Five For Friday ft [@manikmc], [@samson_ashe], [@ElizaLegzdina], + more

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

Five for Friday is back again giving you 5 great tracks/projects for your Friday. 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.

House of EL – You Don’t Know My Name

If we are being technical this one shouldn’t be making the list because it didn’t come out today, but with the quality on display, exceptions can be made. House of EL has been on an extremely strong run of recent and on ‘You Don’t Know My Name’ that run continues. The production on the record gives real Thundercat vibes but the soulful vocals are distinctly his own. Together that pairs to give a track that is like a more understated version of Childish Gambino‘s ‘Redbone’, that’s not to say the tracks are identical either but definitely bring the same vibe.

Queen Millz ft. Lavida Loca – Pretty

This is a link up that came out of nowhere but makes perfect sense. Queen Millz has had a steady stream of songs released throughout the year and ‘Pretty’ feels like the best one yet. We get Millz dropping some smooth melodies alongside her slick lyricism and creates a bop that could have stood alone as a banger without a feature. But then we get Lavida Loca coming through matching the boss b***h energy apparent on the track. Lavida has equally been having a great year and its good to see female artists coming together in a similar light as we’ve seen across the pond making it extra clear that women in the industry are here to make their mark.

Samson Ashe – Simple Man

I’d never heard of Samson Ashe before but ‘Simple Man’ definitely has me set to tune into his releases from now on. I can’t quite categorise the record but it feels like it takes bits and pieces from Pop, Indie, R&B and probably even more places. Together somehow that melting pot of influences works in tandem to create something that is truly alternative but cohesively easy on the ear. This is definitely my pick for Friday for if you want to branch out of the more mainstream sounds in favour of artistic risk taking.

Eliza Legzdina – Curse 4 U

Eliza Legzdina is someone I have championed from the first track I heard from her. The self proclaimed witch has dropped the Halloween appropriate ‘Curse 4 U’ which channels those vibes across the bouncy multi-genre influenced record. Whilst her delivery is largely Rap, the hook could just as easily sit in the Pop realm and the production is very comfortably Electronic. The record is definitely good to set off any Halloween plans you might have but also kicks off the rollout of her upcoming sophomore project so look out for more from that. If you like this one make sure you check out Eliza‘s lveMUSIC. performance here.

Manik MC – Concrete Clouds

MANIK MC is by no means new to this having already picked up a slot with tastemakers COLORS back in 2018. Two years on and with a renewed vigour he is back with the project you need to be listening to this Friday Concrete Clouds. It is a Lo-Fi Hip-Hop project, something we don’t see much of in the UK, so it is definitely a breath of fresh air. Simply doing something different alone wouldn’t be a reason to feature a project though, and MANIK does more than that. He delivers slick rhymes with an easy on the ear cadence and a diversity of flows that keeps things interesting to secure himself a spot here this Friday. It is easily my project of the week.

You can check out the previous Five For Friday here.