Art Blakey... used to say, music washes away the dust of everyday life. For me, music should be that thing that breaks down the barriers. It should be that master key to unlocking the door to the soul. | | | | Back atcha: Greta Van Fleet's Jake Kiszka in Atlanta, May 5, 2018.
(Getty Images) | | | | | | “Art Blakey... used to say, music washes away the dust of everyday life. For me, music should be that thing that breaks down the barriers. It should be that master key to unlocking the door to the soul.”
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| | rantnrave:// Like blues and rock and punk-rock and gangsta rap and seven genres of film and nine genres of literature, drill music, which originated on the streets of Chicago and is now causing consternation on the streets of London, reflects the thoughts and fears and aspirations and realities of the young people who perform it and/or listen to it. #Duh. And as they have done to all those other forms of art, authorities have decided to go after the expression rather than the thing that is being expressed. News item: "Police targeting drill music videos." News-item explainer: Police have responded to knife and gun attacks by asking YOUTUBE to delete 50 to 60 music videos, and YouTube has said yes to about 30 of them. I'm simplifying, and I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on either youth culture or crime in London circa 2018, and I'm well aware that bad things have happened and that videos can be problematic speech. But I'm old enough to have lived through similar times before (news flash: it's always a similar time), and music has proved, repeatedly, to be an easy and terrible scapegoat. I love this quote from SK, co-founder of the label FINESSE FOREVA, which could have been spoken almost verbatim in 1954 or 1991: "There’s a lot of pain and emotion that’s going through their head, you can hear the pain in the flow, hear they wanna change, they’re saying this is what I’m living right here and now. I’d rather they let it out on the beat and not the streets.” CIARAN THAPAR, who works with and writes about British youths, says he can see how drill "reinforces ideas about violence, and at worst, encourages it." There you go, authorities. "But it does not cause it," Thapar continues. And "to restrict this energy, this desperation for a creative outlet that drove grime in its conception and is driving drill music, would be more criminal than the subject of any lyrics." Almost always, the better solution than shutting down the words (and images) is to listen to (and watch) them... Healthy, productive feud that will produce at least some good music (but I have no idea if a certain rapper writes his own lyrics or not and I don't particularly care but I do enjoy it as a fertile subject for other rappers to explore): PUSHA T vs. DRAKE... Unhealthy, strange feud that will end in crushing defeat for one side but it's unlikely he'll ever know because who's going to tell him: PRESIDENT TRUMP vs. JAY-Z... Another court says KESHA can not seek to break her contract with DR. LUKE... U2 records live at JACK WHITE's THIRD MAN RECORDS... Best wishes to SZA... RIP DWAYNE JENSEN, JOSH MARTIN and RUSS REGAN. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| | | it's about to be a surgical summer |
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| At the behest of a 14-year-old fan who launched a Twitter campaign, the forever-game pop-punk faves have covered one of the Internet's favorite songs. The crossover is, somehow, pretty illuminating. | | |
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| In the first of a new monthly essay series on music, we explore how messageboards became a meeting point for 00s music fans - and how, after being killed off by social media, they might rise again. | | |
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| The rise of the low-key beatmaker behind albums that win Pulitzers and soundtrack blockbusters. | | |
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| The first photo in Lizzy Goodman’s oral history, "Meet Me In The Bathroom," is of Stewart Lupton smoking a cigarette, framed by enormous angel wings. It’s a fitting image to begin Goodman’s story of New York’s rock rebirth in the early 2000s-a story that really began several years earlier, when Lupton's Jonathan Fire*Eater emerged from a tepid sea of derivative pop-punk bands and Pavement clones. | | |
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| "Daytona" is outstanding. The feud it stoked should be even better. | | |
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| A response to the recent media demonisation of UK drill music | | |
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| We need a museum worthy of our music. And we need Mark Cuban's help to get us there. | | |
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| Using code for live music has gone from geeky fringe to underground revolution, offering a fresh approach to music and pattern even for first-time coders. Alex McLean is one of the people at the center of this medium's growth. | | |
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| With the same characteristic pluck and verve that drove her ceaseless musical experiments, she is staring down Parkinson’s with steely resolve. Ronstadt intends to shake, rattle and roll well into the future. | | |
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| The fourth single from the rapper's debut album features Puerto Rican hit Bad Bunny and Colombian star J. Balvin, but it's Cardi who shines-and makes the case for why she's set to dominate airwaves two years in a row. Sorry, Drake. | | |
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| We delve deep into the 1968 home recordings that planted the seeds for the band's classic self-titled double LP. | | |
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| Steven Hyden’s book "Twilight of the Gods" argues that the appeal of the now-dwindling Baby Boomer guitar gods was only ever personal. | | |
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| How Sony and Universal would have stacked up in the 12 months to end of March this year. | | |
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| These days, young fans are able to galvanize their collective fandom online, and feel empowered by its force. | | |
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| Manager details Jeff Buckley's final days and his friendship with Chris Cornell. | | |
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| E. Annie Proulx wrote the libretto. Composer James Wuorinen and director Jacopo Spirei reveal how they set Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger’s tragic gay love story to music. | | |
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| How the allure of newness is leading Kanye West astray. | | |
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| As West’s star has risen to meteoric heights, and he’s subsequently established himself as one of hip-hop’s most innovative superstars, his connection to his native city has become less palpable. | | |
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| Last week, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) suddenly introduced a bill in the Senate that many of the usual copyright-haters are applauding as an "alternative" to the CLASSICS Act. | | |
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| One milestone in grime's journey, and possibly the most important, lies on the date of May 26th, 2003, where British music was served its first hellacious dose of an emergent new sound. | | |
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| © Copyright 2018, The REDEF Group |
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