Numero Group

Recorded in 1971 by a 27-year-old pastor and an after school program choir, Like A Ship is a stirring and powerful meditation on the wayward aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement.

The third installment in Numero's series of otherworldly gospel, robed funk, and spiritual soul, Apocryphal Hymns is a slim new gospel songbook, penned powerfully by the genre's lesser-known disciples.

As the empowerment of the ’60s gave way to the societal bankruptcy of the ’70s, a turned-on Black music emerged to soundtrack the agony of America at a crossroads.

After the fall of the Deep City label, Rocketeers bandleader Frank Williams set up shop under the name of his twin daughters Saadia and Giwada and got to work reinventing the Miami Sound.

Lost in the soot and fallout from Youngstown, Ohio’s infamous Black Monday steel industry collapse was Tony March’s cross-generational Tammy label.

Operating in the farthest margins of L.A.’s cutthroat music business from 1961-1991, Mel Alexander’s Consolidated Productions was among the longest running Black-owned independent record conglomerates of the 20th century.

Atlanta’s original Eccentric Soul labels, Jesse Jones’ Tragar and Note concerns captured critical regional R&B, soul, and funk from 1968-1976.

A sonic snapshot of America’s steel capital, developed in the prosperous cavern between the departure of the Jackson 5 to Motown and the collapse of U.S. Steel, Skyway Soul is a love letter to Gary, Indiana.

From a humble storefront studio located in a shoeshine parlor on Norfolk, Virginia’s Church Street, Noah Biggs built a world.

Just as Al Green’s “Back Up Train” was pulling out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a whistle-stop tour to the top of the charts, producer Palmer James began eyeing another Furniture City branch line: Tommy Mcgee.

In the midst of the UK house rave-olution of the early-’90s, London’s V4 Visions imprint documented the confluence of street soul, deep house, swingbeat, and jungle sounds emanating from the clubs and pirate radio signals. 

This getaway ride mixtape strips aesthetics from the timeless East Side Story series, and poaches music from the greater Chesapeake Bay region. Roll with a jacked-up masterpiece.