Listen to McKinley Dixon’s New Single “Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?”

I have long maintained that Virginia-native McKinley Dixon is one of the best wordsmiths we’ve got today. Since releasing his debut album Who Taught You to Hate Yourself? in 2018, Dixon has been consistently releasing thoughtful, ambitious hip-hop projects that tell stories of how family, community and systematic violence intersect. His 2021, breakout LP For My Mama and Anyone Who Look Like Her was my number-one album of the year.

In a little over a month, Dixon will release Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?, his finest work yet. Another chapter in his catalog that pays homage to Ohio literary legend Toni Morrison, the album is a meticulously crafted, thought-provoking conversation on how violence impacts Black people of all ages and what pride, affection and reflection arises from it.

The latest single—the LP’s title track—finds Dixon blurring narrative lines, as he reflects on the freedom of growing up in a neighborhood with the people he loved most. “Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?” is a bottle of poised language delivered in sharp, colloquial verses. “The house is crumblin’ / Hurry out the backdoor, boltin’ / The rubber recently reset my bones / Black skin to concrete / Within it, I feel at home,” Dixon raps, as the track swells into a saxophone-led jazz concerto featuring vocals from one of his longtime collaborators: Ms. Jaylin Brown.

Watch the music video for “Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?” below.