22-year-old prodigy Jamael Dean swiftly flew into our favourites when we heard 'Ọṣun', a track from his recent 20-track-long album Primordial Waters. Inspired by West-African Orisha stories and Jamael’s Los Angeles roots, the album is heavily infused with Yoruba spirituality and celestial themes. Unlike any other album we've encountered, Primordial Waters plays out like two separate albums, woven together with the common thread of jazz. The first half of the record is made up of spacious jazz songs, some inspired by traditional Yoruba songs, featuring vocals from Sharada Shashidhar. The first half also contains tracks like 'Odù Tó Dá Ìwà' that burst into unhinged chaos 'Odù Tó Dá Ìwà', echoing greats like Alice Coltrane. The second half of the album is smoke-coloured hip-hop, however, the songs maintain thread jazz that runs through the previous half. Produced by Dean as “Jasik,” the second half was built with beats sampled from the jazz recordings, spliced with electronics and overlaid with rapping. On 'Abyss', his lyrics dig deep into the psyche, 'Abyss, tryna make sense while reality bends, all in the void of your mind', and on 'Orí Inu', Jamael's words are philosophical and spiritually-guided, 'Never the type to loose my faith in the hype, never the like to start complain about life, rather work through the strife'. Jamael Dean is a very exciting new musician, high on our radar. -Ellie Rose-Davies