[Saturday Spotlight] NorthsideForty + DOUG

Following a couple of weeks of hiatus, welcome back to another edition of Saturday Spotlight. Each week we review submissions from all over the globe, picking the best out of the batch to highlight at the end of the week. If you’re an aspiring rapper, a producer wanting to create a buzz, or a singer looking to expose their talent, Saturday Spotlight is dedicated to discovering the next star. This week, we received over 45 submissions — below are the two picks.

Whether it’s your latest single or a new beat you made, all upcoming artists can submit music to us for Saturday Spotlight on this link.

NorthsideForty

Hailing from the Northside of Yonkers, New York, NorthsideForty has just released his latest single entitled ‘The Way’, featuring fellow Yonkers native Phoenix Nolé. The track is a fusion of trap and classic rap, with NorthsideForty offering high vocal production on the hook and a stripped down, raw version of his vocals in the verse. The contrast offers the listener some pleasant variety, with Nolé’s singing verse coming in later in the song as the cherry on top. ‘The Way’ is an endearing duet, a love song of sorts spoken from two perspectives from the same relationship.

Listen to ‘The Way’ by NorthsideForty below.

DOUG

Saint Louis rap collective DOUG (an acronymization the band’s ethos of ‘Doing Our United Good’) consists not just of four emcees, but a producer and a jazz guitarist at the head of the live band they perform with. In contemporary hip hop, especially with indie artists, it’s not often one sees emcees pay homage to the more organic side of music. On Christmas Eve of 2022, the young group released their first EP, a self-titled project acting as a culmination of the years they spent co-creating.

‘Buy You The World’ is certainly a stand out track from the EP, where all artists combine their unique voices and writing styles to create a song that promises the world and everything in it to the right woman. Listen to ‘Buy You The World’ by DOUG below.