Bebop was a conscious attempt to repudiate some of the social acceptance of Black music, and when I say ‘social acceptance’ I mean the broader American society. It’s loud, it’s brash, people considered it to be dissonant. To me, it was the end of Black people trying to be polite and mannerly, and to fit into white society. | | | | Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C. in Dublin, March 5, 2020.
(Kieran Frost/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | “Bebop was a conscious attempt to repudiate some of the social acceptance of Black music, and when I say ‘social acceptance’ I mean the broader American society. It’s loud, it’s brash, people considered it to be dissonant. To me, it was the end of Black people trying to be polite and mannerly, and to fit into white society.”
| | | | | | rantnrave:// What's up with DJs—or anyone else, but it seems there've been a lot of DJs lately—playing lockdown-defying parties and raves on Saturday and then deciding on Monday, after a handful of viral stories or tweets have made their way around the web, that "I don’t think it was worth the risk looking back on it now"? Note to every DJ thinking of sneaking in an allegedly social-distanced, allegedly masked, allegedly safe gig this coming Saturday anywhere in the US or any other country currently in the thick of it: I can assure you today that it won't be as carefully planned and executed as organizers are telling you, or as you're telling yourself, and it won't be worth the risk. This goes out to you, this past weekend's DJs, whose names are an easy click away but who I'll refrain from highlighting here. And this goes double for the organizer of Saturday's rave under New York's Kosciuszko Bridge who had no problem risking a city's health but didn't have the guts to let a reporter from GOTHAMIST use his name—"so the blowback from the event doesn't affect his day-to-day life," LOL—and who's now going to self-quarantine, according to Gothamist, "for the next week or so." That's just enough time to *not* know if he's actually sick, but for some reason we're supposed to trust when he says his events are going to be safe. It *is* possible to organize a reasonably safe outdoor concert, dance event or protest (the bridge rave had a less-than-convincing Black Lives Matter tie-in) these days. People are doing it. It takes work and diligence and a better explanation than "Do you think people are just going to stay home? The cat's out of the bag." Don't be the cat and don’t be the bag. Be the adult in the room. Or, at least, the adult under the bridge. Shoutout DJ MIKE SIMONETTI, who was asked to play and said no and who's in a much better position to call out the underground dance community than, say, I am. It's also possible he'd want me to f*** off. Understood. Just keep wearing a mask, please... Also, what's up with pop fans doxxing critics for writing reviews, even generally favorable ones, of their idols? (Don't answer; that was a rhetorical question. Also, hashtag METACRITIC.) Pop fan armies can be forces for good, as some have proved recently. TAYLOR SWIFT has millions of awesome, passionate fans among her army of Swifties but also, it appears, a small vocal group of not so awesome ones, and their attacks in the past week against a handful of critics, especially PITCHFORK's JILLIAN MAPES, have been so out-of-proportion to the alleged crime (an 8.0 score in Pitchfork means they like it) that they'd be laughable if they weren't also ugly and hurtful and textbook harassment. A polite, public "you need to calm down" from Swift would be helpful. (And it isn't only Swift. I mean, wow)... SNAPCHAT adds a (licensed) soundtrack... A formative influence on how I think and write about music. They'd no doubt retch at the sentiment, but I was blessed in later years to be able to work with a couple of the writers my friend MIKE RUBIN interviewed for this piece. Looking forward to the doc. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | | | |  | Rolling Stone | | Spotify’s own data suggests it won’t achieve its core mission -- a million creators earning a living from its platform -- for the better part of a century. And that’s being generous. | | | |  | JazzTimes | | Melvin Gibbs explores the changing nature of protest in jazz, and how the music and its players have moved from asking for change to demanding it. | | | |  | NPR Music | | Southern rappers' contributions to the genre have long been underestimated in favor of coastal hegemony - but the region has long steered the sound of hip-hop and deserves its story told in full. | | | | | NPR Music | | Our list of the best songs, albums and mixtapes by Southern rappers is a celebration that recenters the South as a creative center of hip-hop and honors the region for all that it has given to us. | | | |  | The New York Times | | A new documentary traces the rise and fall of the irreverent, boundary-smashing music publication where Lester Bangs did some of his most famous work. | | | |  | The Guardian | | Taylor Swift superfans are ganging up on critics who haven’t given her new album a perfect score - a symptom of a culture obsessed with quantifying our lives. | | | |  | Bandcamp Daily | | On the visionary “Couldn’t Wait to Tell You,” the Dallas singer/songwriter comes into her own. | | | |  | GQ | | The rapper on his new Kobe Bryant-influenced album, growing up, and the future of Black Portland. | | | |  | The Trichordist | | The Twitter-sphere has been captivated by the imminent ban of TikTok or forced sale to American investors. What many people do not realize is that the service, built on a foundation of stolen songs, has refused to license or pay royalties to songwriters. | | | |  | Village Voice | | “Every night was a different club, one after another, and there were really no barriers: blacks and whites, gays and straights... ” | | | |  | Level | | After years of feeling excluded by the megastar’s music, I finally converted to the BeyHive. | | | |  | Billboard | | Nearly a month after Lady A the band sued Lady A the blues singer over the right to share the name, the two parties are no closer to a solution. | | | |  | Music Business Worldwide | | Vivendi’s CEO and CFO state that they have “no intention” of selling UMG’s shareholding in streaming giant. | | | |  | Bloomberg | | Social-networking company has licensed rights from major labels and publishers. | | | |  | Adam Neely | | We harmonized deepfake Jay-Z reading the Navy Seals copypasta, and learned a lot about rhythm! | | | | | The Guardian | | Artists taking on political roles from Algeria to Zambia have been beaten, detained and killed. | | | |  | WTF with Marc Maron | | Tumultuous times call for sensible comments from voices of reason. Who better to speak to the issues of the day than Ice-T? The legendary rapper, rocker and actor talks about his personal experiences with COVID to offer some much-needed perspective. | | | |  | Synchblog | | Eamonnn Forde examines how the pandemic has accelerated the growth of the kids' music sector & speaks to experts to find out what's in store for the future. | | | |  | Pitchfork | | The Flint-raised, Houston-based shit-stirrer does not care if he offends you. | | | |  | Texas Monthly | | On his latest album, the Texan country musician sings of endurance within a fraught system. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | From "A Hero's Death," out now on Partisan Records. | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2020, The REDEF Group | | |
