Wandering through a sonic playground that takes in all manner of hip musical strands, from modern R&B grooves and hip-hop vibes to more soulful forms and a few unexpected influences and infusions, A Playlist Made For You is as good a marker as any as to where modern, urban music is today.
You & Me kicks things off, a duet with Celine Love, a constant presence throughout this ep, a groovesome, slick and sultry affair which is reprised later in the proceedings. This is immediately followed by the buoyant and bouncing Things You Do which flows along on staccato piano rhythms that have an almost musical theatre quality to them. These two songs alone demonstrating just how broad the music found here to be.
There is the beguiling interlude in the form of Higher, a half-song or soundtrack fragment which acts as a nice change of pace before the final song, Say Goodbye mixes this same understatement with some gentle, skittering trap beats and soulful sonic seductions.
If you think that urban music is the bastion of R&B girl groups trying to re-invent the ’90’s (or even the ’50s) or the home of bombastic rappers with nothing new to say and nowhere new to take the genre, you need to get your hands on a copy of this record. And do so immediately.
