Listen: Hostiles - Benin City feat. Eklipse

Long standing BlackPlastic.co.uk favourites Benin City are back, with a song that carries and important message in deeply challenging times.

Usually I would write something about the artist, the song, and what it makes me feel. In this instance, I think it is much better to let the music, and the artist, speak for itself. The words that follow in this post are those of Benin City.

It was already a painful year, with the Tories, with Covid, with Windrush, with Boris.

This year alone, our aunts have been spat on, our uncles knelt on, our elders deported, our brothers left to the mercy of COVID. George Floyd is the latest casualty in this eternal war against black people’s right to exist, to work, to be happy, to love as we love.

Trust, we’re exhausted, we’re watching the news and despairing, we’re tired, and we’re angry.

We’ve been emboldened by the protests, in the US and globally, even in the face of rampant police aggression. We’re a band, what we do best is music, so we’re putting this song out, Hostiles is our attempt to put our emotions to art in these shiitake-mushroom times.

All proceeds of the track will go to BLM UK, so we’d encourage you to buy it from our Bandcamp, though it’ll be available to stream from everywhere else too. Also, we’ve made a collective donation as well, and other donations to These Walls Must Fall (https://detention.org.uk/) BFTA collective (https://cash.app/$btfacollective) and Black Minds Matter (https://www.blackmindsmatteruk.com/).

If you can, donate too, or read/share this resource on other charities to donate to and articles compiled by It’s Nice That (https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/resources-supporting-black-lives-matter-movement-creative-industry-010620).

Take care of each other and yourselves. We are so much more to this.

Love is the law Unclench Your Jaw Wash Your Paws

Tom, Shanaz, Josh

#blacklivesmatter #blacktranslivesmatter

It was already a painful year, with the Tories, with Covid, with Windrush, with Boris. This year alone, our aunts have been spat on, our uncles knelt on, our elders deported, our brothers left to the mercy of COVID.

Stream: Final Form - Benin City

Joshua Idehen has been making waves on these pages since the release of the debut album of his group Benin City back in 2013. Since then he has regularly blown me away, whether it is on guest spots or with his second band Hugh.

We are now back where we began, as for the past few months Josh has been focused once more on Benin City with band mates Shanaz Dorsett and Tom Leaper.

Final Form is the latest track to come from the forthcoming album Last Night, which was developed in tribute to London’s nightlife. Benin City’s last album felt uniquely of London, and so it makes sense their next would too.

This new track continues Benin City’s move in a more electronic direction - a thick, chunky slice of indie house. Last Night isn’t just inspired by London’s night life - it is the band’s attempt to process the change and decay that is being inflicted on the city’s nightclub scene. Final Form takes one of the moments that could only have come out of that scene an encapsulates it in an aural tale of emotions, chemistry and dancing. Describing the origins of the track Idehen says:

”I once went to Zoo Bar in the west end with a poet I really fancied. It was a Saturday night and neither of us drank but we felt like dancing. They were playing soulful house (this was way back in the noughties). Spurring and daring each other on, we started with the running man and ended up at last orders, dripping in the worst sweat, making new dance moves up, downing large glasses of tap water. She, a Dragonball Z fan, kept saying, “nah, you haven’t seen my Final Form. Next song I will be over 9000”. Obviously, that stuck with me.”

The band recently sold out London’s The Waiting Room but you can still catch-up them on tour at any of the following dates: 15th March: USA, Austin, Texas: SXSW, Esther's Follies
17th March: USA, Austin, Texas: SXSW, BBC Radio 1 stage at The British Music Embassy - 1.40pm
31st March: UK, London: Lock Tavern
8th June: UK, London: Poetry and Lyrics Festival with Cerys Matthews
9th August: UK, Winchester: Boomtown Festival

Last Night will be released through Moshi Moshi later this year. Check out Final Form below.

Stream: Bus - Benin City

Preorder the EP, 'Midnight Malarky' here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/midnight-malarky-ep/id885543957

More hotness from Benin City, whose bass heavy urban alt pop warms me no end on this sunny Friday. This summery new track is lifted from Benin City's forthcoming EP Midnight Malarky, out on 23 June and available to pre-order on iTunes.

Stream: Look Back In Laughter - Hugh

Listen to HUGH - Look Back In Laughter by HughLoveHugh | Explore the largest community of artists, bands, podcasters and creators of music & audio.

This second single from Hugh has a lovely laid-back feel to it and I also totally love the message behind it... The things that stress you out today will almost certainly seem largely irrelevant one day.

Hugh is a new project from Joshua Idehen, who I've covered here both for his work with the excellent Debian Blak and with his other band Benin City. Hugh is a collaboration with Izzy Broox, Andy Highmore and Martin Kolarides that takes a more blissed out form than Idehen's more upbeat Benin City material, but it's just as good. Check out previous track Not Fair Too Far whilst you are here:

Listen to HUGH - Not Fair Too Far... by HughLoveHugh | Explore the largest community of artists, bands, podcasters and creators of music & audio.

Stream: Say You - Debian Blak feat. Joshua Idehen

This is a new collaboration between Debian Blak and Joshua Idehen (Benin City / Hugh). Debian Blak: https://www.facebook.com/debianblak https://twitter.com/DebianBlak Joshua Idehen: https://www.facebook.com/joshuaidehen https://twitter.com/BeninCitizen

Strong and bold electronic soul courtesy of BlackPlastic favourites Debian Blak and Joshua Idehen of Benin City.