BLUE LAB BEATS Vinyl & CDs

Review: 2020’s acclaimed Blue Note Re:imagined project heard London duo Blue Lab Beats - producer NK-OK and multi-instrumentalist Mr DM - usher in 2021 with the EP We Will Rise and its dynamic lead single ‘Blow You Away (Delilah) feat Ghetto Boy'. Now neatly bagged up in a five-tracker EP, with collaborations with Braxton Cook, Kojey Radical, Alex Blake, and DTsoul, this one’s a heartfelt but still breezy project, laying down healing and hope in the face of racism. Reassurance and joy interlace a sound pinching motifs of boom-bap and jazz-funk, with influences from hip-hop pioneers and the African diaspora. A future-focused London bowls headlong into the future, chanting the motto 'We Will Rise’.

Review: Sizzling-hot hip-hop duo Blue Lab Beats are on everybody's lips now, thanks at least in part to the announcement of their latest full-length album, Blue Eclipse. Heralding an exciting new era for the duo, these 12 songs reveal the depth and breadth of producer NK-OK, and multi-instrumentalist Mr DM's musical ambition. Throwing back to their debut EP 'Blue Skies', which even pre-dates their involvement with record labels, Blue Eclipse signals a circling back to their origins while also embracing the new; the pair's usual jazztronica remit is lent the utmost contemporary spin, with notes of drill, neoclassical, trap and Jersey bounce - all still prevalent styles - peeking through in these latest productions.