NPR Music - Dahi, Kendrick and Amber Mark, Dominic Fike, more

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

After nearly two decades of producing works by other musicians, including Kendrick Lamar and Vampire Weekend, the artist known as Dahi has just released his debut solo album. He describes it as “African Radiohead,” with kaleidoscopic soundscapes, intricate polyrhythms and a breathtaking list of collaborators. We open this week’s show with the song “How to Pray,” featuring both Kendrick Lamar and singer Amber Mark.Our other picks for the best new tracks of the week include Dominic Fike’s heady “Wallflower,” dancefloor beats from singer Jorja Smith, an 8-bit instrumental from composer Emily A. Sprague and more.NPR Music writer and editor Sheldon Pearce joins host Robin Hilton.Leave us a review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Questions, comments, suggestions or feedback of any kind always welcome: [e-mail] artists and songs:(00:00) Intro(02:00) Dahi, Kenrick Lamar & Amber Mark: “How To Pray”(10:08) OHMA: “Ever Expanding”(18:46) Dominic Fike: “Wallflower”(25:20) Jorja Smith: “I Lied, You Lied”(33:20) Emily A. Sprague: “Noon Liquid Ore”(41:50) Osamu Fukuzawa & IYAMAH: “Butterflies (feat. edbl)”Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

This episode of all songs considered comes to you from NPR Music. It's where you will hear and find out all about the best new songs, albums. We've got reviews and conversations about whatever else is happening in the vast and wondrous world of music. NPR music also where you will find writer, editor, and close personal friend of mine. Yes, yes, yes. Sheldon Pierce. Hello, Robin. How are you?

I'm doing all right. Good weekend, Sheldon? Yes, pretty good. Yeah, go any rock shows or anything like that? Not this weekend. I actually saw Tiffany Day on Thursday last week. Oh, yeah. How was that? It was really good. I enjoyed it. Yeah. Yeah. I spend all my time regretting not going to shows. Yeah. That's the stage I'm at now.

Yeah, I know that you like to sit down at shows these days. You don't like to stand with the... You're not a man of the people at shows anymore. You want to sit down. Yeah, you're not going to see me stage diving or crowd surfing or even, well, standing. Yeah. I had a show. Exerting much effort of any kind, actually. I went to Wina. What was it?

Oh, is Jeff Tweedy on his tour? And I thought, I'll just, I'm going to get too close. I'm just going to stand, just like I used to. And, like, after an hour or so, I was just dying. I had to go find some place to sit down. I'm just, I'm a weak man. What could I say? Well, every other week or so on all songs,

consider Sheldon, we like to get together, hang out, play our favorite new tracks. That's what we're doing on this episode. We each brought our picks for the best new songs out now. And you know, in more than 25 years of doing this show, no two people have ever brought accidentally or whatever the same songs. But I really feel like, man, if I didn't pick something you also picked, I will be very, very surprised. Okay. Starting with Dahi. I didn't. Do you did not bring Dahi? Oh, I thought. for sure you were going to bring Dahi. The street continues.

Dahi just released his debut album called Black Boy Alternative. For anyone who doesn't know Dahi, he has spent much of the past, what, like almost 20 years probably as a producer. Yeah. For some massive major heavyweight projects. Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid Mad City, his album, Damn. He's worked with Mac Miller, Travis Scott, Siza, Vince Staples. but also Madonna. Vampire Weekend, Baby Rose.

I know one of your favorites. Absolutely. He's basically, Dahi's basically been the secret weapon for a whole bunch of other artists for many, many years. But now he has finally released his own solo project, and it's pretty stellar. The features, just starting with that, the features on it are off the hook.

You've got Moses Sumney, Childish Gimino, Raven Lene, Baby Rose is on this, whole bunch of others. But the song that I think everyone was waiting for and that everyone's sort of talking about now is the song How to Pray because it features Kendrick Lamar and the singer Amber Mark. Trust me. I trust you back. Recipication. We live in the satisfaction. Love drunk. I call your name and call God both one and the same. You got frames. I got more. We sneaky jealous. The cool friend ignoring me. Not too killers. Tell me when you're about to, but I can't without you. Cold stairs. I've been through something. I need nurture.

Is that a promise? The city raised me. The blood still changed me. The world blamed me. But you never shamed me. I want more. Optimism. You raise different.

That's way different. Give me some time. I come back around. Teach me how to pray, and I love you for now. It can take a lifetime. It could take a lifetime. It could take a lifetime. I keep your ear, the sensitivity, a girl your waist in the mirror, or who are y'all,

a journey for two, that's the story unfolds. I sing love, I suffer in silence, you opened up, I say freedom homies, till they are free. There's a plot twist, because you freed me. Truth for deadhood for me, sing a song that I never heard, I promise you got my word, to put your body in position the way it deserved. It's a simple transaction when we break it down. Teach me how to pray, and I love you. now. It can take a lifetime. It can take our lifetime. Oh, you better waste. No. Maybe we can waste time. Maybe we can waste time. Maybe we can waste time. It can take a lifetime. It can take a lifetime. Oh, you about a waste. No. Maybe we can waste time. Maybe we can waste time. The way this song just gets, it just keeps getting more and more urgent. Yeah. The building, it just absolutely blows me away. I'll call it a drop.

that last minute or so, when they sort of sing-wrapped a line, there's a plot twist because you freed me. Yeah. And then that line, truth or dare, is it a Lamborghini or a kundalini, which a kundalini is this as a serpent in a coiled snake in Sanskrit, which is just the juxtaposition of those two things like really plays into this theme of not really knowing what truth is in the game of love. Yeah. And what you can trust. And the fact that you. You know, you know, the fact that you. you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable and also make a leap of faith, which is this whole idea of teach me how to pray, you know, how to how to have that leap of faith. Right. I mean, as a tonal move for Kendrick Lamar, it feels refreshing for him to get back to his soft boy side.

Yeah. Yeah. There has been for the last two years, a more aggressive Kendrick Lamar that we've dealt with. Yeah. And this is such a, there's such a fragility to this. There is so much of his music that is capable of being vulnerable, revealing itself like an exposed wound. It's like it feels so honest and earnest that it's almost a bit uncomfortable. It's like rushing up against you. But it's also so refreshing to hear somebody

be so honest and so real about something that we all can relate to. The way that Kendrick and Amber Mark sort of navigate this, it's a duet, but it's like he is rapping as she is sort of like coiling her melodies around his verses. Really feeling each other at like, I'll give a little. There's a push. There's a real push and pull, a tug of war that is taking place across the song.

So you've heard the whole album. Yes. Yeah. So did this song How to Pray and maybe a good chunk of the album, did it remind you of any other artist or band in particular? I can't. Is there somebody that you? You felt it?

Well, radio head. Radiohead. Very radio head to me, which is interesting. Like, I heard this song, How to Pray, the Arpeggiated guitars. And I thought, oh, this is very in-raimbo's sort of King of Lim's era radio head. And then I read this interview with Dahi where he described the album as an African radio head. Which really tracks because I thought, God, this sounds like Radiohead if they worked with Kendrick and Amber Mark. Right, right.

Well, you know, the alternative, it's like put in brackets in the title. Right. And it feels very clear like he's trying to tap into the broad-based sound of, you know, what an alternative radio represents. Whatever that represents to you, that is kind of the vibe that he is channeling. He also talked, though, about just the idea of being an outsider and not fitting in. And that album title, Black Boy Alternative, is such a deliberately. loaded title. It's got a lot of different meanings. I mean, you can see for a black artist, the idea of channeling alternative music in itself is kind of, there is a lot of loaded ideas

about what that means and what that represents and being in an in-group or an out-group. And so I think he's overlapping a lot of different ideas together here. Even the move into the sounds that he's pursuing on this record are a reflection of the ways in which he doesn't want to be defined by anyone thing. And I think this song is like such a powerful representation of the many different degrees that he is channeling across this record. It's a really powerful record. I recommend it for folks.

Yeah, it's going to be on my short list, certainly top 10, maybe top five, even higher. I don't know. That and the Vince Staples crybaby album are kind of. a neck and neck for me right now. And we got an interview with Dahlia coming up, don't we? Yeah. Our good friend and colleague Rodney Carmichael has talked to him, so be on the lookout for that on NPR.org slash music. Where do you want to go from there? I'm going to go from a more established artist to somebody that I found just clicking around listening to stuff online. Have you ever heard of a group called OMA, O-H-M-A, all caps? No, I don't think so. Yeah, me.

Me neither. I completely stumbled upon this. It's the duo of Mia Garcia and Haley Niswanger. Their music mixes, like acoustic classical music. It's kind of folky. They've described it as like a cosmic jazz. There are electronic elements. But combined, they play almost a dozen instruments, guitar, bass, piano, flute, you name it. And I mean, you could describe their music as ambient, but it feels so lively and growing in all aspects that it's hard to qualify it as background noise. And there's a song from their upcoming album, Let It Be Sacred, that feels like it kind of encompasses everything that their music is about. And the song is called Ever Expanding.

I was so moved when I heard it. It's, it's, music was such a clear sense of atmosphere, but also such a greater sense of purpose. Like, some of the quietest moments on the song are when it's most detailed and expansive. Like, even at the end there, when it breaks down into the real cosmic element of it, you start to hear all the twinkling sounds. Yeah. This is a deceptively complicated song. There is so much going on in it. Yeah.

And it goes in so many different directions. It just does it so gently that you barely notice that it's happening. But there were so many moments listening to that where I thought, okay, I know. Okay, I know what the, no. You know, the harp comes in. Like, okay, I know what we're doing here. No. I mean, there was a moment, I think about half, and they revisit this towards the end,

but there was a moment about halfway through where there's this big euphoric build. And I thought, you know what? They could go full on metal here with just the loudest guitars and like speed metal. Right. And I'd go along with that journey. Like they've set it up that it could be anything in this moment. Right. I mean, the really interesting thing about this to me is it's crescendos.

They feel like they, there's big crashing builds, but the changes are ebbs and flows. It is so subtle about the ways in which it gets you from point A. to point B. And every single time one of those surges mounts, you're like, oh, here we go, here we go. And then it shifts back into a smaller little passage that is, to your point, full of these new changes in the arrangement. But there are motifs that recur through every single shift in the song.

Yeah. So they're from L.A. And I was thinking listening to him, like, There's kind of a, I wondered if they were from Ireland or some almost kind of a Celtic sort of field to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that album, Let It Be Sacred. When is that out? It's out September 25th.

September 25th. September 25th. Very nice. Well, I want to go to a new one from one of my favorite artists and musicians of the past five plus years or so, Dominic Fike. I bet that wasn't on your list of one. Did not, no, not Dominic Fike down. So there's no reason you would remember this. You were on the show the last time I played Dominique Fy.

I remember quite well. You know who else you played on that show? I don't remember who else I played. Amber Mark. Oh, I did. That is true, yes. True story. You played Amber Mark on that.

That was the song, Too Much from her album, Pretty Idea. You also played Gabriel Jacoby, I think, on that record. What a song. Yeah. So, anyway, Dominic Fike, last time we were talking about his mixtape, it was called, he called it a mixtape. I mean, it was an album to me. but it was called Rocket.

He's already back with a follow-up, a full-length album called How to Quit Smoking. And the first single that we've gotten from it is called Wallflower. And I'll just say that I am consistently blown away by this guy. Just the sonic adventures that he can take you on over the course of like a two or three-minute song. So back when we featured Dominic Fike on the show like a year ago, we talked about how his music is a good touchstone for our. fragmented times that, you know, fragmented information, fragmented detention spans, because so many of his songs feel like a thousand different ideas and a thousand different pieces of those ideas all

sort of slamming together and then spinning wildly apart. Yeah. Which I love. But this song, Wallflower, I think, I mean, it has some of that, just the way it ends there where it sort of falls off a cliff at the very end. Yeah. But I think it's one of the more coherent, cohesive, pieces that he's produced. You know, it still has his sonic adventure. It keeps you guessing, kind of gripping the arms of your chair. But it feels more whole to me. Yeah.

He sort of zeroes in on one kind of like jangly, like free flowing rock sound, which it feels like he is also really trying to channel a specific, like, aesthetic and ethos with that, right, too? Even the idea that he's. pushing in the chorus. Like, he took you for a bushbeater, pussyfooter, wallflower, lily, liver, chicken heart. I mean, the song is, I mean, and this is another thing that he does in his music where he will confront in very subtle ways, some darker themes, some heavier themes, with this sort of jangly sound that feels really good when you listen to it. But I think the song is

all about confronting hard truths that nobody wants to acknowledge. Like, he's been very open about struggling with addiction in the past and he kind of hints that somebody in this song who has died maybe from addiction and nobody wants to talk about it he talks about not being able to pay the bills but nobody wants to talk about it nobody's confronting any of these hard truths and I think that the the way the song again sort of falls off a cliff at the end really fits this because it's the idea that we're all headed towards this cliff we're about to fall off nobody is saying anything, I'm still playing here, and then boom. Yeah, I mean, I think that is kind of the way he plays with tension in a lot of his songs.

Sure. And kind of what I was getting at, the about face is that on its surface, there is a thrust to this song, right? It is upbeat, it is propulsive, it is moving forward, and then lyrically, it's kind of gradually deflating as it goes on. Yeah. I think Dominic Fike is kind of a genius. A real mad scientist, I think, with these songs. And I've loved everything that he's done. Very excited for this new one. It's called How to Quit Smoking. That's the name of the album. It is out October 9th. And that song was Wallflower. You're obviously familiar with Georgia Smith, singer-songwriter from the UK. Yeah. Her latest record is called What Are the Odds? And for most of her career, Georgia Smith had. has essentially been in the classic UK soul artist, sort of like Amy Winehouse template.

Obviously, her music breaks from convention in that it is more explicitly R&B. And it does play with sounds like grime and dance hall. But this record that you just released is explicitly a dance record. Oh, wow. It is like moving far afield of the sort of emotion. like balladry that she has done up until this point.

And one song on the record that I feel totally expresses the way in which this record channels the vibe of her past music into a completely new lane is the single. It's called I Lied You Lied. You know I'm already out there outside. You can't hold me bad there. It's not fun. Yeah, so this is not like the Georgia Smith of your imagination, right? Not at all. When you think of a Georgia Smith song, it doesn't sound like this.

Not remotely. But by the same token, it is sort of like inherently still a Georgia Smith song, which is what I find so impressive about it, the way that it feels like she has transposed her whole vibe and identity onto a completely different way of being. I mean, there was some dance. music early in her career, mostly as outliers. Like, she broke through in part on a Drake dance record with Black Coffee. But this is her distinct Georgia Smith energy sort of recaptured and like thrust into a dance floor context.

Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. I would agree that she's still in this song because if nothing else, her voice just brings so much character and soul and warmth to the music. But I did find myself wondering, as I was listening to it, like, is this too polished? Is it too much of a studio effort? Like, where is Georgia in this mix because it lacks some of that, that scruffiness of some of her other stuff?

I don't know. I think the polish is sort of distinct to the genre. I don't think. That's true. I don't think it's, I think that is part of the trend. If you're going to go down the path. That is part of the translation process. in order to get from the space that she normally occupies to one that feels more outside,

you kind of have to pump up the sheen a little bit. But to me, you listen to the song lyrically, it is a breakup song. Like when you start paying attention to the lyrics, she is trying to talk this guy who she's been seeing out of trying to get her to stay in this relationship that is broken, which is like a distinctly Georgia Smith kind of song. And then there are these sort of like underlying, like soft rolling pianos throughout that sort of bridge you over to a classic Georgia Smith soul song. But she overlays that dance feel on top of everything that she has been in order to make you understand. Like she is doing something else.

I think it's a risk. I wish more artists were as ambitious as shit. is in taking such a big swing and moving from something that was working really well. Like her last two records both really well received and to try something that is maybe out of the listener's comfort zone because she says that this is more representative of what she feels her music should be. She says she has a lot of friends who are DJs. She likes being out.

She wanted to hear her music when she was out and so she made this record. So the album, What Are the Odts? I haven't heard this record yet, is it? It's this very indicative of the whole album. It's all dance music. From across, it really feels like I wrote about this record. The whole thing is sort of channeling UK Nightlife. So it has a lot of different sounds, deep house, Afro beats, grime.

It's playing in a lot of different dance subgenres, but it's bringing them all together under one banner and sort of reestablishing Georgia Smith's sound in a new context. Well, Sheldon, I think we each have one more thing that we want to play, which brings me, this is my last thing that I was going to play, and I really thought you were going to play this one as well. This is by Emily Sprague, because I know how much you love Emily Sprigg. I do, indeed. Have you heard this yet?

Her song, Noon Liquid Or? Yeah, she's got this new album coming out called Sayano. She has been releasing music as Emily A. Sprague, if people go looking for her. She's an electronic artist, composer, done a lot of solo stuff, also known for her work with the band Floress. Which I also love. Which you also love. So she's dropped a few singles from this new album, Sayano. The song that I want to play, the one I just mentioned, again, is called Noon Liquid Orr.

Just beautiful, beautiful song from Emily Sprague called Noon Liquid Or. Those video game sounds that come in and that song were so, they just felt so warm. wildly out of place the first time I heard it. And then the more I listened to it, the more perfect it became because it kind of feeds into that idea like a video game that you've entered into this fantastical world, maybe one that isn't even really able to exist. Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit out of place in her solo discography. If you think about Hill, flower, fog, or cloud time, the songs on those records are a bit more ethereal. They sort of hang over you and they just sort of drift around for a little while. This one, it is a little

more eight bit. It sounds a bit more like modular almost. Yeah. I bet you played the video game or you've played Monument Valley. Yes. Yeah. I mean, this music sounded like it could work really well in that game. Yeah, that's a great pull. It is sort of whimsical, but also still very beautiful. And I do think it can be a little disruptive to get in the headspace once you start. Yeah. But by the time you get to the end of it, you sort of find your way through it. And then all of a sudden it, like, clicks into place. It really starts making sense. Yeah. I mean, she also resists the, any temptation to get bigger or, or busier. Yeah. There were several moments when I thought, okay, I could see another sort of polyrhythm kind of coming in here or another layer to these

textures coming in or maybe a more distinct melody because it's really kind of the same melody over and over again repeated throughout it. But resists any urge to do that and stays in that sonic space and it just becomes more and more the more you relent and give into that space the better it gets. It forces you to focus. Yeah, for sure. There is a tendency with a lot of music like this to expect the next thing. I mean, that's what is going on in the almost.

record, and they play on those expectations in very interesting ways. But there is also something to be said for forcing your listener to lock in and pay attention. I mean, this is actually the polar opposite of the Dominic Fike book of music, which is, you know, again, all fragmented. I've been trying to get my kids to listen to more stuff like this M.A. Sprague, and, you know, because the alarm bells went off for me a couple years ago when I can't even remember what the song was, oh, I think it was one of the geese songs from the geese record, the most recent geese record, and it had this long, you know, like minute and a half introduction or whatever. And they were bored 15 seconds into the song. They just couldn't sit. And I thought, man, you guys need to learn

how to sit with something. Yeah. Yeah. Too often we bail on things just before they get good. Yeah. I think this is a way to train yourself, to hang tough. Emily A. Sprague, the song noon liquid ore. Again, is from the album Sayano, C-Y-A-N-O, and that is out October 2nd. But Sheldon, you've got one more you want to play. Yes, I want to go out on something

that is vibe in a different way by a Japanese composer and keyboardist, Osamu Fukuzawa. And he is an artist who has released a lot of stuff that's influenced by hip-hop and jazz. This record that he has released, sing with another producer called Edible with no vowels.

EDBL. Oh wait, a one vowel, EDBL. Oh, yeah, the first. And the record is called before we spoke. It is, the singles are moving in a more of the Neo-Sol alt-R-N-B direction. This song in particular that I want to play, it's called Butterflies. It's a collaboration with the artist and singer Iama. and it has a sort of like lo-fi beats you can chill and study to vibe to it.

So I've heard this song, Butterflies? Yes. Yeah. So I've heard this and we just did this whole episode about the perfect Sunday morning music. I heard this and I thought, this is a Sunday morning because it's a little bleary-eyed. Yeah. You know, it's got a nice gentle lift to it. Yeah.

It's like it's not coming at you too hard, but it's. getting you to move. It's making you wake up a little bit. It's groovy, but it's subtle about it, right? There's something really understated about it. I did listen to this on a Sunday morning. Oh, there you go. That it's, it's sort of all fell into place. But there is something so almost quaint about this. Like, it's not reinventing the wheel, but it really falls into a distinct kind of music that I think of. as being refreshing in a way that is, like, not overstimulating. So we'll go out on this. Osama Fukuzawa and Yama, the song Butterflies from the album before we spoke. Sheldon Pierce, thanks as always, always a great hang. Always great to be with you, Robin. It's all songs considered from NPR Music.