Cécile McLorin Salvant - For One To Love [2015]

Cécile McLorin Salvant, who is accompanied by the extremely talented trio of Aaron Diehl (piano), Paul Skivie (bass) and Lawrence Leathers (drums) is one of the most exciting vocalists in jazz today. Her past two albums were quality, a particular highlight being an original tune named "WomanChild". "WomanChild" is a wonderfully written tune that may have had more than a decent chance of being a jazz standard if it was released back when jazz was a big part of mainstream music culture. Salvant is one of the key young jazz performers right now, equipped with an extremely expressive voice that has a great range. This range is one of the key aspects of her singing style, which occasionally features her using starkly distinct tones to convey various (and at times, conflicting) emotions in the same track. Salvant's voice is equally as captivating when it is singing playfully ("Stepsister's Lament") as when it is bellowing powerfully ("Growlin' Dan") and For One to Love may be her best release yet.

Moka Only - Magickal Weirdness [2015]

Moka Only is a quality emcee with great wordplay and nice multi-syllable rhymes, but above all, his flow on Magickal Weirdness is extremely on point. A user on Okayplayer forums compared the rapper to Common circa Resurrection - and one can really hear that in the flow. Moka's music mostly gives off the playful and jazzy vibe that was present in the much of that Common classic.

Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly [2015]

The Dissection of A Butterfly

It's February 22, 2016. It has been almost a year since To Pimp A Butterfly, noticeably a week before its actual release date, awkwardly found its way on to iTunes. Considering all the critical acclaim that this album has received, it is a bit easy to forget - and as a result a bit funny to remember, that its early release was publicly described as an Interscope "fuck up", by an irritated Anthony Tiffith (CEO, Top Dawg Entertainment), on the same day where it would eventually break Spotify streaming records. Since that day, an endless amount of think pieces, positive and negative reviews via online mags and forum posts (don't let metacritic fool you - this album is quite divisive among hip hop fans) and some poorly written backlash ("hip hop and jazz, what? this is a thing that happens?" - Complex) have been penned about this album. Many of these pieces were written extremely fast, some even just days after the album was released - such is the climate of modern day music journalism and blogging.