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      Bringing Aaliyah Into the Streaming Era

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherMusic streaming services have become inadvertent and imperfect proxies for the infinite jukebox. But as younger listeners increasingly come to rely on them, missing artist catalogs leave historical holes that are difficult to fill.For many years, the most important albums in Aaliyah’s catalog were unavailable on streaming, but that has just recently changed. Blackground Records — the imprint to which Aaliyah, who died in 2001, was signed — has been releasing its full archive online. It is a long-needed remedy, and promises a path to understanding the work of an artist who, in her time, was already aiming far into the future.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the tug of war over Aaliyah’s musical legacy, how family tension shaped the business of the Aaliyah estate and the role her music — even though it was largely unavailable digitally — played in the evolution of contemporary R&B.Guests:Naima Cochrane, a music journalist and consultantGail Mitchell, executive director of R&B/hip-hop at BillboardDan Rys, senior writer at BillboardConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica More

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      Author of 'My Monticello' on Writing a Debut Book With Buzz

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      “It’s Never Too Late” is a series that tells the stories of people who decide to pursue their dreams on their own terms.Jocelyn Nicole Johnson has been a public school art teacher for 20 years, but she is not in her elementary classroom this fall in Charlottesville, Va. Her debut collection, “My Monticello” — five short stories and the book’s title novella — will be published on Oct. 5. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead has called “My Monticello” “nimble, knowing, and electrifying,” and Esquire named “My Monticello,” published by Henry Holt, one of the best books of the fall, writing that it “announces the arrival of an electric new literary voice.”To top that off, Netflix plans to turn the book’s title novella into a film. In the novella, which is set in the near future, a young woman who is descended from Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, and a band of largely Black and brown survivors take refuge from marauding white supremacists in Monticello, Jefferson’s homestead. The book is extraordinary for another reason. Ms. Johnson is 50 years old, not the average age of your typical debut author. To be more blunt, the publishing industry is viewed by some trade observers as too often fetishizing young writers, so while 50 is considered relatively young in many circles, for a first-time author to find her way onto the grand stage is a rarity.The author, who lives in Charlottesville with her husband, a software engineer and photographer, and their 15-year-old son, is excited for the book to be out in the world but she is also a little nervous. “As an art teacher I can tell myself the kind of things that I would absolutely tell my students,” she said. “You made something, but it’s not you.” (The following interview has been edited and condensed.)When did you first start writing?Writing and art were my main interests from a very early age. I recently found this book that I wrote in the fourth grade. We had to write a story, illustrate it and bind it, and mine was called “Prom Queen.” It has a lot of vengeance in it, which surprised me. Then, when I was a teenager, I read “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton, that rough coming-of-age story. And I learned that Hinton was published when she was 18 years old, so I decided to write a novel, and I did it. I wrote a book at age 16. I still have copies of that book in a drawer.Ms. Johnson says her book, “My Monticello,” is partially inspired by the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally that took place in Charlottesville, Va., where she lives. Matt Eich for The New York TimesWhen were you first published?After I was a teenager, I put the idea of publishing a book on the back burner until much later in life. But I did like writing — I wrote that whole time — I just wasn’t making steps toward publishing my work when I was younger.In 2017 I submitted a short story about a college professor secretly using his son for a research experiment regarding racism, “Control Negro,” to Guernica, and I was delighted when I learned that they were going to publish it. Then it was tweeted about by Roxane Gay, who went on to select it for Best American Short Stories, a prestigious annual collection which she guest edited that year. I would say that was the true beginning of this book, my debut, “My Monticello,” which will make me a 50-year-old literary debutante.Tell us about your life before this book?I have taught public school art for 20 years. Anyone who has taught public school will know that it is a very robust job. A very time consuming job. It is a job you really commit to.I was kind of the Mr. Rogers of teachers: standing at my door with a chime and a cardigan, welcoming this very broad and diverse group of students that we have here in Charlottesville into my classroom.What would you consider the first step you took toward publishing this collection?I had a moment after I published “Control Negro” where I realized how that story and other stories I was working on were connected. And that was through this idea of place, through this idea of Virginia. And through the lenses of racial and environmental anxiety. So that’s when I realized that I wanted to publish a collection.How did you find the courage and strength to take that initial step?The first step that led to this book — reaching out — came naturally to me because I had been sending my work out for so many years. So I had the habit of trying. I had the habit of persistence and trying — without a lot of expectation, which I think is a nice place to be in. A familiarity with rejection.Do you remember your first reaction when you found out you sold the collection? That it was going to be published?I was at home teaching virtually, because of the pandemic. It was June 2020 — the end of the 2020 school year.It was really exciting but also a little terrifying. A lot of writers, myself included, are introverts. And you work really hard to make your book be in the world, but there’s also a vulnerability that comes with that. So I sat in that moment, and then I took a walk around the block with my husband and we debriefed. Because we could see our lives changing. I had to decide whether I was going to keep teaching. Eventually I decided, between the book deal and the pandemic, to take a break from the classroom.Ms. Johnson is pictured with glimpses of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s homestead, which is the setting of her title novella. Her words of wisdom? “Embrace rejection and find your people.”Matt Eich for The New York TimesWhat were the biggest challenges in your journey to publication?I enjoy writing, but it’s not all enjoyable. You can see what you want it to be, but it takes a lot of time and experience — and luck — to get your writing to where you want it to be. You often fail. You come against your own limitations.I was writing about things that mattered a lot to me. Things that were difficult for our community here in Charlottesville. The collection is partially inspired by the deadly Unite the Right rally that took place here, as well as this country’s troubled histories going back to the time of the founding fathers. I wanted to make sure I did the best I could to be honest about my perspective. To write something that was hopefully useful and engaging to people.Do you wish you had done this book sooner or do you feel it was right on time?I am so pleased that this book is my debut. It incorporates so much more of my lived experience and my life and my aspirations and my hopes.What are your future plans?Apparently I’m going to write a second book — because I am under contract to write a second book. I’ve told myself so many times throughout the course of my life, “I think I’ll take a break from writing.” But I’m always writing. So I’m looking forward to what comes next and how I manage my expectations again as I set out. Because every book is it’s own project.What would you tell people who feel stuck and want to make a change?Try something small. Do something differently that’s manageable. But start. That’s what I would tell students. You have to start somewhere. Find support. Find community. And start small.Has this experience made you a different person?I think we’re constantly changing, and I think we should change. I’m a different person now than the teacher who greeted students at her door, or even different than the person who wrote “My Monticello.” And that’s exciting.Is there anything else you’d like to share about the trajectory that got you here?People help you all along the way. Even those people who don’t say, “Yes.” Your first book doesn’t get published. And your second book doesn’t get published. Maybe your third doesn’t. But that creates the conditions, in a way, for what happens next. The difficulties along the way make it more satisfying in the end.What lessons can people learn from your experience?Embrace rejection and find your people.We’re looking for people who decide that it’s never too late to switch gears, change their life and pursue dreams. Should we talk to you or someone you know? Share your story here. More

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      Pee Wee Ellis, James Brown’s Partner in Funk, Dies at 80

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      As musical director for the bands behind Mr. Brown and also Van Morrison, Mr. Ellis helped forge new hybrids, meshing pop, jazz, R&B and more.Alfred (Pee Wee) Ellis, a saxophonist, arranger and composer who fused jazz, funk and soul as the musical director for James Brown and Van Morrison, died on Thursday. He was 80.The cause was “complications with his heart,” his Facebook page said. It did not say where he died; he lived in Dorset County, England.Mr. Ellis also performed, arranged and recorded extensively with his own jazz groups, in funk bands with fellow James Brown alumni and as a sideman for a broad array of musicians in jazz, R&B, pop, rock and African music. And his association with Mr. Morrison stretched across two decades.Mr. Ellis shared credit with Mr. Brown for writing 26 songs performed by Mr. Brown, including “Cold Sweat” and “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud.”He had a collaborative temperament that allowed him to get along with demanding performers like Mr. Brown, Mr. Morrison, Esther Phillips and the rock drummer Ginger Baker. “I’m not hard to get along with — and I’m a good mediator,” he said in a 2020 interview with The American magazine. “All their problems were their problems, not mine.”Alfred James Ellis was born on April 21, 1941, in Bradenton, Fla. He started playing piano, clarinet and saxophone as a youth, joining the marching band in junior high school. The family moved to Lubbock, Texas, in 1949 after his mother had married Ezell Ellis, who managed local musicians. Those musicians gave Alfred, who was a skinny child, his nickname, Pee Wee.Ezell Ellis was stabbed to death in a Texas club in 1955; a white woman had insisted on dancing with him, and the killer was infuriated at seeing an interracial couple.The family moved to Rochester, N.Y., when Alfred was a teenager, and he played jazz in high school groups and in clubs. He also spent time in New York City and studied at the Manhattan School of Music. He made his first recordings as a sideman.One day, in 1957, he was retrieving his saxophone from a repair shop when he ran into the jazz titan Sonny Rollins on Broadway and boldly asked him for lessons. Mr. Rollins agreed, and Mr. Ellis began making weekly trips to New York City to study with him. In a 2014 interview for the magazine Neon Nettle, Mr. Ellis likened working with Mr. Rollins to being “a sponge in deep water.”After high school he moved to Miami and became a full-time musician. Members of Mr. Brown’s band saw him performing at a motel there in 1965, and soon afterward he was hired to join the band. In a few months Mr. Ellis had become Mr. Brown’s musical director, writing arrangements and teaching them to the band.Mr. Brown in 2010. He made more than a dozen albums as a bandleader.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesAfter a show at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, Mr. Brown summoned Mr. Ellis with an idea for a bass line. Then, in the band bus on the way to Cincinnati, Mr. Ellis constructed the rest of the music for what became “Cold Sweat,” a syncopated vamp with a two-note horn line that echoed Miles Davis’s “So What.”Fiercely polyrhythmic and untethered from blues or pop-song forms, the song became a cornerstone of funk. “‘Cold Sweat’ deeply affected the musicians I knew,” the producer Jerry Wexler said in the liner notes to “Star Time,” a James Brown boxed set. “It just freaked them out. For a time, no one could get a handle on what to do next.”Mr. Brown and Mr. Ellis wrote “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud,” another funk milestone, in response to the murder of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and the subsequent summer of racial unrest.“It was a music that heralded a new attitude,” Mr. Ellis said in a 2020 interview with Jazzwise magazine, “a new and distinctive Black culture, of street culture finding confidence and popularity outside and alongside the establishment. Sweeping into mainstream consciousness during the civil rights movement was unlike anything people had heard, and its positive energy united a new generation making them proud of their music, fashion and political tastes.”But relentless touring and recording with the James Brown band was grueling, and as the 1960s ended Mr. Ellis decided to return to jazz. In the 1970s he arranged and conducted the music for full albums by George Benson and Johnny Hammond; he also recorded with Esther Phillips, Leon Thomas, Hank Crawford, Shirley Scott, Sonny Stitt and Dave Liebman. He released his first full album as a leader, “Home in the Country,” in 1977.Mr. Ellis was invited to do horn arrangements for Van Morrison’s 1979 album, “Into the Music,” starting a lasting relationship. He appeared on Mr. Morrison’s albums for the next 20 years, and had stints as the musical director for Mr. Morrison in the 1980s and 1990s.In the ’90s and 2000s Mr. Ellis rejoined the saxophonist Maceo Parker and the trombonist Fred Wesley, bandmates from his years with Mr. Brown, to perform and make albums under various names, including the J.B. Horns and the J.B.’s Reunion.He led his own group, the Pee Wee Ellis Assembly, and made more than a dozen jazz albums as a leader. His touring projects included a stint in the 2010s with a quartet led by Mr. Baker, the drummer from Cream, and “Still Black Still Proud,” a James Brown tribute featuring African musicians.He also played sessions for, among many others, De La Soul, 10,000 Maniacs, Walter Wolfman Washington, Poncho Sanchez, Oumou Sangaré, Toumani Diabaté, Cheikh Lo and Ali Farka Touré. (Information on his survivors was not immediately available.)Mr. Ellis told The American that he was happiest when collaborating. “Part of the magic,” he said, “is joining forces and making something happen from nowhere.” More

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      How Billy Strings Picked His Way to the Other Side

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      At 28, the singer and guitarist is bluegrass’s new transgressive star. A decade ago, he didn’t expect to live this long.Billy Strings did not know what exactly had given him the hangover from hell. Was it the previous evening’s onstage bottles of beer or post-show cans of wine? The late-night tumblers of whiskey that Strings — then an unsigned 23-year-old bluegrass hot shot — bought to celebrate that profitable night in the summer of 2016? The endless bumps of cocaine?Barreling down Interstate 85 the next afternoon through suffocating Southern heat, Strings just knew he’d made a mistake. Every 15 minutes, he shuffled outside to vomit until the rest of his band agreed that, if they were going to reach their South Carolina show, they couldn’t stop again. Strings hung his head from a window, streaking the van’s sides with last night’s regret. He swore he’d never again let the partying interfere with the playing. He has yet to take another drink.“I had decided this music stuff could save my life,” Strings said by phone from a parking lot in Spokane, Wash., lounging in one of his twin buses. “Music was my one opportunity — otherwise, I was going back to being a meth head, overdosing, prison. I was not going to mess this up with booze.”The guitar, after all, had given Strings purpose since he was a toddler, vying for validation in a home struck by drugs and tragedy. The instrument never betrayed him. In the five years since he vowed never to betray it, Strings has emerged as a premier bluegrass mind for this post-everything era.On three albums, including the new “Renewal,” which came out last week, he has zigged and zagged between the form’s antediluvian traditions and rapid-fire improvisations that hit like hard bop, all within songs with hooks so sharp that he seems poised for crossover stardom. He may be the only contemporary musician capable of releasing singles with the bluegrass avatar Del McCoury, the country star Luke Combs and the R&B enigma RMR within a six-month span, as he did this year. He remains grateful for the hangover.“I was raised on raging, partying, playing bluegrass until 3 a.m., but I am trying to create structure. That is hard because of what’s in my blood,” said Strings, 28. “I hate to even call this a career. It’s my life.”Born William Lee Apostol, Strings grew up in the tiny lake-bound Central Michigan town of Muir, where his childhood seemed an insurmountable obstacle course. His father, Billy, died from a heroin overdose when Strings, his youngest son, was 2. His mother, Debra Apostol, married her first love, Terry Barber, who reared Strings as his own.As Debra battled depression prompted by her sister’s murder, the couple slid into penury. Their home became an all-hours drug den — “a meth house,” Strings said with a sigh, “with tweakers in my living room smoking meth one day, getting hauled off to prison for 20 years the next.” They were stuck in a small town, Debra said in an interview, and simply bored. Strings smoked his first joint, stolen from his grandfather, when he was 8, and first got drunk at 10.The setting, at least, inspired a child so obsessed with music, he slept with his guitar and read rock biographies during class. His stepfather, a crackerjack guitarist, taught him the bluegrass songbook and Black Sabbath anthems. His mother paraded around their trailer hoisting joints, blasting Santana or Soundgarden. Strings toiled away, matching everything he heard.“I was this 5-year-old learning to play guitar so my parents would pay attention,” Strings said, recounting a recent therapy session’s epiphany. “Music is the only thing that’s been good to me my entire life.”“I hate to even call this a career,” Strings said. “It’s my life.”Will Matsuda for The New York TimesBefore Strings was a teenager, he began walking alone to school in the snow and ferreting whatever food he found, feeling like some S.E. Hinton pariah who loved skateboarding and flatpicking. At 14, he left home to couch-surf with friends, falling in and out of legal trouble while failing in and out of school.“I said, ‘I want to see what my parents are so into that they’re lost to me,’ so I tried meth,” he said — “with my mom,” adding a customary barrage of profanity. “Heroin, crack, pills: I stopped caring. I thought I would end up going down their bad road, anyway.”One friend’s mother intervened, convincing Strings he could eclipse his upbringing. He eventually fled his hometown, heading three hours north to Traverse City and a new reality. “I moved out from under a cloud,” he said.In Traverse City, Strings met Don Julin, an area mandolin aficionado three decades his senior. Their duo specialized in hard, fast and loud renditions of the staples that Strings’s stepfather taught him. But Strings discovered the fertile intersection of bluegrass and jam-band culture, popularized by Yonder Mountain String Band and Greensky Bluegrass. He played 20-second solos for 20 people; they jammed for 15 minutes for bobbing throngs.“Those guys,” Strings said, smiling, “painted my pure bluegrass heart.”Strings discarded the tie-and-sports-coat uniform he donned with Julin and decamped to Nashville. He built an acoustic quartet willing to race beyond bluegrass’s bounds and returned to the road, where he practically lived until the Covid-19 pandemic.Routing his guitar through 27 effects pedals to summon Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour or Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman, Strings emerged as a sudden live sensation. In 2021, his second solo record, “Home,” won the Grammy for best bluegrass album.“Billy knows stuff I don’t know, and I play with people with new information,” said Béla Fleck, the banjoist who has goaded his instrument into novel terrain for a quarter-century. Fleck invited Strings to play on his album “My Bluegrass Heart,” an honor Strings gushes about more than any award.“This music needs a fresh jolt once in a while from someone who comes in from a different angle,” Fleck continued. “Billy is the lightning rod.”“Renewal,” Strings’s third solo album, largely delights in matters of the heart.Will Matsuda for The New York TimesIt’s not only the sound of bluegrass that Strings is reimagining but also the image. Sitting in his bus as 6,000 fans drifted into a sold-out amphitheater near Portland, Ore., this month, Strings held a svelte black vaporizer in one hand while gripping a $300 electronic bong with the other. Giggling beneath a hat that read “Sex & Drugs & Flatt & Scruggs,” he looked more like the thoroughly tattooed brother of Shaggy from “Scooby-Doo” than those bluegrass patriarchs.He joked about covering “Dueling Banjos,” made famous in the film “Deliverance,” in full B.D.S.M. regalia and lampooned bluegrass posters for looking like antique-auction handbills. He extolled the hallucinogen DMT for making him a kinder person. Scrolling through his recent Spotify favorites, where Juice WRLD rubbed shoulders with Marty Stuart, Strings admitted that he was proud his friendship with Post Malone and his work with the masked Black singer RMR irked traditionalists. “I see racist crap all the time in bluegrass,” he said, with an uncharacteristic flash of anger.RMR was floored by Strings’s rebellious streak, and happily agreed to sing on “Wargasm,” a plea for peace that suggests Alice in Chains going country. “This is music for old guys with a beard, but he didn’t fit that mold,” said RMR, who went viral in 2020 by covering Rascal Flatts amid a crew brandishing an armory. “He was dope, because he was different.”As much as Strings revels in pushing boundaries, his songwriting taps the same heartland sincerity that Bill Monroe embraced nearly a century ago. Strings sings of modern American woes with disarming simplicity, even as he warps the sound. His first hit, “Dust in a Baggie,” sprints through the parable of a meth addict who heeds warnings too late. “Turmoil & Tinfoil,” his debut’s title track, mourns the way meth burned his own mother, her face ashen from exhaustion.“Renewal,” Strings’s third album, largely delights in matters of the heart. In May, he proposed to his longtime girlfriend and tour manager, Ally Dale, so he celebrates finding love during the tender aubade “In the Morning Light.” But there’s also climate-change anxiety, small-town ennui and a nine-minute fight song for battling depression, “Hide and Seek.” Despite the song’s instrumental mirth, the chorus comes from the final text messages a friend sent before committing suicide.Strings called this “sublimation,” or turning life’s darkest matter into positivity. It’s more powerful, he suggested, than any guitar trick. Through hours of therapy and nights of singing to strangers, he did that with his parents, too. These days, they are largely sober, though many of their old friends continue to party or remain in jail; his mother has developed what she called an addiction to coconut water. Strings once winced when they arrived at shows, but last year, he took his stepfather on tour. Their turmoil gave him a reason to succeed.“They did pretty good, because look at me now,” he said, chuckling as he exhaled another tuft of weed smoke. “They couldn’t take care of me, but they taught me the thing that helped me take care of myself. As a parent, isn’t that your job?” More

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      Who Is Luis Felber? An Interview With Lena Dunham's Husband

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      Luis Felber and Lena Dunham are in love. The pair has made no secret of this fact on their Instagram accounts in recent months. And now they are married.Asked when he knew he wanted to marry Ms. Dunham, Mr. Felber responded on Monday via email: “There were lots of moments, there are lots of moments and there will be lots of moments. I’m not living in a Disney film where you’re certain about who you want to spend the rest of your life with in one moment. Time is fluid and when you know, you know. I love my wife, who is also my best friend.”So who is Luis Felber?Born in Winchester, England, to a Peruvian mother and a British father, Mr. Felber spent his earliest years in Peru and Chile before moving back to Britain at age 7. At 17, he skipped university and began pursuing a career in music, playing guitar with several different bands.Recently, Mr. Felber, 35, has been recording and performing under the name Attawalpa (his middle name, after the 16th-century Incan ruler Atahualpa). On Oct. 13, he’ll release a new single, “Peter Gabriel’s Dream.”Below is an interview, edited for clarity, conducted with Mr. Felber over Zoom in early September.So how did you and Lena meet?It was a blind date. A mutual friend of ours basically set us up. The first time we hung out, we didn’t stop talking for, like, eight hours.Where did you go?Just around central London because everything was shut down.So you’re walking along the streets, along the Thames?Yeah and I think it was sort of incredible, you know, I walked into that. I’d been on quite a few dates in the past year. As someone who’s quite open, I find you hold a lot back on your first three dates. Or first 10 dates. I was just a bit fed up with that, so I just walked into the situation very myself, shall I say. And Lena liked that. And she’s the same.“I’m still getting used to being shown that sort of love by someone else,” Mr. Felber said of his relationship with Ms. Dunham.Charlotte Hadden for The New York TimesIs it fair to say that your relationship seemed to get really intense really quickly? Or is that just our impression via Instagram?Yeah, I mean, describe “intense.”It feels like you’re both very passionate about each other, that you’re both very much in love, and that it happened very quickly.I think when you know, you know. I’ve only been alive for 35 years in this lifetime, and I think it’s another archaic thing for guys to hide their feelings. I’m way more into the flow of getting to know the person. And I think Lena’s the same, and I think — I’m going to sound cheesy — but when you find your soul mate, you just know.She’s very open about you on Instagram. How does that make you feel?It’s very moving. I’m still getting used to being shown that sort of love by someone else. I’ve never shut her down, or anyone down for that. It’s beautiful that she expresses herself and I love being on the other end of it.How do you like living together?It’s great, we’ve been living together for about four months now. We both work a lot, and every morning is a blessing. And every evening, to be able to go to bed with your best friend and chat — we find it hard to go to sleep at a decent hour. It’s rarely eight hours.What kind of dates do you go on now?Oh my. She comes to my gigs. Neither of us really drink, but we go for long walks on the Heath, we see friends, we watch movies, we just watched the whole of “BoJack Horseman.” I could be sitting at a bus stop with her for 10 hours and it would be the best day ever.How do your parents like Lena?They love her. My mum’s very shy, and she kind of builds barriers. It’s a protection thing, I think from leaving a country when you’re very young, not knowing the language. I think maybe it’s a barrier she’s had from childhood. I can kind of relate to that. But with Lena she was just, like, best friends. She was very open about her emotions and they just love each other. My dad as well.That’s the thing: Both me and Lena’s parents are still together, and I think that’s a great example.Lena’s parents are artists: Her mother is the photographer Laurie Simmons and her father is the painter Carroll Dunham. Your mother is the painter Alma Laura. Would you say you and Lena are similar?I think we’ve got the same references. We were born in the same year, under a month apart, I think we have the same sense of humor. I don’t know if we’re similar. Lena would be able to answer that more.Do you have any of your mother’s work in your home?We’ve got a few paintings of hers. They make me feel really calm.A portrait of Mr. Felber and Ms. Dunham hangs in the couple’s home. It was painted by Mr. Felber’s mother, Alma Laura. “They make me feel really calm,” he said of his mother’s paintings.Charlotte Hadden for The New York TimesLena directed the video for your song “Tucked In Tight,” a love song about your phone. What was it like working with her?It’s the best — I love being directed by her. It’s like our relationship, it just sort of flows. We don’t have any arguments. She’s obviously very good at what she does.Had you heard of Lena before you started dating or had you seen her work?No. Mum was a fan of “Girls.” I remember when I was touring in my 20s, my mum and my sister were watching that show. But I never watched it.Have you seen it now?I haven’t. But I’ve watched her current stuff. I watched “Industry” when we first started dating, and I scored her next film, “Sharp Stick,” which is out next year. It’s a really beautiful film.When you’re an artist, you’re living in the present, into the future. You’re looking for the next thing. Looking back is a thing we shouldn’t really do too much, to be able to move forward with ease.But I will watch “Girls” one day, to answer your question. I can see what an impact it’s had on people. I was at lunch with some old school friends and my friend’s sister was really excited about Lena. I asked, “What did ‘Girls’ make you feel?” She said, “I feel like it gave me a voice,” and that’s amazing. What a beautiful thing to hear about your partner.How would you describe your musical style to someone who hasn’t heard it before?If I’m feeling lazy, I say “alternative.” If I’m feeling cocky, I’ll say it’s between Prince and Nirvana.You’ve worked as a musician for much of your adult life. How did the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle suit you?I basically toured a lot in my 20s, playing guitar for different bands. When you’re on tour, you are basically given whatever you want. Alcohol and weed were my main methods of numbing. In the U.K., alcohol is considered a normal thing to do on the weekends. But if your job entails playing every night, you are given alcohol every night. It’s almost like part of your job.I wouldn’t say I’m sober, but I haven’t had a drink since November. I just drink when I feel like it. I call it “conscious drinking.” I never did A.A., but I started therapy in 2017. Therapists would be like, you need to stop drinking so you can hear your thoughts, and I’d be like, no. That went on for about six months. And then I did a session of five-element acupuncture, and I stopped drinking for about a year.It’s kind of romanticized, isn’t it — musicians and alcohol.Yeah, in my opinion, I think that’s a way of controlling musicians. Most musicians aren’t in charge of their business, aren’t in charge of their money or even the way they look or the way they’re perceived. So it’s just really easy to fall into that trap and be numb to everything and expect your manager to deal with things.For me, the most punk rock thing is to be conscious. Since I’ve been conscious, I’ve managed to put out loads of music and be more open to who I am. More

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      Lil Nas X’s ‘Montero’ Debuts at No. 2, While Drake Holds at the Top

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      Over its three weeks out, Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy” has logged the equivalent of just over 1 million sales in the United States.Drake holds the top spot on the Billboard album chart for a third week with “Certified Lover Boy,” while Lil Nas X starts at No. 2.“Certified Lover Boy,” which had arrived on the chart with the biggest opening-week numbers in over a year, has since cooled down a little. In its third week out, it had 222 million streams in the United States and sold about 4,000 copies as a complete package; altogether, it was credited with the equivalent of 171,000 sales, according to MRC Data, a tracking service owned by Billboard’s parent company.Those numbers let “Certified Lover Boy” hold the top spot by a comfortable margin. Over its three weeks out, the album has logged the equivalent of just over 1 million sales in the United States, including nearly 1.3 billion streams. Since the arrival of “Thank Me Later” in 2010, a Drake title has been No. 1 on the weekly Billboard 200 album chart 30 times.Drake’s closest competitor this week was “Montero” by Lil Nas X, the rapper and meme virtuoso whose “country-trap” song “Old Town Road” was a chart-busting phenomenon two years ago, notching a record 19 weeks at No. 1. In its opening week, “Montero” had the equivalent of 126,000 sales, including 147 million streams, landing at second place.With 15 songs, “Montero” — which features guest spots by Elton John, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat and Miley Cyrus — is Lil Nas X’s first official LP, after “7,” an eight-track EP released in 2019, at the height of the “Old Town Road” craze. (Still, it was nominated for album of the year at the Grammys.) “7” also peaked at No. 2 on the album chart.The other big debut this week is “Sticker” by NCT 127, a “sub-unit” of the 23-man K-pop group NCT. “Sticker” opens at No. 3 with the equivalent of 62,000 sales, mostly from copies sold as a complete package, like CD boxed sets. Its 11 songs had 4.7 million streams in the United States.Kanye West’s “Donda” is No. 4 and Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” is No. 5. More

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      Brandon Valdivia habla de su nuevo disco

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      En su álbum más reciente, el productor nicaragüense-canadiense se plantea las expresiones políticas surgidas en los momentos de quietud.“Momento Presente” de Brandon Valdivia es como una invocación. En este tema perteneciente a Máscaras, su álbum lanzado en septiembre, un ritmo poco convencional que no pertenece al estilo de baile “footwork”, suena junto a los remolinos de un silbato de hojalata. Suena una campana y, al poco tiempo, la voz divina de un hombre entona un llamado a la acción. “Sabemos que se está separando los opresores y los oprimidos”, reflexiona en español. “No vamos a esperar 2000 años para que los buenos estén de un lado y los malos estén de otro lado. Sino que ese momento lo estamos viviendo ahora”.Este es el tipo de magia militante que Valdivia, de 38 años, más conocido como Mas Aya, invoca en su música. “Intento fusionar lo político y lo espiritual”, comentó en una entrevista por video desde su estudio en Londres, Ontario. “Hay que actuar, hay que estar en el momento, hay que estar en el mundo”.Esa sensación de urgencia silenciosa inunda Máscaras, su primer disco desde el LP de 2017 Nikan. A veces, el proyecto hace referencias directas a las revoluciones en Nicaragua, su tierra natal. (El audio hablado de “Momento Presente” proviene de una reunión de guerrilleros a finales de la década de 1970 liderada por Ernesto Cardenal, el teólogo de la liberación). Sin embargo, Máscaras no solo se basa en alusiones explícitas al poder. También se trata de las pequeñas rebeliones incrustadas en los momentos de inmersión y quietud.Valdivia dijo que el título del álbum describe las máscaras utilizadas en las marchas políticas y las ceremonias indígenas, pero también se trata de su propio método compositivo. “Los instrumentos se esconden dentro de la nube de texturas”, explicó. Las canciones del álbum son como bocetos impresionistas, que cambian los puntos focales por una fresca fluidez. La quena y las flautas bansuri revolotean sobre bucles de batería. El repiqueteo de las claves o las maracas se desvanece en olas de sintetizadores nítidos y ritmos electrónicos desordenados, que se transforman en dulces ráfagas de armonía.Valdivia creció en Chatham, una pequeña ciudad canadiense a una hora en auto de Detroit. La suya fue una de las primeras familias latinas en llegar, y a menudo anhelaba tener aliados en la música, la comunidad y el arte.En Nicaragua, su padre era un jipi de cabello largo que escuchaba Black Sabbath y cumbia, fumaba marihuana y consumía ácido. Valdivia se enamoró de la música a los 12 años y aprendió a tocar la flauta dulce, y luego la batería. Veía MuchMusic (el paralelo de MTV en Canadá) y escuchaba la radio pública de Detroit. Leía poesía francesa y pidió una copia de A Love Supreme de John Coltrane en la tienda de discos local. Tardó seis meses en llegarle.“Sabía que era un bicho raro”, dijo sobre el mundo conservador que lo rodeaba. “Quería salir de ahí en cuanto pudiera”.Se escapó a la universidad, donde estudió composición en la Universidad Wilfrid Laurier de Ontario, ahí encontró “gente creativa, interesada en superar los límites”, comentó. “Como bichos raros. Utilizo mucho esa frase”.Valdivia optó por iniciar un proyecto en solitario después de sentirse frustrado con la escena artística de Toronto. “Nadie hablaba de política”, dijoBrendan Ko para The New York TimesEn los años siguientes, Valdivia se convirtió en un respetado multinstrumentista y percusionista del entorno experimental y de art-rock de Toronto, tocando en grupos como Not the Wind, Not the Flag y I Have Eaten the City. También ha colaborado ampliamente con su compañera, la artista nominada al Grammy y que rompe géneros, Lido Pimienta, quien también participa en Máscaras. A los veinte y pocos años, viajó a Nicaragua, donde visitó a su familia en Managua, Estelí y Masaya, la ciudad natal de su abuela, y estudió las tradiciones musicales folclóricas del país. A su regreso a Canadá decidió poner en marcha un proyecto en solitario, inspirado en parte por su frustración con el entorno artístico de Toronto.“Nadie hablaba de política. Todo el mundo hacía, básicamente, una extraña música experimental nihilista”, afirmó. Mas Aya toma su nombre del hogar de su abuela, así como de “el más allá”.Valdivia describió su práctica como “armelódica”, un término que tomó prestado del músico de jazz Ornette Coleman. “Este tipo de música en la que la melodía, la armonía y el ritmo están al servicio de los demás”, dijo. Es una visión que capta el enfoque musical real de Valdivia, pero también evoca los tonos espirituales del álbum en su conjunto.En el tema “Quiescence”, Valdivia utiliza la mbira dzavadzimu (un tipo de piano de pulgares) como percusión, a pesar de que es un instrumento que suele pulsarse sobre teclas de metal. Por encima de ligeras flautas y sintetizadores brillantes, el sonido de los mazos que golpean la mbira se funde en una pacífica ondulación líquida.En “18 de Abril”, usa el audio de un manifestante universitario en una protesta de 2018 en Nicaragua, conectando los esfuerzos de resistencia actuales con los movimientos de décadas pasadas, y presentando la lucha política como un continuo. El resultado va más allá de la mera fusión o del homenaje ancestral. Articula un lenguaje prismático y poético, con lo cual demuestra que la expresión política no siempre es evidente. También puede llegar en momentos de silenciosa contemplación y conexión.Isabelia Herrera es crítica de arte becaria en el Times. Cubre la cultura popular, con especial atención a la música latinoamericana y latina en Estados Unidos. Anteriormente fue editora colaboradora en Pitchfork y ha escrito para Rolling Stone, Billboard, GQ y NPR, entre otros. @jabladoraaa More

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      George Mraz, Consummate Jazz Bassist, Dies at 77

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      For half a century, he was in constant demand, backing big names like Oscar Peterson as well as countless up-and-coming performers.George Mraz, a sought-after jazz bassist whose deft, versatile work anchored the recordings and performances of generations of artists, from Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie more than 50 years ago to Cyrus Chestnut and Joe Lovano in this century, died on Sept. 16 in Prague. He was 77.His wife, the pianist Camilla Mraz, posted news of his death on Facebook. She did not give a cause, though a GoFundMe page was established in 2016 to assist Mr. Mraz with expenses related to pancreatic cancer.Mr. Mraz came to the United States from what was then Czechoslovakia in 1968 to attend Berklee School of Music (now Berklee College of Music) in Boston. While studying there, he was also playing at Lennie’s on the Turnpike and other local nightclubs, catching the ear of some of jazz’s biggest names. In 1969, Gillespie invited him to join his group in New York; soon after that, Peterson made him part of his trio.He toured with Peterson for two years and then established himself in New York. He spent six years with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra (later the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra) in its famed Monday-night slot at the Village Vanguard. He became what’s known in the music world as a first-call player — the first person you’d call if you wanted a top-notch bassist for a club date or a recording session. It was a status he held for decades, appearing on scores of albums and playing with name musicians as well as with up-and-coming ones.“Mraz’s wonderful sense of harmony and penchant for subtle surprises won him work with the likes of Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald and Stan Getz more than two decades ago,” The Boston Herald wrote in 2000, when Mr. Mraz was appearing at the Regattabar in Cambridge, Mass., as part of the quartet Grand Slam. “He has remained as in-demand as almost any bassist in jazz, particularly among piano players.” (One of his longest and most fruitful collaborations was with the pianist Tommy Flanagan.)By then, he had also become a bandleader. He recorded several albums under his name, including “Jazz” (1996) and the Duke Ellington tribute “Duke’s Place” (1999).“He played so beautifully, with so much command of the instrument,” Billy Drummond, the drummer on “Duke’s Place,” said by email. “It was captivating to see and hear, and I always looked forward to playing with him.”Mr. Drummond cited a passage from his liner notes for “Duke’s Place” to convey just how captivating Mr. Mraz could be.“I remember vividly playing with him years ago with the pianist Steve Kuhn,” he wrote in those notes, “and George’s bass solos had me so transfixed that I found myself forgetting to come back in to play.”Mr. Mraz at Birdland in New York in 2012. As an accompanist, he was expert at complementing whoever was front and center, Alan NahigianJiri Mraz — “George” was an Americanization — was born on Sept. 9, 1944, in Pisek, in what is now the Czech Republic. When he was 12 or 13, he stumbled on Louis Armstrong on a Voice of America broadcast.“I couldn’t figure out the music,” he told Bass Musician magazine in 2009, “and wondered how someone with a voice like Satchmo’s got away with singing like that. The music made me feel good, and I liked it better than a lot of other things I had heard. That’s when I started looking into jazz.”He studied at the Prague Conservatory, graduating in 1966, and was playing with top jazz groups in his country while a teenager. When the Soviet Union cracked down on liberalization in Prague in the summer of 1968, he was out of the country, playing at a jazz club in Munich. That fall, he accepted a scholarship to Berklee. It was almost a quarter-century before he was able to return to his homeland to perform.He became an American citizen in 1975.As an accompanist, Mr. Mraz was expert at complementing whoever was front and center, as in 1982 when he backed the singer Carol Sloane at the club Village West.“She uses vibrato to give each song a rhythmic pulse, and she knowingly savors every curve she adds to a melody,” Jon Pareles wrote in a review in The New York Times. “Mr. Mraz’s warm, legato bass lines gave her plenty to swing on.”Mr. Mraz was schooled in classical music and would practice it as a conservatory student, but he said he rarely practiced jazz while a student or in later years. “Mostly I learned everything on the bandstand,” he said.He had a knack for accommodating a variety of players and their demands. “There are so many different styles to consider, and I always just try to just fit with what’s happening musically around me,” he told Bass Musician. “It’s a very natural thing for me.”The collapse of the Soviet Union gave Mr. Mraz a chance to return to his home country, and to step to the fore as bandleader.“It’s not easy to decide how to put a band together,” he told The Boston Globe in 1999. “But I needed a group when I went to Prague in 1991, for the first time in 25 years, to play at a festival.”His approach as bandleader was laid back.“You can never tell people exactly what to do,” he said. “So you just try to find a way to work your concepts into the music, as well as their concepts, and just let them do what they do.”A full list of Mr. Mraz’s survivors was not immediately available.When not playing music, Mr. Mraz would sometimes pursue his hobby, fly fishing, in the rivers and streams of upstate New York.“I catch mostly trout and throw most of them back, though I keep one or two a year just to assure myself I’m not completely crazy,” he told The Globe. “The biggest I’ve caught was two feet long, and I let him go — he was too beautiful.” More