A quick note about BeHoward; if you haven’t heard his collaboration album with Fu Stan, Claude & Ray, start there. Better yet, just watch the Dope Boy video. It’s a serious dose of hip-hop but it’s also, intentionally, ridiculous.

This brand new single, “Both Sides (Interlude),” continues that thread a little bit. This is BeHoward collaborating with BeHoward – sharing the screen, swapping verses in very different styles and keeping it all peppered with a great deal of style and amusement. It’s not silly but it is a damn fun time. Keep your ears glued to the lyrics for the real gems.

Instagram tells us this is part an upcoming album; looking forward to it whenever those details emerge.

I assume at this point in time that Six One Tribe needs no introduction but here’s a quick primer just in case you still haven’t heard of the award winning collective representing the sound of Nashville hip-hop through collaborative albums and individual solo outings. That’s it, that’s Six One Tribe. Last time I checked there were upwards of sixteen members, each contributing their own unique voice and style to the overall sound.

There’s two huge hurdles that Six One Tribe faces whenever they drop new music. First, they’re openly working to represent the entire city’s contributions to a wildly diverse genre. How does it stack up? Secondly, there are sixteen members! Are they creating a platform to showcase each voice or crafting a specific song; leveraging the strengths of each emcee to create something unique.. as per question number one. These are very lofty goals to achieve and this latest set of videos for “Spirit Week / Backstreets” does a great job of answering both of them.

“Spirit Week” is just a scant 30-seconds but not one ounce of it is throwaway. It’s subjective but Corduroy Clemens flow always hits me the right way; you can often hear the wry grin coming through his lyrics. I don’t know the story behind the beat but the drumline and choral cheers are downright historic in the context of TSU. That’s a lot to extract from half a minute but it’s all there.

“Backstreets” is the prime attraction here; featuring HB Mandella, Blvck Wizzle, Negro Justice, Namir Blade, Gee Slab, and Riø Tokyo. A lazier group would just run the same beat the entire time, putting all the focus on the distinct vocal styles but Six One Tribe is not a lazy group. Each emcee gets their verse and the backing track morphs expertly to support them. By the time Namir Blade starts crooning, the track has morphed through four different movements; threading the needle expertly to never once feel disparate.

At this point in time, Six One Tribe has won a great deal of accolades but it can be hard to know where to start with them. With two full-length records and at least a dozen solo records, there’s a lot of material to earth. This track is an excellent entry point to pique your interest to dive further into Reset for the Rejects, their latest release.

Back in July we mentioned the Cloudmouth track “Take Me To a Lake.” In short, we liked it.. a whole lot. Now, after seeing this Live from Queen Ave version, somehow the song is even more enjoyable. The notion that the band is able to translate the more space-y aspects of the song into a compelling performed piece is certainly worth taking note of.

This brand new Tayls video dropped today but it’s not just a new video; it’s also a brand new single and the opening track to an entire new EP of the same name, Darkest Light. More importantly, it’s also yet another maturation in the “Friendship Punk” genre that Tayls self-identifies as. When you make up a genre, you get to define it however you want but having been a fan of the band since 2018, I can see the hard edges are being sanded down and the euphoric optimism being heightened.

The video for “Darkest Light” is a psychedelic treat; filled with fluorescent explosions, lights beaming from orifices and glowing creatures stalking a protagonist to a final destination. The visual feast is propped up by an introspective set of lyrics about doubt and embracing optimism, both for yourself and for others. The chorus pleads “If there’s a light, let it shine, shine on me.” This isn’t interpretation, Tayls is laying it all out.

And therein lies the magic; Tayls have a keen ability to write highly personal songs about coping with self-doubt and feeling “oblivious to happiness” through a musical vessel that is unhinged with happiness. “Darkest Light” is downright squishy. It’s loud. It’s fun. It’s the perfect antidote to the contemplative lyrics. Taylor Cole may deliver the words with a bit of a snarl but it’s all part of the journey towards improvement. If every new Tayls release is also a clarification on the “Friendship Punk” definition; it seems to be firming itself into an outpouring of good vibes as a means of dealing with internal anguish. Quite frankly, that’s a modus operandi that I can get down with.