▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Jazmine Sullivan: “Pick Up Your Feelings”
The Grammy-winning R&B singer Jazmine Sullivan has a serious Philly musical pedigree: Not only is she a graduate of the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, but her mother, Pam Sullivan, was a backup singer for Philadelphia International Records. (We’ll hear from that label later in this playlist.) This hit from Sullivan’s great 2021 album “Heaux Tales” is a showcase for her no-nonsense personality and her singular sound, which updates the long tradition of Philly soul (and Philly neo-soul).
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Schoolly D: “P.S.K. What Does It Mean?”
Considered by many people — including Ice-T — to be the first ever gangster rap song, the gritty “P.S.K.” by the Philly M.C. Schoolly D is a landmark for a city with a deep hip-hop history. Its cavernous, reverb-heavy production was arguably as influential as Schoolly D’s bars. In an interview to commemorate the song’s 30th anniversary in 2015, he compared the recording process to the “more cowbell” skit from “Saturday Night Live”: “I swear to God it was like that. ‘More reverb. More reverb.’”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. The Roots: “What They Do”
You can’t have a Philly playlist without the Roots, the long-running hip-hop collective that has made the long journey from South Philly all the way to “The Tonight Show.” This smooth, funky 1996 single is from the group’s appropriately titled third album, “Illadelph Halflife.”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. Tierra Whack: “Only Child”
The 29-year-old Philly rapper Tierra Whack broke out with her wildly imaginative 2018 visual album “Whack World,” an eclectic collection of brief songs brimming with outré ideas. On subsequent releases, like this moody but endearingly cartoonish 2019 single, she has continued to embody Philadelphia hip-hop at its most spirited and forward-thinking.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. Hop Along: “The Knock”
Frances Quinlan, the founder, guitarist and lead singer of the Philly-based rock band Hop Along, has been a fixture in the local indie scene for the past two decades, and she’s certainly one of its most powerful vocalists. This blistering opening track from Hop Along’s 2015 album “Painted Shut” backs up that claim.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
9. Kurt Vile: “Wakin on a Pretty Day”
Once a member of the beloved long-running local rock band the War on Drugs, the voluminously coifed singer, songwriter and guitarist Kurt Vile has, over the past decade and a half, become a recognizable and respected solo artist. Bliss out with this nine-and-a-half-minute jam from his 2013 album “Wakin on a Pretty Daze,” the cover of which featured a Fishtown mural created by the street artist Steve Powers.
