Some albums begin with a melody. For Matt B, ALKEBULAN III: The Water Remembers began with a question: Where do I come from? What started with an AncestryDNA® test six years ago eventually led the GRAMMY® Award-winning artist from Los Angeles to Ghana and Nigeria, where he traced his lineage to the Igbo people of Owerri and turned that homecoming into the foundation for the most personal installment of his ALKEBULAN trilogy.

Masego has always been difficult to put into one musical box, and on Fix Your Face (Capitol Records), that continues to be part of the fun. The GRAMMY®-nominated artist, producer and multi-instrumentalist’s third album is a 16-track mix of jazz, R&B, soul, gospel and Jamaican influences, but this time there’s a noticeably more introspective Masego at the center of it all.

Three decades into their career, Godsmack still sound like a band built for the stage. Live at Mohegan Sun (Primary Wave) captures their October 2024 performance at Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun Arena, turning a career-spanning set into a live album that reminds you just how many songs this band has made to be played loud.

As one of the artists helping lead a new wave of Afrobeats, Victony has made experimentation part of his identity—and STARLIFE (OUTLAWVILLE/Encore Recordings) may be his clearest statement yet. The Nigerian artist’s sophomore album stretches beyond any single definition of the genre, moving through R&B, hip-hop, Afro-Rage and Afrohouse without losing the melodic ease that made him stand out in the first place.

When Tiana Major9 released her independent debut album November Scorpio (+1 Records) earlier this year, it felt like an introduction to an artist ready to tell her story entirely on her own terms. Now, with November Scorpio: Deluxe, Tiana opens that story up even further.

Two-time GRAMMY® winner Tyla isn’t easing into her second album. On A*POP, she sounds like an artist having fun with just how many directions pop music can take her, while keeping the South African rhythms and musical identity that helped introduce her to the world firmly in the mix.