New Music Friday: 4 essential albums from Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, MAVI, Erick Sermon & Muluken Mellesse

New Music Friday arrives with four focused releases that bridge classical interpretation, independent hip-hop, veteran rap production and a foundational reissue from Ethiopia’s modern music legacy. This week’s new music releases move between orchestral performance, soulful lyricism, boom-bap craftsmanship and deep East African groove. Each album captures a different corner of global music culture, offering listeners a concentrated selection of works to stream now.

Best New Classical & Instrumental Releases

Jeneba Kanneh-Mason — “Jane Austen’s Piano” (Decca Classics)

Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, part of the renowned Kanneh-Mason musical family from Nottingham, continues her rise as one of the most compelling young British pianists of her generation. Her repertoire has spanned Florence Price, Beethoven and early Romantic works, earning recognition for clarity of technique and quiet interpretive authority. In “Jane Austen’s Piano,” she turns to a historical lens to explore music associated with the Austen family archives.

The album gathers pieces known to have been performed in the Austen household and works by composers whose music appears in Austen’s personal manuscripts. Kanneh-Mason approaches these selections with a transparent, restrained touch that mirrors the intimacy of home performance. Two pieces stand out: a poised reading of Ignaz Pleyel’s keyboard variations and her thoughtful shaping of Johann Baptist Cramer’s Sonata in D. Together, they underscore how she balances scholarship with lyrical phrasing, offering listeners a window into a domestic musical world rarely dramatized in classical recordings.

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Best New Hip-Hop Albums This Week

MAVI — “The Pilot” (Label TBA)

Charlotte-raised rapper MAVI has developed a following for thoughtful lyricism rooted in everyday reflection, shaped by the independent ethos of his earlier projects “Let the Sun Talk” and “Laughing So Hard, It Hurts.” His writing frequently drifts toward meditation, blending philosophical fragments with lived experience while keeping rhythm and cadence understated.

On “The Pilot,” MAVI shifts toward a more structured narrative arc, guided by production that leans into warm soul sampling and clipped percussion. His voice sits low in the mix, lending the album a diary-like closeness. Tracks such as “Flight Path” and “Seatbelt Light” trace the tension between ambition and grounding, while another highlight, “Cabin Pressure,” shows his interest in structural wordplay. The project fits within the wave of introspective Southern rap while maintaining the sparse, literary tone that sets his catalog apart.

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Best New Hip-Hop Collaborations

Erick Sermon — “Dynamic Duo’s Vol. 1” (Def Squad / Label TBA)

Erick Sermon, the veteran producer, MC and backbone of EPMD and the Def Squad collective, continues his late-career surge with “Dynamic Duo’s Vol. 1.” His career has been defined by a signature low-end presence, rubbery bass lines and unfussy funk-driven drums—elements that remain central here. The concept revolves around two-artist pairings, a structure that allows Sermon to revisit the collaborative energy that shaped much of his earlier catalog.

Production across the album carries his familiar analog warmth, and the guest list leans toward MCs shaped by his lineage, either directly or indirectly. Standout tracks include “Double Helix,” built on layered bass riffs that recall his early-’90s work, and “Two Steps,” where shifting drum patterns keep the tempo rolling beneath contrasting vocal deliveries. The project serves as both a document of continuity and a reminder of how Sermon’s stylistic footprint continues to inform modern hip-hop craftsmanship.

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Archival Discoveries & Reissues

Muluken Mellesse — “Muluken Mellesse With The Dahlak Band” (Ethiopian Classics / Reissue) — Original release date: 1970s; Reissue date: 2025-12-??

Muluken Mellesse remains one of the essential voices of Ethiopia’s golden era of modern music, a period defined by expressive brass arrangements, modal melodies and a distinct interaction between Ethiopian scales and Western instrumentation. His work with the Dahlak Band captures a moment when Addis Ababa’s nightlife scene produced some of the country’s most enduring recordings.

This reissue brings renewed attention to a vocalist known for spiritual depth and emotional elasticity. The Dahlak Band’s arrangements—driven by guitar, horns and steady rhythmic patterns—provide an agile frame for Mellesse’s phrasing. Key tracks such as “Hedetch Alu” and “Tenesh Kelbe Lay” display the interplay between voice and ensemble, showing how this material shaped the sound world documented later in the Éthiopiques series. The remastering offers more definition in the mid-range and rhythm section, helping contemporary listeners experience the album’s historical detail with greater clarity.

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*written with assistance from AI