You can stream “Rocket Ships” below. Prisoner of Conscious drops May 7.

We don’t know the name of the song just yet—”Freckles” maybe?—but it’s sounding good so far. Also, is there a huge album RZA won’t be on this year? Earl’s Doris? Check. James Blake’s Overgrown? Double check. Kid Cudi’s Indicud? Checkity check check.

You can watch the video below. [via]

Here is what Posdnuos had to say about the record:

“I’ve always loved the ‘Intro’ on Disc Two of Wu-Tang Forever – this erie sample with no beat, that they only talked over. I stumbled on the original sample while crate digging one day, took it straight to the lab and added drums. The feel is definitely gritty, hard and sounds like a Wu record, so out of inspirational respect, we included featuring ‘The Spirit of the Wu’ in the song title.”

Yeah, these guys haven’t missed a step, even after all these years. Stream “Get Away” below. [via]

You can watch the RZA-featuring video below. Twelve Reasons to Die is out now.

James Blake is a ghost. The ghost of a broken hearted romantic from the 1800s that wound up trapped in an iPad. His music occupies this strange space that feels pre-industrial and simultaneously unable to exist without the technology of the contemporary moment. Yes, he’s a critical darling, and one of the “figure heads” of a vast and multi-dimensional global electronic music scene, but he’s also an artistic anachronism. Blake sprinkles EPs and remixes here and there, and now with his second album Overgrown, would be hard pressed to produce a discography that touches 50 total songs. In an age were some artists release 50 songs in 18 months, this “restraint” creates an anticipation and demand for his sound, further buoyed by how idiosyncratic it is. Sure, Blake does not exist in a vacuum as it relates to genre or aesthetic proclivities, but they way in which he compiles and re-shapes his influences erases the need to lump him in with EDM, IDM or dubstep. Even as those sounds have made their way into the mainstream, at his core (just as with his debut), Overgrown exists as a disfigured but enchanting testament to the power of soul music.

The lead leak/single “Retrograde” is prime example of James’ soulful core. It’s basically a church boy on his piano humming his heart’s desire. Subtle piano notes melt into a mechanical soul clap and James’ tedious croon. Soon an assortment of synths and processed vocal harmonies consume that skeletal framework and make one feel as though they’ve boarded a ship into interstellar space. James is literally “wooing” like Marvin behind all the sonic pyrotechnics and singing the panties off his muse. Earlier in the album “I Am Sold” does a great job of showing how Blake not only plays with tempos, but opposing textures. What seems to start off as a ballad, quickly transforms into this reserved dance number only to reveal itself as an eerie down tempo number full of plopping Linn drum sounds and rickety hi-hats. Blake is never in a rush to reveal the shades of his circumspect mind.

Overgrown’s most narcotic moment though, has to be “Life Round Here”. As a piece of music that sounds like a calm walk through the park, only to be propelled into sports car speed just by how Blake stacks (and cuts/edits) his infectious harmonies over the crunchy warped organs. “Life Round Here”’s low end is brilliantly understated, yet nimble in a boom-bap form that easily segue into the song’s brief huge apex. It’s a fantastic piece of sound assemblage that is equal parts somber and hope-filled. This type of sound assembling only becomes more combustible and sanctimonious on the Brian Eno produced “Digital Lion”. It’s a song that begins kind of clunky and awkward, but moves into this gospel-esque, lover’s chain-gang tune of polyrhythm. Both songs show not only how Blake has expanded on the minimalism of James Blake, but also found new ways to build the style he began back with CMYK in 2010.

There is no need to throw in the obvious qualifiers and adjectives as it relates to this album as a whole. It simply does not disappoint. “Voyeur” is a nice up tempo house track, while the RZA feature “Take A Fall For Me” works surprisingly well after beginning borderline cheesy. This is what music “should” sound like in a world where social life is mediated through computers, wallets have less money in them, and a general sense of malaise and fragmentation is felt through people’s identities. These are the reason I described Overgrown as disfigured and enchanting soul music above. Soul music (not the genre ascribed to Black artists of the ’70s) is a sound that is true to the times as interpreted by its author. Overgrown isn’t always pretty, but it damn sure resonates a profound beauty.

4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5 out of 5

Stream the feature at NPR.

Anyway, the list appears to have been crowdsourced between influential hip-hop figures, as well as Time Out writers. Not only that, but Time Out also considered other things like album sales and overal popularity. What also threw us for a loop, though, is the fact that artists that are also on the list had a say in the voting process. We are talking people like De La Soul and Big Daddy Kane, who happened to both find themselves in the top 20.

Check the list out here, and come back to let us know if you think ranking NYC’s hip-hop artists is a good idea. Oh, and is Jay-Z really the best hip-hop artist out of NYC? The comments section is now open.

You can listen below. [via]