Listening to The Trusted’s new single, “Levitate,” is to willingly submit to a glorious, well-produced panic attack. From its opening moments, where frontman Tom Cunningham confesses to feeling like something to be discarded in the street, the track establishes a brutal vulnerability before yanking you into the dizzying orbit of another human being. It’s the sound of being so completely poleaxed by infatuation that...

In the crowded arena of modern hip-hop, where declarations of power are often measured in decibels and dollar signs, Exzenya’s “International Power” operates on a completely different axis. It is a calculated, composed, and deeply psychological piece of work that feels less like a song and more like a demonstration. This is power as understood by a behavioural scientist: a force that is engineered, not...