Your music is a reflection of who you are, so if you want your music to be a certain way, you have to be that way, otherwise it won't feel authentic. | | | | Kamasi Washington in Berlin, May 25, 2018. "Heaven and Earth" is out today on Young Turks.
(Frank Hoensch/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | "Your music is a reflection of who you are, so if you want your music to be a certain way, you have to be that way, otherwise it won't feel authentic."
| | | | | | rantnrave:// We are living in a time when KAMASI WASHINGTON is making records. This is reason to celebrate. Maybe you think music isn't what it used to be, maybe you think nothing is new or real anymore, maybe you yearn for FREDDIE HUBBARD or QUINCY JONES. But Kamasi Washington music that didn't exist yesterday exists today, and we should shout and wail with joy until our voices reach the ninth note of whatever scale we're on. Shout for orchestral jazz. For fusion. For Afrofuturism. For the sound of protest. For the affirmation of gospel. For the closeness of outer space. But music used to be better and there is no soul anymore, you say. Just like they said in 1987, right around the time PRINCE was making SIGN O' THE TIMES. And in 1998, when THE MISEDUCATION OF LAURYN HILL was being put to bed. They were still having the same conversation in 2010, the year of MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY. They said it in 1958 and they're saying it in 2018. With allowances for the occasional dips and dives of human existence and the normal ebb and flow of the collective creative consciousness, they have always been wrong. There is good jazz and there is good pop and there is good soul and there is good rock. Right now. For heaven's sake, this exists. We are living in a time when JANELLE MONÁE and KENDRICK LAMAR and CHILDISH GAMBINO and SOPHIE and SONS OF KEMET and KACEY MUSGRAVES and MARY LATTIMORE and ICEAGE are making new music. And Kamasi Washington and his band are reaching somewhere beyond. "We will no longer ask for justice. Instead, we will ask for retribution," singers PATRICE QUINN and DWIGHT TRIBLE repeat, like an incantation, right after the bandleader's lengthy tenor solo on "FISTS OF FURY," a reimagination of the theme from the BRUCE LEE film FIST OF FURY that opens the "Earth" side of Washington's double album HEAVEN AND EARTH. The piano and the percussion the woodwinds wrap around them, protecting them, fighting for them, calling out to all of us from somewhere deep within... Please stop killing jazz radio... SIMON RATTLE bows out... Arrest in XXXTentacion murder... It's FRIDAY and that means new music not only from Kamasi Washington but also DEATH GRIPS, BEBE REXHA, TEYANA TAYLOR, NINE INCH NAILS, FREDDIE GIBBS, BEST COAST, LECRAE & ZAYTOVEN, DAWES, PROJECT PABLO, PANIC! AT THE DISCO, GUNPLAY, LERA LYNN, JAMES WILLIAMSON & THE PINK HEARTS, JEFFREY FOUCAULT, THE RECORD COMPANY, PRISCILLA RENEA, THE ORB, GANG GANG DANCE, SOULWAX, FUEGO, WESTSIDE GUNN, THIS WILD LIFE, FREEWAY, THE SEA WITHIN and JILL BARBER. | | | - Matty Karas, curator | | | |  | MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY | | Lyor either doesn't understand or chooses to ignore Google's exploitative business model. | | | |  | The New York Times | | As the traveling punk-rock extravaganza begins its final full cross-country run, the women who performed on the male-dominated festival tell their stories. | | | |  | Rolling Stone | | Armed with a master's degree in architecture, decades of hip-hop fandom and rapper teachers, Mike Ford is quickly getting kids into building. | | | |  | Highsnobiety | | As they prepare to unveil their sixth studio album "Year of the Snitch," it's worth taking a moment to reflect on and give thanks to the fact that Death Grips even exists. Their very nature is one that seems to constantly be on the verge of self-implosion (which has, in fact, happened before). | | | |  | New Republic | | Music and math have always been linked, a new book explains. | | | |  | Vulture | | In much the same way that his compatriot Kendrick Lamar can make the Pulitzer Prize committee think deeply about modern hip-hop, Kamasi makes rap and pop fans consider jazz in a way it hasn't since the days of sourcing A Tribe Called Quest samples. | | | |  | The Late Late Show with James Corden | | James Corden heads to Liverpool for a special day with Paul McCartney exploring the city of Paul's youth, visiting his childhood home where he wrote music with John Lennon, performing songs in a local pub and of course driving around singing a few of Paul's biggest hits. | | | |  | Paper | | The mysterious producer is bringing trans identity to pop music. | | | |  | The Associated Press | | The five-day excavation revealed some non-mind blowing artifacts: parts of old aluminum can pull tabs, bits of broken bottle glass. But the main mission of Binghamton University's Public Archaeology Facility was to help map out more exactly where The Who, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin and Joe Cocker wowed the crowds 49 years ago. | | | |  | Music Industry Blog | | If music suddenly becomes lower margin for YouTube with fixed per stream costs, then it would be commercially foolish for YouTube to do anything other than push its viewers to other forms of content than music. | | | | | Rolling Stone | | Inside the lives of two chart-topping pop stars as they prepare their greatest collaboration yet: A baby girl. | | | |  | HITS Daily Double | | At a time when people aren't buying albums, Miranda Lambert weighed out her pain in three- and four-minute increments on "The Weight of These Wings," grieved in public, owned her mistakes—and stopped talking. With the incredible success of a very porous record, Lambert goes deep in her first interview ever for an album that was released what seems like a lifetime ago. | | | | | The New York Times | | A growing network of booking agencies and community groups have made female artists more visible in Berlin, erasing the boy's club atmosphere of the past. | | | |  | The Creative Independent | | Musicians Aaron and Bryce Dessner discuss the motivation behind the creation of the digital platform PEOPLE and what it means to have an open space to share your work. | | | |  | MusicAlly | | Streaming has helped to make hip-hop the most popular recorded-music genre in the US, according to industry-tracker Nielsen. A panel at the Cannes Lions conference today explored what this means for brands, who are mulling how best to work with established and emerging artists in the field. | | | |  | Red Bull Music Academy | | The Alabama native charts her journey to becoming Atlanta's most in-demand engineer. | | | |  | NPR Music | | The first day of the summer deserves a soundtrack. After all, we can't just listen to Cardi B 24/7. | | | |  | Resident Advisor | | Kit Macdonald visits the Danish capital to investigate its emergence as a hotbed for 140 BPM dance music. | | | |  | Talkhouse | | The legendary proto-punk band sits down with the emerging punk band, Protomartyr, at Rough Trade in London. | | | |  | The Atlantic | | The rapper's new album, "Post Traumatic," insists that the music go on, nearly one year after the death of his Linkin Park bandmate Chester Bennington. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2018, The REDEF Group | | |
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