Kwey's mix for Carbon Sound features Afrobeats and amapiano grooves so hard, so smooth, you might forget we recorded it in the cold of Minnesota. Kwey works diligently to bring this global music to the Twin Cities with SAMAMBO, an event series that features local and national DJs

Stay tuned for new mixes on Carbon Sound every other Wednesday. If you’re a DJ and want to be considered for the series, email a mix of yours to jgreen@mpr.org.

Kwey champions Afrobeats and amapiano in his mix for Carbon Sound


Kwey (4/3/2024)

Julian Green

Kwey (4/3/24)

How long have fans been speculating over the details of 

's new album? It depends when you start counting: Some began buzzing over it the second her previous record, the dance-centric 

, was released in 2022 and touted as "act one" of a trilogy. But the chatter has been especially fervent in the past two months, as singles, visuals and other teases popped up during the Grammys, Super Bowl and on the artist's own social media. The Beyhive's busiest bees analyzed clues that pointed toward a country music-inspired sound; they dissected the history of that genre, and how Black musicians have often been written out of it.

 has finally arrived. Is it a country album? In many ways, yes — but it's also a sprawling work filled with disparate influences and references, while remaining a Beyoncé album at its heart. Two NPR Music staffers, reporter 

, have been listening since the stroke of midnight. They come to you now with the 10 most important things to know about exactly what 

, served as a world-building homage to the unsung Black queer youth who created house music, 

 continues the lesson plan. In a statement soon after the album's worldwide release, the artist's Parkwood Entertainment shared that each song on the 27-track project is its own version of a reimagined Western film: "She took inspiration from films like 

, often having the films playing on a screen during the recording process."

Each track, whether an interlude, collaboration or poignant solo, rides out like a full-length film full of scenic grandeur, character and conflicts that any Chitlin' Circuit aficionado or spaghetti Western cinephile can obsess over. As a whole, 

 serves as a well of discovery, full of samples, sonic Easter eggs, Knowles family callbacks and, most importantly, an appreciation for pioneers in the country world.

2. ... with a searing image of its titular central character.

In the cowboy, Beyoncé finds her ideal figure of the American West and South. She cites the rodeo as the first place where anyone who loved country music and culture could gather and mingle and feel welcome. It's an image that runs counter to the experience that inspired the album: performing her song "Daddy Lessons" at the CMA Awards in 2016, where she has said she "did not feel welcomed ... and it was very clear that I wasn't." The 

 character exists in conversation with the history of Black cowboys, the loaded meaning behind the term and its function in the American imagination.

There are plenty of categorically country sounds on 

. String instruments are its sonic heartbeat, and the do-si-do of the slide guitar on "DESERT EAGLE" and "TEXAS HOLD 'EM" feel perfectly matched with Bey's feathery vocals. The jovial wiggle of the accordions on "RIIVERDANCE" tip a hat to zydeco music and the artist's Creole heritage. "PROTECTOR" (featuring Beyoncé's youngest daughter, Rumi) is anchored by acoustic guitar. "SWEET HONEY BUCKIIN' " interpolates "I Fall to Pieces," the shuffling standard made famous by 

. Compared to Bey's past work in an R&B world full of glitz and glamor, many moments on the album, even with their layered arrangements, feel like intimate jam sessions straight out of a Nashville writing camp.

Across the track list, elements of hip-hop, bluegrass and Chicano rock, with pop, rock, Jersey club music and operatic runs. "YA YA" conjures the charisma of 

. "BODYGUARD" is a breezy surf-rock romp with Latin percussion and a little whiskey on its breath. "AMEN" rings to the rafters in true gospel splendor. "SWEET HONEY BUCKIIN' " stacks genre upon genre and yet never overwhelms, instead connecting the dots between them with dusty horse gallops. The production credits stretch far beyond the scope of country stalwarts, making the album a treasure hunt for fans and issuing a challenge to the ways country music has come to be defined.

5. It's got country and Americana icons to set the tone...

Voices from country lore appear throughout the track list, signposts for the album's deconstructions of genre. The outlaw country pioneer 

, who once bucked the Nashville sound himself, stands in as the host of KNTRY Radio Texas, Beyoncé's fictional pirate station. 

 draws a line from Becky with the good hair to Jolene, and turns up again before "TYRANT," encouraging Beyoncé to light up a juke joint. In a prelude to one of the album's most adventurous cuts, "SPAGHETTII," Linda Martell, an undersung, trailblazing Black country star of the '70s, lays out a sort of mission statement: "Genres are a funny little concept, aren't they? Yes, they are. In theory, they have a simple definition that's easy to understand. But in practice, well, some may feel confined."

6. ... and it's flipping some old tropes.

There are covers of country classics here that stand out for how stealthily they're reimagined. Parton's 1973 hit "Jolene" shows up early in the album, but Beyoncé adds her own sauce to flip its storied narrative. A vigilant Bey (flip-flopping between being upset and unbothered) clocks the "bird" chirping round her man; unlike Dolly, who responds to a similar threat with a plea for mercy, she puts her rival on notice: "

I'm warnin' you, woman, find you your own man

Jolene, I know I'm a queen, Jolene / I'm still a Creole banjee bitch from Louisianne

." This twist renegotiates the common push and pull of rolling-stone / damsel-in-distress infidelity that's historically been a hallmark in country standards, and has only recently started to shift (see also: 

When Linda Martell shows up in the opening moments of "SPAGHETTII" to pose her question about genres, the slick rhetorical framing cuts to the main conceit of 

and centers Martell herself as a case in point. As a pioneer in the country space, Martell made history with her 1970 album, 

, and was the first Black woman to perform on the storied Grand Ole Opry. But because of the racist aggression she endured when moving from pop to country, Martell soon left the business. Now, at 82 years old, Martell's getting her due. Her voice is immortalized on both "SPAGHETTII" and "THE LINDA MARTELL SHOW," both tracks that play hopscotch with a range of genres. "I am proud that Beyoncé is exploring her country music roots," the veteran 

. "What she is doing is beautiful, and I'm honored to be a part of it. It's Beyoncé, after all!"

8. It shines a light on the stars of country's new age.

A recent study tracking country music programming from 2000 through 2020 revealed that only 29% of country songs played on format radio were by women artists, and of that 29%, 0.01% were Black women. And so along with honoring pioneers, 

 platforms new stars in the field who are still working their way through its entrenched gatekeeping and redlining.

 strums her banjo on the album's lead single, "TEXAS HOLD 'EM." Virginia's Shaboozey, whose 2022 release, 

, offered songs for a post-"Old Town Road" country-rap world, cuts through two tracks with his unforgettable tone. "BLACKBIIRD" features the vocals of four Black women — 

, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy and Reyna Roberts. This soulful cover of 

' classic about Black women's plights and resilience during the American Civil Rights movement puts its subjects in a spotlight that country radio rarely does, bringing home the reality that opportunities for artists like these have scarcely grown in the years since Martell broke ground.

9. It saddles up over the pop-country middle ground.

, Beyoncé is a pop star actively in conversation with the idea of country music, and traversing the distance between those genres seems to have made her consider the existing relationship between them. In two moments on the album, she enlists singers who have been blurring that binary for quite some time: 

. Miley, of course, is the daughter of "Achy Breaky Heart" sensation 

, and in her own pursuit of a pop identity, fiddled with Mike WiLL trap, 

 psychedelia, glam rock and country pop before settling on the centering sounds of last year's 

, which earned her a record of the year Grammy for "Flowers." For his part, Post broke out as a watercolor trap rockstar and has since shifted toward a sound more in line with his Texas roots. Both seem to resonate with the ambiguity Bey sees running through the music.

10. There's more beneath the rhinestone jewel case.

Beyond the many featured guests, other behind-the-scenes contributors help tell the story. 

 all helped produce the record. It also boasts an incredibly accomplished cast of supporting players: Pulitzer-winning folk revivalist 

, session luminary Nile Rodgers, gospel pedal steelist 

. The incredible variety of names and skills is the secret sauce behind 

{"type":"doc","content":[{"type":"paragraph","content":[{"text":"","type":"text"}]}]}

Sidney Madden

Sheldon Pearce

Is the much-hyped sequel to Renaissance a country album? In many ways, yes — but it's also a sprawling collage of disparate references, while remaining a Beyoncé album at its heart.


Listen to the Story

Woman with white hair and sash stands firmly

Blair Caldwell/Courtesy of the artist

10 takeaways from Beyoncé's new album, 'Cowboy Carter'

Every 1st of the month, we’re creating an all-encompassing roundup of tracks, projects, and music videos that were released by Minnesota artists from that previous month. 

If we missed something Minnesota made that dropped in March, DM us on 

Keep all these tracks in one place with “Carbon Sound’s 1st of the Month” Spotify playlist. Expect an updated 1st of the Month Playlist on……every 1st of the Month.  Mark your calendars accordingly.

Blood $moke Body - The Road Not Specific ⭐

Blood $moke Body - The Road Not Specific 

YoShii | "Im Back" (DKG KIE Challenge) | Shot By; @A.OPRODUCTIONS (On MY Block Performance)

Roz x Chuchii - Code | Shot By BandoFilms

EssJay TheAfrocentricRatchet - IJS FREESTYLE [Official Music Video]

JuneThaKid & Ace P - FORBES (ft. Knucky) [Official Video] #SongsToLiveBy

every place you go (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

MOEDlow x TMoney "Free Tony Freestyle" - Drown The Mic Performance

#NEWUNDERWORLD freestyle pt. 3 (ft. @KayCyy )

Tailor Briann - Will's Pick (Official Video)

Student 1 "Notes" - Drown The Mic Performance

PM TEE - Prime (Official Music Video) Directed By @Alleuv

Author

John Kueppers

Maria Gonzalez-Grimes

Cat Grimm

Nikhil Kumaran

Natalia Toledo

Highlighting Minnesota made tracks, projects, and music videos released over the month of March, 2024.


Graphic for Carbon Sound's 1st of the Month Playlist

The Road Not Specific

NadoWorld (Deluxe)

Irationale

Carbon Sound's 1st of the Month

Tailor Briann - No Hook (Official Video)

Righteous Emcee - Bless This Kitchen

Reefa Rei - Bang Bang (Official Video)

EuphoriasRoom "At All Costs" - Studio Performance

Lauryn Banks - TELL ME YOU LOVE ME

Towers / Conduct

YUNG SCARFACE - TEPITO FT FRANCISCO

Minnesota Music Releases to check out from March 2024

Angela Davis sat down with Carbon Sound’s host Sanni where they talked about her esteemed journalism career spanning across TV and radio, her advice for women exploring careers in media, her conflicting thoughts on the song “I’m Every Woman,” and a whole lot more.


The Message - Angela Davis Pt. 1

The Message - Angela Davis Pt. 2

Saweetie - Tap In [Official Music Video]

Phyllis Hyman - Living All Alone (Official Video)

Interview: Angela Davis on The Message

Tyla's mission is clear. She's setting out to change the geography of pop stardom.

"It's something I feel like the industry is lacking," the singer declares. "An African pop star."

Fresh off a year of social media virality with her breakout single, a fashion campaign with Gap and her first Grammy win in the inaugural presentation of the best African Music Performance category, Tyla has just released her self-titled debut album. It's a 14-track stunner that positions the 22-year-old as the African pop star she's always wanted to see and be.

For many listeners, Tyla's 2023 hit song "Water" was their first taste of the sound of her homeland that's now taking over the music world. Amapiano is a new musical movement that started in the townships of South Africa in the 2010s. Roughly translated from Zulu to mean "the pianos" or "piano people," amapiano is a mash-up of a few different genres: deep house, jazz, kwaito and log drum percussives. Together it all creates entrancing, mid-tempo music that's a cultural staple of South Africa's party scene.

"Amapiano is a lifestyle. You're not supposed to sweat," says DJ Moma, a Sudanese-American DJ. "That's why amapiano is at this cool tempo. You can bust out a dance move or two .... But you're not constantly chasing a 125 bpm tempo."

Moma first got put on to amapiano in 2016 when he hopped in a Johannesburg taxi. Moma tipped his driver 50 U.S. dollars to let him download the music playing on the car's stereo from a jump stick straight to his laptop and took the sounds back to the states to start playing them at 

, a recurring day party he co-created for the Black diaspora.

As the music started to move, South African DJs and producers like Kabza De Small, Kelvin Momo and Uncle Waffles emerged as leaders.

But the richness of the music goes beyond the party. "It's so much deeper than music, you know," Tyla says. "It's not just a cool sound. It's culture. It's struggle music. It's music that brought us through a lot." The slowed tempo of amapiano — elements borne from the kwaito and house lineage in its sonic DNA — connect the music to the country's historical periods of political uprisings and change in 1990s South Africa post-apartheid.

"As far as struggle music that's related to history," DJ Moma explains, "I'm not South African, you know, but what it does have is these ... really dark, melancholic, minor chords that, when you put them together, there's this mood of melancholy that permeates the music. That's something that has been [part of] South African music throughout the years. There's a lot of minor chords. There's a sadness to it. But in a weird way, it's also uplifting because minor chords, when you put them together, they're the most beautiful."

While DJs were moving the sound of amapiano around the world in the 2010s, Tyla was perfecting her own version of it back home in Johannesburg. She started off singing covers on TikTok and dropped her first song, "Getting Late" in 2019, to show her parents she was serious about pursuing a career in music after high school. Based on the track, they agreed to give her one year to make it happen.

"And it was actually worse because COVID happened in that year so I was like really, out of all years, it had to happen in this year," Tyla says.

Because of pandemic lockdowns, it took a year for Tyla and her team to shoot the video for "Getting Late," with "no backing, no budget." But when they finally dropped it in early 2021, labels noticed.

Years after her first video, Tyla's taken the building blocks of Amapiano and added elements of pop made by stars she grew up idolizing like Rihanna (to whom critics and fans are now comparing her) and Justin Bieber. Her signature sound has been dubbed "pop-iano."

In 2023, her formula finally got noticed on a global scale thanks to TikTok. After dropping "Water" in July 2023 and noticing it had become a piece of trending audio on the app, Tyla and her choreographer, Litchi, created a dance challenge. Tyla's performance of the challenge in August really made a splash on the app and introduced her to a wider audience than she ever imagined. "It literally changed my life."

"The pop and R&B mainly sits in the melody choices, you know, and song structure. And then obviously the beat is where home really shows," she notes.

It's a formula that's working. On her debut, Tyla's star quality shines. Simmered acoustics on tracks like "On and On" and "Butterflies" let her vocals hypnotize. The signature sound that she developed is flexible enough to allow her to show off next to stars from the Latin, reggae and hip-hop worlds: Features on the album include South African stalwart Kelvin Momo, Latin pop star Becky G, Atlanta rapper Gunna and Jamaican dancehall finesser Skillibeng. One of the most powerful tracks is "No. 1," featuring Nigerian R&B star Tems. Tyla even pushed back the deadline to turn in the album so she could lock in the collab.

"Of our generation, she's like the example," Tyla says of Tems. "She's been killing it and she's been opening so many doors for us."

With the recent attempts to ban TikTok in the U.S. — the same platform that's opened doors for Tyla and many other artists on the continent — the South African singer does wonder about the future of other African artists being able to break through. "People are making amazing music right now and it's not getting the same recognition."

But DJ Moma isn't too worried yet. Even if the virality of a song isn't at the level of Tyla's tracks, the options for discovery are only a few low-data clicks away. "WhatsApp is probably the number one medium for sharing amapiano music that's fresh off the press."

Tyla, along with her fellow African music Grammy nominees 

 and Olamide represent a Pan-African musical takeover for a new generation. Besides charting the course of her own pop stardom, Tyla's goals are to spread the pride of her country and keep the people who created amapiano at the forefront of the movement.

"We've obviously had African artists that have pushed boundaries, but I feel like now is a time when people are actually paying attention to us properly and actually latching on to the music and the culture and showing interest beyond the trends," she says. "And we have African artists leading it."


Thanks to her strong debut, Tyla has proven that she is one of those leaders.


The South African singer brought a homegrown genre, amapiano, to new ears with a viral hit and a Grammy. With her debut album, she wants to prove the world is ready for a full-blown African pop star.


Noam Galai

Jeremy Soma/Epic Records

Tyla - Water (Official Music Video)

Tyla - Getting Late (Official Video) ft. Kooldrink

Tyla is the new face of African pop. She's aiming to take over the whole world

Minneapolis legend Sophia Eris earned her status through her work as an organizer, artist, and world-touring DJ. She has a deep knowledge and reverence for Hip-Hop, R&B, and Minnesota Music across genre. Sophia stopped by the studio to share that joy with us, making a mixed filled with female artists, classics, creative edits, and more.

A stadium-ready set from Minneapolis legend Sophia Eris.


Sophia Eris (3/20/24)

Each week, we add new music, older tracks, which are known as “Gold adds”, and tracks that might not fit our general format, but still deserve a place in rotation because they serve our mission of showing the depth, breadth, and influence of Black musical expression - These are known as “Variety adds.”

. If you make music and want it considered for rotation, 

 If you want to give feedback directly, reach out to me at jgreen@mpr.org.

Tune in to hear our host Sanni B. live on The Message from 10 AM to 1 PM Monday through Thursday!

Keep all these tracks in one place with the 

 Spotify playlist. This playlist is updated weekly with all the new adds. When that playlist is cycled with new tracks, the tracks live forever on the 

 playlist. That playlist contains all of the music that we've added since the week of July 11, 2022 in chronological order of when it was added. All of the tracks available on Spotify, at least.

Julian Green built and manages the music library for Carbon Sound and oversees content creation.  


All of the tracks added to rotation on Carbon Sound the week of March 18, 2024.


Image for New on Carbon Sound Spotify playlist

New on Carbon Sound

Old on Carbon Sound

New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of March 18, 2024

All of the tracks added to rotation on Carbon Sound the week of March 11, 2024.


New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of March 11, 2024

Yoni Light is a multifaceted artist and educator, co-founder of New Black City and Vogue Down Mpls, and more. In her interview with Carbon Sound, she talks about how New Black City, her Femme Hip-hop dance crew, creates space and opens doors for women of color to express themselves.


Yoni Light stopped by to talk to Carbon Sound’s host Sanni about using dance as a connection point for interaction and social change, recent projects like her one-woman show “In Search of Her,” creating space for the ballroom community through Vogue Down Mpls, and a whole lot more.

The Message - Yoni Light Pt. 1

Pt. 2

Goodies Dance Visual

New Black City: Rent Freeze Protest

After Party x New Black City

Ciara - 1, 2 Step (Official Video) ft. Missy Elliott

The life of Alvin Ailey

Yonika 007 OTA NYC GP Beginners Performance

Interview: Yoni Light on The Message

Yasmeenah's love for music shines through her on her mix for Carbon Sound, mixing deep house, amapiano, and more. UNBOTHERED, Yasmeenah's event series, has featured local and national DJs that pay homage to the Black roots of electronic music. For her mix, she did the same, expanding our knowledge of these genres and making us move simultaneously.

Stories

Kwey (4/3/24)

10 takeaways from Beyoncé's new album, 'Cowboy Carter'

Minnesota Music Releases to check out from March 2024

Get the Carbon Sound app

Interview: Angela Davis on The Message

Tyla is the new face of African pop. She's aiming to take over the whole world

Sophia Eris (3/20/24)

New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of March 18, 2024

Connect with Carbon Sound

New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of March 11, 2024

Interview: Yoni Light on The Message

Yasmeenah (3/6/24)

See more stories →