Kayda May opens the year with new single ‘Dredd’

Reading born and bred artist also known as the “queen ah vibes” slips a bassy block of super music.

We try to remain selective when writing about fresh sounds, and in doing so often end up waiting a while until the right music drops. Much of what we cover has to be significant and/or damn near flame-grilled, so enter Dredd by multi-genre artist Kayda May who calls on the art of intimidation to tyrannise adversarial figures, no doubt within the industry. She has been in the game for some time now and a hard name in the Reading area.

Dredd stakes its claim through outstanding vocals and delivery on top of content that summons the art of Hodo-Hodo (a Japanese philosophy meaning ‘just enough’) with warnings to her musical contemporaries.

Speaking on the track, May said: “”This is a new sound which I actually thought of when Drill was first introduced to the UK. I wasn’t ready to bring the idea into fruition at the time.”…“My dad is a Rastaman, Dreads were looked on as being “Unruly” and “Untamed”. Drill is a sound that is looked on as the same but Reggae is the peacemaker.”…“I wanted to fuse those elements together. The visuals also helped to accompany my idea.”

More often than not, we have to call out conformist/trend traps of musical style, especially those who speed-record new works. But here, May’s latest endeavour does not typify such sentiment and by way of her experience, shows that good things take time and indeed produce gold-laden spoils.

Although the artist employs the use of autotune (something we feel is overdone way too much in the industry), May utilises it in a tasteful manner deploying a well-rendered execution of the feature meticulously treated to surpass others who use it; often without toil. In doing so, Kayda May spikes her territory alongside a great production choice (courtesy of Delirious) chock full of bass and snares that slap hard complemented by cinematic visuals. A big thumbs up here.

Stay up to date with Kayda May on Instagram.