What’s next in music: OSHUN’s intergalactic hip-hop

Last month we launched the next installment of “First on SoundCloud” to celebrate the unique moments when creators and fans collide, and to give you more opportunities to discover your next favorite artist.

We’ll be surfacing twenty new creators over the next few months, but today the spotlight’s on OSHUN – a neo-soul hip-hop duo creating music with a purpose, sonically manifesting Afrofuturism, and ripping the pink bow off of modern-day femininity.

OSHUN is comprised of Thandiwe and Niambi Sala, two Maryland natives who first met as undergrads while at NYU. Their friendship and artistry centered around their shared experiences as women, and they saw their music as an extension of the positive, powerful feminine energy that the deity Oshun represents. So they adopted the goddess’s moniker, and with one tap of the caps-lock button, OSHUN was born.

Their first full body of work, bittersweet vol. 1 (out now on SoundCloud) is about the difficult yet rewarding dichotomy of being full-time students and full-time businesswomen. While the lyrics trace the duality, the atmospheric harmonies grounded in heavy drum and bass also create this push/pull feeling, like being a superhuman entity weighed down by gravity.  

OSHUN uploaded their first mixtape “ASASE YAA” to SoundCloud in 2015, and since then have amassed hundreds of thousands of social followers and nods from major outlets like Billboard, Rolling Stone, The FADER, NPR and Vogue. In their interview with Vogue, the duo said their sound is a combination of genres but also has intergalactic elements, because, “The idea is: we’re not from here.” And we’d have to agree: OSHUN’s music is from the future.   

Stream their single, “Burn,” for a dose of cultural clairvoyance, and check back here to discover what’s next in music, first on SoundCloud.