Here is a List of Black Artists and Labels to Support on Bandcamp Today
Bandcamp is donating its revenue share to the NAACP, so we've updated the list with new additions in celebration of Juneteenth.
Bandcamp is waiving its revenue share again today, meaning more money from each purchase goes directly to the artists. As much of the world bands together to aid in the Black Lives Matter movement, we’ve curated a list of our favorite releases from Black artists and labels on Bandcamp to purchase from today. We’ve picked from a master sheet with over 1000 artists and labels. A massive thank you must go out to the people behind this list, and we hope our readers will use it as a resource for digging. You can find the XLR8R selection with all the necessary Bandcamp links below.
Editor Note: today, in celebration of Juneteenth, the day that slavery ended in the United States, Bandcamp is donating its revenue share to the NAACP, a legal organization fighting for racial justice in the US. We’ve updated and added new additions to the below list to help you find and support the wealth of great music by Black artists.
You can also check out a crowd-sourced, searchable list of Black artists on Bandcamp here.
Russell E.L. Butler Emotional Bangers Only
Summed up best by its title, Russel E.L. Butler’s latest release is a set of euphoric club cuts for the heads. Kicking off with subdued dub-house, the release flows through trance-like breaks, emotive broken-beat, and stoned dub techno. Highly recommended!
Leaving Records presents Spells, the achingly beautiful debut album from Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and composer Nailah Hunter. Built around the affecting melodies of the harp, Spells is a calming experience full of engrossing textures and wistful atmospheres.
Afriqua’s debut album, Colored, released late last year on R&S Records, is quite simply one of the finest debut albums in recent memory. The LP is “a celebration of the unifying power of Black culture through the prism of electronic music,” and takes inspiration from seminal work by Quincy Jones, Roy Ayers, and Weldon Irvine—these classics served more as archetypes of musical achievement than bases for imitation. Although most known in house music circles, Afriqua’s wide-reaching musicianship is on full-display on Colored, which presents piano-led jazz, house, hip-hop, and more than a handful of indescribable cuts.
Barraco Barner 20200419 – 20200422
A five-track collection of tender ambient from the Brooklyn, New York, artist that weaves in field recordings, hazy instrumentation, and elements of jazz, blues, and noise.
NYC label HAUS of ALTR presents a 27-track compilation celebrating Black electronic music, featuring a staggering selection of cuts from AceMo, MoMa Ready, AshTreJinkins, Galcher Lustwerk, DJ SWISHA, Kush Jones, and many many more. Half of the proceeds will be donated to For The Gworls, Afrotectopia, and Afrorack, with the second half going directly to all artists involved.
Highly-recommended club explorations from one of New York’s most exciting talents. His ability to fuse genres into a singular style is on full display on this EP, his first vinyl release, a world-class collection of frenetic, swinging rhythms and hip-shaking basslines.
Source of Nurture is a fundraising initiative curated and by Chroma and featuring womxn of color in support of various funds and organizations that stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, Undocumented and Immigrant communities, and Essential Workers. The 19-track compilation features a set of exhilarating techno, pop, baile funk, and more from artists such as Lafawndah, Bergonist, and Kelsey Lu.
The Koreatown Oddity Little Dominiques Nosebleed
The Koreatown Oddity, real name Dominique Purdy, has just dropped his new album, Little Dominque’s Nosebleed. The LP gives listeners insight into what it was like growing up black in Koreatown, Los Angeles, in the ’80s, and also finds Purdy reflecting on his spiritual awakening after being involved in two near-death car crashes as a child. It’s a tripped-out listen filled with strange samples, jazzy loops, weird scenarios, and comedy, and featuring guest slots from Sudan Archives, Anna Wise, Baby Rose, C.S Armstrong, and Fatlip.
Inspired by civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois’ ‘Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil,’ an important 1920s literary work on race, Darkwater is a reflective EP of—mostly—synth-led ambient. Across the five tracks, Fofana employs dub-wise techniques to create swelling and living ambient spaces that warrant continued investigation.
Maryland artist BLAKMOTH crafted The Space Between with a custom AE modular system, resulting in a score-like collection that is tense, foreboding, and, at times, introspective and dream-like. A portion of the album sales will be donated to Afrorack.org, a Chicago-based arts organization that teaches modular synthesis and sound design to black and brown youth.
Waak Waak Djungi Waak Waak ga Min Min
Released by Noise In My Head’s Efficient Space label, Waak Waak ga Min Min is a set of rare recordings of three Yolngu songmen—Bobby Bunnungurr, Jimmy Djamunba and Peter Milaynga (d. 2007)—from Northeast Arnhem Land, working in collaboration with Victorian musician Peter Mumme. The songs are of instruction, story, and ceremony. Waak Waak ga Min Min is a transfixing mix of traditional song and modern production techniques, beautifully realized.
The latest from Maurice Fulton’s BOOF alias. Fulton is a master of house music and this album takes the genre to its further fringes and weirdest and most wonderful places. One Bandcamp user summed it up best, alluding that it sounds like “Robert Hood, Funkadelic, Ray Barretta, and Jan Jelinek decide to meet up, get stoned and have a jam”—enough said!
Jamila Woods LEGACY! LEGACY!
Released a year ago, Jamila Woods’ LEGACY! LEGACY! is a vital and touching album that pays homage to Woods’ heroes and forebears, important Black icons and pioneers such as Sun Ra, James Baldwin, Betty Davis, Muddy Waters, Jean-Michael Basquiat, and poets Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez. Pitchfork published an insightful album breakdown by Woods, which discusses Black history and the inspirations for each song. We recommend reading.
Irreversible Entanglements Irreversible Entanglements
Irreversible Entanglements is a free jazz collective formed in early 2015 by saxophonist Keir Neuringer, poet Camae Ayewa (a.k.a. Moor Mother), and bassist Luke Stewart, who came together to perform at a Musicians Against Police Brutality event organized after the slaying of Akai Gurley by the NYPD.
Months later, the group added trumpeter Aquiles Navarro and drummer Tcheser Holmes for a single day of recording, and the full quintet’s first time playing together was captured for this self-titled debut. The tone of each piece is driven by Ayewa’s searing poetic narrations of Black trauma, survival and power. Also check out their new one, Who Sent You?
A Guy Called Gerald The John Peel Sessions (1999 Reissue + Bonus Tracks)
Deeper than deep house and techno from an undisputed master of the groove. Released in 1999, it’s one we keep coming back to.
Kaida Tatham In My Life
Next-level funk and soul by Kaida Tatham, with vocals by Nadine Charles on “But You Bring It Up.” Released in October 2018.
Yves Jarvis The Same But By Different Means
Yves Jarvis is an alias of Jean-Sébastien Audet, a Canadian indie-pop musician who previously created under the name Un Blonde. The Same But By Different Means is his beautifully haunting new album, released in March last year. Songs on the record range from 14 seconds long to over eight minutes, but they’re all wrapped up in Audet’s experimental, melancholic flame.
EmmoLei Sankofa Intentions
A single track of heart-wrenching soul, from the Los Angeles songwriter, released in 2018. Check out “Relax” too.
700 Bliss Spa 700
Moor Mother and Haram (together 700 Bliss), from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, deliver an EP full of raw, sludgy electronics and fierce spoken-word poetry. Released in 2018 by Halcyon Veil and Don Giovanni.
AceMo Ace’s Acid
As the names suggest, this one’s all about the 303—five souped-up cuts of slippery acid. Fresh, having only popped out last year.
Force Replacement Vibe Repair
LA’s Black Lodge resident Force Replacement delivers a word-class collection of melancholic cuts ranging from dubby house to stoned ambient, or as he states, “songs you play on your way home from the rave: bottom-heavy enough to keep you awake but kind of heady and tripped out.”
Heartfelt, experimental R&B from Montreal, Canada. The release invites listeners to a place of self examination, reflecting on subjects of heartache intimacy.
The debut album from Boy Jugo, from Dallas, Texas. Feelgood jazzy beats featuring guitar, trumpet, and flugelhorn.
Amaro Freitas Sangue Negro
Affecting jazz from Brazilian pianist Amaro Freitas. A debut album that’ll keep sucking you back in for more.
Black Jazz Consortium Evolution of Light
Fred Peterkin (a.k.a. Fred P) dons his Black Jazz Consortium alias for yet another masterclass in deep house.
Bookworms dyslexia two
Highly inventive explorations into dub, from a little-known artist.
DÆMON ÆOS
An album “revealing the fate of first users to interface with ÆOS software,” resulting in a collection of rap and outer electronics beamed from another dimension.
DarkTwaine_ BLACKRADIANCE
A May release, this album comprises singular beat dances and hazy sample magic. As inventive as it is compelling.
Dub techno of the highest order from a Manchester, UK duo. It’s a new mixtape including off cuff new work, cuts, and edits from their NTS ration transmission on May 30, written and recorded in the later/early hours from May 31 to June 3. All revenue will be donated to Campaign Zero and donation splitter. Touches on jungle, dubstep, ambient, and deep house, keeping you in a lush haze.
Joey Anderson Rainbow Doll
Joey Anderson’s Rainbow Doll finds him in career-best form and is, arguably, his most singular work. He uses his own vocals prominently across the album, which make his already elusive rhythms and warped melodies even more disorienting—in the best way.
DJCOREY Raw Trax Vol 2
Head-swirling footwork from 15-year old Chicago producer DJCOREY, released in May.
Terrence Dixon Minimal Detroit Volume 1
Minimal Detroit Volume 1 was the Detroit’s deep-space voyager’s first album under his given name since 2013’s Badge Of Honor. Digital only and exclusive to Bandcamp.
EA Wave & Wanja Wohoro Honey
Sun-drenched beats and soul from Nairobi. Long-time friend, producer EA Wave and vocalist Wanja Wohoro collaborated for the first time, pairing infecting lyric and melodies across two tracks.
FALSE WITNESS Interloper
An exploration of techno forms—heads-down grooves, cavernous EBM, and broken beat mayhem. Released in April, and one for the dancefloor.
Georgia Anne Muldrow VWETO II
With a new album on the way as Jyoti, reacquaint yourself with VWETO II, an all-instrumental collection of funked-out beats and hazy grooves.
Wayne Phoenix soaring wayne phoenix story the earth
A touching body of work that flows through spoken word, misty ambient, and textural dub. One of the year’s best albums so far.
Jaymie Silk Diasporave 3/3 – 2020 – Pelican Fly
The third and final EP in Jaymie Silk‘s Disaporave series strips things back for two impressive groove-led cuts that are introspective and affecting, backed up by two remixes from KG and LYZZA.
Oli XL Rogue Intruder, Soul Enhancer
One of last year’s most inventive records. An 11-track exercise in dub, deconstructed, and filtered through hip-hop, pop, bass, and ambient.
Moses Sumney græ
The sprawling second album from Moses Sumney, released in two parts by Jagjaguwar. Expect astonishing vocals and otherworldly songwriting.
