As of this writing, the biggest song in America is “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X. It might also be the most interesting pop song of the 21st century so far. “Old Town Road” defies genre categorization. Like Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit,” it sits entangled in a vast musical rhizome. Lil Nas X calls it …
Continue reading “Lil Nas X and the racial politics of country music”
If you’re the kind of person who reads my blog, then by now you’ve probably seen the video for Childish Gambino’s “This Is America.” If you haven’t seen it, watch now. Be warned that it’s upsetting. Donald Glover, a.k.a. Childish Gambino, is best known as a comedian, a writer, and an actor. He’s an intelligent …
One of our key design principles at the NYU MusEDLab is not to confront beginners with a blank canvas. We want to introduce people to our tools by giving them specific, real-world music to play around with. That was the motivation behind creating presets for the aQWERTYon, and a similar impulse informs Ableton’s approach to their online music tutorials. …
In a previous post, I used the Groove Pizza to visualize some classic hip-hop beats. But the kids are all about trap beats right now, which work differently from the funk-based boom-bap of my era.
