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    Taylor Swift’s Ode to Moving On, and 9 More New Songs

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe PlaylistTaylor Swift’s Ode to Moving On, and 9 More New SongsHear tracks by Barry Gibb and Dolly Parton, Rhye, Tim Berne and others.Taylor Swift’s “It’s Time to Go” is a bonus track from the sessions that yielded her quarantine albums.Credit…Beth GarrabrantJon Pareles, Giovanni Russonello and Jan. 8, 2021Every 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.Taylor Swift, ‘It’s Time to Go’[embedded content]Of course Taylor Swift had even more songs recorded during the 2020 quarantine that has already yielded her albums “Folklore” and “Evermore,” which now gets a bonus track. “It’s Time to Go” — terse lines set against an insistent one-note guitar and four chords — maps romantic and workplace setbacks against her own struggle to hold onto her multiplatinum catalog: “He’s got my past frozen behind glass/But I’ve got me.” It’s advice, rationalization, a way to move on: “Sometimes giving up is the strong thing,” she sings. JON PARELESCeleste, ‘Love Is Back’Celeste — who, at least in Britain, has been on the verge of a breakout moment for the past few years — rang in 2021 with a performance of her new single “Love Is Back” on Jools Holland’s annual New Year’s Eve show. Amid rhythmic blasts of brass, the 26-year-old soul singer croons coolly for much of the song before a dazzling grand finale showcases the strength of her smoky voice, which recalls both Amy Winehouse and Billie Holiday. With a debut album, “Not Your Muse,” slated for release on Feb. 26, this could finally be Celeste’s year. LINDSAY ZOLADZSaweetie featuring Doja Cat, ‘Best Friend’The gender warfare in pop hip-hop continues with “Best Friend,” particularly in its video version, which opens by mocking “toxic masculinity” and “another fake woke misogynist” — a bare-chested guest guy — while Saweetie and Doja Cat lounge in bikinis. A twangy two-bar loop accompanies the two women as they flatly declare financial independence and, eventually, find each other. PARELESRhye, ‘Come in Closer’Ideas waft up and ripple away throughout “Come in Closer” the smoothly elusive new single from the breathy, androgynous-voiced Canadian singer and songwriter Michael Milosh, who records as Rhye. Hardly anything is stable; not the beat, not the chord changes, not the vocal melodies or instrumental countermelodies, not an arrangement that moves from churchy organ to a string-laden R&B march to eerie a cappella vocal harmonies. The only constant is yearning: “How I’d love for you to come home with me” is the song’s closest thing to a refrain. PARELESVirgil Abloh featuring serpentwithfeet, ‘Delicate Limbs’Virgil Abloh is best known as a designer; no wonder “Delicate Limbs” begins with fashion-conscious lyrics: “Those gray pants you love might bring you luck, but if they ever fray you can call on me.” But “Delicate Limbs” even more clearly ties in with the catalog of Abloh’s collaborator, serpentwithfeet, a.k.a. the singer and songwriter Josiah Wise. It’s an incantatory enigma, wandering among electronic drones, jazzy drum crescendos and cinematic orchestration, building extraordinary drama. PARELESBarry Gibb featuring Dolly Parton, ‘Words’Viewers of the recent HBO documentary “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” will recall that it was not Dolly Parton nor Kenny Rogers who wrote their mammoth 1983 hit “Islands in the Stream,” but, actually, the Brothers Gibb. So Parton is a natural choice for a duet partner on Barry Gibb’s moving and delicately crafted new album “Greenfields — The Gibb Brothers’ Songbook Vol. 1,” on which the last surviving Bee Gee adds a little twang to some of the group’s standards and collaborates with country artists like Miranda Lambert and fellow Aussie cowboy Keith Urban. Parton joins him for a piano-driven, gently elegiac rendition of the 1968 hit “Words.” On the original single and often in concert, this was the rare Bee Gees song that Barry Gibb sang solo. Reimagining it as a duet, and especially with a voice as warm as Parton’s, makes “Words” feel less like a confession of regret and more like a prelude to reconciliation. ZOLADZSun June, ‘Everything I Had’“Everything I had, I want it back,” Sun June’s Laura Colwell sings on the Austin band’s latest single — certainly a relatable refrain for these times. It’s also a fittingly wistful sentiment for a band that playfully describes its sound as “regret pop,” blending the melodic flutter of Colwell’s voice with dreamy tempos that invite contemplation. (Its second album, “Somewhere,” will be out on Feb. 5.) The lyrics, though, conjure a certain restlessness, as Colwell considers moving all the way to Los Angeles before settling on a new apartment three doors down from where she used to live — presumably just far enough to stare longingly at the old one. ZOLADZJohn Fogerty, ‘Weeping in the Promised Land’“Weeping in the Promised Land” is John Fogerty’s memento of 2020: pandemic, disinformation, economic crisis, Black Lives Matter. In a quasi-hymn, with bedrock piano chords and a swelling choir, he surveys the devastation overseen by a “pharaoh” who keeps “a-preaching, but he never had a plan.” It doesn’t foresee redemption. PARELESScience Friction, ‘Heavy Mental’[embedded content]The alto saxophonist Tim Berne and the trumpeter Herb Robertson circle each other like fighters getting acquainted in the first round at the start of this itchy, low-fi recording, which Berne captured at 55 Bar in Greenwich Village 17 years ago. He’s been releasing recordings from the vault on Bandcamp, and this one — which he found on a CD-R lying on his studio floor, and posted Christmas Day — is especially raw and lively. The guitarist Marc Ducret joins after a minute, adding his own wiry lines and helping outline the track’s central melodic phrase before Tom Rainey’s drums and Craig Taborn’s keyboards enter and the quintet wriggles into a long, tumbling jam. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOMiguel Zenón and Luis Perdomo, ‘Alma Adentro (Live)’At the Jazz Gallery this fall, the alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón and the pianist Luis Perdomo recorded a concert of boleros (or romantic songs, from a range of Latin American traditions), and the set was so understatedly good that after streaming it on Zenón’s Facebook page, the pair decided to release it as an album. This track is a ruminative lament, written by the Puerto Rican singer and polymath Sylvia Rexach for her brother, who had died in an accident; it was the title track — and the most tender moment — on Zenón’s big band album a decade ago. On the new version, as Perdomo alone carries its downward-spiraling chord progression, the pair spends nearly 10 minutes wandering into and away from the song’s wistful melody, as if reliving a distant memory. RUSSONELLOAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    How Zev Love X Became MF Doom

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyPopcastSubscribe:Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsHow Zev Love X Became MF DoomConversations about the legacy of the beloved rap figure’s early career, which set the table for the artist he would become.Hosted by Jon Caramanica. Produced by Pedro Rosado.More episodes ofPopcastJanuary 7, 2021How Zev Love X Became MF DoomDecember 23, 20202020 Popcast Listener Mailbag: Taylor, Dua, MGK and MoreDecember 15, 2020Taylor Swift’s ‘Evermore’: Let’s DiscussDecember 9, 2020The Best Albums of 2020? Let’s DiscussNovember 29, 2020Saweetie, City Girls and the Female Rapper RenaissanceNovember 18, 2020Who Will Control Britney Spears’s Future?November 10, 2020Ariana Grande, a Pop Star for the Post-Pop Star AgeOctober 22, 2020  •  More

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    Dr. Dre, Hospitalized in Los Angeles, Assures Fans He’s ‘Doing Great’

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDr. Dre, Hospitalized in Los Angeles, Assures Fans He’s ‘Doing Great’The rapper, producer and entrepreneur is being treated at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.The producer and executive Dr. Dre said, “I will be out of the hospital and back home soon” in an Instagram post.Credit…Tim Mosenfelder/Getty ImagesJan. 6, 2021Dr. Dre, the music producer and entrepreneur who leveraged his fame in hip-hop into billion-dollar businesses with the Beats brand of headphones and a music streaming service, confirmed on social media late Tuesday that he had been hospitalized in Los Angeles and that he was “doing great.”“Thanks to my family, friends and fans for their interest and well wishes,” he said on Instagram, adding that he was at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center there. “I will be out of the hospital and back home soon.”Dr. Dre’s statement came after reports that he had had a brain aneurysm and had spent time at the intensive-care unit. Three people close to the musician confirmed those reports, but little other information was available, and neither Dr. Dre nor his representatives gave any specific information about his condition.He was still in the hospital on Wednesday, one of those people said.On Tuesday night, while Dr. Dre was in the hospital, a burglary was attempted at his home in Los Angeles. The police said that four people were arrested, according to a report by NBC News.Dr. Dre, 55, whose real name is Andre Young, rose to fame in the late 1980s as part of N.W.A., the rap group from Compton that helped establish and popularize gangster rap — a style known for its unflinching lyrics about violent street life and its aggressive audio production.In a stylistic shift in the 1990s, Dr. Dre slowed the beat down and borrowed heavily from 1970s funk groups like Parliament-Funkadelic to create a new sound, G-Funk. It was exemplified by his 1992 album “The Chronic,” and in the work of rappers like Snoop Doggy Dogg, whom he introduced as a protégé.He also founded his own label, Aftermath, and became closely associated with Eminem, leaving an indelible imprint on hip-hop as the music evolved over two decades. As a producer, he worked with artists like Gwen Stefani and 50 Cent, with a reputation for perfectionism that led to marathon sessions. He abandoned a planned solo album of his own, “Detox,” after more than a decade of work.Working with Jimmy Iovine, the producer and record executive behind the label Interscope, Dr. Dre also established a headphone brand, Beats by Dre. Selling $300 headphones to ordinary consumers, and marketing its products with endorsements by sports and music celebrities, the venture transformed the audio market. By 2013, Beats Electronics, the company behind the headphones, had annual revenue exceeding $1 billion.Around that time, Beats acquired a small music-streaming service, Mog, for $14 million, and amped it up with help from Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. The next year, Apple bought Dr. Dre and Iovine’s company for $3 billion. In a video that circulated online before that deal was formally announced, Dr. Dre bragged that it had made him “the first billionaire in hip-hop.”In recent years he has kept a relatively low profile. He and Iovine endowed a program at the University of Southern California in 2013 for a degree that blends business, marketing, product development, design and liberal arts.Dr. Dre and his wife, Nicole Young, have also recently been involved in divorce proceedings that have been followed in detail by the celebrity media.Joe Coscarelli contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Bobby Shmurda Eligible for Release From Prison in February

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBobby Shmurda Eligible for Release From Prison in FebruaryThe Brooklyn rapper, whose viral ascent was cut short by gang conspiracy charges, may serve the remainder of his seven-year sentence on parole, thanks to good behavior.The Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda, who was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy and weapons possession, will be eligible for release next month.Credit…Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesJan. 4, 2021The Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda, whose quick rise in the music industry was cut short when he was arrested on gang conspiracy charges in 2014, will be eligible for release from prison next month, the New York State Department of Corrections said on Monday.Shmurda, 26, whose legal name is Ackquille Pollard, was sentenced in Oct. 2016 to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy and weapons possession in connection with what prosecutors said was his leading role in the GS9 gang, an offshoot of the Crips, in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn.Shmurda was denied parole in September, in part because of disciplinary actions taken against him while he was incarcerated, and he was ordered then to serve his maximum sentence, to Dec. 11, 2021. But after a review by the Department of Corrections, Shmurda’s credit for good institutional behavior was restored, making him eligible for conditional release as of Feb. 23, barring any further incidents, with the remainder of his sentence to be served on parole.“I’m glad he’s coming home,” said Alex Spiro, a lawyer who represented Shmurda in the criminal case.Before his arrest at a Manhattan recording studio in December 2014, Shmurda was enjoying a viral ascent in hip-hop thanks to a hit single, known as “Hot Boy” in its edited version, and a related meme originating on the social media app Vine that showed him throwing his hat in the air and doing his trademark “Shmoney Dance.” The move was mimicked by Beyoncé and in N.F.L. touchdown dances, helping send “Hot Boy” to No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100.Shmurda, then 19, signed a seven-figure, multi-album deal with Epic Records, but while awaiting trial and unable to pay his $2 million bail, he complained that the label had abandoned him. “When I got locked up, I thought they were going to come for me,” he told The New York Times in an interview, “but they never came.”In the years since, though he had only released a handful of songs, Shmurda became something of a folk hero in rap; his release from prison has been highly anticipated by fans and fellow artists alike. His close collaborator, Rowdy Rebel, who was convicted in the same case, was released on parole last month.While behind bars, Shmurda was disciplined for numerous violations involving fighting and possessing contraband, which damaged his standing with the parole board. In a partial transcript of the parole hearing published by New York magazine, Shmurda said that he was “trying to learn how to defend myself” while being held at Rikers Island, calling the jail “just a crazy place.”Shmurda is currently being held at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., according to the Department of Corrections inmate database.He told the parole board last year that he hoped to return to rap and the entertainment business, while also counseling children from neighborhoods similar to the one where he grew up. “I was just young, I was just being a follower,” he said, “and then I got older, I started making music and then I seen my life take off in a different path, but my past just caught up with me.”In a recent interview with NPR’s Louder Than a Riot podcast, Shmurda suggested that he should have started rapping earlier. “I would have never been in the streets, you know what I mean?” he said. “My biggest regret is not following my dreams earlier.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Playboi Carti’s Quiet Christmas Release Is His First No. 1

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe ChartsPlayboi Carti’s Quiet Christmas Release Is His First No. 1The rapper’s “Whole Lotta Red” was largely unreviewed by the music press (though it led to a Twitter hubbub), and was streamed 126 million times in its opening week.The rapper Playboi Carti’s “Whole Lotta Red” had the equivalent of 100,000 albums sold.Credit…Amy Harris/Invision, via Associated PressJan. 4, 2021, 1:06 p.m. ETYou could be forgiven if you didn’t know about “Whole Lotta Red.”The latest album by the Atlanta rapper Playboi Carti came out on Christmas Day, while streaming playlists were practically overheating with seasonal tinsel by Mariah Carey, Brenda Lee and Andy Williams. And “Whole Lotta Red” apparently went unreviewed by the music media.Yet for a streaming star like Playboi Carti, all of that mattered less than the arrival of new content, although some controversy on social media may also have helped. “Whole Lotta Red” became the rapper’s first No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart, with the equivalent of 100,000 sales in the United States, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. The album, which features appearances by Kanye West, Kid Cudi and Future, was streamed 126 million times in its opening week.“Whole Lotta Red” received some extra attention when the rapper Iggy Azalea complained on Twitter that Playboi Carti had ignored her and their young son, Onyx, on Christmas. In the days following, celebrity-watching social media roiled and Playboi Carti posted videos of him with his son in a studio.Also this week, Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” fell to No. 2 after two turns at the top. The Chicago rapper Lil Durk’s “The Voice” is No. 3, Pop Smoke’s “Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon” is No. 4 in its 26th week out and Ariana Grande’s “Positions” is in fifth place.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    MF Doom, Masked Rapper With Intricate Rhymes, Is Dead at 49

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMF Doom, Masked Rapper With Intricate Rhymes, Is Dead at 49Born Daniel Dumile, MF Doom built a cult following with his wordplay and comic-book style. He died in October, a statement shared by his record label said.MF Doom performing in 2004. The album he released that year, “Madvillainy,” a collaboration with the producer Madlib, was a career breakthrough.Credit…Keith Bedford for The New York TimesDec. 31, 2020Daniel Dumile, the masked rapper who performed as MF Doom and built a lasting underground fan base with his offbeat wordplay and comic-book persona, died on Oct. 31, a statement from his family said on Thursday. He was 49.The rapper’s record label, Rhymesayers, provided the statement, signed by Mr. Dumile’s wife, Jasmine. The label did not give the cause of death or say why it was being announced two months later.Over six solo albums released between 1999 and 2009 and five collaborative LPs (with Madlib and Danger Mouse, among others) between 2004 and 2018, Mr. Dumile honed a style that was intricate and imaginative, calling on both esoteric and lowbrow references as well as cartoonish imagery in lyrics that could be poignantly emotional.Born in London and raised on Long Island, he grew up steeped in early hip-hop. He debuted in 1989 on the 3rd Bass track “The Gas Face” with a standout cameo that helped him get a record deal for his own group, KMD, in which he rapped as Zev Love X.The act included his brother, Dingilizwe, who performed under the name DJ Subroc. Its first album, “Mr. Hood,” arrived in 1991 on the major label Elektra. During the recording of KMD’s second album, “Black Bastards,” Subroc was killed in a car accident, and the label later declined to release the record. Mr. Dumile vanished from the entertainment business but continued to work on music privately while he raised his son.He resurfaced in 1997 with the single “Dead Bent,” his first song under the name Metal Face Doom. (The persona was a nod to the Marvel villain Doctor Doom.) Around the time of the release of the album “Operation: Doomsday” in 1999, which featured a masked character on its cover, Mr. Dumile began hiding his face in public, at first with a stocking mask and later a metal one, which became his signature.In a 2009 interview with The New Yorker, he said the mask had become necessary when he made the leap from the studio to the stage. “I wanted to get onstage and orate, without people thinking about the normal things people think about,” he said. “A visual always brings a first impression. But if there’s going to be a first impression, I might as well use it to control the story. So why not do something like throw a mask on?”Once an underground cult figure, Mr. Dumile found greater fame with albums in the mid-aughts. “Madvillainy,” which arrived in 2004 with the producer Madlib, was a breakthrough.“He delivers long, free-associative verses full of sideways leaps and unexpected twists,” the critic Kelefa Sanneh wrote in reviewing a 2004 concert in The New York Times. “You think you know where he’s heading and what each sentence will mean when it ends. Then it bends.”On “Raid,” a track from “Madvillainy,” he rhymes:Trippin’, to date the Metal Fellow been rippin’ flowsSince New York plates was ghetto yellowWith broke blue writing, this is too excitingFolks leave out the show feelin’ truly enlightenedReleased in the same year, his album “MM .. FOOD” (an anagram of his stage name) included tracks like “Gumbo,” “Kon Queso” and “Kon Karne.” In rapping about the seemingly mundane topic of food with goofiness and wit, he was “showing respect for human life,” he told Spin in 2004.“I’m more like a writer dude rather than a freestyler,” Mr. Dumile told The Chicago Tribune that same year. “I like to design my stuff, and I consider myself an author.”Mr. Dumile rapped under different personas and later became known for sending impostors out onstage to perform for fans; in his trademark metal mask, it was difficult to know the difference. The body doubles often disappointed fans but sparked viral moments online, like when an apparent MF Doom drop-in at a concert turned out to be the comedian Hannibal Buress.In 2017, Mr. Dumile announced on social media that his son, King Malachi Ezekiel Dumile, had died at 14. Information on survivors was not immediately available.Though he never reached mainstream superstardom, Mr. Dumile was widely admired by fellow rappers and producers. He was “your favorite MC’s MC,” wrote Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest on Twitter. In a post on Instagram, El-P wrote: “thank you for keeping it weird and raw always. you inspired us all and always will.”Caryn Ganz contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Love Music to Surprise You? Jon Caramanica Recommends TikTok Dives

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyQUESTIONS FROM THE BOSSLove Music to Surprise You? Jon Caramanica Recommends TikTok DivesThe Times’s Culture editor has questions. Our critic has answers.The songs on Fiona Apple’s 2020 album “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” succeed by connecting to the artist’s resentments as well as her creative impulses.Credit…Gary Miller/Getty ImagesJan. 1, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ETAs the editor of the Culture department at The New York Times, Gilbert Cruz relies on critics, reporters and editors in every field of the arts for their expertise. Now we’re bringing his personal questions — and our writers’ answers — to you. Currently on his mind: how to open himself up to new music, and tangle with the beast known as TikTok, which he posed to Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic.Gilbert asks: We’re approaching the tail-end of one of my favorite times of year — Top 10 list time! The holidays have passed, but I’m still catching up on stuff. I love reading ours, I love reading those from other publications. It really allows me to feel both superior (“Yeah, I saw that”) and inferior (“Damn, I didn’t even hear about that”) at the same time. Last year, after seeing your No. 1 album, I distinctly recall asking myself, “What is 100 gecs?” putting on the song “Money Machine” while my 5-year old was in the room and immediately regretting it. This is one of the reasons I appreciate you.This year, I played it so safe as a music listener. In March, it felt as if I would have time to explore so much of the new — and instead I just played my favorite albums over and over again. Did I do it wrong? Can your year-end list (and Jon Pareles’s and Lindsay Zoladz’s) redeem me and those like me?Jon answers: First off, please enumerate all of the other reasons you appreciate me. If we have any space left, I’ll …I’m really glad that I hit my target demographic, which is to say your child, which is to say someone who remains open to all of the wacky, unexpected possibilities of music. I’d guess that by the time we are, I dunno, 13, we already begin to understand music as something that defines us socially, and about which we can become tribal. That is, of course, a shame. I wish child’s ears for everyone.Look, you’ll find great, revelatory things on my album and song lists — for your little one, try Rina Sawayama and Flo Milli — but I’m not sure there’s much on there that will snap me or you or anyone else out of [madly waves hands around] all of this. Fiona Apple probably came closest for me — it was nice to hear someone with such a direct line to both their resentments and their creative impulses.I think the artists who suffered this year — critically, at least — were those who stayed the course. In a different year, say, Gunna might have gotten more critical attention. But his 2020 album wasn’t much different than his 2019 album, and I found that I didn’t have much to say about him that I hadn’t already said. In a year where it sometimes felt onerous just to extract the energy to even absorb a work of art, albums like that felt easy to nod at and move past.Gilbert asks: It’s a big part of your job to constantly experience the new — but is there older stuff that you find yourself returning to for comfort?Jon answers: I do think that discomfort is my beat, to a certain extent. I generally find myself allergic to familiar pleasures. That said, for the last couple of years, few things have been more calming than the music of the Griselda Records crew, from Buffalo, which is grounded in the 1990s New York rap that makes up around 85 percent of my DNA. The way the syllables have sturdy corners, but there’s still a liquidity between them — it’s as reassuring as my mother’s voice.Also, I know it might sound odd to say that I found comfort in TikTok, the centerless, directionless app that grabs you by the neck and clings tight for as long as you’ll let it, but I found its relentless, crossed-up rhythms soothing. There are endless rabbit holes to fall down, myriad subcultures to peek in on, countless around-the-way superstars who have finally found their dream milieu.Gilbert asks: Yeah, I heard you say something similar on a recent episode of Popcast where you talked about how you “struggled this year to listen to albums” and wondered about the “utility of the album.” Do you think that’s a function of quarantine, or is it just an extension of the playlist-ification of music? Honestly, almost every new song I discovered this year I discovered through some Spotify playlist. (No free ads.)Jon answers: As awful as it sounds, an album is simply a data dump now. That doesn’t mean that some artists won’t continue to aim to be auteurs of the form — say, Taylor Swift or Adele — but the minute albums hit streaming services, they are sliced and diced and the songs are relegated to playlist slots, and everything after that is a crap shoot. The truth is that albums worked as a medium only because everyone was a captive. When you look back at your favorite older albums now, I’m sure you see the weak spots that you’d happily have programmed out if you had the technology then. Now you do. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next generation of pop stars finds ways to never release an “album” again — they’ll just drip music out, one automated-brain-chip-download at a time.Gilbert asks: OK, I have to come back to something, though. It’s embarrassing.Here it is — I’m just not on TikTok much. (Insert grimace emoji.) I know I should be because it’s a major part of the culture, but there are only so many ways I can direct my time. This Robert Caro book isn’t going to finish itself, Jon! What are some of the best things you’ve seen there this year?Jon answers: It’s cool, man — you get paid to run the department, and I get paid to do … this.#FrogTikTok. Teens talking about reading political theory, both as means to revolution and to flirtation. @funkbeezly’s taxonomy of boyfriends. The debunking of Noah Beck’s Yale soccer scholarship. The House Nobody Asked For. Jordan Scott. (Sorry.) (Someone help him with his merch, though.) The joy in the comments when Charli D’Amelio finally danced to ppcocaine’s “3 Musketeers.” High fashion satirist guys who’ll soon be in need of chiropractors. Jeremy O. Harris’s “WAP” dance at Pompeii. @cyberexboyfriend. The very long, very specific memory of @nfbroleelove. “Who’s the drunkest?” Dances to Phoebe Bridgers and Soccer Mommy. @karchill and his Mentos. The many flavors of Pop Smoke and Lil Tjay’s “Mood Swings.” Kids in Zoom classrooms telling their teachers how much they appreciate them. Jasmine Orlando. “Where? Bunny? Surplus? Labor? Value?” And of course, Larry Scott, who always had a “nice” ready when I needed one.Gilbert asks: What’s the longest you’ve ever spent scrolling through TikTok?Jon answers: Ummmmmmm … three hours? So, not nearly long enough.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    John Fletcher, a.k.a. Ecstasy of the Group Whodini, Dies at 56

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJohn Fletcher, a.k.a. Ecstasy of the Group Whodini, Dies at 56He was, the executive who signed Whodini said, “truly one of the first rap stars” and a sex symbol “when they were very scarce in the early days of rap.”Jalil Hutchins, left, and John Fletcher, a.k.a. Ecstasy, of the foundational hip-hop group Whodini in 1984. “I can’t sing,” Mr. Fletcher once said. “But I heard somebody rap one day and I said to myself, ‘I can do that.’”Credit…Paul Natkin/Getty ImagesDec. 26, 2020, 5:56 p.m. ETJohn Fletcher, who as Ecstasy of the foundational hip-hop group Whodini was the engine for some of the genre’s first pop successes, wearing a flamboyant Zorroesque hat all the while, died on Wednesday. He was 56.Jonnelle Fletcher, his daughter, confirmed the death in a statement but did not specify the cause or say where he died. In the mid-1980s, Whodini — made up initially of Mr. Fletcher and Jalil Hutchins, who were later joined by the D.J. Grandmaster Dee (born Drew Carter) — released a string of essential hits, including “Friends,” “Freaks Come Out at Night” and “One Love.” Whodini presented as street-savvy sophisticates with a pop ear, and Mr. Fletcher was the group’s outsize character and most vivid rapper.“I can’t sing,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1987. “But I heard somebody rap one day and I said to myself, ‘I can do that.’ I rap in pitch. I try to be unique. I have my own style.”John Fletcher was born on June 7, 1964, and grew up in the Wyckoff Gardens projects in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. He first worked with Mr. Hutchins, who was from nearby Gowanus, when Mr. Hutchins was trying to record a theme song for the newly influential radio D.J. Mr. Magic.Mr. Fletcher in performance in 2017. His flat-brimmed leather hats became his signature look.Credit…Leon Bennett/Getty ImagesThat collaboration received significant local attention, and Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Hutchins were soon signed by Jive Records, which named them Whodini. They quickly recorded “Magic’s Wand,” produced by Thomas Dolby, and “The Haunted House of Rock,” a Halloween song.“Ecstasy was truly one of the first rap stars,” Barry Weiss, the executive who signed them, wrote on Instagram. “Not just a brilliant voice and wordsmith but a ladies’ man and sex symbol when they were very scarce in the early days of rap. Whodini helped usher in a female audience to what had been a traditional male art form.”Most of the group’s earliest material was recorded in London when Mr. Fletcher was fresh out of high school. Its 1983 self-titled debut album was produced by Conny Plank, who had also produced the bands Kraftwerk and Neu! Whodini also toured Europe before finding true success back in the United States.“We didn’t go to university and get a college degree, but that was our education, just seeing the world,” Mr. Fletcher said in a 2018 interview with the YouTube channel HipHop40.For its follow-up album, “Escape” (1984), Whodini began working with the producer Larry Smith, who amplified its sound and gave it a bit of appealing scuff. (Mr. Smith was also responsible for Run-DMC’s breakout albums.) “Escape” contained the songs that would become Whodini’s seminal hits, notably “Friends” and “Five Minutes of Funk” (released as flip sides on the same 12-inch single) and “Freaks Come Out at Night.”“Friends,” a skeptical storytelling song about deceit, was a smash in its own right and had a robust afterlife as sample material, most notably on Nas and Lauryn Hill’s “If I Ruled the World (Imagine That).”“Five Minutes of Funk” — which would become even more widely known as the theme music for the long-running hip-hop video show “Video Music Box” — deployed a clever countdown motif woven through the lyrics. “In creating that song,” Mr. Fletcher told HipHop40, “we pictured it blaring from the windows in the projects as we walked through it on a summer’s day.”As hip-hop was beginning to gain global notice, Whodini was consistently near the center of the action. The group was managed by the rising impresario Russell Simmons and appeared on the inaugural Fresh Fest tour, hip-hop’s first arena package.But as Run-DMC was taking hip-hop to edgier territory, Whodini remained committed to smoothness. “We were the rap group that kind of bridged the gap between the bands and the rappers,” Mr. Fletcher told HipHop40, adding that he and Mr. Hutchins were mindful that hip-hop was still struggling to gain acceptance among radio programmers, and wrote songs accordingly: “We wanted to curse, but we couldn’t curse.”Mr. Fletcher was also a key innovator in introducing melody to rapping. “Ecstasy was the lead vocalist on most Whodini songs because anything that we could play he could rap right to it in key,” Mr. Hutchins said in an interview with the hip-hop website The Foundation.“Escape” went platinum, and Whodini’s next two albums, “Back in Black” (1986) and “Open Sesame” (1987), both went gold. On “One Love” (from “Back in Black”), which had streaks of the sound that was to soon coalesce as new jack swing, Mr. Fletcher was reflective, almost somber:The words ‘love’ and ‘like’ both have four lettersBut they’re two different things altogether‘Cause I’ve liked many ladies in my dayBut just like the wind they’ve all blown awayHavelock Nelson and Michael A. Gonzales, in their book “Bring the Noise: A Guide to Rap Music and Hip-Hop Culture” (1991), described Whodini as “a beautifully kept building in the middle of Brooklyn’s ghetto heaven, personable characters floating gently through a turbulent sea of hard-core attitude and crush-groove madness.”In no small part that was because of the group’s style. Whodini dressed with flair: leather jackets, sometimes with no shirt; flowing pants or short shorts; loafers. And most crucially, Mr. Fletcher’s flat-brimmed leather hats, which became his signature look, inspired by a wool gaucho he saw in a shop on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn that he had remade in leather. Before long, he had several.“He had them in red; had them in white; two in black, one with an African headpiece on it,” Mr. Hutchins said in a 2013 interview with the Alabama website AL.com. “He had different ones, but the original one was his favorite.”Whodini was also one of the first hip-hop groups to use dancers in their stage shows. A young Jermaine Dupri got one of his earliest breaks as a dancer for the group. He later repaid the favor, signing Whodini to his label, So So Def, on which it released its final album, “Six,” in 1996. Whodini continued to perform frequently into the 2000s.Information on Mr. Fletcher’s survivors in addition to his daughter was not immediately available.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More