Information Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Mon. Dec. 22, 2025: When Lylo Gold launched her debut album ‘Lylo Land,’ she entered the {industry} at a second when Black and Caribbean artists have been nonetheless being boxed into genres that always mirror race greater than sound. The London-based artist, who has Jamaican and African roots, is utilizing the venture to problem how her music is categorized and heard.
As an artist with a Caribbean background, she seems like her music is vulnerable to being put right into a field the place she will solely delve into one sound. She doesn’t wish to be outlined by one label or style simply due to her roots.
Once I requested her if her sound was influenced by her background, she answered: “Whether or not or not it’s R&B or it’s reggae or it’s hip-hop, it doesn’t actually matter as a result of the essence and the spirit of the music is you.”
“Wherever I’m, my Black heritage, my African heritage, my Caribbean heritage and all of the those that got here earlier than me will at all times exist in every part I do. From the best way that I sing, to the best way that I write, to the best way that I have a look at the world,” Gold added.
Black music has developed in a whole bunch of how over centuries. It has at all times been about mixing, bending, and reinventing sound to mirror lived expertise and historical past. From ska and lover’s rock to soul, funk and hip-hop, Caribbean and African diasporic artists have formed almost each main style of contemporary music.
Gold refuses to just accept a label assigned to her as a result of she is Black. Her stance is a part of a for much longer story through which Black artists have pushed trendy music ahead in numerous methods.
“It’s bizarre that you want to know when the artist is Black as a substitute of merely acknowledging that the music is Black,” she says. “I feel that’s the difficulty I’ve with the best way African Caribbean music is portrayed.”
For Gold, the issue lies in how Black and African Caribbean music is commonly pigeonholed into being Afrobeat or reggae, when in fact, all of it belongs to a broader Black musical heritage.
Once I requested her why she thinks this is a matter within the music {industry}, her response was clear: “The categorization of our music is admittedly lazy.”
The mislabeling of Black artists might sound minor within the grand scheme, however that’s precisely the issue. Lylo explains, “It’s only a means of limiting the tradition to no matter persons are comfy with. And persons are comfy with Black artists making R&B.”
Questions round categorization resurfaced publicly following Beyoncé’s historic wins for Cowboy Carter in 2025. Shortly afterward, the Recording Academy introduced modifications to its nation album classes, introducing distinctions equivalent to Finest Up to date Nation Album and Finest Conventional Nation Album. Whereas the Academy didn’t explicitly hyperlink the choice to Beyoncé’s success, the timing sparked widespread debate inside the {industry} about who’s allowed to occupy sure genres and the way boundaries are enforced.
Reflecting on that second, Gold factors to a well-known sample. She notes that when Black artists attain ranges of business or essential success historically dominated by white artists, the requirements usually shift. “Each time Black individuals enter that realm,” she says, “it feels just like the goalpost strikes.”
Lylo’s perspective is knowledgeable by years of educational research and deep engagement with music historical past. Throughout her college years, the place she specialised in music, she started to acknowledge how deeply Caribbean and African cultures are embedded throughout international genres. From Korean pop and Japanese pop to reggaeton and hip-hop, many modern sounds hint their roots again to Jamaican and African musical traditions.
She factors to artists like Jimi Hendrix and Large Mama Thornton who’ve formed rock and roll. As a result of music has blended a lot at the moment with genres like entice and soul mixing freely, Gold believes that categorizing music is now not as vital because it as soon as was.
Lylo Gold isn’t just critiquing the previous and current, she’s creating together with her personal voice. Her newest launch Lylo Land tells a narrative of heartbreak, therapeutic and self-love. The songs on this album are a mix of influences from throughout genres, tied collectively by a particular story and theme.
“I used to be obsessive about how the songs move and inform a narrative. It’s about acceptance, progress, and selecting to like once more,” she says.
Her music additionally carries a way of spirituality, as she believes we’re all touched by music ultimately. “Every thing issues,” she says. “Typically I write songs I feel are cringe, however I belief that authenticity and vulnerability, as a result of it touches individuals.”
Her music ‘With You’ celebrates selecting somebody and selecting love, which feels refreshing in a panorama the place many artists give attention to poisonous relationships. “It’s so good to delve into the concept of affection. And I feel Black women must delve into it. A lot of our music is poisonous love,” she says.
Past romantic love, Gold additionally turns inward. In her music ‘Discovered Love,’ she explores self-love, a message she hopes resonates with all ladies, however particularly with Black ladies, as a Black lady herself.
She says, “I’m allowed to be an individual like everyone else as a substitute of it at all times being, ‘she’s a robust Black lady.’
I’m robust once I have to be robust and I’m additionally lovable once I have to be lovable and comfortable and emotional and all these different issues. Why are we solely allowed to have three traits?”
Gold permits her followers to really feel and resonate together with her music nevertheless they need. She says, “My job as an artist isn’t to police or resolve what individuals ought to really feel.”
That sense of freedom is on the coronary heart of every part she is creating. She isn’t just redefining Caribbean sound, she is increasing it, pushing it ahead and refusing to let the {industry} resolve the place she belongs.
Now that her album Lylo Land is out, she is targeted on her subsequent large venture past the music scene. She can also be concerned with Hype and Genius, a social enterprise targeted on offering assets for rising creators.
The group runs packages and music camps and after securing new funding, it plans to speculate 100 thousand kilos into sixty UK artists over the subsequent two years. The goal is to supply paid alternatives, neighborhood employment and industry-led masterclasses for artists who usually lack entry to those areas.
And when requested about her future in music, Gold says, “I wish to make a reggae venture. I wish to make R&B tasks. I wish to proceed to jot down the entire issues that I do, as a result of all of these exist inside who I’m. And I simply suppose there isn’t any restrict.”
As she strikes into this subsequent part, her focus stays on exploring the complete vary of her sound and the cultural influences that form it. The place that leads her remains to be unfolding, however she is evident on one factor: the music she desires to make is not going to be confined to the classes the {industry} has relied on for many years.
Try her music HERE
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