What's Good (Week of 9/27/26 - Bandcamp Friday Edition)

Bandcamp Friday October 2: "Bandcamp Friday" is in bubble letters, "October 2" is san serif. The text is on a beige and mint green background.

Fall's Bandcamp Friday is here, and so is the accompanying edition of What's Good. Plenty of good new music like,:

New Albums & EPs

  • The Koreatown Oddity
  • mars kumari & Del The Funky Homosapien
  • Myalansky & Action Figure 973
  • lilith
  • MX LONELY
  • Nacho Picasso & TELEVANGEL

New Singles

  • blackchai
  • Bruiser Wolf & Raphy
  • Mei Semones
  • Telemakus
  • Teller Bank$
  • Tomoki Sanders

As well as our special section for Bandcamp Friday sales, exclusives, and one-day only offers. Per the link up above, Bandcamp Fridays are when Bandcamp forgoes their profit share, so that artists and labels get 100% of each sale for the day. To get right to the Playlists, Bonus Beats (cool stuff from around the net), or the Music releases for the week, just tap your prefered link below:

But scroll down for some of the specials you can take advantage of today.


Bandcamp Friday Deals

That's just a small sample, but everything you pick up from Bandcamp today helps artists out a little bit more than usual, sale or no. Buy you some. Also if you're looking for some recommendations on stuff to pick up outside of the What's Good bubble, tap in with our friends at Don't Rock The Inbox for some Country and/or Western joints to put in your cart. Now, let's get into the regularly scheduled programming with some Bonus Beats.


Playlists

TIDAL

TIDAL: What's Good Playlist - Week of 9/27/26 (Bandcamp Friday Edition)

YouTube


Bonus Beats

Wiki gets open over "Make Them Pay" and "Keep It Thoro" for FRAIM. My thought? Wiki and Ovrkast. need to link up, imo.


The Afterlives of Okayplayer
The story of a message board that changed hip-hop forever

If you know where I'm talking about when I say "That Site", this feature from Antoine Hardy over at Hearing Things (in partnership with Critical Minded) is for you. A history of Okayplayer, and where some of the most prominent players in that hallowed hub ended up.

Nissel, the creator of the message boards, told me once that as young Black people, “We built this community because we needed it!” And as DJ, artist, and podcaster Donwill argued, “The Roots found fans, but we found each other, and having the space to be honest and seeing other people have honest conversations inspired you to feel you could be real.” You could discuss your college life or your breakups alongside the music. This is why I don’t fully embrace the argument that OKP was the original Black Twitter—because it was more than that. It was a social network functioning as a homeplace. But its influence is undeniable: The rhetorical innovation of Black signifying through memes and jokes was present in OKP’s early days, long before social media.

 

In music-fandom studies, there’s much discussion about relational labor, which is often how users make fan pages, merch, and beyond for clout and to garner attention from the artists. We had a solid dose of that on OKP, but the real relational labor was stuff we made for ourselves. Fans were making OKP TV and filming vlogs about artists that we championed on the site like JDavey or Janelle Monáe. They were shooting rare performances of the Roots and Jimmy Fallon in 2009. Fans even made WTF: An Okaymentuary, a 30-minute doc on the history of the OKP message boards. Similar to the Discord servers my students frequent, we created OKP Music Club to share music directly and talk offline. Users Deephunk and DJ Tara took their love for J Dilla and made Donuts Are Forever, currently in its 20th year, as a global event celebrating the life of Dilla, a patron saint of the site.


Melissa Aldana brought a few cuts from Filin to NPR's Tiny Desk for Latin Music Month.


AI Album Covers Have No Place in Hip-Hop
A visual artist who built his career on creating covers for independent rap records laments how AI is bastardizing his life’s work.

If you've been following me for long enough, you're already aware of how much the use of GenAI art in Hip-Hop has chapped my ass. Thankfully I'm not alone, and Chop the Head details (in another piece for Hearing Things) just how odious the practice is, highlighting The Alchemist's recent transgressions with the recent Gangrene and Erykah Badu collabs as examples (and also providing excellent alternate artwork he created for the former).

The social conditions proposed by the companies profiting from AI are beyond Orwell’s bleakest thoughts: constant surveillance; mass behavior modification via social media; extreme wealth concentration pushing most humans into a permanent underclass; fully-automated social credit and criminal justice systems; art and culture as individually tube-fed corporate consumption rather than communal connection. (And that’s if humanity can even survive the next few years of unregulated expansion.) These are not speculations or conspiracies, they are the openly stated predictions and even goals of the tech CEOs behind OpenAI, Google, and Palantir, the men behind the curtain of the proposed next generation of “artists.” This is the real scale of the problem and what is truly at stake.

The grassroots Black radical origins of hip-hop should have every artist in the genre calling for all these motherfuckers’ heads on pikes. Instead, celebrated rappers and producers are selling out the culture in exchange for artwork usually reserved for the world’s shittiest hot chicken restaurants. Timbaland, Alchemist, and those in their position are pawns whose function is to make the dystopian products and practices of tech companies palatable. If you can get people to accept the computer as a rapper, you are one step closer to getting them to accept it as judge, jury, and executioner.

Kim Deal's got a live album coming of her 2025 show at The Barbican in London, and this trailer gives a peek behind the curtain at rehearsals and how it came together.


Ex:Re (Elena Tonra) gave us a live rendition of the lead single for the upcoming Save As from the 4AD studios in London.


Nothing (R) Compares 2 U, Navy Blue
Adventures in audio tech, where the new product rollout is also an artist salon.

CABBAGES' Gary Suarez sent a dispatch from product rollout for Nothing (R) that also served as an artists' roundtable, and an intersection of the paths between journalists, PR, and influencers. Appearances from Navy Blue, Kelela, and Ahwlee. It also includes, what inexplicably sounds like the perfect venue to watch Navy Blue perform in.

But before long, the gear talk, which one might reasonably expect at an event touting a piece of gear, turned introspective, which one might reasonably expect at an event with the likes of Kelela and Navy Blue. The latter was the first to use the word vulnerable in a reflective reply to one of Charles' prompts. "In the landscape of rap music right now, the intentionality of my music and the consciousness, I tend to feel quite isolated," he said. "I feel like I'm cutting a piece of my heart and placing it for the listener to have. I'm being vulnerable, but I don't think I'm, like, susceptible."


"In R&B, there's sort of an expectation of vulnerability," Kelela said. "In hip-hop it used to be way more even-Steven, and now it doesn't feel like people are living with their heart on their sleeve." Hell, even Von Lintel, who largely relinquished his mic to the other two's musings, couldn't help but relate. "In the design process, we have the same thing," he said. "You're giving something from yourself, but then at the same time you're doing it for a product, for a company."


Music

mars kumari & Del The Funky Homosapien - Mirror feat. Jay Cinema, Oddity, & Doseone (From Skeletor Bat, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Vinyl via Handsmade | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Joshua Redman - Grand Street (From If Ever You Would Leave Us (we play for Rollins), out on 11/20/26. Purchase: Physicals via Blue Note Records | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Sarah Meth - Fun (From Something Shameful, out on 10/30/26. Preorder: Purchase "Fun" via Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Nolan The Ninja - BUKU feat. ZelooperZ & Sango (Out now. Purchase: Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Dillon & Paten Locke - Sound The Alarm (From the 10th anniversary edition of Food Chain, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Deluxe merch bundles, physicals, and digital via FULL PLATE | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Errol Holden - All Hail The Foulness (From Supreme Magnetic 3, out now. Purchase: Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | Youtube Music)

mother earth, by Illingsworth
from the album sweet garbage

Illingsworth - mother earth (From sweet garbage, out now. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)

Vantage, by Rap Noir featuring Guilty Simpson
4 track album

Rap Noir (Tajai & Unjust) - Vantage feat. Guilty Simpson (From the upcoming WORK/RELEASE. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)

Pugz Atomz & Codak Smith - The guy in the corner (From Call For Entry, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Illa J - Lose Control (From Phone Home, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Five Steez & Chosen One - Show and Prove (From Re:Emergence, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Mei Semones - Howl (From Howl, out on 1/15/27. Preorder: Physicals, digital, and merch via Verve | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

CRIMEAPPLE & Michaelangelo - Fondue (From Pedigree, out now. Purchase: Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | Youtube Music)

Tele Novella - All Wylde Things (Out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Def Sound - sexy & (Well) read (Out now. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)

Telemakus - The Center Eye feat. Flying Lotus & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (From Eight Ring Revival, out on 10/20/26. Preorder: Bandcamp | Vinyl via Good Problem Studios | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

BigDaddyChop & Henny - Kon Knueppel feat. Supreme (From Buzzer Beater EP, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

LOWKEY - window seat, by Compilation
from the album FABC LA Compilation vol.1

LOWKEY - window seat (From FABC LA Compilation Vol. 1, out now. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)

Tomoki Sanders - Jazz Is Just A Game feat. Nicholas Payton & Mélanie Charles (Out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Lacan & I, by Ghais Guevara
track by Ghais Guevara

Ghais Guevara - Lacan & I (Out now. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)

The Olympians & Lee Fields - Don't Let Me Down (Beatles cover) (Out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

RZA Type of Flood, by P-Ro and Sankofa
from the album The Proseletariat

P-Ro & Sankofa - RZA Type of Flood (From The Proseletariat, out on 10/16/26. Preorder: Bandcamp (also available on cassette with Belle Isle's Abandoned Zoo))

The Koreatown Oddity - Astro Turf (From Purdy, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Physicals via Stones Throw | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Kalia Vandever & Dave Harrington - The Chase (From Evergreen, out on 11/13/26. Preorder: Bandcamp, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Spectacular Diagnostics - Summoned feat. E L U C I D, Jam Baxter, MF Grimm (From the upcoming Blah Records Presents: Sorcery. Purchase "Summoned": Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Shabazz Palaces - Tongue In Chic (From It's A Style Sport, out on 10/23/26. Preorder: Bandcamp | Sub Pop Mega Mart | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Cavalier - Bring It Back feat. lojii (From Bring Back Weed Spots, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Digitally via Cavalier's official shop | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Jay Cinema & Reiiki APOLLO - DUFFIE (From Cinema at the APOLLO, out now. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)

claire rousay - holy sedative (From on holding, out on 10/9/26. Preorder: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Peter Gabriel - Face the Wall (Dark-Side Mix) (From o\i, out on 11/27/26. Preorder: Bandcamp | Physicals via Real World Records | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Benny Sings - Pull Yourself Together (From 22 Durnham Dew, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Physicals via Stones Throw | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

CAPRICE FT SIDEWAALK KAL, by BA PACE x LOMAN
from the album POPEYE’S SPINACH VOL.3

BA PACE & LOMAN - Caprice feat. Sidewaalk Kal (From POPEYE'S SPINACH VOL. 3, out now. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)

lilith - YURI (From OBSESSIONS, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | CD via EveryDejaVu | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

40 Nights ($$$$$$$), by Teller Bank$
from the album NOAH

Teller Bank$ - 40 Nights ($$$$$$$) (From NOAH, out on 10/3/26. Preorder: Bandcamp)

Lt Headtrip and Rich Courage - Mental Health Year (From Patch Transmissions, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Lana Del Rabies - Annihilate (Out now. Purchase: Bandcamp, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Fetty P Franklin & Bandplay - LINE ON IT (From THE FRANK PLAY (Deluxe), out now. Purchase: Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | Youtube Music)

Bruiser Wolf & Raphy - Barbiturates feat. Twista (Out now. Purchase: Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | Youtube Music)

Raz Fresco - Don't Belong (From Boulangerie Deux, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music | THE BAKERY - Raz Fresco's BKRSCLB streaming service)

Myalansky & Action Figure 973 - Take It feat. Jalen Frazier & Pinnland Empire (Marcus Pinn) (From Criminal Enterprise, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Darko The Super & BLKrKRT - My Wife and Our Cats (From Hold Me Closer Tiny Darko 2: Tears of a Sad Clown, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Flobama - Landing Gear (From Soundboy's Return, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Blackchai - 9to5pityparty (From Making Sense, out on 10/16/26. Preorder: Bandcamp, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Nacho Picasso & TELEVANGEL - Frank Frazetta Painting (From Stuntman, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

MX LONELY - Bird (From PERFECT HOUSE, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Cassette via Julia's War Recordings | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Jared Evan - Lit My Fire (From Jared Evan's unreleased new album. Purchase: Available directly from Jared's site, Stream: Tidal | Apple | Youtube Music)

Bugseed - MK2 Loops: Twenty One (From 404MK2 LOOPS , out now. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)

Papo2oo4 & Subjxct 5 - 800 Fill (Out now, YouTube loosie (probably on Papoholic Vol. 2 whenever that drops.))

Deerhoof - Master Mademoiselle (From Divine Schism, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Physicals via Joyful Noise Recordings)

Meshell Ndegeocello - Golden Ring feat. Brandi Carlile (Tammy Wynette & George Jones cover) (From Synonym, out now. Purchase: Physicals and digital via Blue Note Recordings | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Frank Leone - STAND THE RAIN feat. Lungs (From FREE IMPATIENCE!, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Vinyl via Fused Arrow Records | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

Pac Div - Slider (From Still Sealed Vol. 1, out now. Purchase: Qobuz | Physicals via Pac Div's official shop, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)

#2, by Ill-Sugi
from the album EMPTY

ILL-Sugi - #2 (From EMPTY, out now. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)


That'll do it for this week! If you dug anything from the drop this week, be sure to hit up Bandcamp and make a purchase or two. Don't be afraid to reach out via social media or down in the comments section to let me know what you're listening to this weekend. Take care of each other, and make good choices.

DJ Regular

DJ Regular

Game and Music Lover. Writer. Unfortunate optimist. "Spare me the Hallmark Karl Marx."
SF Bay Area