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Shatter the Standards

@thestandards.bsky.social
71 followers 2 following 1.5K posts

We are dedicated to celebrating milestones, unearthing lesser-known musical gems, and promoting discussions around albums and new music that might not receive ample attention in mainstream conversations. www.shatterthestandards.com

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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 40m
As new albums and singles get constantly flooded into our radar, look no further than skimming through the release week of October 2nd. We know it can be a task, so let’s help you cut through.
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New Music Drops: October 2, 2026
As new albums and singles get constantly flooded into our radar, look no further than skimming through the release week of October 2nd. We know it can be a task, so let’s help you cut through.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 6h
With the help of Pharrell, Quavo raps inside a Paris fashion house’s orbit, hauling Atlanta’s strip clubs into the room and folding his grief into a few lines of a luxury-funded flex record.
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Album Review: Qrömelife by Quavo
With the help of Pharrell, Quavo raps inside a Paris fashion house’s orbit, hauling Atlanta’s strip clubs into the room and folding his grief into a few lines of a luxury-funded flex record.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 7h
On her follow-up to a Grammy-winning breakthrough, the songwriter-turned-star takes love songs from Motown and late-‘90s R&B radio and turns their manners into frank, funny requests of her own.
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Album Review: Frequency of Love by Victoria Monét
On her follow-up to a Grammy-winning breakthrough, the songwriter-turned-star takes love songs from Motown and late-‘90s R&B radio and turns their manners into frank, funny requests of her own.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 11h
A decade after his death and three years after the vault reopened, the sessions for Prince’s full-band grab for New Jack Radio are a record about money, contracts, and a war.
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Milestones: Diamonds and Pearls by Prince & The New Power Generation
A decade after his death and three years after the vault reopened, the sessions for Prince’s full-band grab for New Jack Radio are a record about money, contracts, and a war.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 18h
Talking in the shipping clerk’s jargon and the grower’s palate, Rockitneedspace and SURF GANG make the working life of California weed into rap that brags about getting the package there.
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Album Review: Next Day Air. by Rockitneedspace & SURF GANG
Talking in the shipping clerk’s jargon and the grower’s palate, Rockitneedspace and SURF GANG make the working life of California weed into rap that brags about getting the package there.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 19h
Returning to the South Side block where her father’s family lived, Lalah stakes her claim on Chicago through the bus rides, roller rinks, and long walks home of a Black childhood.
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Album Review: Made In Chicago by Lalah Hathaway
Returning to the South Side block where her father’s family lived, Lalah stakes her claim on Chicago through the bus rides, roller rinks, and long walks home of a Black childhood.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
From spiritual jazz and Afro-funk to rap radicals and grown-folks soul, the month turned grief, hope, and reinvention into some of 2026’s richest records.
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September 2026 Roundups: The Best Albums of the Month
From spiritual jazz and Afro-funk to rap radicals and grown-folks soul, the month turned grief, hope, and reinvention into some of 2026’s richest records.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Solange’s third album puts her mother’s voice before Sampha’s and Master P’s, after everyone else’s. Only a Knowles who had stopped trying to get picked could have made it.
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Milestones: A Seat at the Table by Solange
Solange’s third album puts her mother’s voice before Sampha’s and Master P’s, after everyone else’s. Only a Knowles who had stopped trying to get picked could have made it.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Listen to new releases from Dani Offline, Kiefer, Nippa, Jimetta Rose, Audrey Powne, LATASHÁ, Tamera, sunandmoon, ANTHNY, Astyn Turr, cinquemani, megiapa, Ekep Nkwelle, Ré Lxuise, ZADA, and more.
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Wednesday Roundups #168: 25 New Projects You Should Listen to Now
Listen to new releases from Dani Offline, Kiefer, Nippa, Jimetta Rose, Audrey Powne, LATASHÁ, Tamera, sunandmoon, ANTHNY, Astyn Turr, cinquemani, megiapa, Ekep Nkwelle, Ré Lxuise, ZADA, and more.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Back in the Tina Snow persona she built from Pimp C’s colder alias, Megan loads a verse-heavy freestyle with punchlines that go off twice, once as a joke and once as a demotion for every rival. Read over at Words Past da Margin.
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Deciphering Megan Thee Stallion’s “Tina Tuesday Freestyle”
Back in the Tina Snow persona she built from Pimp C’s colder alias, Megan loads a verse-heavy freestyle with punchlines that go off twice, once as a joke and once as a demotion for every rival.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The girl built to fix a sad man used to live in indie films. KYIEMA moves her onto a phone screen, hands her the repair job, and sings her breaking with a pop star’s nerve and a confessor’s candor.
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Album Review: MANICPIXIEDREAMGIRL by KYIEMA
The girl built to fix a sad man used to live in indie films. KYIEMA moves her onto a phone screen, hands her the repair job, and sings her breaking with a pop star’s nerve and a confessor’s candor.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
VITA opens OPIA with a vow to shield her children from what her parents passed down and then turns the same candor on what she does to the people she sleeps with.
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Album Review: OPIA by VITA
VITA opens OPIA with a vow to shield her children from what her parents passed down and then turns the same candor on what she does to the people she sleeps with.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
With two members of Jungle producing, Leon Bridges finally makes dance music, and the joy is real in the songs about one person on one night and hollow in the songs about happiness itself.
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Album Review: Happiness Anytime by Leon Bridges
With two members of Jungle producing, Leon Bridges finally makes dance music, and the joy is real in the songs about one person on one night and hollow in the songs about happiness itself.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The biggest soul band of the ‘70s named their boldest album after Charles Stepney.
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Milestones: Spirit by Earth, Wind & Fire
The biggest soul band of the ‘70s named their boldest album after Charles Stepney.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The hopes invested in Songs in the Key of Life were matched by the success of a monumental album that finally appeared at the end of the summer of 1976 and is one of the best albums ever recorded. Read over at Blackpolitan.
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Happiness in the Key of Life
The hopes invested in Songs in the Key of Life were matched by the success of a monumental album that finally appeared at the end of the summer of 1976 and is one of the best albums ever recorded.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The funniest rapper alive made an album where nothing is funny. Danny Brown wasn’t performing anymore.
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Milestones: Atrocity Exhibition by Danny Brown
The funniest rapper alive made an album where nothing is funny. Danny Brown wasn’t performing anymore.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Plus, Maeta wants her cake and to eat it too; Mai Anna stays on her colorway, and an EarthGang rapper writes a love song to a brain chemical. Read over at Soulpolitan.
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R&B for Bittersweet Sinners
Plus, Maeta wants her cake and to eat it too; Mai Anna stays on her colorway, and an EarthGang rapper writes a love song to a brain chemical.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The Memphis crunk revivalist straps a homemade origin myth to his buck anthems, and the myth turns a party into a land claim.
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Album Review: AMERICA IS OURS by Duke Deuce
The Memphis crunk revivalist straps a homemade origin myth to his buck anthems, and the myth turns a party into a land claim.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Sandra St. Victor goes back into the soul songbook she came up in, her own included, and takes it for herself on a late-career record full of turned-around spirituals and grown-woman love songs.
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Album Review: Eleven by Sandra St. Victor
Sandra St. Victor goes back into the soul songbook she came up in, her own included, and takes it for herself on a late-career record full of turned-around spirituals and grown-woman love songs.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Hired for years as the good news for queer, Black, and immigrant listeners, Joy Oladokun writes hope as a weight she carries and puts the strain on the record where everyone can hear it.
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Album Review: Hope Is a Heavy Thing by Joy Oladokun
Hired for years as the good news for queer, Black, and immigrant listeners, Joy Oladokun writes hope as a weight she carries and puts the strain on the record where everyone can hear it.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A worship leader since twelve, Nkwelle sings hymns and barroom blues from the same church-trained throat, and on her debut, she turns the church’s manners on a staring world with total conviction.
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Album Review: Caged Bird by Ekep Nkwelle
A worship leader since twelve, Nkwelle sings hymns and barroom blues from the same church-trained throat, and on her debut, she turns the church’s manners on a staring world with total conviction.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
On MettaSun, the Los Angeles choir leader answers war headlines with a spiritual-jazz escape story that keeps the bombs in the room with the singing.
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Album Review: MettaSun by Jimetta Rose
On MettaSun, the Los Angeles choir leader answers war headlines with a spiritual-jazz escape story that keeps the bombs in the room with the singing.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Our first-ever Shatter the Standards interview. The producer discusses New York, InsydeOut, creative discipline, and an upcoming EP built around his own writing and voice.
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Flwr Chyld Is Expanding the Definition of His Own Work
Our first-ever Shatter the Standards interview. The producer discusses New York, InsydeOut, creative discipline, and an upcoming EP built around his own writing and voice.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Given his first leader date, Kiefer puts rappers, singers, and a saxophonist in the horn chairs and leads the band from underneath, as the great hard-bop pianists did.
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Album Review: Memory Bomb by Kiefer
Given his first leader date, Kiefer puts rappers, singers, and a saxophonist in the horn chairs and leads the band from underneath, as the great hard-bop pianists did.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Back with a Detroit soul-sample producer for their second full-length, the Brooklyn rapper Skyzoo works back through what his comfort cost the people around him and writes their names into the verses.
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Album Review: Luxury Tax by Apollo Brown & Skyzoo
Back with a Detroit soul-sample producer for their second full-length, the Brooklyn rapper Skyzoo works back through what his comfort cost the people around him and writes their names into the verses.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Back from a retirement he announced after hearing loss, Tank leans heavily on his comeback album, still recycling his 2017 formula and pouring his best singing into interpolations of older soul hits.
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Album Review: EXPERIENCE by Tank
Back from a retirement he announced after hearing loss, Tank leans heavily on his comeback album, still recycling his 2017 formula and pouring his best singing into interpolations of older soul hits.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
As new albums and singles get constantly flooded into our radar, look no further than skimming through the release week of September 25th. We know it can be a task, so let’s help you cut through.
shatterthestandards.com
New Music Drops: September 25, 2026
As new albums and singles get constantly flooded into our radar, look no further than skimming through the release week of September 25th. We know it can be a task, so let’s help you cut through.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Jae Stephens learned pop in the replies of a Beyoncé fan blog, and her debut turns that voice on her own exes, gleefully and pettily and very funnily.
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Album Review: AUDACITY by Jae Stephens
Jae Stephens learned pop in the replies of a Beyoncé fan blog, and her debut turns that voice on her own exes, gleefully and pettily and very funnily.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Handed the crowd she waited a decade to reach, Tinashe throws it at a club night and lets the fear and fatigue of hosting run straight through the dance songs.
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Album Review: Popstar by Tinashe
Handed the crowd she waited a decade to reach, Tinashe throws it at a club night and lets the fear and fatigue of hosting run straight through the dance songs.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The third Roots album is bitter, disguised as a middle child between a jazz-rap debut and a crossover classic.
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Milestones: Illadelph Halflife by The Roots
The third Roots album is bitter, disguised as a middle child between a jazz-rap debut and a crossover classic.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Ron Carter wouldn’t play on it unless the group cleaned up their language. Tribe built around that promise is the reason a generation of Black teenagers with library cards decided jazz wasn’t over.
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Milestones: The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest
Ron Carter wouldn’t play on it unless the group cleaned up their language. Tribe built around that promise is the reason a generation of Black teenagers with library cards decided jazz wasn’t over.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
On Typologie eines Lebens, Ebow traces three generations of family history while reconsidering what success, belonging, and independence mean to her.
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Album Review: Typologie eines Lebens by Ebow
On Typologie eines Lebens, Ebow traces three generations of family history while reconsidering what success, belonging, and independence mean to her.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Over steel tipped dove’s dense, sample-forward production, the Chicago rapper Rich Jones writes the hustle as a food economy, portioning company and product from the same kitchen.
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Album Review: The Supplier by Rich Jones & steel tipped dove
Over steel tipped dove’s dense, sample-forward production, the Chicago rapper Rich Jones writes the hustle as a food economy, portioning company and product from the same kitchen.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Thirty years after she walked out on a record company that made her want to quit singing, Chaka Khan has pop’s hit machine on her payroll, and the joy running through Chakzilla belongs to the owner.
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Album Review: Chakzilla by Chaka Khan
Thirty years after she walked out on a record company that made her want to quit singing, Chaka Khan has pop’s hit machine on her payroll, and the joy running through Chakzilla belongs to the owner.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Listen to new releases from Jourden, Daley, GAWD, Jaymin, Kooley High, Kareen Lomax, Jazlyn Martin, Larissa Lambert, Marie Dahlstrøm, Sandra St. Victor, Thee Sinseers, Kalisway, and more.
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Wednesday Roundups #167: 25 New Projects You Should Listen to Now
Listen to new releases from Jourden, Daley, GAWD, Jaymin, Kooley High, Kareen Lomax, Jazlyn Martin, Larissa Lambert, Marie Dahlstrøm, Sandra St. Victor, Thee Sinseers, Kalisway, and more.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
As a follow-up to part one of the series, which defined the Alternative R&B movement, we’re highlighting hundreds of albums that transitioned through the growth and maturity period.
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The Handguide to ALT-R&B (Alternative R&B) [2016-2018]
As a follow-up to part one of the series, which defined the Alternative R&B movement, we’re highlighting hundreds of albums that transitioned through the growth and maturity period.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
What made Nina Simone such an unusual musician in her own time, and still in ours? The defiant artist people are so eager to glorify emerged from a particular form of isolation. Read over at Blackpolitan.
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The Diva of Angry Times
What made Nina Simone such an unusual musician in her own time, and still in ours? The defiant artist people are so eager to glorify emerged from a particular form of isolation.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
On MARIE, a Danish soul singer in London writes love songs for the years after the falling, and the quiet middle of a long relationship finally gets an album of its own.
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Album Review: MARIE by Marie Dahlstrøm
On MARIE, a Danish soul singer in London writes love songs for the years after the falling, and the quiet middle of a long relationship finally gets an album of its own.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Liv East built a funk-and-soul seduction suite about wanting somebody who is mostly a picture, and she keeps the projector running while she names the trick.
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Album Review: FUNKSOULSEX by Liv East
Liv East built a funk-and-soul seduction suite about wanting somebody who is mostly a picture, and she keeps the projector running while she names the trick.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Fuel-gauge devotion, a knife traded for a pen, and a murder fantasy sung as reincarnation planning, Larissa Lambert’s debut Yearning writes possessive love at full cost and sings it as romance.
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Album Review: Yearning by Larissa Lambert
Fuel-gauge devotion, a knife traded for a pen, and a murder fantasy sung as reincarnation planning, Larissa Lambert’s debut Yearning writes possessive love at full cost and sings it as romance.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Married to a producer she met in a songwriting session, with a newborn in the house, Carly Rae Jepsen writes the love songs that come after the answer is yes.
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Album Review: Day and Night by Carly Rae Jepsen
Married to a producer she met in a songwriting session, with a newborn in the house, Carly Rae Jepsen writes the love songs that come after the answer is yes.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
LAYA drags R&B to the rodeo, PJ counts the time she can’t get back, and the youngest voice in the batch makes the most grown promise. Read over at Soulpolitan.
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City Girls Like the Twang Too
LAYA drags R&B to the rodeo, PJ counts the time she can’t get back, and the youngest voice in the batch makes the most grown promise.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Jaymin sings a hearse into a love song without changing his tone, and a generation of R&B men now hears devotion and menace as two settings on one instrument.
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Album Review: Static by Jaymin
Jaymin sings a hearse into a love song without changing his tone, and a generation of R&B men now hears devotion and menace as two settings on one instrument.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Alone at the boards with the 2000s R&B playbook, the Toronto producer runs the loverman’s game and sings the worry that was always underneath it.
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Album Review: Unstoppable by Kalisway
Alone at the boards with the 2000s R&B playbook, the Toronto producer runs the loverman’s game and sings the worry that was always underneath it.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
A 23-year-old Muslim rapper who hated hip-hop made a hip-hop debut about hating hip-hop, and it’s one of the most honest first records of its decade.
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Milestones: Food & Liquor by Lupe Fiasco
A 23-year-old Muslim rapper who hated hip-hop made a hip-hop debut about hating hip-hop, and it’s one of the most honest first records of its decade.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
On Strange Nature, Daley pours fifteen years of bedroom soul into the language of signs, chemistry, and synchronicity, and the two songs that let the cosmology fall away do the deepest cutting.
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Album Review: Strange Nature by Daley
On Strange Nature, Daley pours fifteen years of bedroom soul into the language of signs, chemistry, and synchronicity, and the two songs that let the cosmology fall away do the deepest cutting.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
After the move from Atlanta to Los Angeles and the losses that trailed her there, Kareen Lomax sings self-care as mourning on NAJI, and the mourning songs are its finest.
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Album Review: NAJI by Kareen Lomax
After the move from Atlanta to Los Angeles and the losses that trailed her there, Kareen Lomax sings self-care as mourning on NAJI, and the mourning songs are its finest.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
On a second album cut with a decade-old circle of East LA players, Joey Quiñones writes crying music for the request line, heartbreak sturdy enough to send under anyone else’s name.
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Album Review: Love Stories by Thee Sinseers
On a second album cut with a decade-old circle of East LA players, Joey Quiñones writes crying music for the request line, heartbreak sturdy enough to send under anyone else’s name.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Five years after his last solo album, with his father and his infant daughter in the ground, Curly Castro builds a mourning rite from the comics, the matinees, and the ballgames of a Brooklyn boyhood.
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Album Review: Yaphet by Curly Castro
Five years after his last solo album, with his father and his infant daughter in the ground, Curly Castro builds a mourning rite from the comics, the matinees, and the ballgames of a Brooklyn boyhood.
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Shatter the Standards @thestandards.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
A year after “Peekaboo” put his growl in half the country’s mouth, AZ Chike wraps his major-label debut covering funerals, therapy, and back rent, and the confessions cut deeper than the flexes.
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Album Review: No Rest for the Wicked by AZ Chike
A year after “Peekaboo” put his growl in half the country’s mouth, AZ Chike wraps his major-label debut covering funerals, therapy, and back rent, and the confessions cut deeper than the flexes.
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