Robin Thicke is back with Magic, leading the way to his next album 'Something Else' out in September. Taking a more live instrumental route, Thicke will be looking to carry on where 'The Evolution' left off and make up for the lost time when he couldn't get a break. This mid-tempo track is big on horns and is a nice warm up for the album. If the tune is familiar to you then it's because it was used by Samsung to advertise their U900 phone. As well as the creative process for his third album he also found time to play keyboards on Usher's 'Love In This Club'.

Watch the video here.

Also Ashanti is back from her hiatus with 'Good Good', produced by Jermaine Dupri. Sounds a bit like the leftovers from Mariah's latest album but still a nice little head nodder and welcome return.

Ghetto, Tinchy & Skepta take Westwood to the cleaners, I think you can almost hear him cry.

Another helluva summer tune is Sun, Sea & Sand by JME. Serving up all the right ingredients of your holiday whether you're looking forward to it, already on it or reminiscing about it, your summer holiday is summed up on this track. This is off the 'Famous?' album where plenty of words have already been said so I'll just add that as long as JME is around, the grime scene will always be in a healthy state. Now back to reminiscing about that sun, sea & sand.

This is the tune of Malia at the moment. The Baltimore club influenced remix of Kid Cudi's 'Day & Night' from Italian House duo Crookers. The original itself is a very good track but the bassline on this takes it to a new level. Crookers are featured in the latest issue of the Fader out now and should be heading over to these shores soon. Check out their remix of 'Salmon Dance' too. Cudi, the Cleveland born, Brookln based mc is affiliated with A-Trak's Foolsgold imprint and his mixtape 'A Kid Named Kudi' is out now and worth checking if you've been feeling music from The Cool Kids, Kidz In The Hall and Wale.

"During a great period of intense mixing we decided that it might be nice to shoot a video. This isn't the way the record industry works and so it was under the radar of the label and done totally for us by us on a shoe string. It was totally different from any other promo that I've made in that it was something real that we just filmed rather than trying to create something real looking using lots of people and lots of angles. I feel like it's more than a video in that sense. Aswell as looking quite odd without all the singing and quick cuts."

The Streets are also on tour again, www.seetickets.com for info.

The tune Twin B is trying to guess is the awesome Crookers remix of 'Day & Night' by Kid Kudi. It is a certified banger and if you like anything by Sinden, Herve or Diplo then you'll be a fan. In fact anyone that is a fan of a banging bassline will appreciate this.

I got back from Malia last thursday just two days before 1Xtra touched down for their Summer Loves tour. Skepta, Tinchy & Ghetto performed while Tim 'I'm as old as your Dad' Westwood provided the tunes. Twin B and Zena were also out there getting the crowd reaction and doing the rounds in Malia. If you've yet to decide on where to go on holiday this summer and fancy a change from Napa then Malia is the place to be. Plenty of Boy Better Know nights are on at the Camelot Castle, where they also have Cameo and Rampage rotating on Saturdays. I need to get back out there and fast for one last rolex sweep!

Delinquent feat K-Cat - My Destiny


H20 feat Platinum - What's it gonna be

I may be biase being from Southampton but if this track was from an unkown soul artist or being played on someone like Giles Peterson's show it would be all the rage.

It's all the rage to sample dance music now for a rapper to spit his bars on, both Kanye West and Swizz Beats went right to the top for their inspritaion in sampling Daft Punk. But this track by Pittsburgh rapper Wiz Khalifa samples that not as well known trance hit by Holland's finest Alice Deejay 'Better Off Alone'. More Benidorm than Barcelona.

Kanye explaining what a dope ass beat is on 60 minutes...

First post of the year off to a bang with the video for the Hip-Hop supergroup involving Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco and Pharrell. Nice little piano loop and a very mellow vibe but hardly matches the excitement you would have got when you knew these dudes were getting together in the studio.

Just as the BBC relegate Trevor Nelson and Tim 'as old as ya Dad' Westwood to 1Xtra, Radio 1 start playing Heartbroken every half hour and even Jo Whiley singing the tracks praises. The clip above shows JME and Skepta on the Beeb's new Introducing initiative.

Despite a heavy weekend of man vs beer there was no way I was going to miss seeing Ben Westbeech perform live. Set in the ultra trendy Orange Rooms it was a perfect setting for one of the classier performers making music in 2007.

While warming up to a soundtrack of soulful house flavours and funk a random appearence of Kano next to me at the bar certainly raised a few eye brows. After meeting a few Southampton FC players through Craig David while filming T4 Transmission a few weeks back he was hanging with them and enjoying the attention from the spray on tan collective around. I doubt that will make the Heat spotted section so I'll give you a moment to indulge on that exclusive...

Right back to the music. With full live band in tow Ben Westbeech commanded the stage turning this intimate crowd out and having them shake their money makers to the majority of Welcome To The Best Years Of Your Life.

Hearing live tracks like Get Silly, So Good Today and Dance With Me were highlights, but his band added to many of the tracks with extra break sections which gave them new life.

Being a d&b and jungle head Ben had his band pay a little homage to that part of his make up but it served only as a warm up to the last track and heater on the album track Get Closer, which cut half away through to DJ Marky It's The Way and had the crowd at its most liveliest, ending a very polished and energetic performance from one of the artists of the year. So underlooked and criminally missed off of a Mercury nomination because Indie is so in vogue right now, but Ben Westbeech's breakthrough will come soon.

...Kano drank wine by the bottle, is that grimey enough for ya?

Much better Alicia, seriously what is up with that track No One. Someone at the her record company should have just said "ok Alicia we all make mistakes, lets just pretend we didn't hear that and put that track away, here's a piano now do better things." Harsh.

We the dope boys of the year...drinks is on the house!!

Check out those horns, this is the most upbeat track on American Gangster as Jay Hova reaches the high point in the narrative of this concept album. This is already better than Kingdom Come, which to be fair wasn't really up to much at all. Kind of listening to that reminded how disappointed I was listening to the Blueprint 2. Yes it was a mature album from someone now in his mid thirties but with so much rubbish around in Hip-Hop you need Jay-Z doing what he does best - spitting about his hustle over a soulful blaxpoitation soundtrack. On American Gangster he is back to that era and the listening is all the much better for it and will say now, the production from Diddy and his hitmen is of top notch qaulity. If the name Madlib or Pete Rock was behind these beats b-boys would cream. You can't knock Jays hustle, but you can't knock Diddys on this one either.

Check this video of Jay-Z talking about the involement of Diddy.