5 Black Alternative Albums You Should Be Spinning

Although “Alternative” is more of an umbrella term than a trustworthy classification of a specific style of music, my understanding is that it usually covers music that subverts the tones of traditional genres, meshes several genres together in a way that makes it uncomparably unique, or is so stylistically distinct that it simply is impossible to compress it into one genre. In recent times the important dialogue on how black artists are viewed by the lens of music reviewers and connoisseurs has caused a rift. With Rachel Chinouriri writing a heartfelt letter explaining her identification as an indie-pop artist and frustration with being labelled an R&B singer, it seems the black creations of R&B, Hip-Hop and Rap has fostered an automatic binding to one or all of the three, no matter how far removed their music may be. As a long-time lover of all things alt or indie black music, here are 5 of my favourite albums which can be loosely perceived as such.

Process – Sampha

Most of us first heard about London canary Sampha when he was featured on Drake’s record Too Much almost a decade ago. For the most part, it was his velvety soothing voice that made the track the emotional, nostalgic ambiance that it was, and his effectiveness forged him another Drake collab on 4422. However, Sampha’s own music is a universe of its own. Primarily an electronic project, 2017’s Process is a deeply spiritual and psychological traversal through his life’s understanding of happiness, mortality, passion and identity. Every track is entangled with an underlying stress and pressure; the production of Kora Sings holds an upbeat quality, almost like it might signify a tonal shift, until Sampha sings in his signature breathy falsettos “I really hope there’s angels, because the world is turning way too fast.”

Having experienced the passing of his mother in 2015, Sampha doesn’t shy away from channelling his vulnerability into his music. No One Knows Me Like the Piano shows him in his element, nothing but a fervent voice and a piano so sentimental that it is frequently anthropomorphised. The experimental sounds tinkered with on tracks like Under and Take Me Inside are partly why the deep-blue Process is considered a landmark in alternative/electronic UK music, and after a 5 year hiatus he's finally teased dropping new music in the near future. As a waiting gift, he recently put the three bonus tracks from the Japanese Vinyl edition onto streaming platforms, with all three being just as brilliant and tear-jerking as the standard songs.

Childqueen – Kadhja Bonet

As adults, most of us long to take that euphoric trip down nostalgia avenue. Whether it is an escapist tendency or simply wishful thinking, the memories many of us associate with our childhoods represent our warmest, most innocent moments. However this perpetual mental stasis within the past is something Kadhja Bonet does not embody.

Spellbinding is the best way to describe Childqueen; the Californian polymath fuses soul, jazz-funk and folk, enveloping all within the ether of her analgesic voice. Childqueen uses love as the singularity for the characters Bonet incarnates. They are adults who navigate the fickle visscitudes of love with the simple minds of perplexed children, at times they yearn for the “joy that makes us,” they experience short romance in the setting of beaches and rolling hills, but at other times they lose their way. Delphine follows an obsessed lover, desperate to keep the paragon of their affection permanently within arms reach. In an era where production makes up 70% of the reception of a song, Delphine is nothing more than some deep psych-wave synths, an 80s electronic keyboard and a slow, visceral percussion rhythm, but it is the presence of Bonet’s airy soprano voice that makes it an experience rather than a fleeting track.

The album was recorded within several European cities, and their influence is clear; first song Procession is akin to a 1600s religious hymn, accented with French verses, a language which she floats in and out of throughout the project.

Bonet’s classical training allows Childqueen to showcase her true musical aptitude, from start to finish, it feels like the soundtrack to the Garden of Eden.

Negro Swan – Blood Orange

The problem with claiming a lot of projects have “replay value” is that it’s usually not based on a long enough period to be a reliable conclusion. For example, I could say x album is replayable after having a couple songs from it top my playlist for a month, but it could wither its way out of my music scope a week later. Negro Swan, however, is an album I could never doubt the timelessness of. The magnum opus of New-York based London native Devonte Hynes, better known by his music moniker Blood Orange, is a hypnotizing, important art piece on the skewed perceptions of black bodies within a hostile environment. On standout single Charcoal Baby he sings “No-one wants to be the odd one out at times, no-one wants to be the negro swan” a microcosmic line managing to represent the themes of the whole album: some of us stand out amongst the crowd, but sometimes to blend in is to feel safe.

Stacks of sparkling electric piano on joyful sax on nostalgic hi-hats and snares frontline the album, his previous release Freetown Sound offered this in a rose-tinted looking glass, but Negro Swan is discoloured with anxiety. It’s a dissociated body of work that erects Hynes as one of the standout black creatives fighting the battle against machismo and carving his own path of gender and sexual identity. The project ends with Smoke, where Hynes switches out the muted, drifty sounds of Dagenham Dream and Jewelry for sweet affirmations on top of a solo guitar: “The sun comes in, my heart fulfills within.” Somehow, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Aromanticism – Moses Sumney

“I was wondering why every time I dated someone it felt a bit hollow…always felt like there was one last piece missing: being in love.”

said Ghanaian-American virtuoso Moses Sumney on the creation of his debut project Aromanticism.

The album positions itself in the foreground of Sumney’s exploration of his experiences of love, like a microscope for the investigation of those gaps inbetween our black and white understanding of it. The societal pressures forcing us to “be in love” ignores those who don’t and even can’t confront this feeling, a confusion immediately explored in the second track, Don’t Bother Calling, where Sumney feels the plates of his relationship shaking. He writes that his heart is not filled with enough romantic love to keep his lover steady, subtly criticising the youthful tendency to jump headfirst into relationships, often without a lifeboat.

He embraces aloneness, which he stresses is not to be confused with loneliness, coming to terms with his distance from love. Possibly, it is this shedding of the desire for the validation that comes with “being in love” that Sumney illustrates in this work, using his mesmerizing pen to ink cosmic metaphors and nature-ridden paintings which brighten aromanticism the way romance typically is.

The acceptance of quietude and vulnerability highlights the album, there is not an uptempo moment throughout, yet its mellow persona lends itself well to a project about self-sacrifice and spiritual navigation. Majestic single Doomed accentuates this, “if my heart is idle, am I doomed?” that is to say, in the grand scheme of things, will his liquid heart end up being his tragic flaw?

Santogold - Santigold

Former A&R Santi White, known now as Santigold, was one of those black individuals daring to kick herself out of that box, with the result being her critically acclaimed debut album Santogold. The entire aim seems to be genre-defying and breaking the boundaries of music, boundaries that are built on ethnic stereotypes anyways. Lead single and decade-old time evader L.E.S Artistes, written after Santi moved to New York, neatly compacts the themes of the project; she chose to give up her former life in the pursuit of art, but the NY hippies and artists who she is meant to relate to, aren’t who they pretend to be. Everybody is trying to be someone they were never meant to be, and Santi affirms that the self is nothing but a psychological experience, and blurring out those confusing but persuasive voices of society might be the only way to stay true to your own actions.

Several reggae-pop flicks line the album, hard to not imagine cruising past a vintage-looking diner when songs like Say Aha and You’ll Find a Way exist. A lot of Santogold’s charm comes from the sound variation throughout, an important feature in albums, solo-genre or not. Deep pockets of pop-rock shimmer on Lights Out, the M.I.A-style rap/spoken-word hybrid underlying an electronic hip-hop beat on Creator, classic bedroom pop with I’m a Lady, if you dig deep enough you can probably pick out tens more genres Santogold has cleverly concealed. When all is said and done, Santogold uses Santi White's sketches of carefree melodies and soda-dipped composition to represent pure black creativity.