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Nikki Birch

NIKARA.
Shervin Lainez
/
Courtesy of the artist
NIKARA.

Music was back with a vengeance this year, or perhaps I was in a better place to actually savor the juicy tidbits I discovered. This is an unranked collection of my favorite songs and albums that came out in 2021. Deciding which ones made this list was incredibly difficult since there are many more I would have liked to include, but I decided to go with the music I couldn't stop playing on repeat. I hope that in this list, you discover new artists that become a part of your soundtrack. Cheers!

Top 10 Albums of 2021

▶ LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

• Joy Oladokun, in defense of my own happiness
• NIKARA, NIKARA presents Black Wall Street
• Rogue VHS, I am: Rogue VHS
• Cory Henry, Best of Me
• Mirrors, Mirrors
• Portico Quartet, Monument
• Celeste, Not Your Muse
• Weedie Braimah, The Hands of Time
• Silk Sonic, An Evening With Silk Sonic
• Tyler, the Creator, Call Me If You Get Lost

Top 10 Songs of 2021

▶ LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

• Barbra Streisand (feat. Kermit the Frog), "Rainbow Connection"
• Big Boi and Sleepy Brown (feat. Killer Mike), "lowercase (no cap)"
• Kiefer, "Friends"
• Gabriels, "Blame"
• Jordan Peters, "Float"
• Michael League, "Me, Like You"
• J3PO, "Silver Lining"
• Joe Flizzow (feat. MK and Jay Park), "CIAO"
• Bill Laurance, "Zeal"
• Lime Cordiale, "Apple Crumble"

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Nikki Birch
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