Bleep

TYGAPAW knows well the value of community. The Jamaican-born, Brooklyn-based producer, DJ, and leader has made spaces for Black and queer people with their club nights Shottas, No Badmind, and Fake Accent, as well as released music grounded in the unifying sound of dance music while highlighting their experiences as a Black trans artist. All this is combined into their second album: titled after a quote from the 1970 documentary Meeting The Man: James Baldwin In Paris, love has never been a popular movement. draws a parallel line between one of the most outspoken and influential writers and thinkers in American history, and TYGAPAW’s unrelenting, uncompromising sound, made visible by their unfaltering stare on the cover. Though the two are separated by time, they work with similar themes, and TYGAPAW recontextualises Baldwin’s words as a mission statement for community and collectivity, both in the club and beyond.

The movement inducing ‘DLEW’ introduces these connections, its detuned synths adding a glimmer to the hard-edged, no frills beat, its bustling, propulsive rhythms and punctuating kicks made for physical experience. ‘PRESSURE’ adds a nocturnal friction with anxious piano loops underlining the horde of sirens, pushing into the pneumatic, sledgehammer beats of ‘MYSM’, where blissful bronze pads emerge from the flush of coursing rhythms. The album’s two features drive home that feeling of shared ecstasy: George Riley provides a break from the techno viscera on ‘GLAMOUR riddim’ with an infectiously repetitive chorus above revving engines and blurred city lights, while LSDXOXO purrs “Comin’ to your area to tear it up” over the incessantly sprinting beats of ‘SK9 (Release Me)’.

TYGAPAW’s second album is a heavyweight rave built for sharing communal energy on the dancefloor, powered by inclusivity and a desire to thrive.