#SoundsOfUtopia: A Yellow Man - 3000 Miles Of Youth

 We can thank Twitter for me getting in tune with this smooth trio, A Yellow Man. A young Nana Kwesi tweeted me their link saying '[YouTube link] This is so @RalphHardy' and I clicked initially thinking I was on some random's channel. I was surprised.

As I'm not ignorant, I listened and my gosh. I loved it amongst first play. BLAH Captivating moods from the elctro-soul/ Hip Hop group and what is even more gob smacking than the excellently executed video idea (5 nangs to Paul Akinrinlola) is that they are a gospel collective, or just more so religious and conscious.

Went to the other video My Lyrics Are Alive dropped the same day and yep... Still pleased to listen. It's been a minute since UK rappers appreciated every word in every line to the point they didn't waste one. Chioma's singing is cold too - I need to learn the hook and all of it really.


I feel so wrong for even to think to swear but fehk the video is so cold.
A Yellow Man - word to Sam's beard.

#SoundsOfUtopia: Purple Ferdinand

Far as I'm aware, I'm the first dude to get Purple, better known as Vanessa to her friends and family, Ferdinand in to a print, featuring her in RWD Mag's January issue as one of the 12 for 1012. Pretty cool.

I can't even recall how I stumbled on the fact the Newham native was a 'bad gyal' with the vocals and the Ukelele but my guess is one random Facebook feed. Big up Zuckerberg (despite this new timeline bullshit you've implemented is... Bullshit).

Recently the 23 year old musician slash tattooist dropped an acoustic video shot by the good people at House of ALT for her song, Beautiful Anomaly.


She's pretty cool, nice personality, always smiling, attractive and most importantly, herself. There's also a cover she did with @NadiahGee of Adina Howard's Freak Like Me which is also pretty cool.


Her songwriting skills are #nang to say the least. Check her out:

@PurpleFerdinand
www.purpleferdinand.tumblr.com
www.youtube.com/user/vanoob

Audio: A$AP Rocky - Goldie

New A$AP. I can put my hands up and say I never saw the hype about Harlem du'e when he first popped up but I appreciate the feel of him just... Rapping. None of this forced metaphors or feel to say something profound - Sometimes you just need to flow and say some 'ignant trill shit'.

Upon hearing Goldie, I instantly thought Kanye West would absolutely decimate the Hit-Boy produced track, or even produce it himself if 'old' Kanye came to the present (if you get it).

#SoundsOfUtopia: Friendly Fires - Hurting (Tensnake Remix)

Regardless of when this song came out (Reference: Gotye - Somebody I Use To Know), I've been bumping this tune HARD and near enough clocking the musical formula as to why I'm in like with it so much.

Music test: Play it in front of your (African) mother and see if she does one of those I'm-The-Coolest-Over-30-In-This-Room-Cool-Mode-Slow-Mo-Closed-Eye shuffle.

I hear the Dance/ Disco element in it and instantly fall for it as Tensnake properly took into consideration the lyrics for his remix - I heard this being in played in a retail store, told my friend to whip out Shazam... The rest is history.

That's some killer banter

I didn't know what to expect when I saw the video tweeted with no description. but rest assure.... Curiosity was like 'Yo! Stop taking so long!'

It's just funny, like 'Rah boy, this has probably happened at least once in the existence of the world' but to see it was figgin jokes.



I can imagine myself replaying this at random times now. Class.

Ralphy In Switz'land

Check out a couple snaps from my trip to Laax, Switzerland enjoying the snow and night life courtesy of The Brits Snow Tour here.

Read up a little as well on what I experienced over at RWDmag.com - Part 1 | Part 2

You might as well like the Facebook page too.

#SoundsOfUtopia: SBTRKT Ft. Sampha - Hold On

Lord knows my albums of 2011 were 'Black & White', 'Section.80' and 'James Blake' but the record that took me to a place I use to chill at regularly was the foresight induced sonically accurate self entitled album by SBTRKT.

The likes of Drake Drizzy has clocked on to the .wav, so I can't really complain, but more need to be aware that he is a time traveler with the Korg synths (I can imagine Diplo and Switch perspiring ever so slightly with the thought of him in the studio, just slightly though).

SBTRKT drops his brand new video for Hold on featuring the unmistakeable vocals of Sampha.

SBTRKT

The visuals may just help edge this over Something Goes Right as my favourite song off of the album

#SoundsOfUtopia
#UtopiaSounds