The London singer-songwriter’s low-lit, funky songs wring drama out of minimal arrangements, evoking Janet Jackson and 00s R&B

In the opening moments of her self-titled debut album, London-based musician Fabiana Palladino sets a distinct vibe: funky, low-lit, sensuous, evoking peak-era Janet Jackson and the glamorous R&B-pop of the early 00s in equal measure. Even more impressive: she manages to hold on to that mood for the entirety of the record. This may be Palladino’s first album, but she’s already an incredibly gifted producer and songwriter, able to wring fabulous drama out of slowly churning songs and relatively minimal arrangements.

Maybe those skills are in Palladino’s blood – she’s the daughter of famed bassist Pino Palladino – or were picked up via osmosis during her time spent working with the enigmatic London producer Jai Paul. (She’s in his band and signed to his label.) There are passing similarities – some of the tones and textures overlap with Paul’s – but Palladino’s music is memorable in its own right, anchored by a hypnotic voice that’s by turns fluttery and forceful. Written over the course of a few years, while Palladino was working as a session musician for artists such as Jessie Ware and SBTRKT, her album possesses an exacting drive. Stay With Me Through the Night is the kind of rigid, perfectionist funk that proliferated through the 70s and 80s, while closer Forever, which is richly orchestrated with strings, is a bright, entrancing power ballad. It’s a sharp debut that knows the power of patience and tension.

• Fabiana Palladino’s self-titled debut is out now via Paul Institute / XL Recordings . She tours from 16 May to 24 August

(XL)
The musician’s long-gestating debut album melds killer tunes to grimy distortion and the scuffed gloss of Jam and Lewis-era Janet Jackson, and marks the flowering of an original pop voice

Describing debut albums as long-awaited is par for the course, but in Fabiana Palladino’s case it’s also perfectly true. It’s been 13 years since she started self-releasing her songs online, and seven since she was announced as the first signing to Paul Institute, a label that seems to share the admirably unhurried approach of its co-founder, Jai Paul.

Few figures in 21st-century pop seem to have achieved so much by doing so little as Paul, who has managed to garner an extraordinary reputation – the Guardian has described him as both “era-defining” and “a once-in-a-lifetime talent” – despite the fact that he’s only released three official singles in a music career that stretches back to 2007. His endorsement carries considerable clout, but Palladino’s output seemed to slow rather than accelerate after she became involved with Paul Institute.

Ariana Grande, SZA and Kacey Musgraves are just a few of the musicians to invoke astral powers in their songs. It’s a reach for relatability – but what does it mean for songwriting?

Seven years ago, I was flicking through a magazine at the hairdresser’s when I came to my horoscope. My eye was caught by a line informing me and my fellow Pisceans that we were in the final stretch of a punishing three-year visit from Saturn, the “taskmaster planet”, but pretty soon everything was going to be fine. It sounds anodyne – but I needed to hear it. I was 25 and mired in my first real heartbreak, two years into an overseas move and uncertain of whether to stick it out. Elle magazine’s 2017 Astro Guide might not have been authoritative, but it did make me feel more optimistic about the future.

It was my first encounter with the theory of the Saturn return: that in the 29-ish years it takes Saturn to orbit the sun from the point of our birth, a confronting initiation into adulthood ensues. It’s a revelation that’s hit pop recently. Ariana Grande included a 42-second spoken-word explainer from astrologer Diana Garland on her new album Eternal Sunshine. On new single Saturn, SZA expresses weariness with her self-destructive behaviours and yearns to channel the consistency and discipline associated with the planet: “Life’s better on Saturn / Got to break this pattern / Of floating away.” Kacey Musgraves begins Deeper Well, the title track of her new album, by declaring “my Saturn has returned”. (The same phrase is also emblazoned on sweatshirts, selling for $60 on her online store.)

(Republic)
Post-divorce, the American pop star returns with a sumptuous collection that has just the right amount of bite

It’s getting on for four years since Ariana Grande released the loved-up Positions , a soft-focus celebration of her future husband, Dalton Gomez. On this loosely conceptual follow-up she unpicks that relationship’s speedy demise, while also contending with new love and the tabloid fallout from it. Lead single Yes, And? neatly sums up Grande’s attitude towards rumours and parasocial probing: “Your business is yours and mine is mine/ Why do you care so much whose dick I ride?”

The line is delivered with such restraint that its impact goes unnoticed at first. It’s a technique that Grande, who possesses a voice that could strip wallpaper, uses throughout, be it alluding to cheating on the fluttering title track, or asking for clemency on the excellent, Robyn-esque We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love). The latter’s juddering synths and perkier BPM are an outlier on an album that favours midtempo R&B, offering up space for Grande to experiment with sumptuous vocal layering (The Boy Is Mine) and melodies as sharp as cut glass (Supernatural). Refined and subtle, but with the right amount of bite (see the darkly hued True Story), Eternal Sunshine feels like a clearing of the emotional decks.

(Interscope)
The Philadelphia rapper takes her Missy Elliott-gone-Sesame Street vibe to a darker place on her debut album proper

Hailed as her generation’s answer to Missy Elliott, Philadelphia rapper Tierra Whack has been celebrated not just for her lyrical dexterity but for her commitment to goofiness. Her exuberant debut mini-album, Whack World (2018), clocked in at 15 one-minute tracks; a clutch of EPs and some standalone singles consolidated her effervescence across different genres.

Last year’s award-winning thriller/spoof documentary about Whack, Cypher , also attested to the weirdness that the creative nonconformist has experienced during her rise. She has trailed World Wide Whack , her official debut LP , with a trio of tracks – one ditty about her smell ( Chanel Pit ); a funky cut about singing in the shower ( Shower Song ); and a moving tune about feeling “broken”. The track’s title, 27 Club, refers to Whack not joining the set of artists who died at that age (she is now 28).

She’s a muse to Beyoncé, a champion of Lego and raps about her imaginary friend – but behind the whimsy is a street-hardened MC confronting grief and depression

• This article contains discussion of suicide

There’s a video of Tierra Whack filmed when she was 15, dressed in dull pink knitwear on the corner of a Philadelphia street, surrounded by older guys smoking weed. “Rapping is my destiny / Especially for these hysterectomies who be testing me / You deaf to me / You’re not hearing what I’m sharing like an uncaring parent …” Words pour out of her in an a cappella freestyle to camera, more performance poetry than rap, voice morphing from one persona to another – one of those mic-drop, jaw-drop moments where you see a new star gather light in real time.

Twelve years later, and the knitwear is bright and expensive, she’s a muse to Beyoncé and has become one of the most singular rappers and singers in America. Her 2018 debut album, Whack World, felt like a piece of performance art with 15 multi-genre tracks each exactly one minute long; her feature film last year, Cypher, flipped the tired fly-on-the-wall music documentary format into a satirical horror movie about conspiracy theories and selling out. While many rappers align themselves with luxury brands, Whack did a campaign with Lego, and her brilliant second album, World Wide Whack, out this week, shows off that whimsy on songs about an imaginary friend, dates at the cinema and singing in the shower. But it is also devastatingly honest about her experience of depression. “I’m 28 now – I was supposed to kill myself when I was 27,” she tells me in the London offices of her record label. “But I decided to keep going.”

After being championed by Stormzy and Adele, the chart-topping British pop, soul and R&B singer is back with a new album and huge tour – and answering your questions

Having created some of the most evocative British pop of the 1990s, Gabrielle is back in a big way, with a new album and an upcoming tour of UK arenas – and, to mark it all, she’ll be answering your questions.

Born and raised in London, her career burst out of the blocks in 1993, with debut single Dreams – a poignant pop-R&B track that introduced her distinct, resolute singing style – going straight to No 2 in the UK and also becoming a hit in the US. It was the first of 10 UK Top 10 hits, joined by the likes of Give Me a Little More Time, a retro soul song that matched the very best of classic Motown; If You Ever, a none-so-90s breakup duet with East 17 given a spike of real pain by Gabrielle’s heartfelt delivery; and her ballad Out of Reach, which sat at the heart of the Bridget Jones’s Diary soundtrack. She also reached No 1 in 2000 with Rise, with Bob Dylan lending his blessing for her to use a chord sequence from Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.

Artists have previously only managed four wins in one ceremony, capping an astonishing year for the British singer who was once left in major label limbo

Three years ago she was lost in limbo at a major label, publicly lashing out with frustration at not being allowed to release an album. Now, the ultra-versatile British pop singer Raye has won six Brit awards in one year, smashing the previous record of four held by Harry Styles, Adele and Blur.

She capped a triumphant night for women across a range of genres, with 70% of 2024’s winning acts either female or non-binary – a marked change from recent years when the Brits faced criticism for being heavily weighted towards male artists.

(Forever Living Originals)
Part of the enigmatic London collective, the singer-songwriter’s third album is a balm of cool, dreamy reflections on faith, love and courage

Not much is known about Sault , even though the mysterious London collective have released 11 startling albums over the past few years. Their output exists without exegesis: no interviews or photos. They have yet to play live.

The soul singer Cleo Sol is a big part of Sault. But compared with them, the enigmatic vocalist is – almost – an open book. We know what she looks like. We know she was born in London as Cleopatra Zvezdana Nikolic; her parents (Jamaican and Serbian-Spanish) are thought to have met in a jazz band . She has a social media presence ; she plays live. Earlier this year, Sol sold out two nights at London’s Royal Albert Hall. (It was easier, complained some on Twitter , to get tickets to Beyoncé.)