In the two plus years since Kamasi Washington dropped The Epic, his appropriately titled three-CD bonanza of Afrocentric post-bop sound, there has been a revolution in the world of jazz—and some of it was televised. Its no longer uncommon for a jazz musician to play sold-out rock arenas and headline major festivals. And its no longer odd to see jazz on hip-hop playlists, be it tracks by Washingtons West Coast Get Down associates like Josef Leimberg, Miles Mosley, or Terrace Martin, or by hip, think-outside-the-box jazz players like Robert Glasper, Makaya McCraven, or Jeff Parker. Washingtons first release since The Epic—the new six-part EP, Harmony of Difference—arrives to a different scene.Harmony of Difference is the soundtrack to a film by A.G. Rojas that premiered during the Biennial at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art in March 2017, and it shows the growth and diversification of Washingtons sound. He already draws heavily from the often overlooked glory days of the early 70s when musicians extended the jazz tradition into rock, funk, and African music. Deeper grooves power some of the tracks on Harmony, and the solos are more concise—where The Epics definitive tracks clocked in at longer than 10 minutes, the best music here often comes in under six. All of Washington’s stylistic advances are represented on “Truth,” which also provides a nifty recapitulation of what made The Epic so special, with its robust rhythms, a choir carrying a soaring melody, and a solo that would do John Coltrane proud. Its jazz eclecticism at its best—music that is both inclusive and deeply artful.But while his music can seem otherworldly, Washingtons bold new sound didnt land from outer space. The tracks on this playlist take you through his roots and influences, the current jazz movement he helped create, and the genre’s future.
Chicago native Kanye West is one of midwest hip-hop’s biggest stars, and he made his name producing hits for JAY-Z and other New York rappers. But West has maintained his relevance over the years in part by keeping a finger on the pulse of southern hip-hop, drafting rising stars from Atlanta, Houston, and Miami to appear on his albums and producing hits for Dirty South stars like Ludacris and Jeezy. Most recently, he served as “executive producer” on Atlanta trio Migos’ new album, Culture II, where he co-produced the 21 Savage collaboration “BBO (Bad Bitches Only).”Kanye West’s track record below the Mason-Dixon line dates back to the late ‘90s and early 2000s, when he was a relatively unknown producer placing tracks with southern trailblazers like Goodie Mob and Scarface. In 2003, he notched his first No. 1 on the Hot 100 producing Ludacris’ club banger “Stand Up,” along with a pair of tracks on an album that would help define the next wave of southern rap, T.I.’s Trap Muzik. Over the next few years, as West became a solo star who bridged many divides in hip-hop, he became the kind of rare stylistic chameleon who could make trap hits with Jeezy or screwed ’n’ chopped grooves with Paul Wall in between his excursions into east-coast boom bap and futuristic EDM.As the founder of G.O.O.D. Music, Kanye West has signed Atlantans 2 Chainz and CyHi The Prynce, and helped mentor Houston rapper/producer Travis Scott. G.O.O.D.’s 2016 posse cut “Champions” brought together some of the above with Gucci Mane, Yo Gotti, and Quavo. Some of Kanye’s southern collaborations are better off forgotten, like the treacly Future duet “I Won” and the ill-fated Lex Luger-produced Watch The Throne single “H.A.M.” But by and large, Kanye West has been present for moments of greatness in southern rap, from Scarface’s The Fix to Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III.
This post is part of our program, The Story of Kendrick, an in-depth, 10-part look at the life and music of Kendrick Lamar. Sound cool and want to receive the other installments in your inbox? Go here. Already signed up and enjoying it? Help us get the word out and share on Facebook, Twitter, or with this link. Your friends will thank you.
Long after MTV died, the golden age of music videos began. Freed from the constraints of corporate gatekeepers, cutting edge artists such as Kaytranada and ANOHNI crafted videos that were elegant and deeply personal, while established icons such as Gorillaz and Björk pushed technological boundaries in videos that were innovative and pleasantly disorienting.Perhaps no artist has taken such care at crafting a specific visual language as Kendrick Lamar. His videos not only function as promotional visual elements, but serve as an apocrypha of sorts, expanding and exploring the ideas put forth on his knotty, intricate tracks. A great example of this is “Alright.” Shot in stark black-and-white, and oscillating between locations in the Bay and Los Angeles, the visual maintains the loose narrative flow and spoken word interludes of To Pimp a Butterfly, but it’s most effective at playing with signifiers of a police state. Cops loom in the background, glaring out of police cars or aiming air pistols at protesters; Kendrick floats above the proceedings, seemingly hovering between transcendence and resistance. “Alright”—alongside Kendrick’s other best videos—achieve a sort of synesthesia, reflecting, both thematically and aesthetically, the MCs knotty but celebratory survey of modern blackness. “King Kunta” may be the most purely euphoric representation of inner-city life committed to video.Kendrick’s fans have responded to this approach, though Kendrick’s ascent to the top of the pop world has been a slower burn than most. As of this writing, Lamar has over two million YouTube channel subscribers and nearly 700 million overall views. While he has numerous videos that have been viewed over 50 million times, his latest clip, for Damn.’s leadoff single, “Humble,” was viewed 53 million times on YouTube in its first week. As a point of reference, it took previous singles “i,” “Alright,” and “King Kunta” months to reach this milestone, and, if projections hold, “Humble” will easily be his most successful single to date. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLemeQ5_nNS5VYdUxIWSd14cT1vIAcniBcIt’s fitting: Kendrick’s time has come, and “Humble” feels like a coronation. The video is a collection of startling, uncanny imagery. A shot of Kendrick rapping in a cathedral and dressed as a bishop segues into one of him in all black, lying on a table and surrounded by women in bras and surgical masks who count hundred dollar bills. In another shot, Kendrick, dressed in a patterned Caddyshack polo shirt, smashes golf balls atop a run-down car in a Los Angeles aqueduct. And, in perhaps the video’s most iconic shot, the MC sits at the center of a recreation of da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”It’s easy to read the video’s themes as a meditation on the role of spirituality and religion in an increasingly secular society—topics that have become increasingly prevalent in the MCs work—but the video also reflects a technical acumen, an understanding and willingness to recontextualize pop culture signifiers. Much has been made of Kendrick as an icon for a new, woke generation, but, first and foremost, Kendrick is a badass rap stylist who makes videos that are visually stunning.
You may not be as excited as a lot of people are to have Kesha Rose Sebert back in action. But even the very worst of haters ought to give her a chance to make a second impression after what she’s been through.After she spent the first years of the decade establishing herself as pop’s preeminent hard-rocking, fast-talking, tik-tok-ing party girl, things came off the rails when her already rocky relationship with producer Dr. Luke took a toxic turn in 2014. The charges and counter-charges—including sexual assault and battery, unfair business practices, and much more from her side—put her in the starring role in a legal drama so ugly, it made the “Blurred Lines” case seems like 10 benign minutes in traffic court. Though that drama is hardly over, developments earlier this year freed her from the conditions that prevented her releasing any new music for three years.During that time, she did her best to convey her feelings through other people’s songs. Of course, that was far from ideal for a singer who’s long prided herself on being a songwriter, too— she clearly took far more satisfaction in her co-writing credits for Britney Spears and Big Time Rush than for any hook-up with Flo Rida. But at least Kesha’s choice of covers on recent tours—a smattering that ranges from Lesley Gore to Eagles of Death Metal—has proven she has a wider, more surprising set of musical tastes than was evident from the over-abundance of would-be club bangers on her two albums. Nor should the abundance of Bob Dylan tributes over the years—like her exquisite cover of “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right” from 2012’s Chimes of Freedom tribute—be quite so surprising given the number of times she’s namedNashville Skyline as her favorite album.In fact, Kesha’s been eager to show off her affinities for classic rock, punk, and alt-rock since well before it all went sideways. When not citing The Damned as heroes, she was palling around with Alice Cooper and getting assists from The Strokes, The Black Keys’ Patrick Carney and Iggy Pop. And while that fabled Flaming Lips/Kesha collaboration—nicknamed Lip$ha—may have been sucked into a legal void from which it has yet to escape, we still got a tantalizing taste thanks to her mind-bending appearance on The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends.So as for all those haters and doubters who didn’t miss her, I say: You don’t know what you were missing. To mark the arrival of her third album Rainbow, here’s a set of her most adventurous and most surprising songs, and many more she loves, which should demonstrate there was always more to her than she got credit for… though maybe that’s about to change.
Before we had RIYL algorithms and Spotify discovery playlists, we had Kurt Cobain. The Nirvana frontman wasn’t just one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed alt-rock artists of the early ‘90s, he was also its foremost tastemaker. Cobain’s conflicted relationship with fame has been well documented, but one benevolent side effect of his discomfort in the spotlight was that he used every opportunity to redirect it onto lesser-known artists, and not just ones from his immediate community. While the media was hyping the Seattle scene, Cobain was leading impressionable kids down underground pathways that extended from Scotland to Japan.This was a guy who could get an obscure, out-of-print punk record reissued through a major label by name-dropping it an interview, or who could effectively play armchair A&R rep and score a deal for an unsung artist just by wearing their t-shirt. Even if only a tiny fraction of the 10 million people who bought Nevermind were willing to check out a record based on his recommendation, it was enough to turn groups like Shonen Knife into international club headliners, and enough to transform The Wipers’ once-obscure early ‘80s releases into canonical punk classics for future generations to discover.Since his 1994 suicide, Cobain’s life and work have been put under the microscope many times over, through numerous biographies, documentaries, and barrel-scraping box sets. But one of the most illuminating pieces of detritus can be found in the 2002 scrapbook Journals: a handwritten list of his 50 favorite albums of all time. It’s a document that illustrates how, behind all the disaffected cool, Cobain was just a list-making music nerd like the rest of us. And based on the most recent entry—PJ Harvey’s 1992 debut Dry—it was a practice he indulged in even after his face was all over Rolling Stone and MTV. (He even divided his entries with lines as if he were designing the flippable label cards in his own imaginary jukebox.)
You can listen to selections from each of the records on the master playlist above. (Note: we included a song from each side of The Faith/Void split LP, bringing our track total up to 51. Also, the What Is It California-punk compilation he lists isnt on Spotify, though the Germs songs featured on it can be sourced from other releases.) But for a more in-depth look at how these records inspired Cobain—whether musically or philosophically—we’ve broken down his picks by category and created subsidiary playlists below that feature some of his picks alongside the Nirvana songs they inspired.
Like many kids born in the late ‘60s, Kurt’s first musical obsession was The Beatles. Their melodic sensibility formed a crucial strain of his musical DNA that withstood his eventual conversion to punk, leading to breakthrough moments like “About a Girl.” (Tellingly, Kurt’s favorite Fab Four record isn’t a typical muso pick like Revolver or the White Album, but the band’s winsome U.S. debut, Meet the Beatles, whose brevity and simplicity are more compatible with his passion for DIY indie rock.) Meanwhile, his adolescent affinity for mid-‘70s Aerosmith was entrenched enough that he would (partially) name a song after them, and while David Bowie was a less obvious influence on Nirvana, the band’s reverential cover of “The Man Who Sold the World” forged their spiritual connection with rock’s original iconoclast. But Kurt was also willing to own up to inspiration from less-respected hit-makers—listen to the verses of The Knack’s “Good Girls Don’t,” and you’ll hear the sort of slack, sardonic delivery he brought to Nirvana songs like “On a Plain.” His list also betrays a growing fascination with ’40s folk pioneer Lead Belly that would ultimately yield one of Cobain’s most chilling performances.
Kurt’s list reveals a typical punk-rock initiation process: You’ve got the pioneers (The Stooges, the Sex Pistols), their more extreme hardcore spawn (Black Flag, Fear), the detouring post-punk experimentalists (Public Image Ltd., Gang of Four), and the mutant recombinant offspring who fuse and abuse all of the above (Flipper, Butthole Surfers). It’s the last iteration that had the most audible impact on Nirvana, particularly on bludgeoning Bleach-era tracks like “Paper Cuts” (which bears both the bone- and soul-crushing heft of ‘80s Swans), Incesticide oddities like “Hairspray Queen” (which finds Kurt squealing like a young Gibby Haynes), and In Utero crushers like “Milk It” and “Scentless Apprentice” (where Kurt chews on the tin foil spit out by Scratch Acid’s David Yow). And then there’s the only band to earn three slots on Kurt’s list: Portland underground demigods The Wipers, whose relentless momentum and hoarse-throat hooks set the fiery pace for Nirvana corkers like “Breed” and “Territorial Pissings.” (Funnily enough, after once admitting that The Clash’s Sandinista! disappointed him as a kid because it didn’t align with his perceptions of punk, Kurt includes the much more commercial follow-up, Combat Rock—perhaps as a commiserating reminder that he wasn’t the first punk who had to deal with becoming popular.)
Nirvana’s explosive success couldn’t have happened without the fuse-igniting efforts of their immediate alt-rock antecedents—both close to home and beyond. “Negative Creep” is essentially Mudhoney’s “Sweet Young Thing Ain’t Sweet No More” flipped from 33 rpm to 45. The crash/burn/rebuild structure of Sonic Youth’s “Silver Rocket” would reappear in smoothed-out form on the alternately rousing and brooding “Drain You.” The whisper-to-scream hysterics of the Pixies, can of course, be heard on any number of Nirvana songs, but bassist Kim Deal’s Breeders offshoot was an equally profound influence, with the nocturnal, string-scraped atmosphere of Pod filtering down to In Utero respites like “Dumb” and “Penny Royal Tea.” And though the radiant, paisley-patterned jangle of R.E.M.’s Green may not be as perceptible, the wry, self-reflexive quality of “Pop Song 89” feels like a spiritual successor to Nirvana’s own meta-rock commentaries, like “In Bloom.”
Embarrassed somewhat by Nevermind’s big-budget studio polish (which he infamously compared to a Mötley Crüe record), not to mention the increasingly slick nature of alternative rock, Kurt used his pop-star pulpit to champion the virtues of amateurism. In the collapsible sing-alongs of ‘60s outcasts The Shaggs, he heard something stranger and more radical than anything you could find on 120 Minutes. Through his beloved Vaselines, he learned how to balance playful melodies atop rickety punk-rock foundations. And in the solitary serenades of Daniel Johnston and the giddy garage-rock of Shonen Knife, he heard the purest manifestation of the childlike emotions he tried to access on songs like “Sliver.” But while his fondness for ramshackle post-punk and lo-fi indie pop brought out Nirvana’s more playful side (best heard on Incesticide’s odds ‘n’ sods and the more whimsical moments of the MTV Unplugged set), for Kurt, that music also represented an effective weapon for dismantling rock’s patriarchal power structure. Nirvana may not bear the direct musical influence of minimalist, female-fronted bands like The Raincoats, Young Marble Giants, and Kleenex, nor is there anything in their catalog resembling the homoerotic joke-folk hijinks of The Frogs, but they undoubtedly inspired him to become the preeminent male-feminist and pro-gay rock star of his generation, one who was willing to write indictments of rape (“Polly”) and machismo (“Mr. Moustache”), and who happily used his liner notes to tell the racist and homophobic jocks in his audience to fuck off. (Though one cant help but wonder if, he were around today to make a similar Top 50 list in this post-poptimist age, he might include more than one hip-hop record.)SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave
Lana Del Rey promised us everything from the start: "Its you, its you, its all for you / Everything I do," she sang on 2011s "Video Games." Since then, shes remained completely committed to that line, doing everything in her power to continue to shock and seduce us with her purrs, her pouts, and her pen. As a songwriter, Lana Del Rey is utterly fearless. Some have even suggested she may just be the American Morrissey. Sure, shes just as romantic and melodramatic. But shes also crude and brash, sexy and sincere, and her sardonic side is vastly underrated. Though her tragic tales may be rife with clichés, her evocative telling of them remains her most intoxicating trait. Her fantasies and failures come alive in every vivid color, but what keeps us coming back for more is her unabashed openness: Shell tell you exactly what she wants, when she wants it, and how shes gonna get it. Here are 10 of Lana Del Reys sultriest, most biting lines.
Dont fall for it. Shes not unhinged—this girls completely in control.
This is our "gangsta Nancy Sinatra" playing it coy.
Lana 101: Anytime you want to tease and provoke, you can always debase religion…
…or patriotism…
…or multinational corporations.
We wonder if she recommends dosing daily?
The femme fatale finds her weakness.
She knows self-denial is never a good look…
…neither is holding on to a low-down loser.
Only Lana can get away with tying you up then setting your hot summer fling on fire.
A wide-ranging combination of Latin folklore and Anglo alt-rock form the crux of Latin alternative music. As inventive players paved paths to niche subcultures that shifted further from mainstream pop, rock and Latin regionalism over the years, they also opened up an immense portal of global yet Latin-minded formations. Whether artists pulled from radio-friendly pop (e.g. Paulina Rubio, Mariah Carey) or their parents’ classic rock (e.g., Los Locos del Ritmo, Elvis), this bicultural/multicultural recipe inspired game-changers to create a like-minded identity, with plenty of attitude.From vintage-synth-loving Chileans like Javiera Mena, Gepe, or Alex Anwandter producing rosey-tinted indie-pop, to electro-folkloric producers in Argentina (Chancha Via Circuito), Colombia (Bomba Estéreo), Ecuador (Nicola Cruz), and Peru (Dengue Dengue Dengue) ushering in a new digital cumbia enigma, the ever-elastic art form is essentially without boundaries.So what does it mean for brown-eyed soul troubadours like Chicano Batman to grow up on low-rider funk and Motown-style oldies at an L.A. swap meet? Or Mexican charro-clad rockeros Mexrrissey finding kinship with melancholic Manchester pop icon Morrissey? Or even Cuban/Puerto Rican soulstress Xenia Rubinos displaying an affinity for ‘50s-era jazz chanteuses and open-mic MCs alike? From hip-hop to electronic to folk and urban, this Latin-rooted concoction continues to flourish and take unprecedented shapes throughout the Americas and Spain.By no means is this a comprehensive list of the scene’s countless configurations, but instead a starting point for newcomers to explore Latin alternative’s numerous stylistic configurations, and to familiarize themselves with the compelling works of Latinx artists of Latin America, the diaspora, and beyond. (Heads up: you won’t find any Shakiras, Romeo Santos, or J. Los here.)
When rock made its entry into Latin America many moons ago (notably around the time Elvis Presley debuted in the continent during the ‘50s), it spawned a bevy of “refried Elvises” or imitators replicating The King’s style but with Spanish lyrics. Most Latin American bands spent decades aping the rock aesthetic coming out of America and the U.K., until the ‘80s. An unprecedented approach to the style took shape and musicians began to finally embrace their roots, fusing anything from brass melodies to boleros to cumbias and sones—all against traditional rock instrumentation—thus acquiring their own musical identity. Groups like Argentinean dance-punk agitators Todos Tus Muertos, Spain’s New Wave provocateurs Radio Futura, and Mexican dark-wave cumbieros Caifanes are among the slew of innovators to unflinchingly mix regional styles with rock arrangements.
While the rock en español forefathers of the 1980s laid the groundwork for the south-of-the-border movement (Spain included), it took until the following decade for the scene to explode globally. Each project stood as its own original fusion: Mexico’s Maldita Vecindad, armed with a boisterous sax, adopted pachuco swagger; Chile’s Los Prisioneros made rebellious synth-punk; Argentina’s Los Fabulosos Cadillacs created rowdy murga-driven ska; and Spain/France’s Manu Chao spreaded lover’s-rock bohemianism. The foundations, however, were similar: Each rebellious outfit delivered their own socio-political agenda while commanding the dance floor, or mosh pit.
As the scene reconfigured approaching the new millennium, acts who showed insatiable lasting power (like Café Tacvba, Babasónicos, Zoé) branched out of the then-tiresome rock en español category, and joined the new cohort of Latin alternative iconoclasts. Labels like Nacional Records, the forward-thinking U.S.-based Latin alternative imprint, helped to solidify this new movement. They housed luminary groups like Nortec Collective, a DJ/producer crew from Tijuana who mash-up norteñas and techno; the feisty Bomba Estéreo, who took electro-cumbias outside of Colombia; and French-Chilean rapper/poetess Ana Tijoux, who brought silky smooth rap verses that resonate across the diaspora. Others like ZZK Records—the Buenos Aires digital cumbia collective that began as an underground party—gathered electro-folk-minded DJ/producers like Chancha via Circuito, Frikstailers, and Lagartigeando. Santiago’s Quemasucabeza capitalized on the aforementioned rising electro-pop scene of Chile. And Monterrey, Mexico had its own alternative boom called la avanzada regia (a scene the channeled a similar spirit as Seattle’s grunge movement). It birthed the wild dance rock of Plastilina Mosh, Control Machete’s vicious rap-punk, and the electro-rock brilliance of Kinky.
With the Latin alternative ethos well established, the ever-elastic umbrella continues to mold, expand, and morph into further subgroups. This decade, spectators have witnessed the rise of the singer.songwriter—through Carla Morrison’s wounded confections, Ximena Sariñana’s heartbreaking jazz-pop, or Natalia Lafourcade’s rustic pop elegance. And while Latin trap, reggaetón, and all-things urban keep topping the mainstream charts, underground rap prodigies like Princess Nokia, cholo-goths Prayers, and R&B soulstress Kali Uchis formed a resistance to commercialism, adopting an unflinching mindset that’s on par with the Latin alternative philosophy. Cumbia-gothics (La MiniTK Del Miedo), indie-mambo prodigies (Orkesta Mendoza), Brooklyn baile funk (Zuzuka Poderosa), and unruly punk norteños (e.g. A Band of Bitches, Juan Cirerol)—the beauty of Latin alternative is that it will never be restricted to one beat or style.
Subscribe to this playlist here.On “Suzanne,” the first song from Leonard Cohen’s debut album, Cohen positions Jesus Christ as a “broken” and “forsaken” figure who watches “drowning men” from a “lonely wood tower.” Cohen’s messiah is a cypher for longing and solitude — a totem for the lovesick and desperate. As a metaphor, it might seem bizarre, or even blasphemous, but twisting the sacred and profane into odd, interloping configurations became Cohen’s modus operandi for the next five decades. His most famous composition, “Hallelujah,” refashions the biblical story of David and Bathsheba into a tale of sexual obsession and, ultimately, spiritual transcendence; while the late-period classic “Show Me the Way” is a meditation on mortality that is addressed to either a savior or a dominatrix (or maybe both). For Cohen, faith is a complicated thing, but it’s ultimately humanistic and forgiving; it doesn’t seek to judge the transgressions of the sinner as much it attempts to understand our failures by chipping away at our ideals of divinity. It interjects tragedy into the holy order, and adds a whiff of squalor to the sacred spaces. It bridges the gap between heaven and earth. -- Sam Chennault
To be totally honest, I haven’t spent much time listening to Linkin Park lately, and I’m not familiar with their most recent albums. My Linkin Park phase was in high school—Hybrid Theory (2000), Reanimation (2002), Meteora (2003), and Collision Course (2004) came out during that time. At that point in my life, I was mostly a classical, jazz, and rap fan—I wasn’t into heavy rock or metal, so Linkin Park was the most intense thing I listened to in my teenage years. And as I think back on it, it seems bizarre that I liked the band so much, because they really didnt fit with anything else I was listening to. But it makes sense now, because the reach and scope of their music were powerful enough to grip people outside the typical realm of nu metal. There’s something almost transcendental about early Linkin Park. They were too anthemic to be fully nu metal (à la Korn, Limp Bizkit, or P.O.D.), too hip-hop to be rock, and too emo and mainstream to be “cool,” at least as far as what was considered cool among my peers. Theirs was a profoundly relatable music that flipped the script on what it was supposed to be. Their lyrics had a radically human core, one that embraced and tried to work through longing and alienation. These people were dealing with complex emotions like guilt and shame when the Dave Matthews Band—probably the most popular band in my community—was singing about getting high and ejaculating. And the actual music of Linkin Park was very intriguing, boasting intelligent percussion, authoritative washes of reverbed guitar, disciplined use of electronics, and methodical pacing. Listening to Meteora as an adult now, I’m still moved by its quality, its musicianship, and its acuity. Growing up before social media, in a fairly bland, conservative suburban community, I didn’t know a lot about the world of music. I don’t remember too much of what I listened to back then, but I do remember relating to the angst and hopelessness of Meteora in a powerful way. Linkin Park were basically my Smiths, and I’m fine with that. They were the therapeutic outlet that was available to me, and I’m glad they were. It’s sad that Chester Bennington is dead, because his music always pointed, more than anything, toward a desire for deliverance from pain. I don’t know whether he achieved that in the end, but I do know that his music was there for countless lost teenagers like myself.
They reimagined not only how the genre sounded, but how it felt. They changed the rhythm, and, by embracing compositional pastiche and kitschy psychedelic, they crafted music that was deeply cerebral and personal. And while they both heavily sampled jazz and soul — the dominant source for the boom bap era producers who served as their shared stylistic avatars — their palette was more expansive and worldly, privileging obscurity over nostalgia, grainy textures over raw masculine presence.You can hear echoes of their work in some of today’s most critically lauded and commercially successful music, from the space jazz symphonies of Flying Lotus to the pan-African milieu of Kendrick Lamar, the refactored soul of Frank Ocean or the jittery, jump-cut flow of Kanye’s Life of Pablo. For this playlist, we’ve collected their best.
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Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
