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Destin Conrad has had a busy couple of years: three albums, one Grammy nomination and a string of collaborations with fellow R&B up-and-comers such as Bellah and Nia Smith. Pick any record and you'll hear a different side of the 26-year-old. His spring 2025 debut Love on Digital pays its dues to the genre that raised him while swerving derivative cliches with small production quirks – a vocal glitch here, a skittering Jersey beat there. Last summer's Whimsy is a sprawling alt-jazz album that was written in two weeks, inspired by his time in a high-school jazz choir. A year later, Roadrunner arrived as a celebration of his Jamaican roots and queer identity – all languid reggae basslines, gyrating dancehall rhythms, drinks-in-the-air swagger and come-hither lyricism.
Roadrunner doesn't gloss over reggae and dancehall's history of homophobia, nor does it simply condemn it. On Chi Chi, Conrad interpolates the notorious chorus of TOK's Chi-Chi Man, flipping its calls to burn anyone seen driving with gay men into a brag: "Yes, I know they don't wanna see me drivin' / So I make sure I drive off in a Benzy." He makes defiance against bigotry seem easy – fun, even – and spends the rest of the album revelling in that freedom. "I know I make them nervous," he winks over the throbbing sub-bass of Nervous. "You want fi control me," he moans on Obsessed. Granted, those last two lines are about flexing on peers and teasing lovers. But what's a turn up without a little bump and grind?
This week's best new tracks
Madonna and Charli xcx – Danceteria Afterhours
"I get off the train, Hackney Wick / I'm sweet 15 in a weird outfit": Charli blends her origin story into the Confessions II highlight, PC Music and "flavoured cocaine" mingling with Basquiat and Haoui Montaug.
Jane Remover – Beauty Sleep
Heavily compressed even by her standards, the US singer-producer condenses her digicore-hyperpop style into a seething, tinny cube of sound – but graces it with one of her loveliest melodic top lines.
Lily Konigsberg – Free Byrd
If your song centres around the word "free", it'd better feel that way. Konigsberg fulfils the brief with a winsome, characterful indie jangler about betting on herself over a too-safe relationship.
Tegan and Sara – Our Year (ft Lights)
Another song eyeing the exits, set to wistful, jewel-toned synths and balmy horizon fantasias that make the Quin twins' notion of quitting a tired town almost viscerally alluring.
The front person of estimable Philly garage rock band Empath strikes out solo, defugging her band's haze for a plaintive ballad on lo-fi electric guitar, with Vini Reilly-ish soloing.
From a forthcoming rarities album, Cocoon revels in the sleazy, disarmingly seductive brew of sax, idle crooning and heavy bass that made the Boston band – and late frontman Mark Sandman – so brilliant.
Space Afrika – Pretty Gospel (ft Kiala Ogawa)
Surfacing out of the cold, slow currents of ambient, post-rock and dub on the Mancunians' new album Quiet Storm is this jazz ballad, with Ogawa's kindly yet melancholy vocals reminiscent of Cleo Sol.
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