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Rockin’ To Dis Vol. 18

Fifty tracks that move between Lagos, London, Trinidad and Los Angeles without ever changing gear. This is what a well-built mix does — it makes distance disappear.

One groove, four continents

The organising principle here is not genre or region but tempo and temperature. Afrobeats sits next to British soul, soca next to Chicago R&B, and none of it jars, because the selections share a mid-tempo warmth and a preference for melody over impact. That is harder to assemble than it sounds; most mixes with this range end up as a series of hard left turns.

It also functions as a genuinely useful survey of where soul music was at the point it was made — a snapshot of the moment when the borders between American R&B, UK soul and West African pop effectively stopped mattering to anyone under forty.

What to listen for

The British contingent is strong. Cleo Sol's "Her Light" is the quiet centre of the whole thing — she is the most understated great singer working, and the SAULT-adjacent production gives her enormous space. Gabzy and melvitto on "Close To Me" represent the Afroswing lane.

The American soul is deep-cut rather than obvious: Ledisi's "All The Way," Jayla Darden's "Between Us," October London's "Lover's Interlude," and Kehlani with Lucky Daye on "When He's Not There." Yaya Bey brings the sharpest writing on the list.

West Africa arrives via CKay and Olamide on "WAHALA" and Tim Lyre with Boj on "All Night." And then Kes turns up with "Formula" — a Trinidadian soca record, and one of the most joyful things on the mix.

Conan Gray's "Miss You" opening the set is the boldest sequencing choice: an indie-pop record used as a doorway into a soul mix, and it works.

Go deeper

Three names from this list are worth following properly. Yaya Bey — her Remember Your North Star is one of the sharpest R&B albums of recent years, funny and furious in equal measure. Cleo Sol — start with Mother. Kes — the gateway to a whole soca tradition most listeners outside the Caribbean never encounter.

For the connective tissue between these scenes, the producers are the story: Juls, ESTA., melvitto and Full Crate all work across every one of these regions. Following a producer is usually the fastest route into a scene you do not know.

One final thing. The most useful measure of a mix like this is not whether every track lands, but how many artists you come away wanting to investigate. Fifty tracks drawn from four continents, most of them working well outside the promotional machinery, is a wide net by any standard — and the ones that catch you will not be the ones you expected. Keep a note as you listen; that list is the real output.

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