We Speak Music
Afronaut Zu features on Jessica Wilde’s transformational album title track ‘Teach Me How To Love’!
“Such an incredibly multi-talented artist, every time we see her name in our inbox we get very excited!”- Jess Iszatt BBC Radio 1
Singer, songwriter, rapper and producer Jessica Wilde has released her highly anticipated, soul touching, empowering and thought- provoking sophomore album ‘Teach Me How To Love’, with the amazing Afronaut Zu featuring on the title track.
Wilde fully utilizes her authentic expression through this powerful and truly unique body of work, where she bares her vulnerability on a personal journey of deep inner healing and an exploration of love for self, others, life and God. Authentically expressed though her soul searing, raw, raspy and heart hitting singing which Jess fuses with her sharp-witted rap & spoken word with undeniable South London grit.
Wilde, now four years sober, has openly shared her experience, from her debut project (2023) where each of the songs were like confessional diary entries, laying out brutally honest lyrics in her unique and original Wilde way, taking us on a ride of life through addiction, toxic relationships, escapism to a place of self-empowerment, self-love and living sober.
Wilde’s new album ‘Teach Me How To Love’ reflects all the inner work she has committed to that has brought her out of the darkest times of her life. Wilde has ventured on a spiritual path which took her on a transformational solo adventure from the concrete jungle to the Amazon Jungle and which gave the seeds of inspiration for this new chapter of her musical expression to take fruit.
In her recent interview with Carrie and David Grant on BBC Radio London she said: “The phase now is really feeling a lot more self-love, love for life and really wanting to uplift people with my music and spread the frequency of love”.
The new album project features some of Wilde’s close friends and incredible artists in their own right Josh Barry (Nile Rodgers, Gorgon City), Zoe Kyrpi (Black Coffee, David Lazarus), James Newman (writer of Rudimental’s Brit award winning song ‘Waiting All Night’ with Ella Eyre) and Afronaut Zu who’s raw and husky vocals are heard on the title track ‘Teach Me How To Love’. Zu is also a part of Steam Down Jazz collective and Rudimental. Wilde not only penned the tunes of the album but also co-produced it with producer and right hand man Tom Maine (Wu-lu, Ego Ella May).
Having released five singles in the lead up to the full album drop, Wilde has gained an immense amount of loyal and continuing support across BBC Radio from taste maker DJ’s, including Radio 1’s ‘Future Artists’ with Jack Saunders, Jess Iszatt on both Radio 1 and BBC Introducing, BBC 6 Music, Multiple BBC Radio London shows, including a recent in studio live performance and interview with Carrie and David Grant. She has also gained support from John Kennedy on Radio X, editorial playlist features across the board with Apple, Spotify, Youtube Music, TIDAL, Amazon and US Radio and streaming platform Pandora, plus also press acclaim from 1883, Clash Magazine, Complex, The Independent, Wonderland, The Daily Star and many more.
This summer is set to be Jamm packed, with Wilde hitting the stages of Glastonbury, Secret Garden Party, Camp Wild Fire and Soul Town festival where she’s opening the main stage for legends Earth, Wind and Fire. Not only is the festival season popping off, but Wilde is also set to headline Lower Third on 17th July for her album launch show, in collaboration with soul pioneering platform ‘Global Soul’ and Wilde’s very own PxSSY PWR platform.
‘PxSSY PWR’ is a platform Wilde created as a response to the disparity between support for male artists compared to female artists. The residency at Hootananny Brixton has become a hub and major platform for some of the most exciting underground female, non-binary and queer artists, including sold out shows with the likes of Etta Bond, IYAMAH, Zoe Kypri and Tamaraebi to name a few.
Col Darcy’s ‘Pay Up’ arrives with the calm authority of an artist who has already learned that longevity is its own form of victory. The second single from ‘Redemption’, his forthcoming album, is a composed piece of independent hip-hop that places persistence, ambition and personal conviction at its centre. Rather than presenting success as spectacle, Darcy approaches it as something accumulated slowly, through experience, discipline and faith in one’s own direction.
That sense of earned perspective has been central to Darcy’s work from the beginning. As Caper, he drew national attention with ‘How Would You Like To Be Me?’, a politically charged anti-racism song whose influence eventually extended into cinema. Alongside ‘Opportunity’, the track appeared in Netflix’s A Second Chance: Rivals!, bringing Darcy’s writing to an audience well beyond the usual confines of Australian hip-hop. Yet his subsequent career has remained grounded in independence, with the acclaimed ‘Beautiful Hopeless’ further establishing his commitment to thoughtful writing and considered craft.
‘Pay Up’ continues that trajectory while revealing an artist interested in the emotional economics of perseverance. Darcy writes from the perspective of someone who has experienced the slow rewards of staying the course. The lyrics use sharp wordplay and layered metaphor to turn a familiar idea into something more personal. His delivery is particularly effective for its restraint. There is no need to overstate the message when the voice behind it sounds as though it has lived through the argument already.
The song also reflects the wider concerns of ‘Redemption’, a record shaped by travel, fatherhood, gratitude and renewed self-awareness. Much of the album was recorded in Bali, and the island’s atmosphere reportedly helped cultivate its more contemplative dimensions. That background lends ‘Pay Up’ an intriguing duality. It is a song about ambition, but not restless ambition. Its confidence feels less like hunger for external validation and more like an acceptance that the journey itself has meaning.
What emerges is a track that understands hip-hop as both music and testimony. Darcy’s influences, from Tupac Shakur and Eminem to Kendrick Lamar, belong to a lineage in which personal narrative can become social observation and self-examination can become communal language. ‘Pay Up’ honours that tradition while remaining contemporary in its presentation. As a statement of intent for ‘Redemption’, it suggests an artist who has found greater clarity without sacrificing his edge, and who understands that the most durable kind of success is the kind you build yourself.
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