FKA Twigs and Blood Orange both play the Anthem, plus Meshell Ndegeocello at Strathmore and more.
With spring in sight, D.C. music fans can look forward to taking in sounds that command the body to move and the mind to expand, with styles that recontextualize the past for the future.
Blood Orange
For more than a decade, major figures in the pop world have existed, at most, six degrees from Dev Hynes, the 40-year-old English talent who records as Blood Orange. Hynes has written and produced for artists including Mariah Carey, Solange, Lorde and Daniel Caesar, and his Rolodex looms large on last year's "Essex Honey." On his latest album, Hynes recruits Caroline Polachek to nod to post-punk originals the Durutti Column and brings together Turnstile's Brendan Yates and Everything but the Girl's Ben Watt, among other left-field collaborations. The album works to find a path forward through grief and loss, using nostalgia for more than just stylistic pastiche, as twinkling meditations open up to reveal dance floor catharsis. (March 3 at 8 p.m. at the Anthem. theanthemdc.com. Sold out.)
FKA Twigs
Last year, FKA Twigs dabbled in etymology, coining "eusexua" as a term for a practice, state of being and "the pinnacle of human experience" that is equal parts nothingness and pure focus. On a same-named album and its sequel, "Eusexua Afterglow," the singer-songwriter-dancer foregrounded the connection between a night on the dance floor and one in bed with a lover. The beat shifts tempos and rhythms but never stops across both albums; the same will probably be true on the D.C. stop of her Body High Tour. (March 18 at 8 p.m. at the Anthem. theanthemdc.com. $73.35-$365.20.)
Rochelle Jordan
The last few years have not lacked for albums from artists creating R&B's electronic future, whether from FKA Twigs, Sudan Archives or Keiyaa. Rochelle Jordan is a key figure in this wave, having reemerged after a seven-year hiatus with 2021's "Play With the Changes," an album that shifted the backing from traditional R&B to beats drawn from U.K. garage and drum 'n' bass. On last year's "Through the Wall," the British-Canadian singer evoked memories of '90s diva house and turn-of-the-millennium beatcraft by Timbaland and the Neptunes. (March 25; doors open at 7 p.m. at 9:30 Club. 930.com. Sold out.)
Robert Glasper & Lalah Hathaway
Award-winning pianist-producer Robert Glasper consistently keeps the street fed with albums that tickle the connective tissue between jazz, R&B and hip-hop, but he was especially prolific last couple of years. On "Code Derivation," he highlighted these connections by contrasting jazz compositions with remixes by the likes of Hi-Tek, Black Milk and his son, Riley Glasper, while "Keys to the City Volume One" that was captured during his annual residency at the Blue Note in New York and features collaborators including Thundercat and Black Thought. His latest visit to D.C. features another collaborator in soul singer Lalah Hathaway. (March 5 at 8 p.m. at Warner Theatre. warnertheatredc.com. Sold out.)
Meshell Ndegeocello
Artists like Blood Orange and Robert Glasper owe a great deal to Meshell Ndegeocello, the singer-poet-bassist who has been cross-pollinating musical styles ever since coming of age in D.C.'s go-go scene in the 1980s. Back in 2024, Ndegeocello performed at the Strathmore and paid homage to James Baldwin with "No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin," selections of which have dominated her recent set lists. (March 27 at 8 p.m. at the Music Center at Strathmore. strathmore.org. $28-$78.)
Sabrina Claudio
Although she received a Grammy nomination for her contributions on Beyoncé's "Renaissance," Sabrina Claudio's solo music is less dance-floor oriented than Bey's 2022 concept album. Instead, the Miami-born singer-songwriter has built a discography around the soothing sounds of quiet storm R&B, all sweeping melodies, gentle keys and guitar and swelling productions.
Show Me the Body
Machine Girl and Lust$ickPuppy take electronic music in the internet age to its logical conclusion, pushing beats and collage-like compositions into noise that annihilates, with lyrics that are politically potent and equally extreme. Opening act Show Me the Body also makes extreme music, albeit songs that feel more organic, in the way that the New York crew draws from hardcore punk, hip-hop and beyond -- making its recently released cover of "Sabotage" by NYC progenitors the Beastie Boys even more apt.