Five For Friday ft. [@Sainte444], [@pinkpantheress2], [@KojeyRadical] + more

Five For Friday is back again with 5 releases from the past week you should pay attention to.

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. With it being another very busy week of great music to make life a little easier this Friday we are giving you 5 of our top picks that have recently dropped to start off your weekend listening. Disclaimer – there is a very long honourable mentions this week that includes Adele in there and it’s not that those songs/projects aren’t great, it’s more that they are probably already on your release radar.

Sainte – Out The Blue

Leicester’s Sainte has had a whirlwind past 12 months all whilst still being a university student. At the beginning of 2021, he dropped his highly acclaimed Local Mvp EP and now we’re coming to the close of the year we’re gifted with a second EP in the form of Out The Blue. Where his debut was all him this sophomore offering has carefully curated features from some key names in the UK’s musical landscape with A2, Knucks, Odeal, Miraa May, Chi Virgo, and Tay Iwar all appearing. Whilst it sounds feature heavy, out of the 7 tracks on the project four of them are Sainte operating alone. He brings a fresh vibe and continues to ignite interest in the underground and alternative scenes and this release cements that Sainte is here to stay.

PinkPantheress – to hell with it

This is the one exception for this week, a lot of you will probably be aware that today PinkPantheress dropped her first project and it is exactly what we needed. It is a capsule of Garage nostalgia reworked for contemporary audiences without losing any of the elements that made the classic Garage songs great in their own right. PinkPantheress is a powerhouse and she seems to have got the formula just right, the production choices on the project are immaculate and her vocal performances are as enchanting as the first time you heard her. The project is short, but we knew it was always going to be with her longest release to date not touching 3 minutes. The brevity isn’t a bad thing either as she’s orchestrated the project to have a very strong level of replayability through the fact every song leaves you wanting more due to their length and that instant replay of a song feels satisfying.

Kojey Radical – HB Freestyle

Kojey Radical is in the weird category that Little Simz is in where I see everything they do and can see that there are very strong fanbases respectively there but for some reason, I don’t correspondingly hear their names everywhere. Here Kojey hits LinkUpTV‘s HB Freestyle and graces sublime production from Emil and goes between braggadocious and self aware all without skipping a beat. It feels like premium Rap – it’s luxurious it’s thoughtful, and it sounds great on the ear. The final gem in the freestyle is that he announces that the album is finished so we can expect even more greatness on the way sooner rather than later.

Amun – Mesmerised

Amun is back again with another strong offering, following up ‘Motive’ with the appropriately named ‘Mesmerised’. The song again reaffirms Amun‘s R&B sensibilities but also showing she can do more than just tackle relationships as a topic. The track is a bop, with strong production that compliments her vocals and the visuals equally make Amun feel like she is already the finished article as an artist despite the fact she’s only 23. This is also the first taster of what’s to come from her No Ceiling EP which has some notable collaborators involved from TSB and ADP on production to ZeZe Millz delivering the projects intro, it’s one to look forward to.

Kwaku Asante – Feel Something

Taken from his recent Blue Solstice: Volume 1 project, Kwaku Asante gifts us visuals to go alongside the Kaytranda-esque ‘Feel Something’. Kwaku Asante isn’t always the kind of artist you think of making upbeat music but he’s definitely got it in his arsenal and that’s clear to see here. His typically extremely prominent vocals are stripped back to fit this more uptempo style and whilst their soulful nature is retained, for the most part, there was a slight inkling that wanted to see his vocals come through a bit stronger. But that’s just personal preference and the track is still excellent subjective thoughts aside. Blue Solstice: Volume 1 was a strong addition to Kwaku‘s discography and he definitely has a lot more in store.

Honourable Mentions:

Adele – Easy On Me, Young Thug – Punk, Prettyboy d-o – Love Is War, Pa Salieu Ft. Aitch – Bad, Jazmine Flowers – Adulting, Loski – Certified, Avelino – Four Seasons Freestyle (Autumn), and there are a lot more that deserve a mention but this is already a long list.

You can check out the previous Five For Friday here.