Scenes

Some think that Young Thugs elastic, start-stop flow and roaming, stream-of-conscious lyrics make him future of rap, while others question hes merely a Lil Wayne clone given way too much hype. Make up your mind via this excellent overview from Beats Neil Martinez-Belkin, which features early hits and guest appearances.

If you’re into art-scarred, synth-driven, post-industrial music made in Brooklyn, you’re probably a fan of the Sacred Bones label. From the assaultive noise of Pharmakon to the jerky, tattered nihilism of Jenny Hval, they’ve formed an aesthetic that captures a certain post-Trump anxiety. It’s the sort of music that you want when shit goes down, and, via their Facebook page, Sacred Bones release a playlist of music they listen to when their own shit goes down. It’s mood-board music that oscillates between the sad neu-antiquity of Karen Dalton, the kitschy gothic folk of Current 93, and a genocidal dirge from Big Star. Play after the funeral (or the apocalypse).

The vast swathes of the Sahel and Sahara regions in West Africa may not look like much from a map, but for centuries they’ve been criss-crossed by trading caravans and pilgrims, creating unique migration patterns and allowing for the exchange of food, language, and ideas. So it’s no surprise that today this sandy and arid region is home to multiple generations of musicians who’ve embraced the key instrument of American and European rock ’n’ roll.From Timbuktu to Agadez, singers and songwriters have embraced the guitar as a mode of expression and musical reinvention. The instrument is believed to have distant roots in the Sahara region, as West Africans taken to North America during the transatlantic slave trade brought with them songs and dances that went onto inform the music of future bluesmen like Robert Johnson. The blues were reinvented again by Ali Farka Touré, the Malian singer and songwriter famed for his mesmerizing guitar style. But there’s also Tuareg bands like Tinariwen, who first picked up guitars in the 1980s as a way to articulate the struggles and sadness of their generation, as the Tuareg people were beset by displacement, drought and later took up arms in rebellions against the governments of Niger and Mali.Today, the recording industry and international festival circuit is packed with now-familiar names from the Sahara region, including younger generations of artists like the Sahrawi singer/songwriter Aziza Brahim and the electric guitar virtuoso Mdou “Bombino” Moctar from the frontier city of Agadez in Niger. This playlist reflects the many talents who come from this rich modern tradition.

The emergence of a viable rap scene in Seattle didn’t happen overnight. Even as Macklemore & Ryan Lewis briefly took over the pop airwaves with “Thrift Shop” in 2012, less-celebrated artists were determining the future of the Northwest city’s sound. In fact, much of the Seattle rap underground resembles other U.S. homegrown scenes that formed in the wake of indie rap icons like Lil B and Odd Future: The music is amorphous and electronic, the lyrics tend toward chemically enhanced streams-of-consciousness, and there are enough sonic quirks to make you want to crawl down a SoundCloud wormhole.Shabazz Palaces’ surreal, Afrocentric-inspired treatises are a touchstone, as are Blue Sky Black Death’s cloud rap symphonies. The latter worked with Nacho Picasso, who then formed the Moor Gang collective with Jarv Dee and Gifted Gab. Shabazz Palaces’ Black Constellation crew attracted THEESatisfaction and Chimurenga Renaissance—who coined the popular event and meme “Black Weirdo” before disbanding in 2016—and influenced avant-rap artists like Porter Ray and Tay Sean. Then there’s Thraxxhouse, a crew formed by Mackned and Key Nyata who take inspiration from internet oddities like Florida’s Raider Klan.Unfairly or not, there’s some lingering resentment in the city toward Macklemore, whose huge successes have overshadowed the city much as Sir Mix-A-Lot did with “Baby Got Back” in the ‘90s. (We declined to include all the diss songs aimed at the rapper on this playlist.) No one seems capable of ascending to the same commercial heights, although Eighty4 Fly has earned over 1 million streams on SoundCloud with his 2012 trippy smoker tune “Kush High.” But maybe that’s the status quo the Emerald City prefers: a micro-scene dictated by industrious talents instead of pop novelty.

Dummy Magazine has an interesting artist-curated playlist series that focuses on very specific themes or motifs and engages some truly knowledgable figures, thus avoiding the cliched, self-serving, PR-crafted "artist-curated" playlists that plague mainstream music services. This one looks at the 10 best "proto grime" tracks. Theyve tapped DJ Logan Sama, who has been connected to the grime and underground hip-hop and electronic scenes in the UK for the past decade.

This list is great. One could argue that there’s too much Chi Ali and not enough Queen Latifah, or that “Jazz (We’ve Got)” doesn’t belong in the top 10, or that the list would be better if they opened it up to Native Tongue “affiliates” such as The Beatnuts or Pharcyde. But, really, it’s fine. The tighter focus on the core Native Tongue members makes it more cohesive and gives the playlist a flow as it progresses from the rougher sketches that dominate the early tracks (the playlist is in reverse order) to the tighter, tauter “classic” songs in the top 20. Why this all only kind of works, and one of the great tragedies of the digital era, is that only 57 of the 100 greatest Native Tongues tracks are currently available on Spotify. This is largely, though not entirely, due to sample clearance issues around De La Soul’s catalog. De La does show up on “Fallin’,” their collaboration with Teenage Fanclub from the “Judgement Night” soundtrack. The song reminds us of everything we love about that group — their competing pull of whimsy and melancholy; the back-of-the-classroom absurdity that gives way to twilight-youth pathos and then comes full circle as that sadness loses focus and dissipates into fits of giggling.

Any list that limits the most important rap capital of the past decade to just 50 songs is bound to be an argument starter. But Maurice Garland is well-equipped for such a task, having covered the scene since the early 2000s as a writer, tastemaker and current radio talk host (often with political firebrand Killer Mike). While theres one too many Kilo Ali songs, and a few curious choices (Gucci Manes "Pillz" over "Freaky Gurl" and "Lemonade"?), this is a solid reflection of the vaunted rap history of the ATL. -- Mosi ReevesNote: Not all of these songs are on Spotify, hence the playlist having less than 50 tracks.

Photograph: Misha Vladimirskiy/FilterlessBrainfeeder got its start in 2008 as an imprint for the landmark LA producer/DJ Flying Lotus. And while it took a few years to find it’s footing, it’s now home to some of music’s most progressive artists. From the hazy lo-fi beat experiments of Teebs and Lapalux to the rich jazz fusion of Kamasi Washington, the label’s sound is constantly expanding and changing, but there are some clear through-lines: a tendency towards jerky rhythms overlaid by ambient textures, an abiding belief in the idea (if not always the sound) of free jazz, and a relentless pursuit of turning over the next musical stone.

As part of his excellent System Focus monthly column, Adam Harper looks at how global dance culture is using the tresillo rhythm, the fundamental triplet rhythm where two beats fit in the place of two. It becomes easy to spot once you look for it, and you can hear in much of Cuban and Latin music. Harper looks at how many underground producers have been using this in more non-traditional ways. He looks at its applications in grime, UK funky, experimental/collage, and reggaeton. The entire post is worth a read, and the playlist is really great, but the money quote:

A simple rhythm bounces back and forth over the once vast Atlantic ocean, ever faster. It begins in Sub-Saharan Africa, but Europeans brutally pull it up by the roots—slaves bring it with them on a long journey to the Caribbean. By the nineteenth century it has become the defining element in the Afro-Cuban dance habanera, which finds its way to New Orleans where it helps form ragtime, then to South America, where it contributes to tango, and to Europe, where it becomes the most famous section of one of the eras most popular operas, Carmen. It also spreads across the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa and back again, and its descendents meet and collaborate, now using recordings and drum machines. Soon it doesnt even need to touch the water. Ricocheting off satellites and barreling down cables, it permeates the information sphere, with space and place just an interesting footnote on a Soundcloud profile.

First off, what the hell is The Triangle? Technically speaking, it’s shorthand for Research Triangle Park, a massive slab of subtly rolling hills in the center of North Carolina that’s home to a whole mess of tech companies. Informally, however, it refers to the cities and college towns surrounding the RTP, namely Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. Most fans of indie music are well aware of the area’s bona fides: It is (or at one time was) the home of Superchunk and the Merge Records empire, a young Ben Folds Five, cult faves Archers of Loaf, and John Darnielle, the super-learned tunesmith behind The Mountain Goats, who just dropped their latest album, the wonderfully idiosyncratic Goths.So yeah, The Triangle is highly respected as a place where important music is created. At the same time, the region is underrated because it doesn’t quite strike the same level of reverence and cool as the similarly sized Seattle, Austin, or Portland. Perhaps its greatest quality is the sheer breadth of music it has churned out: In addition to all that legendary indie music, it has been a home for genre-defining thrash (Corrosion of Conformity), punk blues (Flat Duo Jets), swing revivalism (Squirrel Nut Zippers), hip-hop (Lords of the Underground), electro-pop (Sylvan Esso), and experimental noise (Secret Boyfriend).Now, a good deal of this music exists because The Triangle overflows with creative kids and arty weirdos attending one of its gazillion universities. But that’s only half the story, amazingly enough: It’s also served as a major hub for Southern vernacular music, like blues, country, and folk, since the early 20th century. Indeed, these artists may actually outnumber the many indie and alternative bands in the area. In addition to the Carolina Chocolate Drops, one of the most lauded old-time revival outfits in the United States, there’s campfire folk troubadour Hiss Golden Messenger, absurdly soulful singer/songwriter Tift Merritt, and American Primitive banjoist Nathan Bowles.Outside of Austin, or perhaps Memphis, what other scene in the U.S. boasts such an amazing balance between the modern and cutting edge and the folksy and down-home? The Dowsers guarantee that this will be the only playlist you’ll hear all week with synths, atonal guitars, and banjos.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.