AUGUST 2026 ISSUE
AUGUST 2026 ISSUE A sneaky peek of just some of what is in the August 2026 issue – OUT NOW! Click to buy this issue and read more… MARTIN LUTHER McCOY Martin Luther McCoy is quite unlike any other artist. At the same time, he reminds me a lot of Curtis Harding. These are not necessarily contradictory statements. Let me explain. Born in San Francisco, the young Martin Luther absorbed that city’s famously wide cultural scene – especially its music – with alacrity, soaking up the gospel, the soul, the funk and blues, and also its myriad hip-hop and rock tangents, like the proverbial sponge. Each individual strand duly informed and influenced the artist that he would one day become. Some of you will no doubt know his debut album, The Calling, released in the summer of 1999, much of which painted him as a neo-soul guy. On later sets – such as 2004’s Rebel Soul and 2012’s Love Is The Hero, his rockier inclinations were often more evident, though at all times and with each new project one came away with the feeling that the guy was just doing things the way he pleased… … … Click here to buy and read more… TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON The world is on fire. Forests killed by flames in Europe, America and Britain – make that clear to even the most diehard climate change skeptics. The dramatic front-page pictures of charred ground and abandoned homes might finally stop people from burying their heads in the sand. Indeed, the pressing question is what action can be taken to save the planet. It is a subject that Terri Lyne Carrington is keen to discuss. “Yeah, we’ve created this problem of not just our lifestyles, but our livelihoods being attached to things that are not good for the environment,” she says on a call from Los Angeles. “I do think that a lot of small things also can be adjusted. Like we have a huge plastic problem, right? So, people just making choices to not put plastic into the waters is important. Recycling… it’s a consciousness that all we have to step up to.” Click here to buy and read more… BUJU BANTON The reason we’d wanted to do the interview – and also put him on the cover initially – was because he has a new album out, Too Too Bad, which is essentially a dancehall record from start to finish. If you’ve heard the hit single Butterflies, voiced on an early eighties-style cut of Real Rock, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s as if Buju is reliving his youth, because the majority of tracks are written about girls – either lusting after them or carousing them, mainly. The album’s even available in explicit or clean versions, presumably for the benefit of radio DJs. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, yet Buju’s now in his fifties and was once touted as a possible successor to Bob Marley… Click here to buy and read more… JONSON JONSON & JONSON AFTER MANY YEARS OF CREATING HITS FOR OTHERS, WHAT BROUGHT YOU TOGETHER WITH DANNY & PHIL TO MAKE YOUR OWN ALBUM AS ARTISTS? Well, I was and am an artist first, writer/producer second, so drifted into writing for others really in parallel to making my own records, first on Arista and then independently. Phil is also a solo artist, after many years of writing and producing for others and Danny, and is a top session man so was always busy enhancing others’ music. We came together to raise a few glasses and get back to the jokes, and the joy of all playing together live in a room and seeing what happens – no great plot, plan or pressure involved. Honestly, we just had great fun together and by virtue of being in Phil’s studio, Swamp, where everything sounds great sonically, when I heard a lyric and melody over one of our pieces, and songs started to emerge, the album started to form very organically – and suddenly, here we are… 3,2,1, you’re back in the room! Click here to buy and read more…
Black News 
AUGUST 2026 ISSUE
A sneaky peek of just some of what is in the August 2026 issue – OUT NOW!
MARTIN LUTHER McCOY
Martin Luther McCoy is quite unlike any other artist. At the same time, he reminds me a lot of Curtis Harding. These are not necessarily contradictory statements. Let me explain.
Born in San Francisco, the young Martin Luther absorbed that city’s famously wide cultural scene – especially its music – with alacrity, soaking up the gospel, the soul, the funk and blues, and also its myriad hip-hop and rock tangents, like the proverbial sponge. Each individual strand duly informed and influenced the artist that he would one day become. Some of you will no doubt know his debut album, The Calling, released in the summer of 1999, much of which painted him as a neo-soul guy. On later sets – such as 2004’s Rebel Soul and 2012’s Love Is The Hero, his rockier inclinations were often more evident, though at all times and with each new project one came away with the feeling that the guy was just doing things the way he pleased…
…
…
TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON
The world is on fire. Forests killed by flames in Europe, America and Britain – make that clear to even the most diehard climate change skeptics. The dramatic front-page pictures of charred ground and abandoned homes might finally stop people from burying their heads in the sand. Indeed, the pressing question is what action can be taken to save the planet. It is a subject that Terri Lyne Carrington is keen to discuss.
“Yeah, we’ve created this problem of not just our lifestyles, but our livelihoods being attached to things that are not good for the environment,” she says on a call from Los Angeles. “I do think that a lot of small things also can be adjusted. Like we have a huge plastic problem, right? So, people just making choices to not put plastic into the waters is important. Recycling… it’s a consciousness that all we have to step up to.”
BUJU BANTON
The reason we’d wanted to do the interview – and also put him on the cover initially – was because he has a new album out, Too Too Bad, which is essentially a dancehall record from start to finish. If you’ve heard the hit single Butterflies, voiced on an early eighties-style cut of Real Rock, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s as if Buju is reliving his youth, because the majority of tracks are written about girls – either lusting after them or carousing them, mainly. The album’s even available in explicit or clean versions, presumably for the benefit of radio DJs. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, yet Buju’s now in his fifties and was once touted as a possible successor to Bob Marley…
JONSON JONSON & JONSON
AFTER MANY YEARS OF CREATING HITS FOR OTHERS, WHAT BROUGHT YOU TOGETHER WITH DANNY & PHIL TO MAKE YOUR OWN ALBUM AS ARTISTS?
Well, I was and am an artist first, writer/producer second, so drifted into writing for others really in parallel to making my own records, first on Arista and then independently. Phil is also a solo artist, after many years of writing and producing for others and Danny, and is a top session man so was always busy enhancing others’ music. We came together to raise a few glasses and get back to the jokes, and the joy of all playing together live in a room and seeing what happens – no great plot, plan or pressure involved. Honestly, we just had great fun together and by virtue of being in Phil’s studio, Swamp, where everything sounds great sonically, when I heard a lyric and melody over one of our pieces, and songs started to emerge, the album started to form very organically – and suddenly, here we are… 3,2,1, you’re back in the room!
