New Music Friday: Stream projects from Pa Salieu, FLO, Maxo Kream, and more

Afrikan Alien marks British-Gambian rapper Pa Salieu’s first project since finishing a 33 month jail sentence earlier this year. An understabdable amount of pent up energy can be felt on songs such as “Allergy” and “Ya Zee” (Sample lyric: “Guess who’s back, still sexy”), which blend lilting afrobeats rhythms with more dissonant U.K. rap sonics. Guests Black Sherif (“Afrikan Di Alien”), Byron Messia (“Soda”), and ODUMODUBLVCK (“Big Smile”) make cameo appearances while Salieu finds space for introspection on “Belly,” a song about appreciating the come-up no matter how troubled the journey is. It’s one of many songs on Afrikan Alien that showcases not just an artist making up for lost time, but someone who has matured with absence. — David Renshaw

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As Cynthia Erivio tells it on the opening track to FLO’s long-awaited debut album, after the fall of Destiny’s Child, the world was in desperate need of “bad bitches replenishment.” So marked the arrival of Renee, Stella, and Jorja, the trio that makes up the British R&B group and the saviors of our collective dustiness. The girl group has been at the forefront of the ‘90s R&B resurgence for years now, and Access All Areas is their show-stopping exhibition of their efforts. In addition to the camp horniness of hit single “Walk Like This,” the record is overwhelmingly about finding love and feeling spiritually (and sexually) fulfilled. GloRilla makes a pit-stop appearance on the boppy “In My Bag” and the group also experiments with Jersey club and rock on “Just A Girl.” Amid all that, the star of the album is still their voices, three ripping streams of pure force. The world’s “bad bitches” level now? Overflowing. — Steffanee Wang

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On Maxo Kream’s fourth album Personification, success is cocaine dripping down his nasal cavity, exhilarating yet bitter and ultimately toxic. Opening track “Mo Murda” sets the scene: “When you get money like I do they gon’ think you Illuminati” he sighs, dismissing human sacrifice conspiracy theories involving his dead brother. The bitterness carries over to some of the album’s best tracks, where Maxo’s keen capacity for storytelling and mythmaking is in fine form: “Street Fraternity” and “Big Hoe Me” dissect the myth of gang brotherhood, while “Walk By Faith” outlines his struggles with faith in the face of hypocrisy and temptation. Personification also boasts a stellar selection of beats, hitting especially hard when Maxo cuts loose on tracks like “Bang The Bus,” a Frou Frou-sampling cloud-drill cut and the That Mexican OT-featuring “Talkin In Screw,” a West Coast-inflected tribute to their native Houston. — Jordan Darville

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Most songwriters and storytellers begin on the other side of transformation and tell their stories in reverse. Yet this approach conveniently elides the thornier, often more senseless reality of growth, the kind that Wolfe doesn’t shy away from on her She Reaches Out trilogy… capped off now with the Unbound EP, her final installment that doesn’t signal a conclusion so much as it does a step closer to transformation. On it, the synthesizer-heavy, Depeche Mode-like sheen of the album is pared back and Wolfe’s previously distant vocals are central and grounded in the mix. She sounds like the potential of herself. — Emma Madden. Read our interview here.

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MM..FOOD? arrived on November 16, 2024, less than eight months after the release of Madvillainy, a mind-meld with Madlib broadly regarded as DOOM’s best work. It was a quick turnaround, even disregarding the two albums he dropped in the interim (VV:2 as Viktor Vaughn and Special Herbs + Spices Volume 1 with MF Grimm). Even in today’s profligate production era, no other MC or beatmaker could follow a release of Madvillainy’s magnitude with a record that rose to the same heights. But DOOM at the peak of his powers was an unstoppable force — not just your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper, but one of the greatest producers to walk the earth. — Raphael Helfand

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Wallice’s debut album marks her out as an sharp storyteller, someone able to write about romantic failure and the loneliness of being the support act on an arena tour with equal amounts of relatability. She sets her diaristic songs to bubbly synths and homespun guitars, lending standout tracks “Hurry Babe” and “Gut Punch Love” an intimacy that matches her lyrics. There is a pleasing variety in the production, too, with the punchy “Boring” and melancholic “Sickness” bouncing off one another. Albert Hammond Jr, a fellow writer with a knack for timeless melodies and zippy hooks, appears on “Clown Like Me,” but it’s Wallice’s voice that comes through the loudest here. — DR

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music