Keyshia Luc

Editor Pick

New Music Friday: 12 Releases You Need to Hear This Week

Em Franklin — “Suffocation Blue” Nashville’s Em Franklin opens the week with her sharpest work yet. “Suffocation Blue” flips the usual anxious-avoidant narrative, centering the person left gasping instead of the one asking for space. Guitar-driven and emotionally unflinching, lines like “Left me holding the bag, and it’s leaking” hit with the kind of specificity that separates good songwriting from great songwriting. Paramore-intensity meets Radiohead’s restlessness — and it works. ADÉLA — “Red Bottoms” Fresh off opening for Demi Lovato and a headlining tour that sold out in minutes, ADÉLA uses “Red Bottoms” to show a quieter, more intimate side. Where “KGB” announced her boldly, this one pulls you closer — clever lyricism turned inward on a draining relationship, her vocal range doing the heavy lifting. The momentum she’s built in 2026 makes this pivot feel earned. Nik Xandir Wolf — “Ride or Die” Carmel’s genre-defying novelist-turned-rapper pulls directly from his own fiction for this one. “Ride or Die” is a Bonnie-and-Clyde road anthem with real stakes — country swagger, hip-hop cadence, and a reggae pulse underneath cinematic tension. The hook lands like both a confession and a club banger. His MFA-trained storytelling instincts are all over this, and that’s… Read More →