Tunde Adebimpe
Thee Black Boltz
Sub Pop
Jul 03, 2025
Internet Unique
For 20 years, Tunde Adebimpe’s voice has been some of the distinctive in indie rock—reedy and punky, but filled with deep soul—and on Thee Black Boltz, his first true solo album, it’s entrance and middle. Greatest often called the co-founder and frontman of TV on the Radio, Adebimpe steps out on his personal right here with out stepping too distant from the band’s sonic palette. The truth is, a lot of Thee Black Boltz feels like a religious cousin to later TV on the Radio albums like Seeds and 9 Varieties of Mild, albeit with softer edges and a extra introspective contact.
The album’s emotional middle is grief and resilience—Adebimpe started writing after the pandemic and within the wake of his youthful sister’s demise. That pressure between loss and hope surfaces most powerfully on “Drop,” a sparse ballad that regularly builds with layered textures and beatboxed percussion till it swells right into a quietly radiant climax. It’s the perfect music right here, capturing a fragile however decided type of transcendence: “Forged a rare spell / And rise into the evening.”
There are hits and misses—tracks like “Pinstack” and “ILY” really feel extra like filler than important cuts—however Adebimpe commits to each efficiency, and even the weaker songs have robust bones. “Magnetic,” “Any person New,” and “Streetlight Nuevo” deliver grit, bounce, and a melodic cost. “The Most” even dips into dub territory with stunning aptitude.
This isn’t a dramatic reinvention, and it in all probability doesn’t attempt to be. Thee Black Boltz doesn’t escape the shadow of TV on the Radio a lot as illuminate the elements of Adebimpe that have been all the time quietly pulsing beneath. It’s a human report, filled with looking and survival. A stable debut that invitations us into his personal storm—and finds a bit lightning of its personal. (www.tundeadebimpe.bandcamp.com)
Writer score: 7/10
