Hey all! Your Interim Music Director, Mike Biggz here, back with the songs that I couldn’t stop listening to for the month of June, 2025
Songs to Obsess Over & Over
June 2025
Drugdealer & Weyes Blood – Real Thing
(Mexican Summer)
Anytime Drugdealerr and Weyes Blood team up, you’re gonna get some fine polished gold on wax. Their sounds compliment each other divinely well, with Drugdealer’s modern take on that warm friendly late 70’s/early 80’s west coast sound that you kids call, “Yacht Rock”, and Weyes Blood’s vocals, who is for all intensive purposes, this generation’s Karen Carpenter. “Real Thing”, an appropriate title for this song is a real deal, beautifully crafted soft rock mid tempo jam about finding that real love with the most incredible uplifting string flavored chorus that will instantly bring your mood up. It warms my heart people still make this kind of music, but do it so well it sound gimmicky or forced. You feel the love.
Amaria – All I’d Ever Know
(Fashionably Early)
If you’re a fan of sexy silky smooth soul songs that bring back the era of Sade with a touch of Amel Larrieux and Aaliyah, “All I’d Ever Know”, the latest from LA based singer, Amaria is your ultimate mood setter. Actually this song can set several moods as it fits perfectly poolside on a hot day as the soundtrack to your next chillout sesh. Amaria remains consistent after dropping her well received, some say classic debut album, Free Fallin’ in 2024. Here’s hoping we get a new album before the year ends.
Slick Rick – Landlord
(7Wallace)
The legend Slick Rick aka The Ruler, aka MC Ricky D, comes out of nowhere after more than a couple decades of silence with a really incredible album, Victory. Top to bottom this album hits and doesn’t have any skippable tracks. It even includes a couple of house bangers, which caught me off guard, but, really works. The track I want to highlight is a song of Rick’s classic art of storytelling, but a story that will rub some the wrong way. “Landlord” is a song about, well, Slick Rick being a real life landlord and all the trials and tribulations that come with it. Most folks in Hip-Hop have more of a Kill Your Landlord spirit(shout out Boofs, The Coup, RIP Pam), but having someone in the culture, and of this legendary status, now the landlord, adds a crazy perspective to it, especially when it’s rapped really well and over a dope beat that brings back a dash of Hey Young World and the bounce of Ms Fat Booty. Judge for yourself, but, the album I’d argue is his best since his groundbreaking debut.
Trackademicks – Out My Head
(HNRL)
Yay Area’s own Trackademicks has been putting it down in the Bay for a long min now. Since his last full length, The Cool Collar Scholar back in 2020, he’s released a series of dope singles, and with his latest “Out My Head”, will hopefully lead to a new album from the Dirtymeda(Alameda)’s illest artist. Recently during E-40’s Tiny Desk Concert, we saw 40 perform the Trackademicks classic remix to Tell Me When To Go, which is what really put Track on the radar of many tastemakers. Out My Head is a great Summer vibes joint about realizing your place in the ever changing landscape of the music industry and not listening to what other may have to say. It also has a great sax solo at the end, which I am glad to say, is making a comeback in music. Keep your ears open for more coming this year.
Emma Jean Thackray – “Save Me”
(Warner)
It’s official, Thundercat is now a genre of music. It’s when you get extremely talented, usually virtuoso musicians who make rick complex music with a weird quirky sense of humor that sometimes can be hard to take serious, lyrically. Emma, who’s album is called Emma “Weirdo” falls in this genre but is a bit less silly at times. Unlike the brilliant Thundercat, she doesn’t write songs from the perspective of her cat named Tron. She does have songs on here that make you smile, make you feel and songs like Save Me, which is a bit straight forward lyrically, is an incredible song with a 4 to the floor beat, and her smokey vocals, and world riddimy guitars all blend to craft the ultime cry for help jam that will have you singing along. Keep Emma on your radar as she is a powerhouse who has been releasing quality albums for close to a decade and shows no signs of slowing down.