One of my current favorite bands–haven’t seen them play live yet; they’re out West–is Bell Atlas. That the lead singer Sandra Lawson is a distant relative of late Nigerian legend Rex Lawson (he is a distant cousin of her mother) and of another highlife legend, Erasmus Jenewari, may be part of it. But Sandra’s talent speaks for itself. The other band members are Derek Barber, Geneva Harrison and Doug Stuart. Things are moving fast for them. They’ve been releasing new songs online for a bit now and have a new album coming out on Bandcamp on March 11. Meanwhile, here’s a sample of their sound, self-described as an “Afro-Indie-Soul sound … incorporating an eclectic range of influences including Highlife, Hip-Hop, Samba, R&B, Post Rock, and Indie Pop”:

Another video:

And a soundcloud of their latest, and second, single from their debut EP, “Loving You Down.” It’s about “the weight of attachment that is involved in a relationship. It’s about a woman near the end of her life, revisiting some painful memories and deciding to re-craft the telling of her life story”:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/79397145″ params=”color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

* Photo Credit: Bells Atlas

Further Reading

How to unmake the world

In this wide-ranging conversation, para-disciplinary artist Nolan Oswald Dennis reflects on space, time, Blackness, and the limits of Western knowledge—offering a strategy for imagining grounded in African and anti-colonial traditions.

A migrant’s tale

On his latest EP, Kwame Brenya turns a failed migration into musical testimony—offering a biting critique of ECOWAS, broken borders, and the everyday collapse of pan-African ideals.

What Portugal forgets

In the film ‘Tales of Oblivion,’ Dulce Fernandes excavates the buried history of slavery in Portugal, challenging a national mythology built on sea voyages, silence, and selective memory.

Trump tariffs and US Imperialism

Trump’s April 2025 tariff blitz ignited market chaos and deepened rifts within his own coalition. Beneath the turmoil lies a battle between technocrats, ultranationalists, and anti-imperial populists, all vying to reshape—or destroy—American global power.