When I was growing up in a city with a tanked economy, dark basement parties were the only places to be. Sweating it out to the thundering bass of hip-hop and r&b was a right of passage, and whoever could shake, twerk and drop it the best was crowned king or queen.
Music and dance have always been forms of empowerment for disenfranchised communities around the world, and urban creativity has produced some of the most popular music genres to date through cultural cannibalism: a process that intertwines multiple marginalized identities and cultures to create the best sounds and craziest moves.
Urban queer culture, our subject here, has had a profound impact on pop music in the past fifty years. Ballroom and drag scenes reinvented house music in the '80s and birthed voguing – a dance style that mixed performance art with break dancing and inspired Madonna, Britney Spears and Lady Gaga to name a few.
Today, queer culture continues to reinvigorate genres and trends. Ideas of sexual and bodily expression mix with dancehall call-and-response to create bounce – a genre that hails from the project buildings and poor neighborhoods of New Orleans. Also called "sissy bounce," this music is usually fronted by genderqueer men (like the legendary Big Freedia) and recently got into the hands of influential artists like Diplo and Nicki Minaj.
One of the most influential composers, songwriters and producers of the second half of the 20th century, John Cale turns (a crazy) 70-years-old today. What a good time to look back at how awesome he is, right?
Cale, of course, started in The Velvet Underground, adding an unpredictable experimental element with his droning viola and organ parts all over the storied group's first two records. Eventually, he split with Lou Reed and embarked on a fruitful solo career with classics like Paris 1919, while simultaneously racking-up production credits with big artists like Nick Drake, The Modern Lovers, Patti Smith and Nico. He continues to compose and release albums to this day with his most recent EP, Extra Playlful, dropping on Domino imprint Double Six last year.
Check out our primer to Cale's music for a lesson in his greatness or a nostalgic trip through some truly unique songs and ideas.
When West Coast hip-hop emerged like an uzi-laden storm in the late '80s and early '90s, it posed an interesting dichotomy for the genre. At once violent, hardcore and nihilistic, the actual musical elements produced by Dr. Dre and his brethren were slow, poppy and created a near-irresistible party element.
Then, you know the story. Artists got older. Hits got rarer. Leading lights like Dr. Dre continued to produce and A&R major artists like Eminem and 50 Cent, while his partner-in-crime Snoop Dogg became a multimedia sensation and expanded his musical world through relationships with The Neptunes and Master P.
Really, it took the Internet – with its flat distribution and rewarding attitude towards experimentation – to bring the West Coast back in full. Now, the Los Angeles area in particular is undergoing a major renaissance. New artists like Kendrick Lamar are master lyricists, while Tyler, The Creator and his Odd Future crew take a wide musical palate and shock value to refreshing heights. Tyga, a part of Young Money, brings ignorance and strip club swagger to a new level, while Nipsey Hussle and Game take a more retro, weed-laden gangsta course that clearly carries-on the lineage of Dre, Snoop, Tupac and Death Row Records.
There was certainly something in the air during the aughts in New York City. I mean, you know the deal. It was a confusing time here – an apocalyptic threat around every corner, and many local musicians responded with a level of brutal honesty that we haven't seen since 'the laptops' took over. As the legend goes, the big three – Black Dice, Animal Collective and Gang Gang Dance – all shared a practice space, but it's actually informative to view the period through the prism of these three acts. They all eventually built on early critical accolades to become influential behemoths.
Perhaps you want to revisit the period, learn the basics or just get a little weird for an afternoon, so I threw together this Spotify primer of my favorite (and likely, the most lasting) underground New York acts of the early-mid 2000s. Yes, we love The Strokes and Grizzly Bear at RCRD LBL, but we'll save that for a different time with less sawdust on the floor.
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