Blak List Vol. 15: New music from Becca Hatch & Kid Laroi. Yirinda finds beauty in contemporary traditional compositions as well as some love for Blak Label & Travis is blown away by Miles Nautu.
Yaama you mob!
Welcome back to Blak List for March 2024!
Blak List is your monthly journey through the exciting world of Blak music and the Blak Loud playlist on Amazon Music. Huge thanks to Amazon Music for their continued support of this curation by the Awesome Black team.
In this edition of the Blak Loud playlist we are looking at Becca Hatch’s recent single Bass Keeps Calling, Kid Laroi’s Still Yours, Yirinda’s self titled debut album, the incredible work Blak Label are doing and Miles Nautu’s track Third Eye Chakra.
You would likely have seen our New Blak Music Friday series on our Instagram where we talk about what new tracks have come out each week. If not please jump on over there and check it out.
This month we have 50 new and recent tracks for you all from First Nations artists, this is my favourite update of the playlist so far. I feel like I’ve gone back to my roots a little this month with a big focus on hip hop/ rap tracks that is giving me feelings of sitting in my teen bedroom with friends smoking and playing Tony Hawk’s Underground.
I’ll take you more into that vibe soon but for now let’s wade into the waters with a splash into the big new drops up the top of the playlist.
Becca Hatch – Bass Keeps Calling
Huge! The absolutely amazing Becca Hatch is our faceout artist this month. I was lucky enough to see Hatch perform live in an intimate room a couple of years back and while she absolutely slayed there her energy and vocals is suited to big dance halls and parties. Looking forward to seeing what she is coming out with over the next little while.
Kid Laroi – Still Yours
We’ve been lucky enough to have multiple new releases from The Kid LAROI in recent months with a single followed by the album by another new single Still Yours that appeared on his Amazon Prime Documentary:’ Kids Are Growing Up: A Story About a Kid Named Laroi.
Whilst I haven’t had the chance to sit down and watch the doco yet it looks great and getting a stellar track along with it is just the cherry on top. I’ll be watching it this weekend and you’ll be getting a review here soon!.
Miles Nautu – Third Eye Chakra
I have had this track on repeat for good reason. It absolutely slaps and it has layers upon layers of looping lyrics and vibes for days.
I hadn’t heard of Miles prior to last year when Blak Label sent us a little sneak peak of the Ba Sing Se mixtape that featured Miles on the track firstsaveyourself. Now that I am familiar with their work I am a converted fan. Third Eye Chakra is new, classic, jazz, hip hop. Miles’ lyrical prowess over the beats, piano and other accompaniment has some obvious influences or similarities that I can see with A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Lupe Fiasco & Common as well as some more lesser-known artists like Busdriver and others from the modern jazz hip hop movement.
If this first track from Miles’ new direction is anything to go by this will be one to keep an eye on.
Yirinda – Yuangan (Dugong)
At Awesome Black we have been a long time fan of the genius of Fred Leone and his new project Yirinda alongside collaborator Samuel Pankhurst solidifies Fred’s work. Yirinda features tracks sung in Butchulla language with modern compositions and production. It’s a truly beautiful outing.
We’ve featured a few of the tracks from the self titled album on this month’s playlist. I was worried that the more traditional work wouldn’t fit alongside the mostly modern sounds of the rest of the list however this is a masterfully done work that I suspect will be a well played classic. Look out for the live shows, they will be something special.
The rest of the playlist features heavily from the Blak Label lineup, bringing together new tracks from Denzel Kennedy, ChillCheney, BADASSMUTHA, Alf the Great and the aforementioned Miles Nautu. This renaissance of new Blak hip hop is amazing. I want to do a quick shout out to the team at Blak Label and these artists for what they’ve achieved in the last few years. They are doing something special and deserve to be celebrated. We’ll be doing a deep dive on Blak Label in an upcoming article. So keep an eye out for that.
Also keep an eye out for some brand new drops to be added to the playlist as they come out. Make sure to keep the playlist in rotation to stay up to date with all the hottest new Blak music, curated by Awesome Black.
As always, we’re eager to hear your thoughts and suggestions, so feel free to drop us a line at music@awesomeblack.org. Thanks for joining us for Blak List Vol. 15, we’ll see you soon for another deep dive. Until then, keep on keeping on. .
Listen to the full playlist here.