@Maisie Homewood-Allen

The songs you love. The more you use Apple Music, the better the mix. Refreshed every Tuesday.

Whether it’s a weekday morning or Saturday night, get going with this personalised mix of upbeat music. Refreshed every Monday.

Songs to help you relax and unwind. Updated every Sunday.

Discover new music from artists we think you'll like. Refreshed every Friday.

The tracks you can’t get enough of lately, all in one place. Updated as you listen.

Olivia Dean might describe herself as a perfectionist, but there’s something undone about the North London singer-songwriter’s sound. Inflected with jazz, soul, R&B and pop and an old-soul spirit, her music often feels like it was made (and made to be listened to) on a warm afternoon, as Dean basks in her city and watches its people pass by. A “classic Olivia Dean song”, as she told Apple Music at the time of her 2023 Mercury Prize-shortlisted debut album <i>Messy</i>’s release, is about how “I will fall in love with you, but not quite”. That sentiment propels songs such as “Danger”, “UFO” and 2021’s sublime “Slowly”, her most heart-stopping exploration of being scared to fall too hard and get too hurt in the process. But there are other classic Dean moves, too. Because sometimes she throws caution to the wind and jumps right in (see “Dive”) or goes it alone (“Be My Own Boyfriend”, which features her reliably sharp, conversational lyricism, and “The Hardest Part”, a wise exploration of outgrowing someone). In her most special moments, the singer-songwriter paints songs so vivid it feels like you could watch them on a screen. See “I Could Be a Florist”, a window into her Plan B of running a flower shop in Peckham, and the jubilant “Carmen”, on which she pays tribute to her grandmother who came over to the UK as part of the Windrush generation in the ’60s. Explore more sounds from a special, singular talent here.

Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar’s dense wordplay and community-minded vision has earned him both the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 (a first for a rapper) and the headline slot at the Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show in 2025. Most people heard K-Dot for the first time on 2012’s <i>good kid, m.A.A.d city</i>, a coming-of-age concept album that nonetheless yielded multi-platinum hits like “Swimming Pools (Drank)” and “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe”, seven Grammy nominations and the no. 7 slot on Apple Music’s 100 Best Albums list. That resounding success emboldened the generational MC to explore live-band hybrids of jazz and funk on 2015’s <i>To Pimp a Butterfly</i>, all while still producing a single as accessible yet self-possessed as “King Kunta”. As for 2017’s <i>DAMN.</i>, it’s no accident that the song titles are in all caps with a full stop, from the all-time clapback “HUMBLE.” to the slow-burn Rihanna collab “LOYALTY.”. With Lamar now firmly established in the culture, he was tapped to curate the soundtrack album for 2018’s <i>Black Panther</i>, giving him one of his signature tracks in “All the Stars”, a swooning pop crossover featuring his repeated creative partner SZA. He has remained dominant since then, flexing hard across multiple vocal modes on 2022’s scathing “N95” as if in training for his chart-topping 2024 diss track “Not Like Us”, powered by his ultra-public feud with one-time collaborator Drake. The same year’s “squabble up” and “tv off” reinforced both his fiery focus and talent for polyphonic delivery, slipping between voices as often as needed to hammer home his commentary on hip-hop and wider popular culture alike.