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      Who Will Win Record of the Year at the Grammys? Let’s Discuss.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDiary of a SongWho Will Win Record of the Year at the Grammys? Let’s Discuss.Beyoncé, Megan Thee Stallion, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and more will face off Sunday. In this special “Diary of a Song” episode, critics for The New York Times break down the show’s premiere category.Beyoncé, Megan Thee Stallion, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and more will face off this weekend for record of the year. In this special Diary of a Song episode, The New York Times’ pop music team dissects the award show’s premiere category.March 8, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETAt the 63rd annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, there will be no shortage of big-name matchups in the major categories (Taylor Swift! Dua Lipa! Roddy Ricch!), but only one has the real heavyweight showdown: Beyoncé vs. Beyoncé.Record of the year — which recognizes a single track, based on the artist’s performance and the contributions of producers, audio engineers and mixers — is in many ways the awards show’s premiere category, seeking to define the previous year’s musical zeitgeist in one song. Recent winners offer a fairly representative survey of popular music: “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish, “This Is America” by Childish Gambino, “24K Magic” by Bruno Mars, “Hello” and “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele, “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers, and so on.This year’s record of the year nominees include those two Beyoncé appearances — “Black Parade” and “Savage (Remix)” with Megan Thee Stallion — plus songs by Lipa (“Don’t Start Now”), DaBaby featuring Ricch (“Rockstar”), Doja Cat (“Say So”), Billie Eilish (“Everything I Wanted”), Post Malone (“Circles”) and Black Pumas (“Colors”).To understand this eclectic mix and who might have the best shot at winning, The New York Times gathered three critics, the pop music editor and a reporter for a special spinoff episode of “Diary of a Song” that breaks down the category. In the video above, the team asks some of the big questions going into Sunday’s show: Should Eilish win again? Does a rap song stand a chance? Will Beyoncé break her decade-plus drought in the big four categories? Which disco revival hit reigns supreme? And who, exactly, are Black Pumas?Guests include:Jon Caramanica, The New York Times’s pop music criticJoe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporter and “Diary of a Song” hostCaryn Ganz, The New York Times’s pop music editorWesley Morris, The New York Times’s critic-at-largeJon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music critic“Diary of a Song” provides an up-close, behind-the-scenes look at how pop music is made today, using archival material — voice memos, demo versions, text messages, emails, interviews and more — to tell the story behind the track. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Grammys Lineup 2021: Taylor Swift, BTS, Billie Eilish and More

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTaylor Swift, BTS and Megan Thee Stallion Will Perform at the GrammysThe awards show next Sunday night will feature a mix of live and taped appearances shot in downtown Los Angeles.From left: Taylor Swift, Megan Thee Stallion and Dua Lipa are among the artists announced as performers for the 63rd annual Grammy Awards.Credit…Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images For Iheartmedia, Rich Fury/Getty Images For Visible, Kevin Winter/Getty Images For DcpPublished More

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      St. Vincent’s Synth-Funk ‘Pain,’ and 9 More New Songs

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe PlaylistSt. Vincent’s Synth-Funk ‘Pain,’ and 9 More New SongsHear tracks by Drake featuring Rick Ross, Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, Bebe Rexha and others.St. Vincent previews a new album called “Daddy’s Home” with the squelchy “Pay Your Way in Pain.”Credit…Zackery MichaelJon Pareles, Jon Caramanica and March 5, 2021Updated 4:08 p.m. ETEvery Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.St. Vincent, ‘Pay Your Way in Pain’[embedded content]St. Vincent (Annie Clark) piles artifice on artifice on the way to a digitized primal scream in “Pay Your Way in Pain,” from a new album, “Daddy’s Home,” due in May. A throwaway music-hall piano introduction cuts to fat, squelchy 1980s synthesizer tones as she sings, archly but with mounting desperation, about rejection on every front, surrounded by multiples of her own voice processed into gasping, tittering onlookers; they join her to harmonize on the words “pain” and “shame” like decades-later echoes of David Bowie singing “Fame.” It’s droll until it isn’t; at the end, she proclaims, “I want to be loved,” and that last word stretches for a rasping, breathless 17 seconds. JON PARELESNo Rome featuring Charli XCX and the 1975, ‘Spinning’Pros recognize pros. It’s telling that Charli XCX (the Id Girl of hyperpop) and Matty Healy of the 1975 (the most self-conscious yet ambitious arena-rock deconstructionist) both chose to collaborate with No Rome, a Filipino songwriter and producer who melds introversion, melody and electronics. The song ends up on Charli XCX’s turf: teasing, danceable and unstable, flaunting its pitch-shifting and digital edits. But it’s also thoroughly danceable and flirtatious: full of mindless motion. PARELESBruno Mars, Anderson .Paak, Silk Sonic, ‘Leave the Door Open’Both Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars are diligent students of R&B history, especially devoted to its most opulent, funky and idealistic moments in the pre-disco 1970s. So it’s no surprise that their collaboration — Silk Sonic, though they also keep their own search-optimizing names in the billing — harks back, in “Leave the Door Open,” to the close-harmony seductions of groups like the Spinners, the Manhattans and the Stylistics; yes, kids, that’s an analog tape deck rolling as the video begins. The descending guitar glissando, the glockenspiel, the showy key changes, the contrast of grainy lead and perfectionist backup vocals, the detailed erotic invitation of the lyrics — “Come on over, I’ll adore you” — are all good things to revive. PARELESDrake featuring Rick Ross, ‘Lemon Pepper Freestyle’What’s a palate cleanse for Drake is, for most rappers, out of the reach of their ambition and skill. In between albums, he tosses off songs that focus on his tougher side, leaning in to wordy verses largely bereft of melody. “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” — from his new “Scary Hours 2” EP — is a relaxed classic of the form, full of sly rhymes delivered so offhandedly it almost obscures the technical audacity within. The song features frequent mischief buddy Rick Ross, but promptly dispenses with him so that Drake can embark upon a four-plus minute verse touching on his notary public, some wild times in Vegas, smooth co-parenting (“I send her the child support/She send me the heart emoji”), the deadening effects of too much fame, the overpriced accouterments of too much fame and the usual confession/braggadocio nexus that even after more than a decade still stings: “To be real, man, I never did one crime/But none of my brothers can caption that line.” JON CARAMANICABebe Rexha, ‘Sacrifice’New year, nü-disco. Bebe Rexha turns whispering diva on “Sacrifice” — “Wanna be the air every time you breathe/running through your veins, and the spaces in between” — on an elegant track that includes the faintest nod to Real McCoy’s mid-90s ultra-bouncey “Another Night.” CARAMANICATank, ‘Can’t Let It Show’Tank pours out his regrets and begs for reconciliation on “Can’t Let It Show”: “I should’ve been everything I promised,” he croons in an aching tenor, going on to confess, “I’ve been stupid, heartless/I’ve been useless, thoughtless.” Then, in falsetto, he answers with what’s supposed to be her side of the dialogue: a repurposed Kate Bush chorus — “I should be crying but I just can’t let it show” — that makes him think he still stands a chance because she cares. Or is it all just his wishful thinking? PARELESMaroon 5 featuring Megan Thee Stallion, ‘Beautiful Mistakes’An awkward night out in a thankless marriage between a partner barely trying to save face and a partner trying very hard to do just enough so that observers might not notice how poorly suited the pair are to each other. CARAMANICAAshe and Finneas, ‘Til Forever Falls Apart’Perhaps Finneas is a little frustrated — though well-compensated — while he keeps things quiet (but deeply ominous) when he collaborates with his sister, Billie Eilish, whose vocals tend to be melodic whispers. He goes full-scale, orchestral Wall of Sound, appropriately, to share big crescendos with Ashe on “Til Forever Falls Apart,” which starts as a vow of fidelity but turns into visions of California apocalypse. PARELESOmar Sosa, ‘Shibinda’When the prolific Cuban pianist and composer Omar Sosa toured East Africa with his trio in 2009, he brought along a small recording setup, and captured himself playing with leading musicians in every country he visited. Afterward, he overdubbed additional layers of percussion and piano atop the original recordings; now he has finally released these recordings as an album, “An East African Journey.” In Zambia, Sosa met Abel Ntalasha, a multi-instrumentalist and dancer, whose song “Shibinda” tells of a young man growing into adulthood and preparing to marry. Ntalasha plays the kalumbu, a single-stringed instrument, and sings the song’s central incantation. Sosa gets involved gradually, contributing vocals and percussion and rhythmic spritzes high up on the piano. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOHafez Modirzadeh, ‘Facet Sorey’[embedded content]To make his new album, “Facets,” the saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh brought three leading jazz pianists into the studio. But before they arrived, he retuned many of the piano’s strings to reflect an old Persian technique of finding notes in the spaces between the tempered scale. On “Facet Sorey,” Modirzadeh doesn’t play a lick of sax; instead, the multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey handles the piece alone, conjuring up conflicted clouds of harmony, letting the piano’s slightly sour tuning create a feeling of rich uncertainty. RUSSONELLOAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Henry Goldrich, Gear Guru to Rock Stars, Is Dead at 88

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHenry Goldrich, Gear Guru to Rock Stars, Is Dead at 88The owner of Manny’s Music in Manhattan, he brought wah-wah to Hendrix and Clapton and connected musicians with equipment that helped define their styles.Henry Goldrich in an undated photo in front of his store, Manny’s Music, which until it closed in 2009 was the largest and best-known of the cluster of music shops on West 48th Street in Manhattan.Credit…via Ian GoldrichMarch 4, 2021, 6:29 p.m. ETWhen asked about his musical ability, Henry Goldrich would often demur, “I play cash register.”His stage was Manny’s Music in Manhattan, where Mr. Goldrich, the longtime owner, supplied equipment to a generation of rock stars. But even though he sold instead of strummed, Mr. Goldrich secured an important role in rock by connecting famous musicians with cutting-edge equipment.“To these guys, Henry was the superstar,” his son Judd said. “He was the first guy to get gear they had never seen before.”Mr. Goldrich died on Feb. 16 at his home in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 88.His death was confirmed by his other son, Ian, who said he had been in frail but stable health.Manny’s, which closed in 2009 after 74 years in business, was long the largest and best-known of the cluster of music shops on the West 48th Street block known as Music Row.It was opened in 1935 by Mr. Goldrich’s father, Manny, and it was a second home for Henry since his infancy, when the shop’s clientele of swing stars doted on him. Ella Fitzgerald would babysit for him in the shop when his parents went out for lunch, Ian Goldrich said.By 1968, when his father died at 62, Henry Goldrich had largely taken over operations and had turned the shop into an equipment mecca and hangout for world-renowned artists.He did this by expanding its inventory of the latest gear and by solidifying connections with suppliers that helped him consistently stock high-level instruments and new products.Mr. Goldrich sold guitars to Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend and many others. He was not happy about Mr. Townshend’s penchant for smashing them.Credit…Chester Higgins Jr./The New York TimesAt a time before rock stars were lavished with the latest equipment straight from the manufacturers, Manny’s was favored by top musicians searching for new gear and testing out new equipment.These included two guitar gods of the 1960s, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton — to whom, Ian Goldrich said, his father recommended the wah-wah pedal, an electronic device that immediately became a staple of both musicians’ approaches. He added that Hendrix would buy scores of guitars on credit and have Mr. Goldrich fine-tune them to the guitarist’s demanding preferences.Many rock and pop classics were either played or written on instruments sold by Mr. Goldrich.John Sebastian, founder of the Lovin’ Spoonful, recalled in an interview how Mr. Goldrich in the mid-1960s helped him select the Gibson J-45 he used on early Spoonful recordings like “Do You Believe in Magic?”Mr. Goldrich similarly matched James Taylor with a quality Martin acoustic guitar early in his career, his son Ian said. And Sting used the Fender Stratocaster Mr. Goldrich sold him to compose “Message in a Bottle” and many other hits for the Police before donating it to the Smithsonian Institution.The photos on the Manny’s Wall of Fame constituted a Who’s Who of popular music. Credit…Chester Higgins Jr./The New York TimesIn 1970, he sold the Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour the 1969 black Stratocaster he played on many of the band’s seminal recordings. It sold at auction in 2019 for a record $3,975,000.Pete Townshend of the Who would order expensive electric guitars by the dozens from Mr. Goldrich, who was not happy when he heard about the guitarist’s penchant for destroying his instrument onstage for theatrical effect.“It was good business,” Ian Goldrich said, “but my father was annoyed that Pete was breaking all the guitars he was selling him.”Unlike many of his flamboyant rock-star customers, Mr. Goodrich always dressed conventionally in a sport coat and kept a blunt demeanor that put his customers at ease.“He had a gruff personality; he treated them all the same,” Ian Goldrich said. “He’d tell Bob Dylan, ‘Sit in the back and I’ll be with you in a minute.’”There was the day in 1985 — it was Black Friday, and the store was packed — that Mick Jagger and David Bowie stopped by together, creating a commotion that halted sales. An annoyed Mr. Goldrich quickly sold them their items and rushed them out.“My father was like, ‘What are you guys doing here today?’” Ian recalled. “He didn’t throw them out, but he was not happy.”When the band Guns N’ Roses asked to shoot part of the video for their 1989 hit “Paradise City” in the store, Ian Goldrich recalled, his father agreed only reluctantly, saying, “OK, but we’re not shutting down for them.”Ever opinionated, Mr. Goldrich told Harry Chapin in 1972 that his new song “Taxi,” at nearly seven minutes, was too lengthy to be a hit. (It reached the Top 40 and is now considered a classic.) And he told Paul Simon, who as a boy had bought his first guitar at Manny’s, that he thought Simon and Garfunkel was a “lousy name” for a group.But he also advised new stars in a fatherly way not to squander their newfound wealth.“He’d take them aside and say, ‘You’re making money now — how are you going to take care of it?’” Ian Goldrich said.From left, the singer Richie Havens, the singer and radio host Oscar Brand and Mr. Goldrich at a celebration of Manny’s Music’s 50th anniversary at the Rainbow Grill in 1985.Credit…Marilyn K. Yee/The New York TimesHenry Jerome Goldrich was born on May 15, 1932, to Manny and Julia Goldrich, and grew up in Brooklyn and in Hewlett on Long Island. After graduating from Adelphi College, he served in the Army in Korea in the mid-1950s and then went to work full time at Manny’s.His father opened the store on West 48th Street, a location he chose because it was close to the Broadway theaters and the 52nd Street jazz clubs, as well as numerous recording studios and the Brill Building, a hub for music publishers. In 1999, Mr. Goldrich sold Manny’s to Sam Ash Music, a rival store, which largely retained the staff until Manny’s closed in 2009.In addition to his sons, Mr. Goldrich is survived by his wife, Judi; his daughter, Holly Goldrich; seven grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.Mr. Goldrich often used his celebrity clientele to market the store. “He recognized value of these people being in the store and it made the business, certainly,” his son Judd said.When a young Eric Clapton, then with the group Cream, was stuck in New York without the money to fly home to England, he offered his amplifiers to Mr. Goldrich to raise funds.“He said, ‘I’ll buy them from you as long as you stencil them with the Cream logo,” Ian said.Then there was the store’s Wall of Fame, thousands of autographed publicity photos of famous customers that constituted a Who’s Who of popular music. Mr. Goldrich helped cultivate the photos, many of which were inscribed to him, and often kept his staff from stacking merchandise in front of them.Mr. Taylor, in a video interview, described being mesmerized by the photos as a teenager and being proud when his own was added. “It was sort of an inside thing, not as celebrated as a Grammy or a gold record or a position on the charts,” he said. “But definitely you had arrived if you were included on that wall.”Mr. Goldrich became close friends with many musicians, including the Who’s bassist, John Entwistle, who attended Judd’s bar mitzvah in New Jersey and hosted the Goldrich family at his Gothic mansion in England. Ian remembered the band’s drummer, Keith Moon, sitting on his father’s lap while drinking cognac at a screening of the film “Tommy.”In a video interview, Mr. Goldrich described selling the violinist Itzhak Perlman an electric violin. When Mr. Perlman tried bargaining, Mr. Goldrich parried by asking if he ever reduced his performance fee.“He said, ‘It’s different, I’m a talent,’” Mr. Goldrich recalled. “I said, ‘I’m a talent in my own way, too.’”That talent was palpable to Mr. Sebastian when he asked Mr. Goldrich to allow him to test out his stock of Gibson acoustic guitars in a merchandise room.“Henry’s famously prickly demeanor receded slightly,” Mr. Sebastian recalled, and he agreed to open early the next morning to allow him in.“He knew exactly what I wanted,” he said. “And I’ll be damned if I didn’t catch Henry smiling as he made out the bill.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Britney Spears’s Father Says He Hopes She Won’t Need a Conservatorship

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Britney Spears’s Legal BattleControl of Spears’s Estate‘We’re Sorry, Britney’Justin Timberlake ApologizesWatch ‘Framing Britney Spears’ in the U.S.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBritney Spears’s Father Says He Hopes She Won’t Need a ConservatorshipThe father’s lawyer shared his opinions on the conservatorship on CNN and NBC News recently, almost a month after a documentary examining the arrangement was released.Jamie Spears, left, Britney Spears’s father, has been one of her conservators for more than a decade. He’s telling his side of the story, through a lawyer, on television.Credit…Associated PressMarch 3, 2021Updated 2:48 p.m. ETAs the legal battle and public fallout over Britney Spears’s finances and personal life continue, a lawyer for her father, Jamie Spears, has told CNN that Jamie “would love nothing more than to see Britney not need a conservatorship.”The comments came not long after “Framing Britney Spears,” a TV documentary by The New York Times, released last month, revisited the details of the conservatorship that has shaped this pop singer’s life. Since it aired, Jamie Spears’s lawyer has sought to tell her client’s side of the story on national television programs, including “Good Morning America” last week and NBC News this week.The #FreeBritney campaign, which was also explored in the documentary, has for years campaigned to portray the conservatorship arrangement as an unjust means to control Spears’s life and finances.On Tuesday night, Vivian Lee Thoreen, Jamie Spears’s lawyer, defended the singer’s conservatorship to NBC News.“Britney being safe and not being taken advantage of is his No. 1 priority,” Thoreen said about Jamie Spears as Britney Spears’s co-conservator.Spears has been in a conservatorship, or guardianship, since 2008, after a series of public meltdowns captured by paparazzi. The complicated arrangement designates a representative to manage someone’s personal affairs and their estate if they are unable to care for themselves or if they are vulnerable to outside manipulation.Thoreen told CNN that Jamie Spears “would love nothing more than to see Britney not need a conservatorship.”“Whether or not there is an end to the conservatorship really depends on Britney,” Thoreen added. “If she wants to end her conservatorship, she can file a petition to end it.”Thoreen, who once represented Jamie Spears before the documentary, has rejoined his legal team. She did not return calls seeking comment on Tuesday.In the documentary, though, she told The Times: “Of the cases I’ve been involved in, I have not seen a conservatee who has successfully terminated a conservatorship.”Jamie Spears has been one of his daughter’s conservators for more than a decade, controlling crucial aspects of her life such as her finances and her mental health care. In 2019, citing health problems, he walked back his role, and a professional conservator filled in temporarily.Britney Spears’s court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, made clear for the first time in a court filing in August that the singer “strongly opposed” having her father as the conservator. Spears had rarely commented on her conservatorship. Ingham, who declined to comment on Tuesday, said at that hearing that Britney Spears believed that the conservatorship “must be changed substantially in order to reflect the major changes in her current lifestyle and her stated wishes.”Then, at a hearing in November, Ingham said that Britney Spears would not perform again as long as her father was in charge of her career. “My client has informed me that she is afraid of her father,” he told the judge.The judge, Brenda Penny, fulfilled a request by Britney Spears that Bessemer Trust, a corporate fiduciary, be added as a co-conservator. But Judge Penny did not remove Jamie Spears as a conservator of Spears’s estate. Britney Spears and her father were back in court on Feb. 11, but the judge did not order any substantive changes.In the week after the release of The Times’s documentary, some media outlets responded with apologies for their past coverage of Spears’s mental health, mothering skills and sexuality. Spears’s former boyfriend Justin Timberlake also apologized to her after the documentary re-examined their breakup.Joe Coscarelli and Julia Jacobs contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      One of Turkey’s Hottest Rock Bands Has an Unlikely Source

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOne of Turkey’s Hottest Rock Bands Has an Unlikely SourceAltin Gun’s fans say the band does more for Turkey’s image than the government. No one seems to mind that it’s actually Dutch.From left, Erdinc Ecevit, Merve Dasdemir and Jasper Verhulst of Altin Gun performing in Amsterdam in 2019.Credit…Ben HoudijkMarch 2, 2021, 11:29 a.m. ETLate one night in 2016, Jasper Verhulst was sitting on his balcony in Amsterdam, pondering his next career move.The Dutch bass player had been playing in an indie band, he recalled in a recent video interview, but its singer had decided to stop touring, and Verhulst needed a new project.That night, he put on a playlist of his favorite Turkish rock songs — tracks written in the 1970s that combined traditional Turkish melodies and instruments with psychedelic rock, to make a funky sound all their own. Suddenly, he was struck by thought: “This is what I want to do.”Turkish rock songs like these would sound great at a music festival, he thought, yet he’d never heard that before. So he decided to fill the gap. He just had a few problems to overcome first: He didn’t speak Turkish, and he didn’t play any Turkish instruments.Soon, he was posting “Wanted” advertisements in Turkish grocery stores and restaurants around Amsterdam, as well as on Facebook, looking for musicians to play cover versions of the most famous tracks from the 1970s. “I really didn’t know if there would be any Turkish people who would like the idea,” Verhulst said. “But I thought, ‘I would love to do this, so let’s just try.’”Five years later, the six-piece band Verhulst formed, Altin Gun (which means “Golden Day” in Turkish), is arguably the world’s most prominent Turkish-language rock band. Two of its members, Merve Dasdemir and Erdinc Ecevit, both of Turkish descent, joined thanks to his Facebook post. The other members are Dutch, or British, and the band rehearses in Amsterdam.In 2019, the band became the first Turkish-language act to be nominated for a Grammy, leading Hurriyet, a Turkish daily newspaper, to call them “our pride on the red carpet.” They regularly play sold-out shows in Istanbul, and they have also become a sight on festival posters across Europe and the United States. They were scheduled to play the Coachella and Bonnaroo festivals last year, before the coronavirus pandemic stopped both events.The band’s new album, “Yol,” released last week, is already being lauded by fans in and outside Turkey. “These individuals do a better job than our minister of tourism and foreign affairs to strengthen our foreign relations,” one Turkish fan wrote on YouTube beneath one of Altin Gun’s recent videos. Another fan simply wrote the Turkish word for “Beautiful!” and followed it with Turkish flag emoji.Verhulst said he found the group’s growing popularity, especially in Turkey and its diaspora, overwhelming at times. “It’s kind of weird when something’s bigger than you feel,” he said. Dasdemir, in a video interview, agreed it could be odd. Playing sold-out shows in Istanbul “feels like conquering my own country,” she said.Turkish psychedelic rock is undergoing a resurgence, said Cem Kayiran, the music editor of Bant Mag, a Turkish youth magazine, in a telephone interview. The style emerged in the 1970s, when some of Turkey’s biggest pop stars took old folk songs and updated them with modern instruments, he said.In the early 2000s, several record labels, notably Finders Keepers in Britain, began reissuing records from that time, bringing the music to a Western audience, he added. Now, acts like Altin Gun and Gaye su Akyol, a Turkish rock star, were revitalizing the genre all over again. “It’s really hype right now,” he said.Altin Gun were so good at what they did, Kayiran added, that some younger Turkish people didn’t even seem to realize the band was covering old folk tunes. “I’ve got Turkish friends in the United States who’ve sent me YouTube links of their songs going, ‘You have to hear this band, they’re really cool,’” he said. “I have to send them links to the originals back,” he added.Dasdemir, who was born in Turkey but moved to the Netherlands as a young adult, said she didn’t think twice about joining Altin Gun after seeing Verhulst’s advertisement. “I was tagged in his Facebook post and just couldn’t believe my eyes that this Dutch guy wanted to make music from my culture,” she said. “I thought it was so cool.” A handful of people have accused the group of cultural appropriation, she said, but this didn’t make sense to her. “I’m 100 percent Turkish,” she said. “If I’m not going to cover my own culture’s music, who’s going to do it?” she added.Fans agreed it didn’t matter where the band’s members were born. “You literally could dance to their music at a Turkish wedding, in rural Turkey,” said Ozgur Muslu, a fan living in Massachusetts, in a Facebook message.“I ultimately look at the final product, and I am seeing a rainbow of influences,” Muslu said, including electronic elements that are far from typical Turkish rock music.Altin Gun in Amsterdam in 2019. “We’re a folk band,” Verhulst said, just like the ones who used to wander their countries and bring old songs to new audiences.Credit…Ben HoudijkDasdemir and Ecevit, the band’s Turkish members, often choose which songs to cover. But Verhulst said he suggested tunes, too, despite having no idea what the lyrics were about, picking tracks from his own record collection, or YouTube. This doesn’t always go according to plan. “Sometimes Merve and Erdinc are like, ‘We can’t sing that, it’s a wedding song!’ or ‘No, this is too religious,’ or ‘These lyrics are really lame,’” he said.He always accepted their decision, he said. “I’m the bass player. It’s not like I’m going to sing Turkish songs to Turkish people,” he added.Gaye su Akyol, one of Turkey’s most famous rock musicians, said she would like to see the band branch out from covers and release its own material. “Musical genres need new compositions to develop and expand,” she said in a telephone interview. Altin Gun were great musicians, “faithful to the soul of Turkish psychedelic music,” she said, but she was sure they could push the genre into new places if they wanted to.Dasdemir said that wasn’t the plan for now. For a start, she’d find it hard to write an original song in the old Turkish style, she said, as the lyrics were often old-fashioned and highly poetic. Original music was also just not what Altin Gun was about, Verhulst said. “We’re a folk band,” he said, just like the ones who used to wander Britain, the Netherlands or, indeed, Turkey, bringing old songs to new audiences.He loved music from all over the world, he added, and Turkish music was “just 5 percent” of his record collection. But for now, he added, it was all he wanted to play. “There’s all these beautiful songs written in Turkey, some of them more than 100 years old, where the composers are totally unknown,” he said. “It’s nice to keep that tradition going.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Derek Khan, Onetime Stylist for Hip-Hop Stars, Dies at 63

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThose We’ve LostDerek Khan, Onetime Stylist for Hip-Hop Stars, Dies at 63He was an architect of the over-the-top look known as “ghetto fabulous.” Later, unable to support his own lavish lifestyle, he fell from grace.The fashion stylist Derek Khan at his home in Dubai in 2008. He presided over the marriage of pop music and high fashion that began in the 1990s. Credit…Daryl Visscher for The New York TimesFeb. 28, 2021, 12:36 p.m. ETDerek Khan, a celebrated fashion stylist to hip-hop and R&B stars like Salt-N-Pepa, Pink and Lauryn Hill who later fell far from those glittering heights, died on Feb. 15 at a hospital in Dubai. He was 63.The cause was complications of Covid-19, said Beverly Paige, a former vice president of publicity at the Island Def Jam Music Group.Mr. Khan, a diminutive man with outsize charm and a high-wattage smile, presided over the marriage of pop music and high fashion that began in the 1990s. A creator of the over-the-top look known as “ghetto fabulous,” he persuaded rap stars to shed the street wear they were known for, dressing them in Fendi, Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana and bedazzling them with jewels from Harry Winston, Piaget and Van Cleef & Arpels.When he was the in-house stylist for Motown, he was known as “Dolce” around the office, Andre Harrell, once the chief executive of that label — and a hip-hop star maker as founder of Uptown Records — told The New York Times in 2003. Mr. Khan swathed Mary J. Blige in yards of white fur (accessorized with Fendi sunglasses and a Rolls-Royce) for the cover of her album “Share My World.” He introduced Pink to Chanel, and he oversaw Lauryn Hill’s haute bohemian look for her debut album, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” which made her a Vogue darling.He was a visual impresario of a cultural shift in the music business that put hip-hop front and center and made its stars into mainstream fashion avatars.In the mid-1990s Ms. Paige of Island Records hired him to overhaul the look of the three young women who made up Salt-N-Pepa: Cheryl James, Sandra Denton and Diedra Roper, otherwise known as DJ Spinderella. The group was already wildly popular and would soon win a Grammy. Out went the eight-ball jackets and door-knocker earrings, which Mr. Khan, once a salesman at luxury boutiques, exchanged for Yves Saint Laurent tuxedos and ropes of diamonds.“We were just regular kids shopping at Rainbow on Jamaica Avenue, and then Derek came along with his over-the-top way and said, ‘You don’t know who you are. It’s time to step it up,’” Ms. James said in an interview. “The music is important, but how you show up is important, too. He taught us to show up in the room.”Salt-N-Pepa (from left, Cheryl James, Sandra Denton and Diedra Roper) after winning a Grammy Award in 1995. “We were just regular kids,” Ms. James said, “and then Derek came along with his over-the-top way and said, ‘You don’t know who you are. It’s time to step it up.’” Credit… Philippe Aimar/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBy the turn of the millennium, Mr. Khan was one of the most sought-after stylists in the business. And he was living as extravagantly as the acts whose images he was amplifying — hosting enormous dinners at Mr. Chow, flying first class and treating himself to $1,000 jars of Crème de la Mer face cream.And then the bottom fell out of the music business. Music sharing platforms like Napster drained revenue from album sales. Music videos lost their luster. At the same time, artists who once doted on Mr. Khan found a new cadre of stylists to bedazzle them, and up-and-coming young artists had their own favorites.Unable to sustain the lavish lifestyle he had built, Mr. Khan developed a dangerous habit: He borrowed jewels from Harry Winston and others, as he had long done, but instead of adorning his clients, he pawned the baubles for cash.“After that first pawning I said I would never do it again,” Mr. Khan told The Times. “But then something would come up and I would need money, and then it snowballed.”The rapper Lil’ Kim, as styled by Mr. Khan in a Chanel outfit, at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in 2002.Credit…Frederick M. Brown/Getty ImagesAs the young fashion editor of Vibe magazine in the early 1990s, the stylist Stefan Campbell watched Mr. Khan’s dizzying rise. “As generous and creative as Derek was, he was straddling many worlds that he wanted to impress,” Mr. Campbell recalled. “He was introducing his young hip-hop clients to a whole new world of glamour, and he had to seem ‘of it.’ And in that world, generosity was expensive.”Mr. Khan’s world came crashing down in 2003, when he was sent to prison for defrauding the jewelers. After he was released in 2005, he was immediately deported to his native Trinidad.Then, in yet another reversal of fortune, Mr. Khan remade himself two years later in Dubai, initially embraced by a city where living large is a religion. His engaging smile beamed from the pages of lifestyle magazines there, and he signed a deal to design a line of jewelry.The Coronavirus Outbreak More