At this point Lana del Rey has little to prove. Almost a decade ago she decided to pose as an elegant bird on our world and expand her wings with sensual and intimate songs. Moving with extreme naturalness between the disparity of romanticism and tragedy, she began to captivate the world with the ease with which a sweet aroma would. Soon she positioned herself in the music industry, creating a niche of her own nothing exploited to date. Crown of flowers in hand, it cost her little to be adored by millions of fans, becoming a melodic goddess thanks to her voice and music reminiscent of a glamor of yesteryear. With a cold and distant attitude, the union between the most tender fragility and fierce sexuality were present in his personal songs. After five studio albums (yes, I count Paradise), Lana enjoys an omnipresent position. Lizzy Grant is an artist who has managed to get away from the trivial and commercial, and can fly free around the world without a master to obey, bypassing musical rules. The New Yorker is allowed not to follow any trend and everything falls on a fine and feminine instinct. By modulating her voice, whispering or simply sighing she is able to get our attention, to evoke our own teenage dreams. It seems that Lana has lived for a long time in a constant American film, those of towns full of houses with porch, overwhelming heat, passionate love, excesses and small follies. If we look back, doesn't this remind us of any of her first video clips? The rebellion that takes hold of the naive and innocent girl. But now we discovered that this disobedience lived asleep in Lana and only needed something or someone to wake her up. Now, with Norman Fucking Rockwell!, her sixth album, the artist decides to return to that American dream town in an improved way. Baptized with the name of an American artist famous for his customary images, Lana will follow her trail of creating everyday female characters with every bit of her personality. On the cover of this project, in the purest Rockwell style, Del Rey reaches out to us, hoping we will take it and thus have the pleasure of accompanying her on her deepest journey.

I have been a Madonna fan since I was 12 years old when her song Borderline reached the Philippines and promptly became a favorite dance song during our school soirees. Throughout her illustrious career though, it is only with her latest album Madame X that she has gone all out to sing about issues that affect our world today – and it does befuddle a long time fan like me, who is used to hearing her sing about sex, partying, having fun, and doing all the other crazy things young people are wont to be doing. So, I admit it was a bit uncomfortable to hear her become serious and sing about songs on gun control, about espousing LGBT rights, which got me thinking, was she trying to save the world, now that she has reached the ripe old age of 61? She did say in one of her interviews to promote the album, that she did what she did in this album because she felt no one was saying anything about these issues – that because of her celebrity status, she felt she had to say something – even if it meant it would be uncomfortable for her fans to hear. I did feel that way. I wouldn’t mind saving the environment or standing up to LGBT rights but to hear it as music is different because I prefer my music to be stress-free and relaxed. It was my sanctuary from the craziness of this world. However, Madonna does have a point. If she doesn’t use her stature to at least make people take notice of these world issues, then all her popularity would just be a waste.

There’re certain moments you remember in music you remember clear as day, like that time Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day smashed his guitar at the iHeart Radio fest, or when Taylor Swift was interrupted by Kanye West on the VMA’s; Stuff like that. One of those memorable moments is the day Panic! At The Disco revived their exclamation point. Okay, maybe not as iconic but close… Right? As someone who has followed this band since quite honestly the beginning there’s certain moments in time that are embedded in the darkest crevasses of the mind, loggin’ on to a giant MacBook computer and loading the black screen to reveal the new era of Panic! At The Disco.

Have you ever come across a work of art and thought to yourself, "If only the whole world will see and experience it the way I have?". That was how I felt when I listened to upcoming Nigerian rapper, Kristal's debut body of work Kristal Clear mixtape. The Kristal Clear mixtape is a collection of all the songs Kristal has ever released. You know that moment when an artist begins to actually work on his own songs after convincing himself that he wants to do music full time? That is actually the type of songs Kristal included in this body of work. Songs in that category are usually not up to taste, are flawed, or are almost always half baked. But these songs are also usually the most precious to these upcoming artists, and hold the most endearing stories of them. The songs in the Kristal Clear mixtape are like that in a way, but are different in an interesting way. While they are his very first works in music, they show so much maturity and experience on his part. The Kristal Clear mixtape is not your regular music project. It is a carefully created body of work that seeks to entertain and educate it’s consumers. It is a crystal clear message for everyone to sit up and adjust to the new ways of doing things that actually work, and it spares no one, not even Kristal himself. It contains 10 tracks made up of two skits, two refixes, and six originals. The project features his boss who also doubles as the project’s executive producer, Yung Roc, and another Nigeria born rapper, Pohzitive of Imo State origin. Production credits goes to producer Dcube Tha Beatkilla, and it was mixed and mastered by Yung Roc at the beats by Roc studios in Imo State, Nigeria.