Complex UK's Best Albums of 2018

Manchester duo Children of Zeus, a.k.a. Tyler Daley and Konny Kon, have said that when you live in a city that never stops raining, there isn’t much to do except sit inside and make music. Despite the gloomy conditions, the pair\'s full-length debut is a warm and intoxicating fusion of hip-hop, jazz, and soul. Their vocals float between rapping and singing with ease, maintaining a meditative pace made for Sunday-afternoon lazing. Keen to showcase more of Manchester\'s rising talent, they invite R&B vocalist \[ K S R \] to smother “All on You” with his honey-smooth voice, while rapper/singer Layfullstop contributes to the laidback ode to positivity “Fear of a Flat Planet.”

It’s been a long road leading to this album for Tyler Daley and Konny Kon. They first embarked on their expedition into the music game two decades back - Tyler entered the scene as a songwriter, producer and vocalist, originally under the moniker Hoodman, whilst Konny began MCing, DJing and beat-making for hip hop crews The Microdisiacs and Broke’n’£nglish, along with DRS & Strategy. To date, Children of Zeus have released three sell-out singles on First Word (‘Still Standing’, ‘I Can’t Wait’ and ‘Slow Down’) and a compilation EP comprised of tracks made by the duo over the last decade entitled ‘The Story So Far…’. Children of Zeus are finally at the stage where they are releasing their debut album proper; the over-riding ethos of which is about keeping their eyes on the road ahead, whilst shedding the baggage they’ve accumulated over the years - ‘Travel Light’. Features mainly come from Manny family; [ K S R ], LayFullStop, Metrodome (Levelz) and former Broke ’n’ £nglish spar DRS. Guest production comes in the form of Switzerland’s Sebb Bash, Nottingham’s Juga-Naut, and London’s Beat Butcha, and there’s your favourite DJ’s favourite DJ, Mr Thing, slicing up the turntables on two tracks too. There’s a few extra special ingredients on this album, along with their trademark sub-heavy, rhodes-laden hip hop soul hybrid. Reggae music has always been an integral piece of the CoZ sound-system ethic, so we see Tyler putting on his lover’s rock hat for ‘Hard Work’, and they invite soul queen Terri Walker to join them on the fierce ‘Sling Shot Riddim’, while the album closes with the epic K15-produced jazz-bruk opus, ‘Vibrations’, on which Konny breaks it down quite simply: “high frequency means that you travel light, so get lifted yo, we’ll live gifted”. Long as the journey has been, the time for looking back is over. This is about the present and future of Children of Zeus. A shining light in Manchester’s now-school, and rightly heralded by many as the best new act to emerge in British soul music in the past decade. Aside from the above features, this project is written, performed and produced entirely by Tyler and Konny. Since the crew first took flight, the end destination has never changed, the aim remains the same - to create timeless music, in their own unique style, without compromise, irrespective of industry and life distractions. The moral being this - travel light.

A series of mixtapes documenting life on the hardest streets of North West London led rapper Nines to a deal with XL Recordings and a full debut—2017’s *One Foot Out*—that struck commercial pay dirt. This follow-up is a thoughtful, capricious study of a man juggling that success with loyalties to his past. Working a novelist’s sense for small but effective details around spare, hypnotic beats, Nines is full of triumphalism on “Oh My” and “Haze.” However, he’s most engaging during his reflective moments, wrestling with the pull of the streets on “Pictures in a Frame” and offering a stark portrait of prison time on “Cash Interlude.”

France-born, London-raised Oliver Godji originally planned to call his debut mixtape *Revenge* as a riposte to anyone who’d doubted his ability to make a success of a music career. He eventually settled on *SPACEMAN*, but his defiant stance still holds. “We all live in space, everyone lives in space, you can create your own space,” he explained to Julie Adenuga on Beats 1. “I have my own space—this is my space.” The 14 tracks here establish his outlying place in the UK rap universe while showcasing a restless, progressive talent that has previously earned a co-sign from Drake. Drifting between rapping, singing, and spoken word, his voice crackles with the experience and emotion of someone way beyond his 22 years, while his kaleidoscopic music cycles through psychedelic trap (“Don’t Cry”), reflective R&B (“Think Twice”), and a fusion of mournful bass music and rave euphoria (“Lightning”). The murky atmospheres and mutating rhythms are offset by a pop writer’s instinct for inescapable hooks, and songs rarely reach three minutes—when you’ve got this many good ideas, there’s no point lingering on one for too long.

It may begin with the foreboding sound of heavy rainfall but there’s an infectiously gassed, celebratory mood to the first proper album from South London MC Sneakbo. For one thing, there’s *Brixton*’s guest list: an enviable roster of artists that runs from gifted newcomers (can’t-miss hitmaker Not3s on “Nah”) and reinvented pop stars (Conor Maynard on island-tinged slow jam “Get to Know Me”), to fired-up legends of the UK scene (Giggs gleefully destroying on icy anthem “Active”). But—whether adapting to G-funk or road rap—Bo’s precise flow emerges as the star attraction.

The Return is a natural evolution from the Yussef Kamaal project, mining the influence of visionary jazz but blended with all kinds of texture, sounds and signals from the over-saturated London streets. Notable tracks for old and new listeners are ‘Salaam', 'Situations', 'Medina', 'LDN Shuffle' which features Mansur Brown (of Mansur's Message) and for those die hard Yussef Kamaal fans - they should hear the interpolated roots of 'Strings of Light' in the title track 'The Return’. And that signature Wu Funk can be heard on 'Broken Theme', and 'High Roller'. The Return will be the debut album released on Wu's new label Black Focus Records.

Whether featuring for Drake (“Get It Together” from *More Life*) or the Marvel cinematic universe (“I Am” from the Kendrick Lamar-curated *Black Panther* soundtrack), Jorja Smith brings refreshing vulnerability to hip-hop and R&B. The singer/songwriter frames fragile thoughts in a durable voice on *Lost & Found*, a reference to frequent travels between her hometown of industrial Walsall and swinging London. She turns heartbreak into beauty on “Goodbyes” and “Tomorrow.” Then she cools it off with loose hip-hop excursions: “Blue Lights” shows her grime IQ with a tasteful Dizzee Rascal interpolation, and on “Lifeboats (Freestyle),” Jorja drops Lauryn Hill-like bars and belts out her own hooks. Fans of Lorde or FKA twigs should check out “Teenage Fantasy” and “The One,” both of which pack bumping, luscious arrangements.

Maribou State announce their new album “Kingdoms In Colour”, via Ninja Tune’s Counter Records imprint, their first full-length since 2015’s breakthrough debut album “Portraits”. The record features new single ‘Feel Good’ - a collaboration born of their friendship with Houston-based trio Khruangbin and a shared love of breakbeats, vintage surf riffs and a common desire to explore worldwide music cultures. "Sometimes a chance meeting plants the seed for something bigger,” say Khruangbin. “Such was the case when we met Maribou State at KOKO a couple of years ago. We are very happy to be involved in this project. And we ‘feel good’ already.” The band continue their long standing relationship with Holly Walker who has previously vocalled fan favourites such as ‘Midas’, ‘Steal’ and ‘Tongue’. Also featured on the record is recent single ‘Turnmills’ - named after the legendary London club which closed its doors in 2008 - the release was accompanied by a sold-out ‘all-night’ DJ set at Corsica Studios raising money and awareness for the The Night Time Industries Association's #SaveNightlife campaign to protect the UK’s most vulnerable music venues from closure. Today they also announce a new headline UK tour this Autumn. Returning with a 5-piece band, they play at London’s iconic Roundhouse on the 18th October. Ahead of this they will also embark on a string of European festival dates which include a headline show at Sonar By Day, Parklife Festival, Roskilde, Pukkelpop Festival, Nova Batida and recently DJ’d after Flying Lotus at All Points East festival in London. Beginning life in 2011 as a project between Chris Davids and Liam Ivory, Maribou State had released a string of EP’s and singles before the arrival of debut album “Portraits” propelled them to the world stage. Spawning a live show that took them around the globe and included standout festival performances at Glastonbury, Bestival, a headline slot at Secret Garden party; a 32-date European tour with two sold-out London shows including the legendary KOKO; plus dates throughout Asia, Australia and America. They received radio support from the likes of Annie Mac, Zane Lowe and Gilles Peterson, addition to the BBC 6 Music A-list, a 5-show BBC Radio 1 Residency, a slot on the legendary BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix and performed a session Live from Maida Vale. Critical support came from the likes of The Guardian, I-D magazine and Vogue, with the album amassing over 80 million streams to date and drawing comparisons to acts such as The XX, James Blake & Mount Kimbie, as well earning them plaudits from the likes of DJ Koze and Bonobo. This incredible success that followed the release of “Portraits” took Chris and Liam quite by surprise, “It was like Christmas every day” laughs Liam, “stuff like doing a show in Bangalore and having a crowd come and see us who knew the music and would sing all the words. It was an incredible experience”. After more than a year of touring they returned to the UK to begin work on new material, but relocating their studio from The Shack - their home-built studio at the back of Liam’s garden in Hertfordshire - to a new base in London found them struggling to find their creative flow. The solution was to start looking outward and back over their journey of the past two years. They began making regular excursions out of the city, setting up a temporary studio space for weeks at a time, they started to piece together a “sonic collage” - drawing on ideas that were written while touring in places like India, and on field recordings from Asia, Australia, Morocco, America and beyond - the result of which is the stunning "Kingdoms In Colour”. “The first album felt quite insular for us” says Chris, "not just in sound, but literally that it was all written in The Shack. We always had a bigger idea of what we wanted it to be, we wanted to create something that was palpable, that could in some way transport you to another country or another place entirely in your mind”. “The idea with Maribou State was always to draw on influences from different parts of the world” continues Liam "by traveling, sampling, recording, we wanted to create this all encompassing thing. Which is what this second record has ended up being for us”.

Lily Allen has always been one of pop’s most absorbingly forthright stars. But the singer herself now criticizes her third album, 2014’s *Sheezus*, for lacking that honesty, telling Vulture.com that she was “writing music for people’s expectations rather than for me.” Follow-up *No Shame* redresses the balance by reflecting on her recently revealed divorce, parenthood, and the celebrity lifestyle with startling candour. Cloaked in dancehall-mottled pop and emotive balladry, her lyrics remain pin-sharp, evoking the scrutiny and isolation of fame: “If you go on record, saying that you know me/Then why am I so lonely?/’Cause nobody f\*cking phones me” (“Come On Then”). Lily’s clearly experienced difficult times, but they’ve helped inspire her most revealing album yet—and she still finds galvanizing energy in new love (“Pushing Up Daisies”) and the fight against the patriarchy (“Cake”).

It’s not often we mention Jimi Hendrix and Trap music in the same sentence. Or Brixton and George Benson. In this case Mansur Brown embodies all of these. An integral part of the groundbreaking Yussef Kamaal album, he now releases his debut album on Black Focus Records. As Thundercat claims the Bass Guitar, Robert Glasper the keys, the 21 year old prodigy from south east London claims the Guitar. Welcome to Shiroi.