Rhythm and Rhymes

Does Afrobeats still describe a musical genre, or has it become an umbrella for nearly every globally visible African artist? AJ and Antonio discuss Ayra Starr’s StarrGirl , a controversial Dominican-Haitian...

Subscribe: https://linktr.ee/RealRandR AJ and Antonio dig into who really owns African music that Western labels and collectors traveled in to digitize and distribute — walking through Analog Africa in Benin, the...

Modern radio for global Black sounds

Subscribe: https://linktr.ee/RealRandR AJ and Antonio dig into why the "Shake It to the Max" remix — a billion streams, the first Ghanaian video past 200M on YouTube — was ruled ineligible for a 2026 Grammy, and what...

Subscribe: https://linktr.ee/RealRandR AJ and Antonio run their ten favorite albums of the year — Tierra Whack, Drake, Vince Staples, Jules, Uncle Waffles, Alex Isley — then get into why the year felt dead: no...

📩 Join the R&R newsletter: https://open.substack.com/pub/rhythmandrhymes 🎧 Listen everywhere: https://linktr.ee/RealRandR If the State Department once used jazz musicians to sell American values abroad, who's doing...

Subscribe: https://linktr.ee/RealRandR AJ and Antonio break down Suno's new "Spark" grant program for unsigned artists — including the "good vibes only" gag clause and the name/image/likeness language buried in the fine...

📩 Join the R&R newsletter: https://open.substack.com/pub/rhythmandrhymes 🎧 Listen everywhere: https://linktr.ee/RealRandR AJ and Antonio get into Christian rap — and the line one of them draws between a "Christian...

📩 Join the R&R newsletter: https://open.substack.com/pub/rhythmandrhymes 🎧 Listen everywhere: https://linktr.ee/RealRandR AJ and Antonio break down Asake's new album "Money" and use it to ask a bigger question: is...

Subscribe: https://linktr.ee/RealRandR AJ and Antonio dig into Harborview Private Equity quietly amassing 41,000+ songs and $3.8B in catalogs — from Quincy Jones and T-Pain to Stefflon Don and Shenseea — and what it...

Subscribe: https://linktr.ee/RealRandRAJ and Antonio pull up the 1972 Harvard Report — the study that taught major labels to see Black music as supply chains — and trace its logic from Black Music Month to the World Cup...

<p>Subscribe: https://linktr.ee/RealRandRAJ and Antonio trace the CIA's Cold War Jazz Ambassador Program — where Black artists were sent abroad as freedom symbols while denied rights at home — and follow that thread...

<p>AJ and Antonio trace the direct line from Miami bass record shops to DJ Marlboro's Funk Brasil (1989) — the origin story of baile funk — then pivot to the business: Ed Sheeran's amicable Warner exit, why major labels...

<p>Subscribe: https://linktr.ee/RealRandRAJ and Antonio break down Drake's surprise triple release — Iceman, Made of Honor, and Habibti — tracking the bars, the pettiness, and the global pop instincts that still make...

<p>Subscribe for weekly conversations on Black music, culture, and the diaspora: https://www.youtube.com/@realrandrLucki has been hiding his influences in plain sight, referencing Lil' Kim, DMX, and Chief Keef on his...