megiapa‘s debut album, Intentions, channels funk, jazz, and R&B into tracks about yearning, loving, lamenting, and more paving the road for a brilliant career.
Release date: September 25, 2026 | International Anthem Recordings | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp
Do people still follow record labels? I know I do, but before the internet was as invasive and prominent as it is today, hell, before the internet, even, finding a record label with a few acts on it that you enjoyed was a great way to discover new music, under the radar stuff, stuff you maybe wouldn’t see published in magazines or blogs. In that way, through CD samplers or mailing lists, you could rely on certain labels to be tastemakers. I remember owning and talking about Epitaph‘s Punk-o-Rama compilation CDs with my friends. To this day, if I hear a song from one of those CDs, I anticipate the next song from the compilation, by a different artist, to play afterwards. Anyway, being a fan of a record label is one of the ways I learned to follow music. It is one of the ways I still follow music, and I am unsure if younger folks do the same. Regardless, one label I have been following for some years now is International Anthem, a jazz label out of Chicago.
International Anthem consistently releases some of the best modern jazz you can find, a legacy building goal of any good jazz label, including Makaya McCraven, Jeff Parker, SML, Ben Lamar Gay, and many others. Their signees remain groundbreaking and enthralling year after year, so it is through one of their announcements that I first heard megiapa, a multi-disciplinary artist who makes her debut with Intentions, a record that fits more into R&B than jazz. Of course, R&B and jazz are not strangers to each other. Their shared history is many decades deep, but this release does feel a little more off kilter than International Anthem‘s usual excursions into experimental music. Intentions isn’t exactly a modern or even classic R&B record, either, compared to say, Allysha Joy‘s jazzy R&B on Gondwana Records (another top tier jazz label to follow).
“Open Your Eyes” kicks things off with a chunky slap bass and loops of a kind of jingly sound while megiapa harmonizes to her own layered vocals. The track feels funky and dreamy as additional layers of synths and organ join in the wall of sound. For all of its density, there remains an approachable pop song kind of feel to it until it deconstructs, slowly letting parts drop away to slow the tempo and tension to clear room for “….!”, a hazy funk/jazz number that is largely instrumental, built around loops and samples. I like to imagine it is from something like this that megiapa composes her work, adding lyrics and vocals to ideas built from samplers and then adding additional instrumental textures and melodies as she sees fit.
In fact, megiapa had a run of self-produced singles that became more of a focus during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. From the strength of these singles and EPs, she honed her skills as a composer and songwriter before a longtime friendship with International Anthem led to the fully realized Intentions which features additional musicians and vocalists to flesh out her sounds and vision. Funk plays a key influence, as tracks like “Dreaming About You” feature bass licks that could fit anywhere between Funkadelic and Thundercat. A bevvy of synth and keyboard choices as well as vocal effects carry this funk idea further throughout the album. “( ( on the spaceway ) )” and the excellent “Black Gold of the Sun” carry these funk tones into the cosmos, imagining a different kind of afterlife and affirmation.
The funk is just one influence, however, as the flutes and swirling synths on “Black Gold of the Sun” take the listener into more jazzy and psychedelic realms. Meanwhile, “To Enjoy” feels much more rooted in hip hop and contemporary R&B, at least as far as the beat goes. This track still sounds like a cosmic journey on LSD. My point is, describing these tracks a funky and trippy doesn’t really describe what megiapa is doing on Intentions. “Cant Believe”, for example, is a smooth as butter R&B track that maintains all of the lightly funky, jazzy, and cosmic approaches employed thus far. Lyrically, much of the album lives in the traditional R&B space of songs about longing for, loving in, and lamenting about relationships. Songs centered on relationships aren’t usually my thing. There are too many of them to maintain interest, but musically these tracks stand a cut above most any songs of similar themes. The sample heavy, spoken word interlude “wishing (u) well” is a masterclass in using samples to tell a complex story, approaching love and loss from multiple viewpoints.
Though a brief interlude, this track feels like the linchpin that connects the many intentions megiapa has put to record through this collection of songs. Black spirituality, funk, jazz, R&B, moments about choosing your own strength and working on yourself contrasted with tracks of giving yourself over to the throes of love and passion coalesce into an album with multiple Intentions while somehow sounding like a whole statement. megaiapa‘s sweet voice connects every detour to the same destination. If actions ultimately matter more than intent, than Intentions is the happy result, a sharp, smooth, and groovy foray into the possibilities of music without clear genres, as if pieces of Black music from the 1970’s onward were synthesized into a cohesive R&B album released on the best jazz label in the world.
