new.currency® Episode 005 arrives with the confidence of a show that has found its footing and stopped looking back. Twenty-one records assembled with the same curatorial instinct that has been building week over week, pulling from Afrobeats, amapiano, soul, R&B, and the international underground in ways that make every category feel secondary to the feeling the collective is actually chasing.
Side A opens with Space Afro setting the tone on Blessed before Sarz, Asake, and Gunna bring Happiness in as one of the most effortlessly cross-cultural records of the year so far. Three artists from three completely different worlds sharing a record that sounds like it could not have been made any other way. Mr Eazi’s Chop Time, No Friend carries that energy forward with the ease of an artist who has spent years making music that travels without needing a passport. Keys The Prince follows with Oshey, and Amaarae’s Reckless and Sweet arrives as one of the episode’s early highlights, a record that lives up to both words in its title simultaneously.
new.currency® – episode 004
Craig Isto’s Can’t Get Enough and Benjiflow’s Abena keep the momentum moving through the mid-section of Side A before Jesse Boykins III brings Fun For Free into the picture, warm and unhurried in the way that only someone who truly understands soul music can manage. The Chriz Javey amapiano edit of 2Pac’s I Get Around is the kind of reimagining that sounds either impossible or obvious depending on which side of the reveal you are on, and it lands here as a genuine statement about what the genre can absorb and transform. Show Dem Camp close Side A with the DJ Sudi Remix of Too Bad featuring Amaarae and Tems, a record that earns its place as a closer by refusing to be anything other than exactly what it is.
Side B opens with Flozigg and Sergio Mauve on Gemini before Major Lazer and Major League DJz bring Oh Yeah in the extended mix, a collaboration between two of the most globally connected names in dance music that sounds like a conversation that has been a long time coming. Tyla’s Water in a Jemsii and Bboogie amapiano edit takes a record that already carried significant cultural weight and finds a new center of gravity inside it. Naomi Sharon’s Time And Trust and Ayzha Nyree’s Nuthin follow as two of the episode’s most quietly powerful moments, both artists doing what the best R&B does: making restraint feel like the most expressive choice available.
new.currency® – episode 003
The closing stretch belongs to the edit architects. Anaiis in a Karen Nyame KG Remix, Soul II Soul’s Back to Life rebuilt by Maneli and DJ Hol Up in an amapiano framework that handles the original with genuine reverence, K.ZIA’s Sans Toi in an Ekany Remix, and Lee Pearson Jr. Collective’s Start Today in a Fluetstrumental all make the case that the remix economy powering this show is one of the most creative forces in music right now. jsilos brings Down4Me before Loraxx, JP Rose, Feux, ESME, and Thais Sala close the episode with feel., a record that earns its lowercase title and its period. The episode ends exactly where it should.
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