus track “I Want In.” Together, they’ve cohered into a portrait of a burgeoning talent recently identified by Billboard as R&B’s “Rookie of The Month.”

Songs for someone was inspired by Elmiene’s two-decade journey to this moment, chronicling myriad familial struggles and personal ups and downs along the way. “Making this album was painful,” he says. “I felt lonely sometimes, I felt loved sometimes. I felt guilty sometimes and I felt forgiven sometimes but most of all it was an important duty to myself that I needed to fulfil.”

Following the album’s release, Elmiene’s will launch his songs for someone tour. Promoted by Live Nation Urban, the sold-out jaunt will take him to 18 North American cities this spring.

Listen to Elmiene’s new single, “SAVIOUR,” here.

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Any article outlining Jhené Aiko‘s best songs needs to start right at the beginning. After years of developing her craft, Jhené released her debut mixtape, Sailing Soul(s) independently on her 23rd birthday – March 16, 2011. It was on that day that R&B began to flow differently.

Jhené Aiko is soft yet commanding, sensual, and explicit. Over the course of her career, she’s challenged the conventional look and feel of love while openly discussing the struggles that come with being a young mother, artist, and sister. Aiko has said that she goes through “12 different personalities” in a day. Penny (a nickname given to her by her late grandfather) is her purest, most honest self. Her J. Hennessy rapping persona is an aggressive singer who “really likes to talk a lot of s***,” she once told Rap Up. “[Someone that] talk[s] about things that a lot of R&B singers don’t talk about.” Last but not least, there’s the committed sound healer that’s interested in chakras, sound bowls, and meditation. In short, Jhené Aiko’s best songs contain multitudes. This is an introduction to some of them.

Listen to the best Jhené Aiko songs on Apple Music or Spotify.

The Open Lover

(New Balance, While We’re Young, Bed Peace, Blue Dream)

“I’m a true hopeless romantic,” Jhené once said. “I feel like you have to not be afraid of love.” Many of Jhené’s love songs are celebrating her longtime relationship with Big Sean. But some of the most powerful songs reference her late brother, Miyagi. On “New Balance,” she opens the song with the lyrics, “I can’t put my finger on it/I don’t know, it’s weird/It feels like I’ve known you my whole life/I know what it is/You remind me of my brother…” Jhené often spoke of the closeness of her and Miyagi’s relationship, explaining “…that was the best male relationship I’ve ever had in my life, you know? And so, in a lover, those were the things I was looking for, and I still do. But I know I’m more aware and I know that my brother cannot be replaced, but I know that because I’m still here, that he is within me.”

Jhené’s best love songs are ballads. She described “While We’re Young” as her “ideal love situation.” The song is endearing and innocent with a hint of rebellious adventure, just like young love. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, but you’re open to the risk. This feeling carried over from 2013’s “Bed Peace,” a song about slowing down and enjoying the present with a partner. Telling someone “you are the reason, my love/My mind is open so wide since you came inside/I feel so alive/Without you life just passes by,” is as open as it gets.

The Sexual Siren

(P*$$Y Fairy, Maniac, Living Room Flow, First F**k, 2 Minute Warning)

It’s one thing to casually mention “[eating] the booty like groceries,” but it’s another to start a song with “hop on that d*** like a maniac.” During Jhené’s early days, she would allude to her pleasure preferences and sexual nature in her 2011 song, “Hoe,” but as she got older, she essentially said ‘f*** it,’ and opted to be honest with who she is: “a lowkey freak.” “Living Room Flow” is a sensual 2011 ballad that details the desire for lust – not love. The year after, alongside her partner, Big Sean, she released “2 Minute Warning.” The accompanying visual was risqué, something that Jhené later admitted she rarely shows to the public.

When the aforementioned “Maniac” rolled out, though, all bets were off. She followed up “Maniac” with the titillating collaboration with 6lack, “First F**k,” and the jaw-dropping verse on Saweetie’s “My Type Remix. “I like a BBC in some BBC/That’s the type of s**t that make a b***h DTD/That’s drop them drawers, I’ma lock them jaws/You ain’t never had a b***h from Slauson, yeah/I like the type to eat the p***y ’til I levitate/I’m the type to make him beat it up, then meditate…”

Not long after, she sent the internet into a further frenzy with the surprise release of “P*$$Y Fairy.” This provocative ballad features a specific singing bowl that “corresponds with your second chakra (sacral chakra), which governs your sexual organs below your navel and your hips,” according to an interview with Billboard. Knowing your intimate self is key with Jhené, and aside from the lyrics getting you “sprung off in the springtime,” the melody literally hits you in the soul.

The Slauson Sound Healer

(WAYS, Ascension, Never Call Me, Beautiful Ruin, Everything Must Go, Speak)

Jhené Aiko is the self-proclaimed “Slauson Hills Sound Healer.” On her latest project, she incorporated crystal sound bowls, designed to correspond with your chakra system, into every track. However, her interest in healing came long before Chilombo. She considers 2013’s “Everything Must Go” to be the “the realest s**t [she] ever wrote.” It’s all about realizing that, once you’ve lost everything a fire, you begin to understand what’s really important. “Nothing belongs to you, so be free,” she reflected.

3:16 is Jhené’s birthday, but is also a prominent number she often references in her music. “3:16 AM” has been referenced as the time to reflect on her dark moments, while “3:16 PM” is a period full of literal and figurative light. When she released “W.A.Y.S.,” the opening line alludes back to 3:16: “at forty-four minutes to four…” Given Jhené’s interest in spirituality, it’s not hard to imagine it being a reference to angel number 444. The ‘WAYS’ acronym stands for “why aren’t you smiling,” which is one of her late brother Miyagi’s final tweets. (Jhené has a tattoo of the words.) Jhené self-medicated while battling the grief associated with the loss of her brother, and you can hear her struggle play out at the end of her 2017 album, Trip, on “Ascension.” The song features Brandy, and highlights what it’s like to find your way out of a personal hell.

When she isn’t creating a soundtrack for personal growth, Jhené is piecing her heart back together in an empowering way. On “Beautiful Ruin,” she speaks of being mistreated by a lover, but finding the silver lining – “what a beautiful woman you’ve made of me.” “Speak” is written in the key of E, corresponding to the solar plexus chakra intended to channel one’s personal power. She sings, “f**k your opinion ’bout it, I’m feelin’ my best/I won’t hide it […] I’ll celebrate my freedom, I’m gon’ speak up…”

Nothing depicts the “Slauson Hills Sound Healer” side of Jhené better than 2017’s “Never Call Me,” however. It features friend and gangsta rap legend Kurupt, and directly addresses her relationship with ex-husband, Dot Da Genius. At the time of its release, rumors were circulating about their breakup and those closest to Jhené kept asking how they should handle him. To eliminate any further back-and-forth, Jhené used the song to make herself clear. “You ain’t know I’m a crazy b***h/And tell your lawyer that I ain’t paying s**t” shows that while she is a sweet, loving woman, she’s still from Slauson Hills and has a tribe of people ready to ride for her. Kurupt’s voicemail bluntly stating, “the homie called me and was like ‘Man, Jhené trippin, man, this buster ass n***a got her mind f**ked up’/I’m like ‘No, not Jhené’/Né-né, you hit me I got you, you understand me?” Sometimes, you’re the one who requires tough love in order to heal.

Browse Jhené Aiko’s music on limited edition vinyl and CDs here.

Think we missed one of the best Jhené Aiko songs? Let us know in the comments below.

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Arya Starr has shared a new single titled “Where Do We Go.” Produced by ILYA, “Where Do We Go” is a sultry ode to an after-hours relationship. Danceable and vibrant, the song asserts Starr as, well, a star. The Afrobeats artist’s latest track is out now via Mavin Records.

“Where Do We Go” is Starr’s first release since last year’s smash hit “Who’s Dat Girl,” in which she trades verses with Rema. Also in 2025, her collaboration with Wizkid, “Gimme Dat,” earned Starr her second Grammy nomination for Best African Music Performance at the 68th Annual GRAMMY Awards.

The Beninese-Nigerian artist landed her first Grammy nomination a few years back for her massive 2022 single “Rush,” cementing her as the first and youngest Nigerian female artist to be nominated in that category. The song made Starr the first African female artist to have two songs reach over 500 million Spotify plays. “Rush” initially appeared on a deluxe edition of Starr’s debut album, 19 & Dangerous, and also has a remix featuring Kelly Rowland.

Starr’s sophomore record, 2024’s The Year I Turned 21, featured the singles “Rhythm and Blues” and “Commas.” The album features guests like Asake, Anitta, Coco Jones, Giveon, Seyi Vibez, and more. The track “Santa” with Rvssian and Rauw Alejandro made Starr the first Nigerian female artist to receive a RIAA Latin Diamond certification.

Also in 2025, Starr won two MOBO (Music of Black Origin) Awards. In addition to being named Best international Act, she was the first female artist in 16 years to win the trophy for Best African Music Act. She’s also picked up nominations at the BET Awards (Best International Act), Soul Train Awards (Best New Artist), and the MTV VMAs, where her tracks “Rush” and WizKid collaboration “2 Sugar” were up for Best Afrobeats Song.

Listen to Ayra Starr’s “Where Do We Go” here.

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Ah, “just another blog about women in rock,” to paraphrase former Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna. But while surely we’re happily approaching the days where we don’t have to say “all-female band” instead of just, y’know, band, it’s still good to pay our respects to those female musicians who cleared, with sweat and struggle, the paths that we now walk.

But it wasn’t always so easy for musicians to be openly feminist – or, indeed, to be openly women. But right from the start, they’ve been there, eking out space, changing the game, one step at a time. And though there isn’t space to thank them all, let’s make a start…

As noted in rock academic Lucy O’Brien’s essential book She Bop, among the very first performers to popularize blues and make a success of selling records were women. The first of the “race records” – tracks aimed at an untapped market of black Americans – released by Okeh Records in 1920 was sung by a woman: Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues.”

The first big success and big personality was Ma Rainey, The Mother Of The Blues, who championed a direct, down-to-earth style, despite making an early stab for rock glamour and excess by wearing a chain of $20 gold pieces and advising her listeners to “Trust No Man.” She began touring as a double-act with her husband, but went on to make over 100 solo recordings, invested the money she made in two theatres, and got to retire comfortably. She also discovered Bessie Smith, who brought blues further into the mainstream during the 20s, a decade when female performers were more successful than men.

Smith could earn up to $200 per side on her recordings, a phenomenal amount when a typical successful male artist might earn around $15. The title of her first recording set the defiant tone: “T’Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do.” She was known for the way she’d competitively “carve” other artists’ songs, releasing her own, superior version, shortly after theirs, and she dressed with front to match, in glitzy gowns and ostrich plumes. “Smith had several husbands, but they could never control her or her bisexual affairs,” reveals O’Brien in She Bop, which conjures a world of early independent woman, where track titles such as “Ain’t Much Good In The Best of Men Nowaday” or “One Hour Mama” abounded, despite the stereotypical image of the mournful blueswomen devastated by lost love. Women weren’t limited to singing, either: Memphis Minnie’s guitar style adapted from the classic to the electric blues era, and, in 1933, she once beat Big Bill Broonzy in a guitar contest, to the delight of the watching crowd.

As blues mutated into jazz, it was a woman who became its most original, and most lauded voice: Billie Holiday. Though Lady Day suffered greatly at the hands of men – she was raped at the age of 10, and working as a prostitute at the age of 13, having started her working life cleaning in a brothel, where she listened obsessively to their Bessie Smith 78s – she turned her anger and pain into some of the most arresting songs in the popular music canon. “Strange Fruit” was the first time a female singer had been so politically outspoken, so angry, so open about the racism that had blighted her life.

Ella Fitzgerald also broke boundaries, dominating bebop with her versatile voice, which she used like a virtuoso instrument. She was the first black artist to headline The Copacabana, and kept pushing forward in her later years, performing on Quincy Jones’ 1989 album, Back On The Block. Another groundbreaking female artist, Björk, was a fan from her childhood. “Here singing was an influence on me, but not in a direct sense,” she told Q magazine in 1994. “More in the sense that you shouldn’t take melodies too literally… the point is more the mood, and the emotions, and it doesn’t matter if you forget the lyrics. You can still sing the song. You can do whatever you want to.”

Taking that last sentiment to heart, the first woman to have a No.1 record in the US was Connie Francis, an Italian-American New Jersey girl born Concetta Franconero. Having had flop single after flop single, Francis’ contract was almost expired, and she was considering a career in medicine instead. At her final session in 1957, she recorded a cover of a 1923 song called “Who’s Sorry Now?.” It reached No.1 on the UK chart (which US singer and actor Jo Stafford had already topped in 1952 with “You Belong To Me”) and No.4 in the US. In 1960, her track “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool” became the first song recorded by a solo female to top the US chart.

Though it took a decorous lady like Connie to crack into hearts and charts, as pop and rock started to diversify into different genres, other women were pushing at the boundaries of what was sonically and visually acceptable. Wanda Jackson, The Queen Of Rockabilly, was no mere accessory to King Elvis, fronting her own radio show from the age of 11, and later touring with her own band. She brought, she said, a glitzy glamour into country with her stage outfits, sewn by her mother, and struck fear into the hearts of no-good cheaters on the likes of 1969’s “My Big Iron Skillet”: “There’s gonna be some changes made when you get in tonight ’Cause I’m gonna teach you wrong from right.”

Bringing blues back into the era of 60s rock, meanwhile, Janis Joplin pushed even harder at the definition of what a female performer could do. Inspired by the likes of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, she began singing folk and blues at school, where she was bullied not just because of her weight and her acne scars, but also for her love of black music. Joplin was among the first rock frontwomen to take the freedom that the 60s promised – with all its good and bad ramifications – and try to live as free as a man could. Breaking through with Big Brother & The Holding Company at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, her star soon outshone the rest of her group, and she took control in the studio before going solo, providing inspiration to a generation of free female spirits. “After they see me,” she said, “when their mothers are feeding them all that cashmere sweater and girdle, maybe they’ll have a second thought – that they can be themselves and win.”

Also pushing rock boundaries was Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick, who left both her first band and her husband behind to become one of the hippie era’s great frontwomen. With her unusually deep voice, Slick aimed to emulate that most traditionally male of rock instruments, the electric guitar, and she wrote one of acid rock’s defining statements in 1967’s “White Rabbit.”

Over on the pop side of things, Carole King was one of the 60s’ defining musical figures. Born with perfect pitch, she started learning the piano at four. With her songwriting partner and husband Gerry Goffin, she wrote some of the biggest pop and girl-group hits of the era – the likes of “The Loco-Motion,” “It Might As Well Rain Until September” and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” – becoming the most successful female songwriter of the late 20th Century. Between 1955 and 1999, King wrote or co-wrote 118 Billboard hits, and 61 UK chart hits.

Her hits for others, from “Up On the Roof” for The Drifters, to the peerless “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” for Aretha Franklin, were not the end of the story. In the 70s, King’s own performing career took off, and her classic album Tapestry holds the record for the most consecutive weeks spent at US No.1, at 15 weeks. The album included the barnstorming “(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman,” which King and Goffin had written for Aretha Franklin, the singer to end them all. Franklin took the gospel power of her church upbringing – Mahalia Jackson was a family friend – to the world of pop, commanding R-E-S-P-E-C-T with a voice of refined power. When Carole King was honored by the Kennedy Center in 2015, Franklin’s performance of “Natural Woman” – complete with fur-coat drop – stole the show.

Making a very different journey through bubblegum pop to solo success was Cher, who, after singing backing vocals on Phil Spector hits such as “Be My Baby” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’”, hit the heights with husband Sonny Bono and their dewy-eyed flower-child love anthem “I Got You Babe.” Hippie pop’s power couple were not all they appeared, however, and for years the controlling Bono held Cher’s career back. Her first solo US No.1, 1971’s “Gypsys, Tramps And Thieves,” was, tellingly, produced without his input.

In 1974, Bono filed for a separation on grounds of “irreconcilable differences.” Cher countered with a divorce suit on grounds of “involuntary servitude,” claiming that Bono had withheld from her the money she’d earned. Cher went on to range widely through rock, pop, disco and dance, with highlights including the cannon-straddling video for 1989 power ballad “If I Could Turn Back Time” (banned by MTV, and other channels, thanks to Cher’s outré get-up), and the 1998 vocoder-trance hit “Believe,” which became the biggest-selling hit by a female artist in the UK. In more recent years, she also became an unexpected success on social media, hilariously baiting the Donald Trumps of this world in capital letters.

Talking of leather-clad rock chicks, we should play homage to an original, Suzi Quatro, who challenged gender boundaries by becoming the first famous female rock bassist. Determinedly presenting herself as one of the (tom)boys, Quatro subtly drew attention to double standards. Irked by US record companies trying to make her into the next Janis, she moved to the UK in 1971 to find success on the suggestion of producer Mickie Most, who “offered to take me to England and make me the first Suzi Quatro.” Quatro was no mere puppet, though, and the ferocious way that she laid claim to headbangingly “male” glam and hard rock sounds of the era, as heard in her hits “Can The Can,” “48 Crash” and “Devil Gate Drive,” all million-sellers – marked her out as a true original. Later she’d come to wider recognition in her home country as the rocker Leather Tuscadero on the sitcom Happy Days.

Quatro, alongside her fellow leather enthusiast and Runaways guitarist Joan Jett and beatnik-inspired proto-punk poetess Patti Smith, cleared the way for the women of punk rock such as Akron, Ohio’s Chrissie Hynde, who also moved to the UK to make it, the peerless Poly Styrene and bands such as the Slits and the Raincoats, who seized on punk’s DIY promise to carve their own space. Outlasting the scene’s brief energy flash, and many of the its male figureheads, was Siouxsie Sioux, first ringleader of Sex Pistols’ fan crew the Bromley Contingent, then becoming her own icon at head of The Banshees, whose dark glamour lit new paths through post-punk and goth.

But rough and tough wasn’t the only way to go in the 70s; there was also the path of the diva. Though Diana Ross’ success with The Supremes isn’t usually held up as a paragon of sisterly solidarity, her huge star power as a black woman bestriding Motown, pop and disco was undeniably a breakthrough and an inspiration to many subsequent women: with 70 hit singles and 18 No.1s, she remains the only artist to have reached the top as a solo artist, a duet partner, as part of a trio, and in an ensemble; Billboard magazine named her the “female entertainer of the century” in 1976.

Barbra Streisand also sets a high bar: originally planning a career as an actor, she thought she’d try singing as an added bonus. After she took part in a talent contest at a local gay nightclub, the club’s owners were so astounded that they booked her to sing there for several weeks, and her performing career began. Early on, she began mixing songs with comedy and theatricality in her shows. Distinguished theatre critic Leonard Harris was impressed, writing, “She’s 20; by the time she’s 30 she will have rewritten the record books.” He wasn’t wrong: Streisand has sold millions of records and raked in millions more at the box office, and she’s the only artist to have No.1 albums in six decades.

The first UK No.1 album by a female artist, meanwhile, was Kate Bush’s Never For Ever. A landmark in more than one way, it was released at a juncture in Bush’s career where she seized control, setting up her own publishing and management company, and taking more and more control over the production of her records. From her next album, The Dreaming, onwards, Bush was in full control, pushing pop to its most experimental edges, and pioneering the use of electronic instrumentation, such as the Fairlight sampler.

Bush opened paths for women in alternative music, but we should honor, too, those who broadened out the mainstream, such as Madonna, the mother of record-breaking. Moving from Michigan to New York with only $35 and a blond ambition that overcame her fear – “it was the first time I’d ever taken a plane, the first time I’d ever gotten a taxi cab” – she is, still, the bestselling female recording artist of all time, and frequently held up as one of the most influential. Her frankness and in-your-face sexuality, and her wild, unashamed success, inspired generations of women. From her lace-and-“BOY TOY” T-shirt days to the graphic provocations of her Sex book, Ciccone loved to challenge, and to nip at the heels of the Catholic religion in which she was raised: the first and best of pop’s good-girls-gone-bad.

Blazing her own trail from ingenue to goddess at around the same time was Whitney Houston, a singer seemingly born to greatness: Dionne Warwick was her cousin, Darlene Love her godmother, and Aretha Franklin her honorary aunt. Houston’s eponymous first album was the best-selling debut by a woman in history, and she is the only artist ever to have seven consecutive Billboard No.1 singles. Despite the troubles of her later life, she was an inspiration not just in the field of music, but in film, with 1995’s Waiting To Exhale in particular still held up as a watershed of mainstream representation of black women in cinema.

Mariah Carey, too, started out as a good girl, in a classic protégé mould: discovered and shepherded by manager-husband Tommy Mottola, her rafter-shaking power ballads sold phenomenal amounts. But Mariah wanted more. She divorced Mottola and seized control with 1995’s Daydream album, adopting a more contemporary R&B sound, enlisting guest rappers such as Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Jay Z, and sampling Tom Tom Club. “Everybody was like, ‘What, are you crazy?’” she said at the time. “They’re nervous about breaking the formula. It works to have me sing a ballad on stage in a long dress with my hair up.” The result, though, was higher sales than ever; her peerless single “Fantasy” saw her become the first female artist to debut a single at No.1 on the Billboard Top 100. And in shifting her squeaky-clean balladeer image to a more playful divadom, Carey became one of our most beloved pop stars, and proved that she knew best.

Janet Jackson, too, started out in the shadow of men – not just her hugely famous brothers, but her domineering father – appearing in family productions from the age of seven. Her artistic and commercial breakthrough, Control (1986), saw her moving away from her father’s influence towards creating, with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, a tough, smart persona. Enduring classic “Nasty” was inspired by men who catcalled her in the street on the way to the studio. “I’ve got a name, and if you don’t know it, don’t shout to me in the street,” she said. “‘Control’ meant not only taking care of myself, but living in a much less protected world. And doing that meant growing a tough skin.” By the release of her next album, Rhythm Nation 1814, she’d sacked her father as manager.

Moving into the 90s, one ingénue who was certainly paying attention to the bath of her forebears was Madonna’s future kiss-partner Britney Spears, who broke through in the video for her platinum single “… Baby One More Time,” playing the tongue-in-cheek part of a Catholic schoolgirl with unclean thoughts. Spears’ struggle to gain control over her adult image became a template to follow or react against for female pop stars making the transition from child star to adult artist, from Miley Cyrus to Selena Gomez. In 2008, Britney became the first female artist to have all her first five albums debut at No.1 in the US, and the youngest female artist to have five No.1 albums.

Alt.rock’s commercial breakthrough in the 90s was spearheaded by women from Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon to Liz Phair (who once described Madonna as the speedboat who pulled other female musicians behind her on jet skis). Courtney Love was grunge’s supremely self-aware Janis, her raw-rage voice and fearless frankness inspiring a generation, while Bikini Kill, Babes In Toyland, Sleater-Kinney and the riot grrrls brought feminist politics into music more explicitly and unapologetically than ever before, and the likes of Tori Amos and Alanis Morrissette brought some of that anger and energy into the mainstream. . (Tori remains committed to exorcising her rage on record. Her latest album, Native Invader, pulls no punches in criticising the Trump administration.)

In the proud and open feminism of today’s pop megastars, we can see the legacy of those 90s women all around us, but it might be some time before we can truly measure the influence of Beyoncé. Like many on this list, her story is one of increasing control. Her early success with Destiny’s Child, with game-changing, smart, sharp, R&B-pop hits including “Jumpin’, Jumpin’,” “Bills, Bill, Bills,” “Survivor” and “Independent Women (Part 1),” came under the aegis of her father-manager Matthew Knowles, with Beyoncé suffering depression after he sacked band members and she copped the public blame. Matthew continued as her manager through her solo success from “Dangerously In Love” (recorded with future husband Jay Z) onwards. In 2010, Beyoncé took a career break on her mother’s advice, and, in 2011, parted ways with her father as manager.

From then on, things got seriously interesting: her album 4 was heralded by the tough, baile-funk influenced “Run The World (Girls),” a motto Beyoncé lived by more and more closely. The surprise release of her self-titled album and accompanying film in 2013 marked a step-change in her output, with frank and graphic lyrics, and darker, stranger production, opening up more of her thoughts than ever before. The all-conquering Lemonade sealed the deal, taking on not just unfaithful husbands, but, in the infectious “Formation,” systemic racism. Her proud support of feminism and the Black Lives Matter movement, along with her fellow megastar, and darker, stranger production, has changed the game. Rihanna, who took part alongside Beyoncé and many others in powerful Black Lives Matter video, has also pushed the boundaries of what mainstream stars are supposed to talk about with songs such as “American Oxygen” and her dark, frank Anti album – a long way from the sweet-smiled Barbadian 17-year-old who released Music Of The Sun in 2005.

And in a more crass measure of female power, Beyoncé and Rihanna are also consistently among the top musical earners over the past few years. So too is Katy Perry, who, like Carole King, is a songwriter who found her own success, and whose candy-pop image sends up a princessy, bubblegum idea of femininity as she fires out empowerment anthem after empowerment anthem.

Perry’s fellow lover of pop grotesque, Lady Gaga, meanwhile, is the ultimate self-created icon, springing fully formed from her own weird brain. From the start, she presented herself as a ready-made star: a breakthrough single called “Paparazzi,” and an album called The Fame. And writing her own legend worked – she’s now one of the highest-selling artists ever, with an estimated 114 million album sales, and the proud owner of six Grammys and three Brit Awards. She’s used that success to stand up for others, sharing her own story of being raped at the age of 19, and performing her song on the subject, “Til It Happens To You,” surrounded by sexual assault survivors at the Oscars.

It used to be the case that there was only room for one woman at the top table, but, hearteningly, female solidarity has become an increasingly important story in pop. Taylor Swift, who writes some of the most irresistible pop songs in the game, and breaks records every time she breathes, underwent an enthusiastic public conversion to feminism, championing her friends in a way that counteracted the media’s tendency to set female stars against each other.

One of those friends, Lorde, was hailed by David Bowie himself as the future of music. When she parted ways with her manager Scott MacLachlan before the release of her second album, Melodrama, there were online mutterings to the effect that it might not be the wisest of ideas. “Hey men,” she tweeted in response, “do me and yourselves a favor and don’t underestimate my skill.” That future seems to be in safe hands.

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