The globe-trotting DJ born Marea Stamper fell head-first into electronic music in the ’90s as a Kentucky high school dropout, hustling mixtapes at raves in Midwestern warehouses and cornfields. She broke through as a DJ in Chicago, the birthplace of house music, before skyrocketing to global fame with a deep-rooted sound that stood in welcome contrast to the bro-y, commercialised EDM of the early 2010s. Godspeed, her debut album, is the long-awaited product of nearly a decade of work (though it’s preceded by Club Future Nostalgia, her 2020 remix album with Dua Lipa). Its 24 tracks play out like a raw, euphoric crash course in house music history, from the Uffie-led “Tom’s Diner” riff “Serotonin Moonbeams” to the propulsive Kylie Minogue collab “Edge of Saturday Night” to the triumphant “We Still Believe”, which recruits Chicago house pioneer Jamie Principle for an acid-tinged homage to Frankie Knuckles’ Warehouse.
- Kaleena Zanders
- Rose Gray
- CamelPhat
- Anish Kumar
- Franky Wah
- Matrefakt