San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
The year’s best songs by Bay Area artists
To shine a light on the best Bay Area music of the year, The Chronicle put together a playlist of the best songs of 2022 by locally minded artists.
Toro y Moi, “The Loop” The Berkeley shape-shifter’s latest album, “Mahal,” is an exploration of sounds inspired by 1960s and ’70s global psychedelic funk and soul. “The Loop” is as groovy of a song as you’ll hear this year and fitting for the soundtrack to a drive down Great Highway on a sunny day in singer Chaz Bear’s ornate jeepney.
Larry June, “Private Valet” In the past five years, Larry June has become one of the most prolific rappers from San Francisco, dropping multiple projects each year. With his latest album, “Spaceships on the Blade,” he cemented himself as the city’s finest. Over a stringsoaked, downtempo bebop beat from producer Jake One on “Private Valet,” he reflects on the journey before he made it big: “When the sky so cold/ They don’t got no love for you, love for you, love for you.”
Kelly McFarling, “Winter Fruit” Kelly McFarling’s “Bed of a River” is the most gorgeous album born in Bolinas since Kacey Johansing’s 2017 swan song, “The Hiding.” “Winter Fruit” is McFarling at her most sublime on a tune that hums with the tranquility of the Marin County town as she delivers the longing-yet-blissful chorus: “I don’t know how it’s gonna be/ Everything is just practicing./ Oh, the next time that we meet/ Will I see and you see me?”
Rexx Life Raj, “Balance” This is the fulcrum of Rexx Life Raj’s heartbreaking album, “The Blue Hour,” about the emotions he dealt with leading up to and following the death of his parents. He soars over a beat produced by a cadre of talented Bay Area creative minds, emerging triumphantly from unfathomable grief: “We all battling obstacles in life/ And I know it comes with its challenges./ Yeah, but to me what separates the good from great/ is just the way you choose to handle it./ Balance.”
La Doña, “Down That Road” A rare tune in English from the Mission District’s Cecilia PeñaGovea, better known as La Doña, shows that she can flex beyond her incredible Spanishlanguage tunes, which have been a rallying cry for lifelong San Franciscan Latinos. “Down That Road” is a particularly beautiful, guitar-studded R&B number with layered vocal arrangements that stun.
Ian Kelly, Shy’an G and Myl3z, “Holla” This is one of the many gems from the “Tales of the Town” album and multimedia project centered around the Black history of Oakland. Shy’an G sets the stage for a callout of systemic racism when she spits, “How can you redesign a system with a foundation of a slave plantation is disposin’ us? S— I’m good!” Then the triumvirate of rappers puts down a fierce reply: “So holla if you hear me/ Been through enough./ Came just to get it out the mud,” on one of the hardest local cuts of the year.
Xyla, “On & On” The producer behind The Chronicle’s top local electronic album of 2020 roared back with this mighty IDM single. An enthralling tune, tailor made for a pensive dance floor release, “On & On” is brimming with a waterfall of glitchy effects and Xyla’s heavenly vocals peppering in. Saweetie featuring H.E.R., “Closer” Released on Valentine’s
Day, “Closer” saw two of the biggest Bay Area stars in hip-hop and R&B joining forces. Always a hot spitter, rapper Saweetie opts for a more subdued and gentle cruise of a jam, bringing in Vallejo native and five-time Grammy-winning singer H.E.R. aboard to smooth out the romantic croon. Together, they’re unstoppable.
Art Moore, “Muscle Memory”
The new project of Boy Scouts’ Taylor Vick sees the Oakland resident operating with a trio that adds more decadent instrumentation to her sweet songwriting. “Muscle Memory” is about accepting a love that didn’t make it, and Vick’s comforting vocals soften the blow of that realization as she sings, “I think we both know/ the depth our memories go./ I learned to keep it light though.”
Pastor Champion, “Talk to God” Recorded at Oakland’s 37th Street Baptist Church in 2018, Pastor Champion’s posthumous album, “I Just Want to Be a Good Man,” immortalizes the magic of the longtime East Palo Alto resident. A traveling pastor with a penchant for playing guitar and singing gospel tunes, Champion’s life mission is embodied in the soulstirring “Talk to God.” One need not be a religious person to appreciate the power in this man’s voice.
Lyrics Born featuring Lateef the Truthspeaker, Blackalicious and Danielle Dubois, “My City” Off of Lyrics Born’s uber-collaborative album, “Mobile Homies Season 1,” the track “My City” features one of the last appearances on record from Blackalicious’ Gift of Gab before he died in 2021. The vocalists sing about their love for Oakland, with Dubois’ vibrant hook, Lateef ’s verse and Lyrics Born’s baritone hum only being eclipsed by the timeless spirit of the late Gab.
Ruby Red, “Too Late (To Call)”
The Oakland-born, Los Angeles-based duo of Daniel Laner and Fernando Fine, Ruby Red fully emerged this year with a sizzling take on synth-pop. “Too Late (To Call)” is a fine expression of their bouncing synthesizers and drum machines as they coyly ruminate on reaching out to a late-night fling — except they’re hoping that this one is a little more than just a hook-up. Televangel and AJ Suede featuring Hemlock Ernst and Ceschi, “3 Hours Late” Santa
Rosa native Ian Taggart, stage name Televangel, produced this ethereal tune from the joint album “Metatron’s Cube” with Seattle rapper AJ Suede, and it’s one that lingers wonderfully long after it ends. The hazy, cinematic hip-hop beat elevates the crew of rappers led by Suede. It also features Hemlock Ernst, the rap moniker of Future Islands’ singer Samuel T. Herring.
Brogan Bentley, “Precession of the Equinox” This 22-minute cut from the San Francisco electronic producer and dashing soundscape constructor represents his first foray into ambient music. “Precession of the Equinox” is a spiritual soundtrack for mindful exercises from yoga and meditation, to just plain wallowing happily in solitude for a moment.
Satya, “Oakland” From the Oakland School for the Arts grad’s “Deep Blue” EP, “Oakland” is a serene R&B joint with folk-pop inflections. Her vocal syncopations wrap your ears in a comforting salve as a jazzy guitar plays underneath throughout.
Fantastic Negrito, “Oh Betty” The three-time Grammy-winning singer and blues guitarist was inspired by his grandparents on this delta blues number. On his latest album, “White
Jesus Black Problems,” the song prods at the systemic racism and life of indentured servitude that shaped the marriage between his seventh-generation white Scottish grandmother and his enslaved Black grandfather. This is contemporary blues and American roots music of the highest order.
Richie Cunning, “This Particular Moon” This year, the San Francisco rapper put out “Big Deal,” his first LP in a dozen years, and “This Particular Moon” stood out in spades. Cunning details a sly love affair happening under the starlight of a dimly lit Nob Hill bar, with a nod to both the Fugees and the suavity of San Francisco’s ’50s lounge singers.
Kehlani featuring Justin Bieber, “Up at Night” The Oakland native dropped the highly anticipated “Blue Water Road” earlier this year, and it’s filled with upper-echelon mainstream R&B from top to bottom. If there was ever any doubt of her place on the pop music totem pole, her duet with Bieber on “Up at Night” squashes it. With production steeped in ’90s sensibilities, they trade lovelorn bars on this polished love song.