Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, HookDiggy draws his influence from HipHop beats, lyrics and rhythms creating a heady and upbeat mix taking the genre back to its roots. With a musical upbringing, singing, playing piano and drums from an early age, HookDiggy feels at home creating his own version of well written hip-hop.
Such is his originality, that HookDiggy has recently been recognized by some of Hip Hop’s big names including artists Redan and Melanie Rutherford (on the single “A Lil’ Bit”), drummer Ron Otis, and Hip Hop producer Hilton “Deuce” Wright II.
His latest album release “Good Music,” was mixed by Grammy award winning producer Mike Wilson. This new sound is definitely refreshing for the genre as a whole, as well as being fun. As the artist says himself, “It makes you want to dance a bit.”
Currently, HookDiggy performs weekly on his This Is Hip-Hop Thurdsay platform releasing his new singles, and is working on his EP with drummer J Spence.
“School Crush” feels distinctly new, refreshing and bringing the Hip Hop genre into a new realm.
Not everyone loves being a romantic or wants to be involved in romanticism, as Kaitlyn Myers shares with us in her latest single “Hopelessly (Un)romantic”. Kaitlyn took an approach not many artists do with love and created a song that discusses the negatives of romanticism. In her perspective, Kaitlyn discusses having a cold heart and letting people down, therefore distancing herself from those who wish to be with her. Kaitlyn sings about finding cliche romantic actions and songs boring and instead wishes to bring out the other side of romance. This is the side of unreciprocated love and of choosing not to love.
Kaitlyn Myers approaches an R&B feel with jazz influences in her latest single. The instrumentation is much like slow jazz songs, but carries some influences from R&B music. This song sounds very much like a live performance, almost like from NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Series. The melody is played through a synthesized keyboard and stands out as setting the general mood of the song. The shaker and snaps are what add more of a jazz feel to the song along with the drum instrumentation. What really stands out however, is Kaitlyn’s big beautiful voice and the lyrics realism. Kaitlyn’s voice fluctuates frequently from high to low, and from short and sweet to long and soulful notes.
Her lyrics stand out the most because of how realistic and relatable they are. Kaitlyn sings about the cliches that bother her such as picking petals off flowers and holding hands. Kaitlyn also uses a lot more intricate terminology such as “cognitive dissonance” and “romantic antics”, which is not seen often in music, especially in songs in the R&B and love realm. In “Hopelessly (Un)romantic”, Kaitlyn is able to play on words and layer her lyrics in a storytelling manner by the verse. Being in the R&B world, Kaitlyn has a lot of female influences to draw from. Her production style is very similar to Sabrina Claudio, who also uses jazz influences in some of her songs. As for the voice, Kaitlyn has such a unique voice it can be a little difficult to pinpoint her influencers. However, her voice can be compared to a combination of Snoh Aalegra and H.E.R as they both sing with variation in their voices and both belong to the same genre.
“Hopelessly (Un)romantic” is a breath of fresh air. It is a song about something that isn’t often written about. We’ve heard love songs, we’ve heard toxic relationships, but we have to hear of someone who cannot love and hates cliches. Kaitlyn’s voice draws attention and holds onto it throughout the entire song. This single is appealing and unique. We are excited to hear more from Kaitlyn. For all you unromantics out there, this song is beautifully composed and represents a different perception of love.
Based in Colorado, USA, Mahoney has been singing and writing songs from a young age. “Disillusions” is a new collection of songs born from the artist feeling that the pandemic crisis, and the intense isolation that came with it, could be used as a force for good.
“I woke up one morning last October with a vision for a new collection of songs. These songs would be like the warm hand of a friend to people whose beliefs have been shaken. They would attempt to offer hope that this frightening and isolating feeling is a good and necessary part of a faith journey.”
The result is an album of songs that are both purposeful and relevant.
“Maybe,” the first song on the album, is a beautiful folk song featuring songwriter Lori Chaffer, who also helped to produce the album. Songs like “Emma” and “She” are also well written, and express Mahoney’s vocal range.
Mahoney gives credit to Lori Chaffer on her website about the new album, saying “she makes every song we work on together so much better.” It is this spirit of coming together, and helping one another, that shines through in her new album.
Mahoney’s albums “Beyond” (2019) and “Made New” (2017) can be found on all major music platforms, and “Disillusions” will be released soon.
“Ghosts” is the new single from Cities and Sounds, dropped on August 20th . Cities and Sounds is a New Jersey based band who claim to have written and put together “Ghosts” in just one hour. The result is a cool pop-rock song that is definitely a radio hit.
Singer Stephen Nakovich says that “Ghosts” is all about being heard among the noise: “If you feel people zone you out, don’t take your voice seriously, or don’t even hear you. What you say does matter and there is always a way to express yourself.”
For a song written in such a short amount of time, it does stand out as an anthem of sorts. Once they had got the melody down so quickly, the chorus was really just a matter of putting the pieces together. The band “Cities and Sounds” came about formed for a love of music in the summer of 2020. The five New Jersey based artists formed the group, wrote and recorded an album of songs together with Chris Badami of Portrait Recording Studios. They plan to release their brand new album “Brilliant Waves” later this year.
Vancouver-based pop adventurer TITUS BANK can effortlessly shift from a smooth croon to a soulful vibrato to a note-perfect howl – arresting and inviting; confident yet vulnerable.
His debut single “I Do Yeah” was praised by BBC Radio 1 as “pop perfection,” and the follow up “Hide Me Like You Do” has also been shown serious DSP support landing on Spotify playlists Fresh Finds (825k subs), Pop All Day (475k subs), Contemporary Blend (325k subs), New Music Friday Canada and Finland and most recently the #1 spot on Fresh Finds: Pop (130k subs).
The new remix featuring Dizzy is essentially the nighttime flip of the original track.
Titus thoughts on the remix:
“Hide Me Like You Do” has been begging to be turned into a duet from day one. When I first heard the Dizzy remix it made me almost break down… this version pulls out every bit of emotion written into the song and Dizzy totally nailed it. Katie sings the lyrics with such a real and raw performance that you’d think she’d just experienced these moments in the song. If you liked the original version of “Hide Me Like You Do” then this takes you to another level of emotion.
The quartet that makes up Hamilton, Ontario band, King Park, is exploiting their strengths on their upcoming 2021 album, Everett. Guitars chime, drums thwack, and vocalist/guitarist, Timon Moolman’s broken-up baritone is ornamented one minute by barbershop harmonies, and the next by barstool gang vocals.
The band’s latest single, “Coffee Cheques,” tells the story of a loss of innocence and coming of age, driven by the heartbreak that serves both as its catalyst and aftermath. Lyrics like “Regrets became routine, teenagers we once were, not a single clue of what we would lose,” illustrate just how high the stakes became.
Modern Mystery 
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