Betty Davis
(Light In The Attic)
★★★★

BEST known by many as Miles Davis’s second wife, this reissue of Betty Davis’s 1973 debut is an important corrective, confirming the African-American singer and songwriter as a trailblazing artist in her own right (she passed away last year).

Her sexually confident persona, thigh-high boots and streetwise soul-funk shows that artists like Rick James, Prince and Madonna have a lot to thank her for.

“I’m wiggling my fanny, I’m raunchy dancing,” she exclaims over a hard-driving rocky guitar riff on If I’m In Luck I Might Get Picked Up, tapping into a similar energy source as Tina Turner.

The provocative subject matter of Your Man My Man should be obvious, while the high energy Steppin’ In Her I Miller Shoes tells the tragic story of young woman arriving in “the jungle” only to be “used and abused by many men.”

Noname
Sundial
(Self-released)
★★★★

AFRICAN-American rapper Noname (Fatimah Nyeema Warner) has made a name for herself as a radically minded artist (sample lyric: “my pussy wrote a thesis on colonialism.”)

Her second album doesn’t disappoint. Over chilled out, classic-sounding beats she raps her dense, smart lines. There’s a lot to take in, which her conversational style helps with. “First black president and he the one who bombed us,” she notes on Hold Me Down, while Beyonce, Rihanna and Kendrick Lamar are called out for playing the Superbowl – “propaganda for the military complex” – on the astonishing Namesake.

Elsewhere socialism, capitalism, racist “sundown towns” and black intellectual giant WEB Du Bois are cited (she has also received criticism for a verse sung by Jay Electronica which seems to use anti-semitic tropes).

Beyond this, Noname feels like a North Star for the future of hip hop.

David Westlake 
D87 
(Optic Nerve) 
★★★

ORIGINALLY released in 1987, this is the first reissue of David Westlake’s debut solo record (he was also the frontman of the English indie guitar band The Servants, active from 1985 to 1991). 

This edition comes with two demos and a batch of songs from a BBC radio session, in which he plays with members of Australia’s The Go-Betweens, including co-leader Robert Forster. 

This connection feels telling as several tracks, such as She Grew And She Grew, seem to be massively influenced by The Go-Betweens. So much so I initially had to check I was indeed listening to Westlake. He even seems to mimic Forster’s Aussie accent at times – check out the tender Everlasting. 

As part of the mid-80s C86 scene, Westlake is a well-respected artist in indie circles, and D87 still sounds fresh over 35 years later.