RA Podcast

On the heels of ii, three of hip-hop's most boundary-pushing artists talk collaboration, creative risk and the threat of AI.

Kenneth Blume, Denzel Curry and Vince Staples came up around the same time, as rap's centre of gravity was shifting online and an older guard was dismissing much of what came out of it as a passing fad. Blume, formerly known as Kenny Beats, made his name producing for rappers, then opened up his process on his YouTube series The Cave. He has since moved into rock, producing records for Geese and Weezer. Curry emerged from Carol City, Miami, by way of SpaceGhostPurrp's Raider Klan. This year he has cut a single and a co-headline tour with the hardcore band Knocked Loose, and launched a new underground rap supergroup, The Scythe. Staples first surfaced in Long Beach as an Odd Future affiliate, pushed into experimental electronic territory on Big Fish Theory with producers including SOPHIE and Flume, and starred in his own Netflix series. A decade on, all three are still moving hip-hop forward by refusing to stay in one lane.

In this RA Exchange, the three appear together on the heels of ii, the new album from Blume and Curry. They discuss their process in the studio, the fights that draw out their best material and how their ideas of risk, failure and success have changed over time. As longtime friends and collaborators, they also reflect on how hip-hop has shifted around them: the rift between generations, the threat AI poses to working artists and whether they're really at their creative peak. Listen to the full episode.

The Berlin DJ, one of the brightest of her generation, makes a patient case for house and techno on vinyl.

We’ve all heard the phrase “DJ’s DJ.” Too often, it’s lazy shorthand for a technical skill so esoteric it’s lost on the dance floor. But Nathalie Ogazón Faber embodies the craft in its fullest sense, commanding respect from the regulars at the booth to the sound technician at the back.

Known simply as Ogazón, she played her first gig in 2018 and made her Berghain debut in 2022. Since then she’s become the quintessential Panorama Bar DJ, a resident in spirit alongside ItaloJohnson, Steffi and her regular b2b partner, Ryan Elliott. Her affinity for techno is equally pronounced, and her mixing bridges both floors: patient and refined without ever feeling too polished.

That patience defines her RA Mix. Forgoing obvious drops, she builds subtle, drawn-out peaks through delicate shifts like a weightier kick drum or an incoming hi-hat. Melody arrives as a pad here, a dubbed-out chord there. The connecting theme, she says, is emotion.

Recorded entirely on vinyl, RA.1060 embraces imperfection. “In a world where everything is becoming increasingly polished and ‘perfect,’” she notes, “I think a little bit of grain and a few pops here and there can only be a good thing.” Ogazón is consistent, but don’t mistake that for regression. It’s what makes her a DJ’s DJ, in the truest sense.

Find the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1079
@ogazon

Cinematic techno from the mysterious Dutch producer.

Some of the best techno is both beautiful and austere. On an old Robert Hood or Sandwell District track, the industrial clank of percussion gives way to bursts of melody where you can hear the ghosts singing inside the machines. It's this version of techno that the Dutch producer nthng has been honing since the mid-2010s, from his debut on Lobster Theremin's Mörk to records for Delsin.

His take on techno, borrowing from trance, dub and ambient, has always hewed close to the edge of the dance floor, that space where dancers keep their eyes shut and get lost in the shadows.

For RA.1059, he delivers an hour from the most visceral and cinematic end of his sound. The opening suite of four of his own tracks is nothing (pun intended) short of breathtaking: sky-searching IDM turns into chromatic techno, followed by a dubstep-referencing vocal track with a rolling break that hits with the weight of a guillotine, before he lets loose a slightly syncopated barnstormer. He never lets the drama and tension slip across the remaining 48 minutes, ending on his own piece of paranoid and skeletal drum & bass.

Find the tracklist at ra.co/podcast/1078
@nthngnthng

Kicking off a run of artist-on-artist Exchanges for RA25, the musical multi-hyphenates discuss poetry, religion and their experiences as protectors of oratorical tradition.

There's a deep creative current running between music and poetry, and Saul Williams and James Massiah know those waters well. This week’s RA Exchange is the first in a series of intergenerational artist-on-artist conversations we’ll be running to mark our 25th anniversary. In it, Williams—the Grammy-nominated poet, musician, writer and actor—and Massiah—a South London poet and musician—talk about lyricism and what first drew them to the written word. Both grew up in the church: Williams as the son of a Baptist preacher, Massiah in the Seventh-day Adventist church, raised on the King James Bible. They discuss how those upbringings shaped their sense of oratory and morality, and the tension between rejecting institutional religion and still holding on to its aesthetic traditions.

They also get into what happens when a poem meets music, and what a dance floor can be beyond entertainment. Williams argues it has always been a training ground: a space for resistance, ceremony and mobilisation, where ideas can spark minds and movements. Massiah, meanwhile, explains how simply wanting to keep partying ended up radicalising him. As he puts it: "Where are we going to party if the bad guys have got all the good party locations?"

The conversation was recorded in Amsterdam, where Williams performed with Underground Resistance. His new album, Leap Life, is out now on Big Dada. Listen to the full episode.

A showcase of East Coast club music, old and new, from a new Baltimore star.

Baltimore doesn't get the credit it deserves. Maryland's largest city gave the world Baltimore club, a blueprint for much of the East Coast's dance music—Jersey club and Philly club both trace their lineage back to it. The scene is alive and kicking, and Tromac, real name Miles Cowling, is at the heart of it.

From Prince George's County, Cowling moved to Baltimore in 2019. In 2022 they launched Break A Leg, a party series and safe space for people to dance their pain away, and they've collaborated with RA cover star Zack Fox, Black Rave Culture and Cortisa Star.

"You know how long I been waiting for this. I'm about to make a name for myself," begins RA.1058. From there, Cowling twists through contemporary East Coast club—OSSX, JIALING, JD. Reid, AceMo, DJ Swisha—plus honorary peers Bored Lord, Conducta and Jam City.

Across 38 tracks in 66 minutes, it's high-tempo but not for the sake of it: sometimes coasting, sometimes jumping, sometimes letting it all out. About halfway through, a Tucker Carlson sample calls Baltimore one of the most dangerous cities around. Cowling's answer: "There are beautiful things here, don't come down to play the fuck around."

Find the tracklist and Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1077
@tromac
@breakalegparty
@hochiruns
@3SIDEmusic