TurningPAGES Rationale (Mar ‘23)
Turning PAGES Playlist
Quarter I, Issue III
Curated by: Urfavfilosopher
Playlist: Listen on Spotify
New songs this issue:
Victory Lap x Nipsey Hussle ft. Stacey Barthe
Is What It Is x Reason and Jay Rock
Trending Topic x Rampage Wood
For The Ladies x Buddy and Kent Jamz
Ghetto Girl x Kent Jamz
Control x Xian Bell
Listen Up (Acoustic) x Solomon
The Pressure x Cassper Nyovest
Petty Lover x Jaz Karis
In this issue of Turning PAGES I wanted to be sure I did a few things. First, I wanted to include Nip. As I started putting this issue together, I realized that I didn’t have any Nip on my last curated issue and that was not ever going to sit right with me. I thought “Victory Lap” ft. Stacey Barthe was a nice palette cleansing transitional track to get us out of the mood Lucky Daye provides in “N.W.A.”, in to the sounds that are featured near the top of this issue.
Second, my top priority was (…and usually is) to give my listeners some new sounds that they probably haven’t heard before—I wanted to “put yall on” to some newer artists that I listen to quite a bit when I sit down to read or write. Even still, there’s still some pretty strong West Coast influence with the likes of Kent Jamz, Reason, Buddy, Jay Rock, and Xian Bell all being from Los Angeles (s/o to my section). You might remember Kent Jamz from the group Overdoz. in the early aughts or recognize Reason and Jay Rock from the West Coast powerhouse known as TDE (the label that gave us Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Ab Soul, and others). Even though these artists have been on the rise in mainstream markets in recent years, each of these artists are bonafide West Coast legends in the city of L.A… ask about ‘em. My hopes were that if you’ve heard of these artists, the songs in this issue might be understreamed in your Serato, so you’re welcome.
As I grew conscious of the heavy West Coast influence in this issue, I wanted to make sure the last three songs all featured artists that I thought would be new to my listeners AND artists that are not from America. I decided that Cassper Nyovest (South Africa), Solomon (U.K.), and Jaz Karis (U.K) would round out those artists.
Of course, the selection of these global artists was not random or arbitrary. Behind the motivation of introducing listeners to newer artists, I’d like to think that there is a cohesive thread of sounds/mood in this issue. For example, the strings on “Trending Topic” by Rampage Wood blend transition nicely into the strings on “For the Ladies” by Buddy and Kent Jamz. Also we move from introspective bars and hip-hop songs from say, Nip and Reason, to a vibe far more suited for (toxic?) lovers.
Overall, I just really hope folks enjoy the additions I made to my list on this issue.
