Rebound X - Rhythm 'n' Gash

I figure instrumentals are the best way to ease yourself into grime. This is a stunning catchy, skippy little number. I don't think Mr X made anything else to follow it up, but this makes for a decent magnum opus.



JME and Skepta then vocalled it - this is vintage, it must have come out in maybe 2006 on Logan Sama's show. It's so anthemic and I played it so much that summer that I can still finish half the lines.



President T also did a phenomenal job on it about the same time - his voice is like a hammer wrapped in velvet.

Zara McFarlane - Chiaroscuro

I'm serving this up as a musical palate cleanser. I'll leave it to you to work out what food it sounds like.

It's understated and perfectly delivered. This is the kind of song that is always appropriate. As well as having one of the best names in the business, Zara McFarlane has a voice to reckon with: it's simultaneously visceral, emotional and poised.

Zara McFarlane - Chiaroscuro by Brownswood

She also shines, remixed and cut almost into scat, on this funked-up house number - it's sounding almost like garage with those sultry vocals and heavy bass. But her live version is even better - it's on her myspace.

Freddy Sky - El Farsante

If I was ever on Mastermind, my specialist subject would have to be Latin American pop music 2008-2009. Tragic.

But the upside is songs like this. This is one of the lesser-known bangers, which you're going to love - it makes you want to dance like a slut, and sing along: it's straight-up reggaeton romantico, from one of Panama's local stars.

Cheb Khaled - Aicha

This song is one of those songs which renews your faith in music. There might only be 36 stories in all of literature according to Goethe, but there are a near-infinite number of catchy tunes. And if you listen to this one twice you will know it forever - it's like musical herpes.

This is some more Rai, coming straight out of Algeria in the 1980's, and you can only imagine the effect this would have blaring out of a cassette player into a desert.

The lyrics are phenomenally feminist - Khaled tries to seduce Aicha, promising her all the treasures of the world, and she says that a prison is still a prison if the bars are made of gold, and that she only wants equality. Amazing.

The video is also spectacularly odd, and her makeup is foul. I do rate his bling though.

Cheb Mami & Susheela Raman - Live Duet

This is Rai, a highly-evolved version of Algerian shepherds' music. It's played all over north Africa and the Arabic-speaking world, and with performances like this you can understand why.

Cheb Mami is a massive star, whose recent conviction for a horrific crime overshadows his tremendous talent. This song is undeniably beautiful though.

Digital Dubs ft. Earl Sixteen - Pirate's Game

Anything filmed in the favelas is visually arresting - that juxtaposition of forest and impoverished urban sprawl. And the dusk-time shots and languid kids in this video remind me so much of my home near the equator.

The song's in the fine tradition of conscious reggae, and sounds gorgeous. Not my usual dancefloor fodder, but it's dreamy.

5Five - Move Back (Muje Baya)

Oh my days, this is a banger. And I have my illustrious friends at GhettoBassquake to thank for it... They have impeccable taste in choons, and they hit the nail on the head with their summary of this one: "this is like UK funky, but with better hooks". It's also got a bit of a kwaito flavour.

Fresh outta Ghana's party scene, 5Five are no relation to the similarly-named bathetic British boyband (apparently it's pronounced "double five" anyway.)



They're repping a burb of Accra called Adabraka, which sounds suspiciously like abracadabra. Bring on the magic.

Kamikaze - Ghetto Kyote

Don't run scared, but this is grime. It's also a fairly complex and subtle instrumental, with a tune and some tidy little ticking drums. There's a cello instead of the bass, and the whole effect is like 23rd-century chamber music.



Grime is pretty culturally close to dancehall, where multiple artists will vocal any popular riddim, so it's no surprise that more than one vocalist jumped on this track. I love how the addition of lyrics completely changes the feel of the track

There's Kano in an unusually aggro mood, making it sound like murder music:



Contrast that with Devlin's reflective, serious vocal. This was probably one of the first tracks of his that got major pirate airplay - it's not his most vocally inventive work, but it's so fluent and conversational:



Tinie Tempah recorded a verse or two before he was famous, and evidently before he could afford sound tech - the levels are so high you can practically hear the saliva hitting the mic.

And the silky-voiced Katie Pearl made it sound like a garage classic (the radio rip is really bad quality - you have to use your imagination, or listen to how good her voice is here)

Atmosphere - Guarantees

I'm on some sort of brutal tip tonight... this is another song which sort of eviscerates you. In a good way. It's like the blues: a song so sad it makes you glad you're alive.

I'm just starting to work my way through Atmosphere's extensive back catalogue - they've been rhyming since '89. They're from Minnesota, which makes them my second-favourite thing to come from the Snowboot State.

Riz MC - All Of You

Once again, props to my unnervingly cheerful friend Sanjay (seriously - he's like a Cheshire Cat in chinos) for pointing me in the direction of this.

This sounds a bit like Ghostpoet, but it's definitely darker - it's got that creepy drooling psycho touch. And it sounds so good - understated bass and skipped beats.

It does make me worry a little about what my friend is hiding behind that grin. He's got damn good taste in music though.

Documentary: hip-hop in Senegal

For once, this isn't music. But I think it's so interesting. This is the sort of thing that makes me excited about hip-hop all over again.



Also, isn't French such a beautiful language to rap in?

P Money & Blacks - Boo You

For once, I'm hyping something within a year of its release date. But this is grime superstars P Money and Black The Ripper vocalling what can only be described as garage's answer to that Cee-Lo song.

It's grime lyrics (read: London braggadocio) on a garage beat that would have sounded fresh in about 2001. And it's aged so well - turns out garage is the urban Chateauneuf-Du-Pape. There's so much to like about this - especially the shout-out to Ipswich. One of my friends once had sex in Ipswich.

In all seriousness, this is a perfect summer song - especially if 2001 was your perfect summer. And ethnomusicologists can jizz over it as a beautiful example of music renewing its roots.

I just can't wait until the instrumental version comes out so that I can bump this in my mum's car without her saying, "What did he say???" (and not in a P Money way)

It's a rip, so skip to 0:30 if you don't want to hear The Actual Love Of My Life introducing it.

Kes The Band - Wotless

Musical crack - I don't think it is possible to listen to this without smiling and twitching. It's so good.

For those of you whose patois is as bad as mine - UrbanDictionary does a nice little definition of wotless. Yes, I love this music so much I actually read the lyrics. Seriously, soca is my favourite export from Trinidad (apart from my friend Tesha who is perfect. And who told me about this song... thus proving her perfection.)

I defy you not to dance to this.

Antony Santos - Vete (Uproot Andy Remix)

Just when I thought I couldn't love bachata any more than I already do, along comes Andy.

This is bachata on some next-level shizzle - the bass is plumped up and the rhythm's incessant. And it's still got all its lugubrious charm (although this one is focused on asking a girl to leave...)

Vete (Uproot Andy rmx) - Antony Santos by Uproot Andy

For comparison, here's the original - a little more sacharrine-sounding and mid-tempo. (I do love that style of singing though.)

Santana - Maria Maria

Most songs sound terrible after 12 years: they're not new enough to sound fresh or old enough to sound classic. Not so for this.

This is probably the song which, in 1999, as I danced around the living room, kick-started my love affair with a continent on the other side of the world, and sparked my interest in a language that my family forgot how to speak two generations ago. It's an ode to women and to hope, and features one of the most talented guitarists of our time.

What more could you want for a Sunday night? The video's hot stuff too, and the song's success has inspired the launch of a chain of restaurants called - you guessed it - Maria Maria. I honestly couldn't make this shiz up.

The blokes on vocals are the Product G&B, who had an abortive career, despite releasing this slutty little banger - I love the stuttering chorus, but it's pretty unremarkable. Stick with Santana.

??? - Alemão Vs Comando Vermelho

In Brazil, distributing this song is illegal, because it glamorizes violence and extols gang warfare. It's insidious, beautiful, contagious, singable poison, sung by anonymous MC's in a suburban studio in 1995, and subsequently played all over the favelas ringing Rio.

There's a lot to be said against baile funk. But the criticisms are usually leveled at the lyrics, and what I love is the amazing rhythmic chant-based structure, which is so infectious and catchy.

There's no denying that societies feel an acute need to document themselves and communicate. And that includes criminal underworlds: Mexico has its own version - the narcocorridos, which sound completely different but serve the same purpose.

If you're as poor, functionally illiterate and disenfranchised as people in the favelas, music is probably the best medium available. What's stunning is how rawly gorgeous it is.

O.C. - Born 2 Live

I should have remembered that 90's hip-hop will always sound good to me: it's like freewheeling down memory lane. (Oasis also have a house thereabouts, as do the Spice Girls. Nostalgia is not a matter of taste.)

This is a meditative track from the Brooklyn underground (and yes, it sounds like Nas circa Illmatic. How could that be a bad thing?).

I like to think that Talib and Jay grew up listening to O.C.



The delicious sample is off this lush little funky number by Keni Burke, called Rising to the Top. Love it.



Broke (of whom I am a massive fan), did a tidy little remix of this on his downloadable mixtape The Murder Tape - it's called "I was 3 in 1994". I was eight personally, but I like to think that means that Mr Broke would have looked up to me. At least height-wise.

Jason Burns - Back 2 You

I'm sorry my sound has been dulled to silence lately - I've been lacking words and, more crucially, music. I don't know why sometimes nothing sounds good. All I can say is that when I have a cold, nothing tastes good. And I can only suggest that it's something similarly organic. Probably got my head stuck up my arse or something.

Anyway, I've been sulking under my duvet. And this is what's penetrated the fuzz - it's not clever, but it is big: a classic garage sound, a girl warbling a grunt ("ooh-uh-uh-aah-ugh"), and all my favourite bleeps and clicks.

It's garage right down to the homophone-text-speak in the title, making me miss my misspent youth. You too can find a time machine at Monsieur Burn's SoundCloud

Jason Burns-back 2 you by Jason Burns

Lykke Li - Sadness Is A Blessing

Allow the OTT arty visuals - this is a storming classic. I forsee a million covers.

I know about Lykke Li chiefly through her interesting choice of collaborations - Tyler the Creator remixed her, and she guested on a Tabi Bonney track.

I'm getting excited about her, although I don't instinctively love her voice - too thin. But her songs are dense, in a good way.

Carly Gaza - Sweet Lies (Demo)

This is an uncut demo, complete with throat-clearing. If you can't deal with phlegm in the intro, don't listen. But you're missing out: it's exquisite. The vocals have this gorgeous richness to them. And Ms Garza's voice is phenomenally well-controlled: every change in pitch and amplitude sounds well-meant.

The song itself is fairly stunning. I don't go in for heartbreak and angst, unless it sounds this good.

I found it by happy chance - she guests on the phenomenal new Mexicans with Guns album, Ceremony. Her vocals on that were so good that I hunted her down on the interwebs, like some sort of acoustic poacher. And what a kill - this is phenomenally good for a demo.

If you want more of her than is available on her website, check out the band she sings and plays drums (!) for. It's more soft-rock than her solo song (which starred a ukulele), but that voice is worth overcoming my aversions for. And her lyrics are juicy. I'm genuinely excited about this.

Sweet Lies scratch demo by carlyagarza

Vybz Kartel - Stamma

This is a total pop tart - sticky, kinda gross, way too hot and really good in the worst way. The lyrics are filthy, but that little vocal trick of stammering the stammer sounds like scat singing or something. It's good.

Vybz Kartel is really good at making stuff that you like against your better judgement.