Natural Brown Prom Queen, Sudan Archives (7/10)

Another drop from last Friday (9/9/22). Wow!! Brittney Parks really went off with this album, Sudan Archive's second full-length after "Athena" (2019). I've been a fan of theirs for a few years now, and I was truly so impressed by how explorative this album is. I think for me, I first really got into Sudan Archives for the way that Parks infuses contemporary r&b with West African sounds, but this album has pushed that infusion even farther as Parks has really pushed her own genre bounds. This album moves from rap to ethereal r&b to slow soul to spoken interludes to housey beats and continues to infuse all of them with distinct West African beats and sounds. It's truly beautiful. This album also delves more deeply into her own personal subject exploration as she talks about colorism and Blackness and her sexuality. I found the first half of the album more resonant/catchy for me than the second half where I started to get a tad bit bored, but that's probably my attention span lol. ChevyS10 also has to be one of my favorite songs of the year. Great stuff. Favorite tracks: Home Maker, Selfish Soul, ChevyS10