• Pre-Order : Madison McFerrin "I Hope You Can Forgive Me" LP

MADMCFERRIN MUSIC

Pre-Order by 24th May 2023

Nepo babies are all the rage, but few families have a business as niche as the McFerrins. Jazz vocalist Bobby is best known as the singer of Don’t Worry, Be Happy, the first a cappella song to top the US charts. More than three decades later, his daughter Madison picked up the baton, releasing two vocal-only EPs that looped and layered her voice into a faintly retro melange of soul and R&B.

On her debut album, McFerrin supplements her intricate vocal landscapes with beats and synths, matching her beautiful voice with tastefully muted and often vaguely ominous backdrops that nod to a variety of genres: the breakbeat-backed Testify has echoes of trip-hop; Stay Away (From Me) sports strains of piano house; elsewhere there are glimpses of post-dubstep, gospel and electro-pop. The effect is gorgeous, atmospheric – at times spine-tinglingly so – and undeniably cool. Yet she doesn’t distinguish herself from the glut of similarly minded artists from Greentea Peng to KeiyaA. As elegant and generically literate as I Hope You Can Forgive Me is, this particular McFerrin does not seem destined for ubiquity.