When I Get Home by Solange

Solange’s When I Get Home is one of the most brilliant and exciting avant-garde R&B albums to come out of the 2010s. Solange takes sounds from genres ranging from jazz to trap as well as features from top artists of today like Steve Lacy and Playboi Carti to compose a project that sounds like none other. She carefully constructs a feeling of luxury and space that remains grounded and unpretentious, cementing herself as one of the greatest and most versatile contemporary composers.

Pieces of a Man by Gil Scott-Heron

A list of classic American albums would not be complete without the masterpiece which is Pieces of a Man by Gil Scott Heron. With songs like “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and “Home Is Where the Hatred Is,” Gil Scott-Heron adds his soulful voice to the conversations surrounding the Black experience and Black liberation in America in the 1970s. He explores the depth of the human psyche while also inspiring hope and promise for the future, making Pieces of a Man an eternally resonant album.

MELTING MOMENT by POiSON GiRL FRiEND

This 1992 EP from Tokyo-based artist POiSON GiRL FRiEND playfully explores love and heartbreak with a fun, feminine tone through the sounds of 90s futurism. The reverb of echoey synths combined with samples of phones ringing and machines beeping place you in the excitement of a technologically evolving world on the brink of a new century. You can’t help but indulge in the fun of this poppy, break-beat-infused sound.