Category: Uncategorized (page 1 of 2)

a construction engineer holding and reviewing blueprints

December 7, 2025 / 0 Comments

How I Made My 2025 Music Recap

I spent most of my free time over the last week turning twelve months of Last.fm scrobbles into something resembling what I might get from the digital music streaming platforms. The goal was to achieve narrative clarity about how my listening habits are shaped by genre, vibe, purpose, and pattern.

Two things became obvious fast:

The raw data is messy. Pulling a year of listening into a meaningful shape requires way more cleaning, classification, and context than I had done since switching from Spotify to Tidal. I’m not Every Noise at Once.
The story isn’t in the numbers alone. Meaning can’t be easily derived from play counts alone.

I wanted to be a more intentional listener this year, leaving Spotify’s algorithmic overreach for a more human, artist-centric product experience in Tidal. I achieved that. Now, if I feel like I’m in a rut, I can’t really blame the technology. I have to work my way out of it. Building more playlists helps with that, as does trying out more of the user playlists that the platform’s home page surfaces to me.

The Sources

Three inputs shaped the foundation:

Last.fm scrobble history for every play, including timestamps and track-level breadcrumbs.
My own tags and taxonomies:
This year, I built an artist descriptor system to replace Last.fm’s chaotic tag soup. I capped it at three genres and two descriptors per artist. For songs, I added a mood and a mode. I’m sure both dictionaries will expand in 2026.
Context logs:
I tracked my weekly and monthly top performers, which made it easier to tie shifts in listening to what was happening in my own life.

The Tools

A Last.fm data exporter. The one I used always pulls your full history (though you can download partial fills during the process). I’ve found another that allows you to draw an update based on a timestamp. I’ll be using it going forward unless I come across something better.
Google Sheets for merging, normalizing, and verifying counts.
A personal KPI tracker to keep genre weights, album totals, and monthly shifts consistent.
ChatGPT as an analyst assistant, primarily for structuring and processing data logs, similar to how I use AI to assist me at work, where I also have limited resources. It helped me think through how I wanted to set up a data analysis framework, and then I implemented it in tools outside the LLM that aren’t prone to hallucination, bad math, or fantasy. One area I intend to explore early in the new year is AI solutions explicitly designed for data analysis and exploration. I’ve gotten to play around with these kinds of tools in some enterprise products and marketing analytics tools, which I’ve found exciting and delightful, but as I have noted throughout this year, making this stuff work requires a ton of thoughtful setup under the hood.

The Structure

45 Descriptors (like 1980s or Underground or The South)

19 Genres (like Hip-Hop, Funk, or K-Pop)

12 Moods (like Cinematic, Energetic, or Spiritual)

12 Modes (like New Day Vibes, Working Out, or Still Processing)

I enjoy the classification process despite (or perhaps because) how challenging and time-consuming it is. I learned during my Paramount+ days that building a single, consistent metadata system is hard, and few want to own it.

I get it. It’s daunting to take on this task even if you’re the lone customer, but c’est la vie.

The Playlists

I do a lot more playlist management on Tidal than I ever did on Spotify, and this process has encouraged me to create more playlists.

Colorful gradient background featuring the text 'NEW DAY Vibes' curated by Jason Toney

Cover art for a music playlist titled 'THE COOL DOWN', featuring a cosmic-themed illustration of a purple planet surrounded by stars, with the subtitle 'music for heavy eyelids' and curated by Jason Toney.

You can find all my publicly available playlists on my profile.

The Stats

42.6k streams
17.3k tracks
9.8k albums
5.2k artists
~53% of my spins this year were categorized.

Top Artists

Top Albums

A grid of album covers showcasing popular tracks including 'GNX' by Kendrick Lamar and 'Let God Sort Em Out' by Clipse, along with their respective play counts.

The 2025 Mixtape

Improvements for 2026

On Saturday morning, I spun up a BigQuery project connected to a Google Colab notebook so I can process my Last.fm data at scale. Each month, I’ll ingest new scrobbles, update artist and song classifications, and sync them all to my active playlists.

The goal is 80% classification over the next 12 months. I want a much more comprehensive understanding of my listening patterns, defined on my terms.

The one data point I’m still missing: song length. The public metadata ecosystem is thin, and time-listened has become the backbone metric of every streaming recap. Getting accurate, open song-duration data may be an uphill battle.

Is it weird that I have been having a lot of fun nerding out on this little data project?

A futuristic cityscape. The copy reads "Groove Therapy: Black Cosmopolitan Music for Sinners Rebuilding in Public"

December 4, 2025 / 4 Comments

Not Spotify Wrapped 2025: A Scaffolding Year

“Scaffolding year” is the phrase that followed me as I put this together. 2025 has been about re-architecting my life professionally, creatively, emotionally, and spiritually. While I was learning to live more openly, intentionally, and courageously, the music I returned to again and again acted as support beams. Hip-hop drove my sense of agency. Soul music helped me sort through the interior renovations, while Jazz guided me through the always-chaotic, often-awful state of the world to more stable ground. And the score and soundtrack from Sinners framed the whole thing in cinematic relief.

Last year, I was an open wound: Love Heart Cheat Codes for West Coast Heads Having a Shitty Year.

This year, I’m on the mend:
Black-Cosmopolitan Groove Therapy for Sinners Rebuilding Their Life in Public.

Hip-Hop: The Foundation

Three men posing together, wearing hoodies and stylish accessories, displaying various tattoos.

About 38% of everything I played this year was hip-hop. No other genre came close. I started 2025 still living inside the great albums of 2024 (GNX, Chromakopia, GLORIOUS, Alligator Bites Never Heal), and they never really left rotation.

Summer ‘25 brought Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out, and the gravity of that album shifted everything. Griselda and their extended family—Benny the Butcher, Westside Gunn, Conway the Machine, Stove God Cooks, Boldy James, Jay Worthy—kept feeding the momentum.

I embraced rappers who make albums, not trend-chasing content. I connected with artists who commit to atmosphere and let the world-building unfurl over a full-length. The Alchemist was often the patron saint of that kind of sonic architecture this year.

Hip-hop was the skeleton of my year. Headnodders and that ol’ boom bap motivated me through workouts, got me hyped on game days, and steadied my resolve in the mornings. Rap music provided the soundtrack for moments of levity and grit. For years, I worried that I had aged out of the genre. Turns out, it has been maturing as well, and I just needed to be patient. The old heads and old souls were always going to be right on time.

R&B/Soul: The Regulator

A stylish individual wearing black sunglasses and a fitted black corset top, striking a confident pose while holding their hands near their face.

If hip-hop kept me moving, R&B kept me whole.

One in five listens belonged to voices that know how to soothe, testify, and gently pull a truth out of hiding. Established faves like Beyoncé, SZA, Hiatus Kaiyote, Cleo Sol, and Erykah Badu were joined in regular rotation by Lalah Hathaway, Alex Isley, and Yaya Bey.

I took some archival detours, too: Teena Marie (inspired by a One Song episode), Amerie (rewarding on every revisit), and the epic works of D’Angelo after his untimely passing.

Generally, though, this soundscape was introspective. I leaned into R&B music that was intimate and sometimes devotional (despite my well-documented apathy towards organized religion). These were the sounds that kept the structure intact. When I needed to soften or steady myself, this was home base.

Listening with Purpose from a City in Crisis

Watch: Alex Isley’s Tiny Desk Concert and Erykah Badu’s NYT performance.

Jazz: The Structural Counterweight

A woman with curly hair wearing a green top and necklace stands confidently beside a harp, against a backdrop of floral-patterned wallpaper.

For most of my life, Jazz was familiar but distant. It’s my father’s language, not mine. Of course, now that he’s passed, I’ve found my way to an active relationship with the music he so loved and loved to make.

We’ll save the psychoanalysis of that for another time.

Writing about the art form for DC Jazz Fest helped me build fluency, and by October, the genre had quietly climbed into my #2 slot, surpassing R&B/Soul.

Brandee Younger was the first revelation: my favorite discovery of this year across all genres. Terri Lyne Carrington’s thematic releases inspired me with their cognitive depth, emotional nuance, and the conversations they have with both the issues of the day and the releases of the past.

While I appreciate the greats, if I’m going to listen to the standards, I’d prefer the women to take the lead. What I enjoyed most in 2025 was modern soul-jazz, often delivered by artists forged here in Los Angeles or across the pond.

Jazz is where I turned when I wanted to make sense of a chaotic world. It’s the music that challenges me. It’s what I listen to when I want to get comfortable with complexity. It is not an escape. I don’t listen to float away. Instead, these songs and artists encourage me to get beyond the algorithmic doomscroll. Jazz was my antidote to brain-rot culture.

Pop as Palate Cleanser

March sent me tumbling into a K-pop side quest thanks to LISA, The White Lotus, and her solo album press tour. June brought the 20th anniversary of The Emancipation of Mimi, which once again owned my entire life, as if it were still 2005. And in November, ROSALÍA’s LUX became the latest entry in my “artists whose entire catalog must be consumed front-to-back” collection.

These were the releases that got me to color outside the lines and explore beyond my tendencies.

Sinners

My album of the year is from Clipse, but the cultural moment of the year is Sinners.

Ludwig Göransson may have edged out Nicholas Britell for my personal composer crown. The soundtrack introduced Miles Caton and revived artists I’d drifted from, like Alice Smith and Brittany Howard.

Sinners got me to explore Blues, Folk, and other music in the American Roots tradition seriously for the first time in my life, from Geeshie Wiley to Lead Belly to Woody Guthrie, and many underappreciated artists on the margins.

Shout-out to the fictional Delta Slim and the very real Buddy Guy.

So, yeah, a scaffolding year. In 2025, the music kept pace with my growing honesty, porosity, and resilience. Press play and the blueprint unfurls. The vision is right there, if you listen closely.

A graphic titled 'JT unWrapped 2025' featuring a collage of top music artists, with Kendrick Lamar displayed prominently at the top, followed by Clipse, Tyler, The Creator, and Freddie Gibbs.

Playlist summary for JT unWrapped 2025 featuring top songs including 'The Birds Don't Sing' by Clipse, 'tv off' by Kendrick Lamar, '30 for 30' by Sza featuring Kendrick Lamar, and 'MUTT' by Leon Thomas.

July 19, 2025 / 0 Comments

WNBA All-Star 2025 Merch FOMO

I’m missing WNBA All-Star this year for the first time in forever. One of the things I didn’t expect to miss, but that I now realize has become a massive part of the experience, is the merchandise released in the host city at the team shops and the fan expo. I’m sure many of the items from the collections and brands that were in Indiana this weekend will become available online early next week, but, for those of us watching at home with an itchy spending finger, these are my faves that you can buy online right now.

The Shoe

Side view of the Nike Sabrina 3 basketball shoes featuring a vibrant design with orange, yellow, and black colors.

Nike released colorways for the A’One and DBook, but for my money, it’s the Sabrina 3 “Bring the Heat”. I like that the black is limited to the Swoosh, although I’d consider swapping out the orange shoestrings for a black set. I also appreciate the overall design of her kicks.

The Shirts

The most essential tee of the weekend, if you’ve long bet on women, is the one that the players wore during warmups. Collective Bargaining negotiations have been contentious, but our faves remain union strong and unified.

Black t-shirt featuring an image of a basketball player in action, with the text 'CAN'T BLOCK MY SHINE.' prominently displayed.

I’m digging the launch of “The Floor is Ours” campaign, and A’ja Wilson gets the best motto: You Can’t Block My Shine.

A person wearing a navy t-shirt featuring a graphic illustration of a young individual with short blonde hair and blue eyes, complemented by a white long-sleeve shirt underneath. The shirt prominently displays the phrases 'ON' and '#$%' alongside logos of the WNBA and Playa Society against a light blue backdrop.

The stars of the weekend have been Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedemann, aka the StudBudz. If you’ve become a new fan of their shenanigans, this Playa Society tee is the one for you, even though it’s not officially an All-Star drop.

Also of interest is the WNBA x Togethxr collaboration, which I have not yet seen worn in Crypto.com Arena. I may have to get this one.

Sorry, She’s an All-Star.

The Hats

I didn’t love the joints from Lids and Fanatics this year, but New Era came through. All of their WNBA collection is great, but these two would’ve made it into my luggage this year if I were there.

The Collectibles

The Fever aren’t my team, so I’m mostly avoiding things that scream Indiana colors or affinity, but this Serigraph is worthy of hanging on any basketball fan’s wall.

A stylized poster for the WNBA All-Star Game featuring a girl in an orange hoodie playing with a basketball, set against a backdrop of a city skyline and a basketball hoop.

What are you copping?

Two hands making the shape of a heart with the city of Los Angeles in the background.

June 13, 2025 / 0 Comments

Intentional Listening in a City in Crisis

I feel like, as an artist, the whole point of the platform, other than making music, is to inform. However we do that, right? The music that I create, the art that I create, is mirroring what’s happening in my head and then in my bedroom, in my house, on my kitchen counter, on my street, in my city, in my country. So, it’s really important to me that I’m going to be up there talking about ‘I got a new haircut’; I also have to talk about what I’m seeing. And right now, there are a lot of little people suffering.

—Lalah Hathaway

What I see on my street is beautiful, as Los Angeles often is. Birds chirp. The sun shines. The jacarandas are in bloom, littering the sidewalks with purple petals. Neighbors walk their dogs and babies. I could be deceived into believing that life is normal.

But my city is in crisis.

A senator was handcuffed for asking a question yesterday. The National Guard has been deployed, despite objections from our elected officials. At a basketball game earlier this week, a child in the stands proudly held a sign that read, “Melt ICE!” Friends are in at-risk neighborhoods trying to protect their communities. Others are marching downtown, expressing outrage at the latest policy decisions and public actions.

And I’m sitting here, unsure whether I want to scream, cry, or fight.

At least for now, I’ll take inspiration from Ms. Hathaway—and write.

VANTABLACK, Hathaway’s 2024 full-length, has been on repeat in my headphones. Since watching Nubya Garcia’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert in early April, I’ve been falling down YouTube rabbit holes—first jazz, then soul, then Lalah. Go deep enough, and you land on Hathaway’s own Tiny Desk performance from six years ago. Twelve minutes long. Not nearly enough.

I’d enjoyed VANTABLACK when it first came out, but hadn’t gone deep. Now, with my ears primed for purpose, the album has a firm grip on my attention, and I’m desperate for a deeper connection with the work.

In a different era, these connections—the musicians, collaborators, and producers—would have been revealed through liner notes. You’d read them front to back while listening to the album, then again after the fiftieth spin when a note or riff hit different. Now, those same discoveries happen across platforms: a podcast like One Song, a Wikipedia entry, an Instagram reel, a Discogs post.

For this album, I’m scrolling Instagram, listening to podcasts, and returning to YouTube. Hathaway’s posts—especially her conversations with collaborator Phil Beaudreau—offer insight into how the music came together. But it was her appearance on Robert Glasper’s Black Radio Backstage podcast that truly struck me. That’s where I first heard the quote that opens this piece, and where she reminded me that creating art and bearing witness should be inseparable.

If an artist of Hathaway’s caliber is willing to bare her soul to make music that stirs mine, the least I can do is return the favor in my way.

I can learn the names of the musicians, producers, and engineers who helped bring her vision to life.

I can listen with intention.

I can appreciate the art and the people behind it.

I can write what’s going on in my head and heart.

I can give voice to the very real human, communal, and societal battles happening all around me.

And in whatever way is yours,
you can, too.

January 6, 2025 / 1 Comment

Switch

What’s the most ethical way to listen to digital music?

By ethical, which major services pay the fairest royalty to artists and music rights owners on a per-play basis? Spotify has been the most prominent digital music provider for years, and they have used that position to pay less than their competitors. They also are increasingly doing what tech companies tend to do when they begin to dominate the industry they are disrupting: find ever more creative ways not to pay people.

The collective disappointment with this year’s Wrapped—including me—has sparked a drumbeat of social media users reminding us that there are services that treat artists better than Spotify and provide more value for their customers if higher audio quality is your thing. TIDAL, Apple Music, and Amazon Music can all make this claim.

An infographic explaining streaming royalty rates, including a bar chart that shows that Tidal pays out the best while Deezer pays the worst, and several factoids about the state of music industry revenue

credit: ProducerHive

I have requirements beyond the baseline of a good digital music service—catalog size, playlist diversity, personalization, and audio quality. The most important of which is relatively niche: integration with Last FM. If you’ve been paying attention, you know I’m a bit obsessive about capturing my listening data, and this year’s Spotify Wrapped hammered home the need to continue to have a solution independent of the digital streamers.

That requirement severely limits my options as few services natively integrate with last.fm anymore. I could make it work if I only listened to music via iTunes or a web browser. Still, I regularly switch between my laptop, my phone, and my tablet, and so, despite having access to all of the major services in some form via bundles I pay for, they won’t work for me in this case. [ed. Note—we’ll need to examine the value of these bundles in the future.]

It’s frustrating that this is the case, but I don’t mind shifting to TIDAL. I’ve used the service before. They pay the best per stream of all the major digital music providers. They have the highest quality audio. It should be a no-brainer, but I have used Spotify so much over the decade since the death of rdio that I have gotten used to the things they provide.

A Pay table with three columns—Streaming Platform, Royalty Rates (per stream), and Streams Required to make $1. It only requires 78 streams to make $1 from Tidal Music while it takes 314 to achieve the same on Spotify.

credit: ProducerHive

But I’m listening right now, and the music sounds excellent. The transition felt daunting initially, but playlist transfer was easy thanks to TuneMyMusic (though why they require a subscription is bewildering. This is a once-in-a-blue-moon use case. Charge me once or on a per-usage basis). Within a couple of hours, I started to find my way. TIDAL has human-curated playlists like New West Coast, Women of Hip-Hop, New Arrivals: Hip-Hop and R&B, Grown Rap, Real Love: Best New R&B, R&B Hits, and Pop&B that are fair proxies for the mostly ML-based recommendation playlists that I used on Spotify. As I listen to more music, the home page is refining and showing relevant playlists, artists, songs, and albums I will likely explore.

My Tidal home feed has sections for Suggested new albums, recently updated curated playlists, user playlists I might like, and albums it thinks I might want to revisit.

After using TIDAL exclusively this weekend, personalized music mixes appeared on my home page feed this morning.

My Tidal home feed has sections for custom mixes, my favorite artists, recommended new music, and curated Essentials playlists from artists I might want to get to know better.

There were some mishaps. I lost some song scrobbles because I didn’t check if I had to sign in to Last.fm on every device where I am using TIDAL (I do). Track-level data cleanup will be an ongoing concern, but I learned that I can correct metadata mistakes from TIDAL’s scrobbles to Last.fm by editing a track at the scrobble level. The cool thing is that when I correct that data, Last.fm allows me to correct previous scrobbles and set it so future appearances of that track will be automatically updated to the proper naming conventions. What a revelation! For example, I was able to go back and update scrobbles from when Kendrick Lamar’s GNX first dropped—before the featured artists were included in the track name—and fix those so I have an accurate count of how many times I have listened to dodger blue (feat. wallie the sensei, siete7x, roddy ricch) and peekaboo (feat. AzChike).

Fewer algorithmic playlists mean more active and intentional listening, and intention is IN for 2025. I’m tired of being tricked by convenience into being passive in so many things in my life. I want my brain to make more choices about things that matter to me, like what I’m listening to and why. I want my values to be the driving factor in where and how I spend money and time.

If you’re on TIDAL, you can find me here.

Where do you listen?

Banner Photo by Kojo Kwarteng on Unsplash

April 8, 2024 / 0 Comments

No One App to Rule Them All

I have been searching for an app to replace Evernote for quite some time now. Although I thought Notion was the one, I eventually gave up after using it for nearly two years as it was too heavy for personal use.

First, I stopped using it to capture my “read later” links. Instead, I used bookmarks and read later in Safari until I stumbled across Anybox in a newsletter or blog post. Since then, I’ve been bookmarking everything I read in Anybox. It works across all my devices and browsers, helping me stay synced between my personal and work laptops.

Recently, I started using Apple Notes as a primary rather than occasional tool. I use it as my journal and for storing digital keepsakes. I’m still exploring its features and learning to use smart tags to my advantage.

My awareness of the relative ease and utility of Notes began as my family collaborated more in keeping track of my dad’s Cancer treatment. We shared documents where we captured his systems and care plans, wrote official messages from the family, and even managed memorial service planning together over the last few weeks.

At work, I use Google Workspace for writing meeting notes, making to-do lists, and planning. It has many new features, and they’ve made it quite enjoyable to quickly draft or insert meeting notes or documents or tag someone into something.

I’m also using Habitify to track my habits. It’s a paid app, but not a subscription, with a one-time fee to unlock all features. It does the data visualizations I was missing before, and it’s cute and simple to set up. Tiffany goes with paper, though, because apps be snitchin’.

Today, I recreated my run tracker in Sheets after exporting and transforming the data I kept in Notion. It now presents my data precisely as I want, and I can tweak it when my needs change.

I have learned that I don’t need one perfect app to rule them all. Most apps have gotten very good at doing one thing or a limited suite of similar tasks well, and separating these tasks makes it much easier to switch or sample other things instead of worrying about the sunk costs in one über-app.

April 4, 2024

On Kevin Toney

It wasn’t every day that I would join my dad on his doctor’s visits, but on one of those rare occasions, we met with a new doctor who said, “Men our age have to figure out life in retirement.”

My dad’s voice, though weakened, still carried the strength of his spirit. ‘I’m not retired,’ he declared, ‘I’m a musician, composer, conductor, and author.’ His words were a testament to his unwavering dedication to his craft and the life he and his God had created.

The doctor apologized, and we moved on, but over the last year, no matter the circumstance, Kevin Toney wanted those who would treat and care for him to know who he was.

Musician. Composer. Conductor. Author. Son. Brother. Husband. Father. Man of God.

His titles were posted in his room to remind us that he was much more than a patient.

No matter who he was to us as individuals, his presence resonated far beyond our spheres. Kevin Toney was a beacon of inspiration, a guiding light, and a source of comfort to countless others worldwide.

When we needed to communicate on his behalf—to receive his messages, answer his emails, respond to voicemails, and such—it became apparent that his list of signifiers should grow.

He was also a mentor to so many. As his son, I saw him as quiet, often stoic. He always had his questions for me, but he was comfortable listening to the rest of us be vocal at home. I thought of him as speaking with his fingers on a keyboard or with a mic in his hand.

But that was not the whole of him. With his broad circle of family, friends, colleagues, fans, and beyond, he was loud. He was a frequent and trusted voice in so many lives.

Fred Rodgers—the children’s TV host—talked about looking for helpers during a tragedy. In so many lives, Kevin Toney was that Helper. He was generous with his time, his dollars, and his wisdom.

The most critical honorific I can convey to him, which I have said about him over the years, is that “he is a good man.” My father’s journey was not always smooth. He faced his share of challenges and made mistakes along the way. But what set him apart was his unwavering commitment to self-improvement. He tried hard to be a better person every day, to learn from his mistakes, and to make amends. He didn’t want regrets. He sought to correct his transgressions. He wanted no relationship in his life to sit in conflict. He was ever hungry for reconciliation, connection, mutual respect, and love.

Those are the actions of a musician, composer, conductor, author, son, brother, husband, father, mentor, Helper, good man, and man of God.

Dad, you have left an indelible mark on this world, and your legacy will continue to inspire and guide us. Thank you for the music, the wisdom, and the love. We will carry your memory in our hearts forever.

My father, Kevin Toney, made his peaceful transition on March 18th, 2024. We laid him to rest on April 4th, 2024.

In lieu of flowers, you can make a donation to The Kevin Toney Memorial Scholarship Fund at Howard University.

December 28, 2023 / 1 Comment

Things Will Get Better – 2023 in Music

In October, a new and unexpected routine developed in my life. I was driving to and from medical facilities to visit my father, who had gone in to be treated for pneumonia that ultimately turned into a tracheostomy. On those drives, I first turned to Spotify-powered “Uplifting” mixes—even going Gospel on occasion—but eventually that commute became the daily spin of Cleo Sol’s Gold in its entirety.

As a primary vocalist in Sault and in her solo work, Sol has always explored her spirituality in her records, but Gold stays focused on the role her God plays in her life. It’s a Christian-oriented faith, but the songs are non-denominational. I’m apathetic towards religion, but I’m a sucker for praise music, especially when I’m seeking to fill my heart with generosity, empathy, joy, and hope.

When I was pulling into a hospital or clinic parking lot, Cleo was belting that things would improve, and I believed her.

My album of the year.

When I combine Cleo Sol’s solo work with all my spins of Sault, she’s my most listened-to artist of 2023, beating out Beyoncé, whose Renaissance continued, and De La Soul, who finally came to streaming after decades of battling with their record label.

Jungle, however, is my selection for artist of the year. By the time Volcano came out in August, I was already in love with nearly half of the tracks. Candle Flame, Dominoes, Problemz, and others had all been released throughout the year and became frequent selections on a variety of my playlists. Then, they spent the rest of the year releasing videos for every song on the album that work together as a short film/musical. Tom McFarland and Josh Lloyd-Watson have worked with many of the same dancers since their first album, and Volcano is a showcase for the power of that loyalty and community. They even went viral with the dancing and vibe of Back on ’74.

They understood the assignment.

Speaking of vibes, I loved internet sensations. My mixtape features TikTok hits like 6000 Degrees (AH HA) by $hyfromdatre, Eat it Up by Lil Vada, You Wish by Flyana Boss, Lovin on Me by Jack Harlow, and Water by Tyla.

I felt my connection to contemporary hip-hop slipping away this year. While it was my top genre of 2023, much of that was revisiting older stuff. Sure, give me a J. Cole or Cardi B feature. I’m down for bars from Doja Cat‘s problematic personage to go with the many women out here rapping right now. Still, no 2023 release is among my albums of the year, and my top artists lean toward Indie Soul, Alternative R&B, and, increasingly, afrobeat/afro-futurist.

Afrofuturism. That’s how I’d describe my relationship to music in 2023. Looking forward and back with an appreciation for sounds that come from and are for the soul. Give me tunes that ignite and inspire. Dance with my inner optimist. I’ll headbang, head nod, and even cry to the beat so long as it’s in the service of a tomorrow that improves upon today.

Things will get better.

Albums of the year

Gold by Cleo Sol
Volcano by Jungle
The Age of Pleasure by Janelle Monáe
Guts by Olivia Rodrigo
Angels & Queens (Deluxe) by Gabriels
Falling or Flying by Jorja Smith
Buhloone Mindstate (Reissue) by De La Soul

Also, check out Golden by Jung Kook, Slugs of Love by Little Dragon, Jaguar II by Victoria Monét, Happiness by Dargz and Homegrown by Carrtoons

Artists of the year (that haven’t already been mentioned):

Jessie Ware, Hannah Jadagu, Allison Russell, Adi Oasis, Izo FitzRoy, Kelela, and Okvsho

How I listened in 2023

Spotify is my music app of choice. I maintain an all-time top 100 and a top 100 for each year. On Saturdays, I refresh my top 40 playlist, create a new playlist to drive my listening for the coming week, and explore music with my Release Radar and X by doing Y playlist. I regularly update two exercise playlists: Close Your Rings and an ultimate workout mix. On Wednesdays, I let the Spotify algorithm drive my listening with the AI DJ and the Daylist.

If your app doesn’t connect with last.FM, I can’t use it. I love my stats too much.

November 26, 2023 / 2 Comments

Do the Hard Things

“Do the hard things” is a mantra I adopted at work several years ago. This mantra served me before the pandemic and after. It’s worked well for organizational changes and strategy shifts. It’s been a guiding principle as beloved colleagues and trusted mentors departed. It’s my go-to when handed a mess not of my own making and being told to make it work.

What happens when the “hard things” at your job get superseded by the “really hard things” at home? Since April of this year, my life has been consumed with worry over an aging parent and his journey through cancer treatment, recovery, and a quick re-emergence of the disease. The last two months have involved extended hospital stays, a weekend in intensive care, and nearly daily visits to a sub-acute clinic. This last week has been about helping as my mom and sister navigated his return to at-home care.

“Do the hard things” has meant adjusting priorities, making sacrifices, and recognizing my limits and strengths.

I have not been my best at work this year, at least not in the way I am expected to. I have not managed change remarkably well. I have struggled with prioritization, urgency, and difficult conversations. Burnout has been lurking in the shadows since at least late June.

“Do the hard things” has meant accepting defeat more days than usual, acknowledging my missteps, and being candid about what I have been going through (though that has only come recently).

I’ve been seeing work through a bit of a fog most of this year. Clarity of thought and purpose has been stored and depleted in the service of family as we collectively go through something.

And we’re not done with these travails.

I took the whole of Thanksgiving week off. The primary purpose was to be available for whatever was needed as my father transitioned to home care and started a new treatment. It’s also been a chance to recharge and reset for the other aspects of my life.

I’m returning to work on Monday with some strategies and tactics that I hope will get my activity back towards the type of leader, manager, and colleague I expect of myself. I also hope for the continued grace and compassion from those around me as we support each other to “do the hard things” and get through them.

September 29, 2019 / 0 Comments

October

“The nerve of autumn time days flying by, every sunrise healing me.
And we’re okay; we’ll live this way ‘til it’s done.”

— Alessia Cara, October

At some point over the summer, The Pattern had a moment in my corners of the internet, and I downloaded the app. A mix of temporal mysticism and prompts for being more intentional and thoughtful in the world; I’ve found it an excellent accompaniment to meditation. Perhaps it’s no less hokum than traditional horoscopes or Vodou or your organized religion of choice, but what are any of those things except a structure with which to think about life? One is no more or less valid than the other when we use them as a playbook for better living.

The Pattern - New Moon - September 27, 2019

With the new moon and the new month came a nudge for setting intentions. Among the prompts to consider, the ones that most resonated were about friendship.

Are you happy with your friendships?

In what ways can you seek out new friendships or connections or add social activities?

In recent months, I haven’t seen my friends as frequently as I would like. Adulthood, even without kids or pets, gets busy. For me, it’s been basketball and homemaking, work travel, and routine. There have not been enough brunches and happy hours, weekend hangs or taco Tuesdays (even if we usually have them on Fridays).

This weekend has been a little different. While trying to get to inbox zero Friday afternoon, I came across the weekend events at Earth-2 Comics. Even though I didn’t have a meaningful connection to the writers scheduled or the featured material, they seemed interesting and things a specific friend would enjoy. I did something I haven’t done enough of lately, I initiated a plan. It came together.

It wasn’t a big deal. We spent maybe 30 minutes in the shop. We bought some new reads and got them signed. We learned about how Algeria would recognize American creativity through comic books in the upcoming week, and the writer, Amy Chu, was on her way there. We walked the boulevard, had lunch, and caught up in all those face-to-face ways that a text message or passively scanning each other’s social media fails. All that stuff remains the director’s commentary of whatever is going on with someone. The real comes out over a plate of curly fries or while avoiding rideshare scooters strewn across the sidewalk.

It wasn’t a big deal, but it was life-affirming. We had a lovely afternoon.

My intention for October is to instigate face time with friends whenever I can. To say yes to plans when I can. To favor checking in over monitoring and meeting up over messaging.

Hokum or not, thanks for the nudge you weirdly prescient app.