Five For Friday ft [@@KwoliBlack], [@rutimusic] + more

Friday’s are packed full of releases, these are 5 you should pay particular attention to today.

Five for Friday is back as usual. Friday is essentially the most important day of the week musically, and typically a lot of music drops on Friday’s. Friday is also the day that the official charts are announced letting us know who holds the coveted number one position. To make life a little easier this Friday we are giving you 5 of our top picks that have just dropped.

No Tourists – Dumbo

No Tourists are a Toronto based Black music collective that takes inspiration from sounds across the globe and merge them with their own. We get that front and centre on ‘Dumbo’ which takes heavy influences from Grime as well as some elements of Drill too. The track is one that will have you moving in no time and the energy is contagious. Speaking on the track the group said “‘Dumbo’ offers up our own Toronto take on the intersection of UK drill and grime music. We all pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones and surprised each other a little bit – in the end, ‘Dumbo’ is what we set it out to be, you can’t listen and remain stagnant”.

Kwoli Black – Fly

‘Fly’ wraps up a trilogy of singles from Hackney’s Kwoli Black. It is a triumphant rap banger drawing similarities to J Cole ‘Middle Child’ over which Kwoli shows off his rap ability, his penmanship, his ego, and most importantly his joy. The track mixes hard 808s with gospel progressions, almost military textures with tricky triplet flows, there’s a lot going on and Kwoli is the glue that pieces it all together.

Ruti – Closer To You

‘Closer To You’ is a gently meandering neo-soul offering with Ruti’s dulcet tones backdropped on bed of breezy production at the hands of Wayne Wilkins, known for his work most notably with Beyoncé and Leona Lewis. The single is the first track of a 4-track EP to be released later this year and it stands as an impressive entrance into the project, allowing Ruti’s name to sit comfortably amongst fellow female risers Celeste, Pip Millett, Arlo Parks and Mahalia. 

Juice Menace- Sundown

Cardiff’s Juice Menace isn’t slowing down at all this year, showing all kinds of variety and growth in 2020. ‘Sundown’ is an uptempo, bouncy track with clear Garage influence across the production with Juice flexing both across the lyrics and with her variety of flows. The catchy number is a perfect festival track so it’s a shame we might have to wait a little while to see that live, but on the flipside that just means we’ll know the lyrics by the time we do see it. It suits the good weather we’re having at the moment too and the video mimics the summer vibes with it being shot around an ice cream truck on a beach – there’s not much more summer you can really inject into that one.

Octavian ft. Future – Rari (Chapter 1)

This is an exciting one for so many reasons, but the biggest is that it is confirmation that Octavian‘s got an album on the way – executively produced by none other than Skepta. ‘Rari (Chapter 1)’ is an excellent taster for what’s to come as it shows both the quality of music that will be on that body of work, but also teases at the potential of some real left field collaborations taking place. In fact, there could be some collaborations of dreams on that album if the first one revealed is Future, who does a great job complimenting Octavian with his guest verse. Produced by the eclectic Jim E Stack (Charli xcx, Bon Iver, Empress Of etc), the single calls on an expressive vocal from Octavian who delivers yet another hit in 2020. With no announced release date on what will be his debut album, keep your eyes peeled for more from Octavian.

You can check out the previous Five For Friday here.