Video: Angel Haze - Battle Cry

Angel Haze's debut album only sold 875 copies in its first week of release in the UK, but it really is worth listening to. She's emerging as one of the most talented, fearless voices in hip-hop and her new single is no exception.

The video for Battle Cry is not an easy watch - depicting child molestation, religious fundamentalism and self-harm, all of which Angel has faced in her brief 22 years on Earth. But the song is ultimately an uplifting rallying call, and a testament to the rapper's personal strength as she rises above it all.

Featuring the talents of one-woman hit machine Sia, let's hope this single reverses the album's fortunes, because it deserves to be heard.

Angel Haze - Battle Cry (ft Sia)

PS: If you haven't already seen it, this 2012 Zane Lowe session gives you a real insight into how skillful Haze is. It's filmed in a single close-up, locked off shot but you'll want to watch right to the end...

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Songs you may have missed: Santa Claus edition

Hello!

I'm about to wrap up the blog for 2013, with just the annual Top 10s to come between now and New Year (unless something ridiculous happens like, say, Adele suddenly releasing a 24-track video album recorded on the moon with a backing band of hamsters on Boxing Day). So, for one last time, here's a round-up of songs you may have missed, interspersed with a few festive favourites.

1) James Brown - Go Power At Christmas Time
Not a sleigh bell in sight, but it's still a big shiny bauble of brilliance.



2) Busta Rhymes - Thank You ft. Q-Tip, Kanye West, Lil Wayne
Q-Tip and Busta have a long history of top-drawer collaborations, starting way back with A Tribe Called Quest's Scenario in 1992. Their latest, from Busta's forthcoming album E.L.E. 2 (Extinction Level Event 2), is no exception.

Based around a sample from Alicia Meyer's I Want To Thank You, it also features verses from Kanye and Lil Wayne who, frankly, sound a little intimidated by the competition.

And if you want more of the same, Busta and Q-Tip have just put out a free, collaborative mixtape, The Abstract and the Dragon, which is available here.




3) Disclosure - Help Me Lose My Mind (SOHN Remix)
If you thought Disclosure's Help Me Lose My Mind was minimalist before, wait til you hear what London-Austrian producer SOHN has done with it.

His hushed, stripped-back production makes a virtue of Hannah Reid's choral vocals, drawing you deeper and deeper inside the song as it unfurls like ink in water.





4) Kate Bush - December Will Be Magic Again
"Oh Saint NICK-o-lass, Up the CHIM-en-eee." Totally amazing.





5) Grouplove - Ways To Go
Grouplove are basically the indie-pop Scissor Sisters and this song, which has featured in an advert for GoPro cameras, looks like it'll be their breakthrough hit.

The video, in which a young Kim Yong-Un becomes a fan of the band and starts wearing Hawaiian shirts around Pyongyang, is a must-see:





6) Blood Orange - You're Not Good Enough (Holy Ghost bootleg)
Poor Dev Hynes (aka Blood Orange, aka Lightspeed Champion) lost everything - even his pet dog Cupid - in a New York apartment fire this week. The letter he published about the devastation ("It's my life. It's everything I've ever owned... loved... it's all gone") will break your heart.

At one point, he talks about going back on tour to give his life a sense of normality. I'm not sure that's wise - but whatever works...

In the meantime, handing over some cash for the music he's made could help him get back on his feet. Thankfully, that includes such classics as Solange's True EP, MKS's Flatlines and Sky Ferreira's Eveything Is Embarrassing and this, his new single, remixed by DFA's Holy Ghost. It's terrific.





7) Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You
Next time someone tells you "well, of course, objectively speaking Fairytale Of New York is the best Christmas song ever written" put this on at full blast and tell them to get a grip.





8) Angel Haze - A Tribe Called Red
Furious, thrilling, magnificent.





9) Vance Joy - Riptide
This was a huge hit in Australia earlier in the year, and I can see it doing the same in the UK in 2014.

Jammed full of pop culture references (Midnight Cowboy and Michelle Pfeiffer to name a few) it also carries a shrewd lyrical observation in the chorus: "I love you when you're singing that song - and I get a lump in my throat cause you're gonna sing the words wrong."

Warning: Riptide is a little bit like the Lumineers' Ho Hey played on a ukelele, so steer clear if that's the sort of thing to make you want to rip apart a cushion.





10) Otis Redding - Merry Christmas Baby
"Santa came down the chimney
Half past three y'all
Left only my good old present
For my baby and for me
HA HA HA"

The sound of a man in the recording studio after one too many sherries.

Hmm, looking back at it, that's quite an eclectic mix of styles and genres. Well done for getting to the end. And have wonderful Christmas, one and all, wherever you are.

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Little Mix throw some shapes and seven other songs you may have missed

A semi-regular round-up of songs and videos that didn't make the blog in the last seven (or, in this case, 10) days. It's a veritable treasure chest of quality pop.

1) Little Mix - Move (X Factor rehearsal)
Jade, Jesy, Perrie and Leigh-Anne bunged this footage up on YouTube last Friday, while they were rehearsing the routine for Sunday's X Factor.

Filmed on a fixed camera in an anonymous dance studio, it's far superior to the televised version, which dropped some of the choreography, and (frustratingly) cut away to cavernous wide shots during all the best bits. They paid for that ridiculous set, so they're damn well going to make the most of it.

If you like this, you'll be pleased to hear the girls are releasing a dance-only edit of the proper video to Move at some point in the next few days.





2) Blood Orange - You're Not Good Enough
We love Dev Hynes for his stellar work on Solange's jaw-dropping True EP and MKS's un-loved but sublime Flatlines.

You're Not Good Enough is a new single under his "Blood Orange" moniker, featuring the vocal talents of Samantha Urbani of US indie-poppers Friends. As subtle and sexy as any of the Solange material, it's the roller-coaster bassline that really makes my stomach drop.






3) Avicii - Hey Brother
You know what? I think Avicii's hit on something with his ridiculous "House Music x Bluegrass" formula. Two of the world's biggest-selling musical genres, side by side in unholy matrimony (with apologies to Stevie Wonder).

After scoring a number one with the Aloe Blacc-featuring You Make Me, his new single ropes in Dan Tyminski (literally, with a lassoo) - who you might know as the man who sang Man Of Constant Sorrow on the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack.

It shouldn't work, but it kind of does.




4) Ella Eyre - Deeper
19-year-old Ella has already scored a number one this year, as the featured vocalist on Rudimental's Waiting All Night.

Deeper is her debut single, and a stunning showcase for her slightly blurry, soulful vocals. The tempo comes down a couple of notches from Waiting All Night, but she sounds just as urgent and exciting as ever.






5) Laurel - Fire Breather
Urgh, another insanely talented 19-year-old. How about a nice middle-aged pop star with an achy knee for once?

Anyway, we can't complain about Laurel, who styles herself as "London's last sweetheart trying to set the world to rights with love songs." She comes recommended by Ms Nicola Roberts (aka the only member of Girls Aloud with musical taste) and her debut EP is a Delicious Del Rey Delight.

The A-side is Fire Breather, which thuds with lust like a palpitating heart; while the B-Side is a slow-burning ballad called The Desert. Both are free to download right now.





6) Angel Haze - Summertime Sadness
Angel Haze's 30 Gold series continues "apace" with this yummy strummy cover of Summertime Sadness. The girl can sing, I'll give her that.






7) NoNoNo - Scared
I'm not really sure what happened to NoNoNo's single Pumpin' Blood. It got delayed and delayed in the UK because it was due to be featured in a major TV commercial - but the wait apparently killed the song's momentum. It's out now, but radio never quite got on the bandwagon despite lots of early support.

Still, the band are doing incredibly well in the rest of Europe, so they'll have to remain our little secret for now. Scared is their latest track, recorded for a Kitsune Maison compilation, and its got hooks that'll stick in you for days.





8) Charli XCX - I Want Candy
I don't normally post videos from gigs because (a) the quality is awful and (b) the people that make them are awful.

But I'm making an exception because this encore, from Charli XCX's recent show in San Francisco, is utterly brilliant (if boringly faithful to the original). It should be a single.

And that's your lot. If you have any suggestions for next week's list, drop me a line using the address at the bottom of the page.

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Angel Haze remixes Same Love

In case you missed this last week (because I did), here's US rapper Angel Haze putting her own spin on Macklemore's pro-gay, pro-acceptance, anti-bigotry anthem Same Love.

The original is, rightly, being hailed as an important milestone. The lyrics challenge rap music's default position of homophobia ("If I was gay, I would think hip-hop hates me / Have you read the YouTube comments lately? / "Man, that's gay" gets dropped on the daily"). Sometimes the lyrics are a little simplistic - but its heart is in the right place and it deservingly won the clunkily-titled "best video with a message" award at this year's MTV VMAs.

Interestingly, though, frontman Ben Haggerty asserts his own heterosexuality within the first four lines. Angel Haze makes no such caveats. Her opening salvo is stark and brutal: At age 13 my mother knew I wasn't straight / She didn't understand but she had so much to say / She sat me on the couch, looked me straight in my face / And said, 'You’ll burn in hell or probably die of AIDS'.

With more raw power than a nuclear plant, the full seven-minute version will take your breath away.



Same Love is part of the rapper's 30 Gold project, where she's freestyling over other people's tracks every day for a month on her Soundcloud page. Her acoustic version of Wrecking Ball is highly recommended, while her take on Jay-Z's Tom Ford is better than the original.

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