I’m lucky enough to be in a generation that’s able to break every rule—and that’s crazy. When I think about artists who grew up in a time where you could only have one genre and one look, and couldn’t change that ever... that must have been torturous. | | | | Burna Boy at Wembley Arena, London, Nov. 3, 2019.
(Joseph Okpako/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | | | “I’m lucky enough to be in a generation that’s able to break every rule—and that’s crazy. When I think about artists who grew up in a time where you could only have one genre and one look, and couldn’t change that ever... that must have been torturous.”
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| | rantnrave:// Are session players and mixing engineers who live from gig to gig and album to album the musical equivalent of UBER drivers or are they more like freelance journalists? That was the subject of some discussion earlier this year when the California legislature was considering AB5, a law designed to force gig-economy companies like Uber, LYFT and DOORDASH to stop classifying drivers, delivery people and other essential workers as independent contractors rather than employees. Was the law worded so broadly that record companies and other musical employers would be forced to do the same—to start paying salaries and benefits instead of day rates to percussionists, demo singers and mixers? Would rock bands and rappers have to start treating collaborators and contributors as proper employees? Could they afford to do that? Did session players want that? Would making music in California still make sense? The law takes effect Jan. 1 (similar legislation has been introduced in other states), and the first sign of its side effects—unintended or not, it isn't clear—has come from another industry: journalism. VOX MEDIA's sports brand, SB NATION, announced this week that, faced with the choice of converting its 200 freelance bloggers in California to employees or eliminating their positions, it's taking the latter route. They'll be replaced with 20 new full- and part-time positions, which the company is encouraging them to apply for. But at best, that leaves 180 writers with lost work and lost income. The company told them they're free to continue writing on a strictly volunteer—read "unpaid"—basis, but the independent contractor route is no longer on the map. There are plenty of questions to ask on all sides here: Is this what the legislature intended, or wanted? Where do those freelancers go? But also, why was a major media company like Vox staffing major, advertising-supported sports verticals almost entirely with low-paid freelancers working long hours? Why shouldn't it be encouraged, or required, to hire them? Are the SB Nation job cuts a bug or a feature of the new law? Is a flute player doing a half-day gig in a Los Angeles home studio a bug or a feature? How many half-day gigs can she do before the band or rapper who hired her has to put her on salary? Will the state or the music biz blink first? Or can they work out a way where neither has to?... I've found RICK RUBIN and MALCOLM GLADWELL's BROKEN RECORDS podcast to be hit and miss, but give me an hour of Rubin chatting about music with ANDRE 3000 and I'm in. I love the bit where Andre talks about struggling to find a vocal approach in the early days of OUTKAST and being rejected over and over by producer RICO WADE, and then one day "I maybe had smoked a joint and then went in the booth and I was kinda out of it, and I just started rapping with my normal voice, like my speaking voice, and Ric said 'That's it!' And that was it." Sometimes, you just have to get out of your own way. Also, Andre has recently discovered STEVE REICH... Kudos also to the newest episode of WNYC's wonderful DOLLY PARTON'S AMERICA podcast, which tells the story of the Civil War-themed dinner theater that neglects to mention slavery and used to be called DOLLY PARTON'S DIXIE STAMPEDE, and what happened when Parton removed "Dixie" from the name... TEKASHI 6IX9INE will be sentenced in federal court in New York today on racketeering charges. He could receive anything from time served—as a reward for his cooperation with the prosecutors—to life in prison... RIP EMIL RICHARDS and JUD PHILLIPS. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| Andre 3000 opens up to Rick Rubin in one of his most candid interviews ever. He talks about the early days of OutKast, how he first found his voice, how his mental health diagnosis has been both a blessing a curse, why it’s so hard for him to write new material, and why he would rather perform at flea markets these days than sold-out arenas. | | |
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| Kim Hill was a rising singer. She met a young rapper named will.i.am. The rest is history - or is it? | | |
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| The man behind the mask has a voice of gold and nothing to hide. What will it take for a hidebound genre to embrace the new cowboy in town? | | |
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| In the 2010s an opioid crisis spread across America like wildfire, taking some of hip-hop’s brightest stars with it. | | |
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| "I knew I’d get some hate for it, and I have," Morgan Wallen said about covering Jason Isbell's song. "But it’s been mostly love." | | |
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| 2019 has seen a resurrection of the concept album. | | |
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| The fisheye album cover is a modern music staple. | | |
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| Sony's music publishing companies turned over more than a billion dollars in the first nine months of 2019. | | |
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| The siblings discuss how they wrote their Grammy-nominated hit song in our video series. | | |
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| The actor's pop credentials are almost unknown in the States. In parts of Europe, he's a star. | | |
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| Released in 1979, the Clash’s third album changed everything-punk rock, the band that made it, and the fans who worshiped it. Decades later, its rich, eclectic, propulsive sound hasn’t aged a minute, and its messages are as urgent as ever. | | |
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| Dealmakers say that after Rihanna and Billie Eilish projects are snapped up the space will only get hotter. | | |
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| This year, young fans came to sing along, not scream themselves hoarse. | | |
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| The Year of Us All. A year where we heard the voices of the whole South rising up in defiance of whatever forces hold them down. You hear echoes of our deepest musical traditions translated into the now. And maybe you will hear what we did: The South singing and playing toward what we all could be, scrapping to get above where we’ve been. | | |
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| Brandon Creed on modern management and building the careers of megastars like Bruno Mars and Lizzo. | | |
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| A detailed account of the robbery that brought down the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods and Tekashi 6ix9ine, based on witnesses, trial testimony & more. | | |
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| A new generation of Black Techno share their experiences and hopes for a decolonized dance music culture. | | |
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| Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" is back at the top of the chart a quarter century after it was first released. So why haven't there been any lasting Christmas songs to take its place? | | |
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| It's been a fruitful year for festive bops. | | |
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| | | | | Phoebe Bridgers ft. Fiona Apple and Matt Berninger |
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| © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group |
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