| Can I find a better order of notes that I didn’t find last week? |
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| Glowing on: Turnstile bassist "Freaky" Franz Lyons, drummer Daniel Fang and singer Brendan Yates at Stubb's in Austin, May 6, 2022. |
| (Gary Miller/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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| rantnrave:// |
Punks?
The breaking news overnight, of which we'll be hearing a lot more in the days and weeks to come, is that authorities in Georgia say YOUNG THUG's YSL label is a criminal gang that's committed numerous crimes including murder, and 28 people, including Young Thug and his labelmate GUNNA, have been indicted in a major racketeering case. Young Thug, accused of founding the gang and taking part in numerous related activities, was arrested Monday; his lawyer told Atlanta's WSB-TV he has "committed no crime whatsoever." One of his alleged crimes is renting an Infiniti sedan from Hertz that was used in the 2015 murder of DONOVAN THOMAS JR., who prosecutors say was a rival gang member. YAK GOTTI, who's signed to YSL, is one of five men charged with the murder.
It's as easy at this point for fans to proclaim Young Thug's, Gunna's and everyone else's innocence as it is for prosecutors to proclaim their guilt. We don't have the information and we can't possibly know.
But we do know that the evidence laid out in Monday's blockbuster indictments includes the lyrics to multiple songs, including the 2018 Young Thug/NICKI MINAJ track "ANYBODY," in which Young Thug raps, "I never killed anybody / But I got something to do with that body." The evidence against Gunna includes a line in LIL KEED's 2020 song "FOX 5," in which Gunna raps, "We got ten-hundred round choppers." The indictment also notes that Gunna was wearing YSL jewelry in the video.
Every major art form—hip-hop, rock, country, film, painting, literature, etc.—is full of stories of murder and other criminal mayhem, often told in the first person. Jewelry-wearing is common, too. But as ANDREA DENNIS, co-author of the book RAP ON TRIAL: RACE, LYRICS, and GUILT IN AMERICA," told the New Yorker in 2019, “We have searched widely, and, based on our research, rap is the only fictional art form treated this way. No other musical genre and no other art is used in the same way or to the same extent."
A bill currently working its way through the New York state legislature would ban prosecutors in that state from using rap lyrics as criminal evidence. It's a good bill. I don't know if Young Thug is a gang member or an accomplice to murder. I do know he's a rapper and "I never killed anybody / I got something to do with that body" is a metrically solid couplet that ends with an identical rhyme, which is discouraged in traditional poetry but common in nearly all forms of popular music. He can and should admit to that in court, while testifying "WTF" in regard to any other questions about those words.
If he's a gang leader, one hopes prosecutors will work to prove that based on what he and the gang did on the streets of Atlanta, not what they wrote down with pen and paper and rapped into a microphone, to a beat.
(Here's some further context/history about the very idea of calling rappers and their crews a gang.)
(And one more bit of news from the indictments: At one point, they claim, someone at YSL tried to shoot LIL WAYNE.)
Dark Side of the Catalog Market?
Possibly for sale: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON and the rest of PINK FLOYD's recorded music catalog (per LUCAS SHAW at Bloomberg).
Definitely for sale: The entire music holdings of TEMPO MUSIC INVESTMENTS, a private equity fund that in the past two years has invested in copyrights of artists including WIZ KHALIFA and FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE.
A sale would represent "the first major private equity exit from the red hot music copyrights market," the Financial Times' ANNA NICOLAOU reported last week (paywall). One likely reason: Rising interest rates, which may be making music catalogs a less attractive investment relative to others. (Possible counterpoint: Discount rates.) WARNER MUSIC has already put in a bid for Tempo's holdings and UNIVERSAL MUSIC is looking, according to Nicolaou.
Dot Dot Dot
Members of Congress are continuing to squeeze SPOTIFY on its Discovery Mode program, which gives artists a chance to be promoted to more users in exchange for a lower royalty rate. While the House Judiciary Committee seemed most concerned about those reduced royalties when it started asking questions last year, three members of Congress' Multicultural Media Caucus have been hitting Spotify on the issue of consumer transparency: Do users know the company's recommendations are partly based on which artists are cheapest to promote? Billboard obtained a copy of Spotify's response to the legislators explaining how it publicizes the program—it wrote a blog post about it, for example—and says Reps. YVETTE D. CLARKE, JUDY CHU and TONY CARDENAS aren't buying it. In an echo of radio payola rules, they're pushing for clearer disclosures. Spotify executives, they tell Billboard, "cannot be the sole arbiters of what is good for music creators, their subscribers or the general public"... Navajo composer and multimedia artist RAVEN CHACON wins the Pulitzer Prize in Music for "VOICELESS MASS," a piece written during the pandemic about the oppression of Indigenous people. He says he wanted to call attention to "spaces in which we gather, the history of access of these spaces, and the land upon which these buildings sit." He found out he'd won the prize when friends texted him Monday. "Apparently they don’t call you,” he told the New York Times... DOLLY PARTON and DOJA CAT team up to call attention to TACO BELL's Mexican Pizza. They, too, won't be getting a call from the Pulitzer Prize committee... Confessions of a new MITSKI lover... MARISSA R. MOSS's book HER COUNTRY: HOW THE WOMEN OF COUNTRY MUSIC BECAME THE SUCCESS THEY WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE is out today.
Rest in Peace
CAREY "KK" HODGES, founder of the vinyl-only metal label Last Hurrah Records... Singaporean DJ and promoter EILEEN CHEN, who performed as Cats on Crack.
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| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Washingtonian |
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| The Untold Story of the White House’s Record Collection |
| By Rob Brunner |
| Jimmy Carter’s grandson, John Chuldenko, is unlocking its mysteries. It includes Funkadelic’s "Hardcore Jollies," "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols," a Gil Scott-Heron compilation and Barry Manilow’s "Greatest Hits." |
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The Ringer |
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| Money, Problems, Respect: The Early Days of Biggie’s Fame |
| By Justin Tinsley |
| In an excerpt from the new biography ‘It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him,’ author Justin Tinsley explores what it was like for the Notorious B.I.G. as he adjusted to the limelight. |
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Vulture |
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| Bad Bunny’s Endless Summer |
| By Gary Suarez |
| Benito’s approach on "Un Verano Sin Ti" erodes the usual boundaries of the season, its infiniteness dotted by fun flings and moments alone on the beach. |
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Pollstar |
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| How Wet Leg Buttered Muffins & Conquered The Post-Pandemic World |
| By Roy Trakin |
| Who knew salvation would come from the tiny Isle of Wight, an island in the English Channel off the southern coast heretofore best known in rock lore for the annual rock music festival where Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Jimi Hendrix all famously played in ’69 and ’70? |
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Aria Inthavong |
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| The Karaoke Song That Killed Countless People: 'My Way Killings' |
| By Aria Inthavong |
| Since the 2000s, numerous karaoke singers in the Philippines have been murdered after performing "My Way." Why? And how do the "My Way killings" actually tie into the lingering effects of the U.S. colonization of the Philippines? |
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| what we're into |
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| Music of the day |
| “Night Shift” |
| Mary Halvorson |
| With Adam O’Farrill (trumpet), Jacob Garchik (trombone), Patricia Brennan (vibes), Nick Dunston (bass) and Tomas Fujiwara (drums). From "Amaryllis," one of two albums the MacArthur Grant-winning jazz guitarist is releasing this Friday on Nonesuch. |
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| Music | Media |
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| “REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask ‘why?’” |
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