We rundown the best albums of 2024, including Charli XCX’s BRAT, Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal, and Kendrick Lamar’s GNX.

It was the year of the Brat, the yee-haw aesthetic, king-level diss tracks, and harmonies from the Gods (see: FLO). The return of marketing done correctly – thank you Doechii and Charli XCX – not absently, and a big year for the continent of Africa continuing to move into the mainstream.

10. Ariana Grande, Eternal Sunshine ★★★☆☆

The gifted popstar returned this year with ‘eternal sunshine’, playing on the cult classic film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey, following the protagonist woman going through a memory erasing procedure to erase her ex boyfriend as a way to bypass the grief of a break up, syncing with the own singer’s divorce and new relationship.

Grande’s vocals are continously satisfying and perfect from the jump on intro (end of the world) to i wish i hated you, imperfect for you, down to the album’s close, and a second favourite, ordinary things, featuring Grande’s Nonna.

Special shout outs to the boy is mine as a revival of the culture classic orginal song from Brandy and Monica, and to the pop and Glee-esque yes, and?.

9. Tyla, TYLA ★★★★☆

Tyla’s debut album has seen her sweeping several awards seeing the no longer up and coming (but cemented) popstar standing up for the amapiano genre to be recognised globally, as opposed to the need to put all of African musicians into the box of afrobeats, with the range of RnB and pop.

From Water to Safer, Truth or Dare, No.1 featuring Tems, Breathe Me, On and On, the infamous Jump featuring Gunna and Skillibeng, and On My Body with Becky G adding in Spanish lyricism, Tyla has buttery vocals sliding over syncopated amapiano beats that make me think of home. The delve into Butterflies is thrilling and unexpected, slow and still so beautiful truly showing how well she can sing; it made me a true fan of Tyla. Similarly slowed down, Priorities gives slow and haunting while still battling an amapiano beat showing the range of the genre alone.

The album gleefully culminates with To Last, a true amapiano dancefloor track with Tyla’s quieter vocals against the hard beats. Tyla’s later released deluxe continues to excel with PUSH 2 START and BACK to YOU.

8. Rema, HEIS ★★★★☆

This album may be less than 30 minutes long, yet it packs in high-energy, big boss attitude tracks from OZEBA, HEHEHE, YAYO, and BENIN BOYS.

“Another banger” Rema doesn’t lose his smooth vocals while honing in on the grit thats central on the album, while being perfectly fit for the dancefloor. WAR MACHINE and EGUNGUN is another instance of this – Rema knows he’s an international star and we’re keen to hear more than a 2 minute excerpt of each track but the recipe of the album leaves us satiated because of the quickened pace throughout.

Before slowing it down slightly with the serenadeful NOW I KNOW, Rema includes a beautiful sample from Lana Del Rey’s A&W to open and close his track, VILLIAN.

7. FLO, Access All Areas ★★★★☆

The British trio have been building up to the release of their debut album this autumn, with America watching them and references to the girl group being the next Destiny’s Child. Jorja, Renée and Stella certainly don’t disappoint and rise to the occasion. After the Intro with Cynthia Erivo’s narration, it’s a crazy run from AAA down five tracks to Check, then the love song styled Bending My Rules down three tracks to IWH2BMX, with a Robyn Fenty beat.

Within these runs rapper GloRilla appears on the hit In My Bag, the ladies walk their walk on Walk Like This leading to smooth transitions between How Does It Feel? and the sensational, sensual Soft. The second key, smooth transition on the album is seen from IWH2BM (I would hate to be my ex) to Nocturnal. In this second insane run of songs, the Trustworthy (Interlude) and Caught Up are perfect gems embedded into FLO’s first LP. A special shout out to another stand out track for its backdrop recurring vocals: Get It Till I’m Gone.

6. Ayra Starr, The Year I Turned 21 ★★★★☆

The Lagos star has made her mark this year with her sophmore album following Nineteen. This LP has a known sense of self where Starr’s first was just the beginning – the age of 21 marks a joyous album with Spanish instrumental influences, well-mixed afrobeats that will have you shaking your shoulders in your seat and a glimmer of heartbreak anthems to balance it all.

From Commas, Woman Commando featuring Coco Jones and Anitta, the Latin-inspired Control, Lagos Love Story, Rhythm & Blues, Bad Vibes, Orun, Jazzy’s Song and Santa featuring Rauw Alejandro from DJ Rvssian, the singer gifted us effervescent joy for summer. In contrast, Last Heartbreak Song with Giveon is a tearful, sparkling ballad, matching 21 on the well-crafted LP.

Since I saw Starr perform on the small stages at the 2019 Wireless Festival in London, with tracks from EP’s only, such as Away, she’s come incredibly far and evolved into her very own popstar.

5. Doechii, Alligator Bites Never Heal ★★★★☆

Doechii has craftily put together a homage to old school and modern hip hop music with dirty beats in BULLFROG, BOLIED PEANUTS, BOOM BAP and GTFO, matched with skit-like lyrics (“easy, breezy, beautiful, erratic”) in B.P and dialogue with comedic timing in DENIAL IS A RIVER. Doechii has been praised for putting efforts into marketing her music long after the August drop of the full album, with a music video level performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert with inspiration from Solange Knowles’ artistic performances. The rapper has graced an NPR Tiny Desk and recently made a comedy skit video on the last track (D.I.A.R) alone. After featuring on Tyler the Creator’s latest album this year and being dubbed “the hardest rapper in the game” by Kendrick Lamar himself, Doechii’s noteirity has quickly rose in 2024.

Her sensational flow on WAIT introduces us to the chill hip-hop stop off in the middle of the album with DEATH ROLL and PROFIT. The rapper makes a stop off at her previous dance rap persona with the enigmatic NISSAN ALTIMA, before she brings us back to the chill side of the genre that would fit right at home on a Doja Cat album with HUH! and a personal favourite, SLIDE.

4. Beyonce, Cowboy Carter ★★★★☆

This is such a masterpiece I’m going to point to the essay I struggled to materialise into succinct words that may or may not make sense of what Beyoncé has done on this LP. From her background, to lifting up country black stars to the theatrics of it all, this is Cowboy Carter: see more here.

3. Kendrick Lamar, GNX ★★★★★

The GOAT’s magnum opus, if you ask me. GNX is superb from start to finish, beginning to end, the first second to the final beat drop. Every time Kendrick Lamar drops a track, he reminds everyone why he is the GOAT in the rap world, in case people might have forgot – like he suggests on the LP (e.g. beef with rapper Lil Wayne suggesting that he should have been named the Superbowl’s halftime performer in place of Kendrick Lamar, and of course, the ongoing beef between Lamar and Canadian rapper Drake).

When the album first dropped, no features were listed on the album tracklist which allowed us to listen with a brand new curiosity to try to put a face to the voices joining Lamar. SZA, of course, was the easy spot – the pairing will be the next grand national.

The Compton rapper uses grit and channels into ‘beast/ghost mode’, “f*ck everybody”, “keep your head down and work like I do”, and also compares himself to a literal virus to his haters – “I’m doing what COVID did, they’ll never get over it”. luther with SZA, hey now with Dody6, tv off with lefty gunplay (“say you bigger than myself but it’s not enough”, “MUSTARRRD”, “crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious”), dodger blue with Wallie the Sensei, Roddy Rich and Siete7x , the comedic lyricism of peekaboo with AzChike (“bim bap boom boom boom bap bam, the type of sh*t I’m on you wouldn’t understand”), the sampling of heart pt. 6, gnx with Hitta J3, YoungThreat and Peysoh, and gloria with SZA instantly stood out.

2. Charli XCX, Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat ★★★★★

Von dutch was the first single, unremixed, pre BRAT album release to grab my attention – the editorial cover art, the pure bratiness of the chorus and the hype pop that Charli is known for but with a modern coolness. (Of course, the remix with Addison Rae and her infamous scream would soon land and kickstart the mania of BRAT.) Then came BRAT with its TikTok famous 360 and 365 thanks to tube girl and the music video featuring it girls such as Gabriette, Chloe Sevigny and Julia Fox, “so Julia”. Club classics and its remix with Bb trickz spun my mind, I never thought I’d enjoy house/techno-esque music (that’s not Afro house or amapiano) like this. To the level that it got me hooked.

Sympathy is a knife and its remix with Ariana Grande is a consistent repeat, Everything is romantic with Caroline Polachek was purely heaven sent and oh so relatable for Londoners, and 20-somethings, “all these f*cking foxes kept me up at night”, “late nights in black silk in East London / Church bells in the distance”, “romantic like £6 wine”. Girl, so confusing with Lorde was healing, B2b the original is a favourite but I love that Charli brought Tinashe on the remix to maximise their joint slay after being slept on in their careers until 2024. The ‘365’ remix with Shygirl was transformative, on the level of ‘Club classics’. Guess with Billie Eilish shook the internet along with other iconic features: the 2010’s hype pop/dance singer Kesha, 00’s Robyn and Bon Iver.

The album rollout itself and the cover art, as well as changing Charli’s old album covers to the same one colour and comic sans font title as the BRAT cover, was a streak of genius.

1. Charli XCX, BRAT ★★★★★

This album paved the way for the arguably even more transformed masterpiece of Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat to take shape. It put Charli on the map internationally, she went from Boom Clap in John Green films to popularised features – Fancy with Iggy Azalea, and I Love It for Icona Pop – to hosting Saturday Night Live (SNL) and appearing on the cover of fashion magazines and being a key guest during fashion weeks. Brat made Charli into the it girl she was always supposed to be. To summarise, Brat was such a moment that it was crowned Collins Word of the Year 2024 – “(Brat is someone with) a confident, independent and hedonistic attitude”. That’s brat.