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    A Night With FunkFlex, New York Rap Historian and Booster

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    What happens when various generations of rappers end up in the same room? The radio D.J. and local connector, craving hometown pride and action beyond the algorithm, put out the call.“Where you find the energy to be on this type of time?”Fat Joe had been awake since 5 a.m. to prepare for a CNN segment, and now it was almost 10 p.m., and he was fading. But FunkFlex, the New York radio mainstay, had requested his presence at a small gathering of the New York rap tribes a couple of nights before Thanksgiving, and so Joe was holding on just as Flex was revving up.For more than three decades, Flex has been the carnival barker-in-chief of New York rap, a nighttime radio fixture on Hot 97 (WQHT-FM) — the rare D.J. whose hysteric chatter can merit real-time listening — and a stalwart of nightclubs throughout the city and the tristate area. He is a humorist and an antagonist, sometimes with a target in mind, and sometimes simply for the theater.In the main, he is a booster, a barometer for how New York understands itself through its hip-hop — a bridge from the 1980s to the present day. In the era when New York rap was at the center of hip-hop globally, Flex (then Funkmaster Flex) was at the center of New York rap. But those are bygone days now; even with the rise of drill, New York rap remains a regional concern. And so lately, Flex, 55, has been wondering how he might bring New York back — if not to the center of the conversation, then at least to a sense of hometown pride.B-Lovee, one of the most promising drill rappers from the Bronx, chats with Flex in the studio.Tim Barber for The New York TimesLast week, he put out a call to see what might happen if various generations all ended up in the same room, the studio on West 25th Street where he usually films his freestyle series for YouTube. He put the call out to some of the city’s young rising drill stars, and also into the group chat he has with some of the city’s elders: N.O.R.E., Busta Rhymes, the Lox, Fabolous, Fat Joe and more.From the beginning of the night, dividends were being paid. B-Lovee, one of the most promising drill rappers from the Bronx, was telling Fat Joe, three decades older, about his neighborhood. “That’s the first place I ever seen KRS-One in person,” Joe told him. “Van Cortlandt Park, South Bronx, block party.” Sheek Louch, one-third of the Yonkers rap crew the Lox, looked on. Flex turned to B-Lovee and said he couldn’t tell him who had been supplying him with his music that hadn’t yet come out, but that it was in good hands.Roddy Ricch, left, came by to record his freestyle for Flex’s YouTube series.Tim Barber for The New York TimesFor the last few months, Flex has been setting aside time on his Thursday night show to play unreleased music, a means of pushing back against the algorithmization of hip-hop. Local radio D.J.s were tastemakers once, but playlists are far more powerful now. Flex knew this, because he himself had fallen victim to them.“I was going the easy route — Apple, Spotify Rap Caviar. I was picking my music through there for a while,” he told Jim Jones later that night. “I called you one morning like 7 a.m. It’s Thursday, things are being released and my phone ain’t ringing. Nobody’s asking me to play [expletive]. It bothered me — I ain’t hot? What I feel don’t [expletive] matter?”Flex had to accept that he’d lost a little bit of his gusto over the years. And so he recalibrated, digging in and seeking out music no one had heard — songs that hadn’t yet hit streaming services (even if just a few hours in advance of their official release), or more excitingly, old unreleased songs languishing on hard drives. “I’m getting a lot of songs that had samples that didn’t clear,” Flex said. “I’m getting a song that didn’t make ‘Paid in Full,’” the classic 1987 album by Eric B. & Rakim.FunkFlex greeting Jim Jones. The two shared a conversation about the early days of the Diplomats.Tim Barber for The New York TimesAs he was saying this, there was a light commotion at the door as Roddy Ricch, in town from Los Angeles to promote his “Feed tha Streets III” album and the only non-New York rapper in attendance, came by to record his freestyle for Flex’s YouTube series. When all three members of the Lox — Jadakiss, Styles P, Sheek — entered the studio after he laid down his verse, he melted just a bit: “They done put the pressure on,” Ricch said. “Real spitters in the building.”After Ricch left, the hot seats went to Jim Jones, in a lavender Moncler puffer jacket and a tangle of chains, topped off with one featuring a diamond portrait of the Mexican drug kingpin El Chapo, and Dyce Payso, one of Jones’s protégés. After Dyce Payso rapped a verse, Jones caught a feeling and murmured his way through some untested lines. “Everyone came up here with bars,” he said sheepishly. “I’m just breathing.”Flex and Jones got to talking about the golden era of the Diplomats, when Flex was perhaps a tad late in playing their music on the radio. Cam’ron, the crew’s leader, brought him to West 140th and Lenox Avenue to see the potency of the movement firsthand. “Did I catch up fast?” Flex asked Jones. “Very fast,” Jones concurred.Now, New York was starting to feel familiar to Jones again. “Shout out to all my drillers out there,” Jones said. “It’s feeling like ’02 when I step outside. It’s feeling like the Tunnel.”Dyce Payso, one of Jones’s protégés, dons headphones to rap a verse.Tim Barber for The New York TimesTo Flex, Jones added, “You got the city looking forward to Thursday again.”Following the success of his Thursday night anti-algorithm sessions, this gathering was the first step Flex was planning toward providing New York with a sturdier foundation. He described a plan to put out an old-fashioned mixtape — physical copies only — featuring unreleased songs and freestyles that aren’t otherwise available on the internet or streaming services.Just after midnight, he was discussing his upcoming club schedule while picking at a Tupperware container filled with cucumber and cherry tomatoes. “Every three months, we gonna do a clubhouse session like this,” he said to Tat Wza, his longtime consigliere, who had been manning the boards all night.B-Lovee had been there all night, mostly quiet, mostly listening. When he finally got up to leave, Flex told him to pull up to the New York-centric Thanksgiving party he was hosting, featuring local royalty French Montana and Lil’ Kim, and also the drill stars Fivio Foreign and Ice Spice. “We gonna set a tone,” he assured him. More

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      The Grammys, Improbably, Made It Work

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      So the Grammys this year were … good? Given the persistent clouds of uncertainty and scandal that have hovered over the ceremony and the voting process behind the awards in recent years, compounded by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, it was a welcome surprise that the ceremony was, more or less, a success.There were big wins for Megan Thee Stallion, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift. Hip-hop stars DaBaby, Lil Baby, Roddy Ricch, and Megan all had impressive performances. Mickey Guyton, Miranda Lambert and Maren Morris showed the power of women in country music. With her four wins, Beyoncé is now tied for the second-most Grammys of all time.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about how the Grammys navigated a year of crisis, the minting of a new generation of stars, deserving downballot winners and what happens when the Grammys doesn’t invite the boomer generation?Guests:Jon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticCaryn Ganz, The New York Times’s pop music editorJoe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterBen Sisario, The New York Times’s music industry reporterLindsay Zoladz, who writes about music for The New York Times and others More

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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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      Diary of a Song Breaks Down the Grammys

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      Watch how your favorite pop hits get made. Meet the artists, songwriters and producers as Joe Coscarelli investigates the modern music industry.Watch how your favorite pop hits get made. Meet the artists, songwriters and producers as Joe Coscarelli investigates the modern music industry. More