Welcome to week 7 of The Spotlight where Sarah Mae and Aaron highlight and discuss their favorite records!

The first album that we featured this week was Earl Sweatshirt’s long awaited 2018 record ‘Some Rap Songs’ (SRS). A record that dives into Earls mental health (“Shattered Dreams”) grieving with the death of his father (“Playing Possum”), substance abuse ("Azucar") and his relationships with people he considered his friends (“Red Water”). Earl uses a series of vignettes to execute these themes and does it in a way that catches your attention. ‘SRS’ is such a mature record sonically, it has a very dark undertone and includes a lo-fi and sample heavy production, which draws many comparisons to MF Doom’s ‘Madvilliany'. Overall SRS is dark record that shows Earl in his most darkest moments but also growing/learning from those moments. The second album that we featured this week was UK singer/dancer/producer FKA twigs' 2014 record “LP1." This is her debut studio album which includes production from herself and UK artists like Arca, Sampha, and Dev Hynes (Blood Orange). A record that includes very cutting edge/dense production--something that wasn’t being done at the time. Lyrically she focuses on the dualism between love and lust, reality and fantasy. We see that in tracks like “Give Up” where she sings about wanting to change for the benefit of a partner, which comes off as toxic and unhealthy. We also talk about her work as a dancer and how that has influenced her music, tracks like "Video Girl" touch on her biography as a backup dancer and how she doesn't want to be known merely as the girl from music videos where she's danced in. Overall, LP1 is a record that has a very euphoric feeling to it which sucks you into FKA twigs' reality. Make sure to give these records a listen!

Join us for week 8 on November 4th for the next LIVE show!

Mondays at 6pm (EST) on wgmuradio.com