Tag: music (page 1 of 4)

A panoramic mural from the House of Kong exhibition featuring a crowded scene set against a colorful South Asian architectural backdrop. Animated Gorillaz characters, including Noodle in the foreground, are surrounded by a diverse cast of illustrated and photorealistic figures, a black panther, an elephant, and stray dogs. The scene blends the real and the fictional in the visual style that has defined Gorillaz for nearly three decades.

March 8, 2026 / 2 Comments

The Tinkerer

Last weekend, I was roaming through a collection of warehouses and open spaces somewhere in Downtown Los Angeles. House of Kong is an immersive experience created by Gorillaz, the virtual alt-hip-hop group that grew from the minds of Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett over the past 30 years. The exhibition is both a celebration of that history and, seemingly, the way they are rolling out the latest album from this band that doesn’t really exist. I was agog at how they constructed a maze of interconnected rooms that revealed both the band’s actual development in our world and the parallel universe where Murdoc, Russell, 2-D, and Noodle exist. A guided tour with each visitor provided headphones that delivered a synced audio experience, moving us from one room to the next. From the very beginning, we were active participants in the adventure, though we didn’t know that yet. Anna spent 45 seconds as a roadie for the band, getting a flight case to its appropriate location. Another member of our group was given a task that seemed normal and mundane but was actually critical to our experience.

My senses were turned all the way on for the entire afternoon. There were sights, sounds, and even smells that could only have been envisioned by a group of highly creative humans working and playing together. I was inspired by all of this but mostly by the idea of a musician and a comic book artist sitting in their flat, riffing off of each other, and with pen, paper, some musical instruments, some talented friends, and some luck they turned a ridiculous concept into a successful GRAMMY award-winning band that continues to be a thing nearly three decades later.

For the rest of the day, I romanticized this analog creation myth as a counterpoint to the AI slop encroaching upon seemingly everything right now.

And then the next morning, instead of happily or frustratingly toiling away at some hobby rooted in the physical world, I spent hours on my laptop screwing around with Claude.

Am I a hypocrite?

At work, lately, my 1:1s with a colleague have mostly been animated conversations about AI tools and experiments. Recently, the discussion centered around how he had spent his weekend playing around with AI coding agents, yet kept running up against token limits. It got to a point where he set an alarm so he could get up in the middle of the night when one of his cooldowns was scheduled to end during the wee hours.

He wasn’t doing this for work. He was utilizing the software in the service of one of his hobbies. He’d made iOS apps in the past, not to get rich but to solve a problem specific to him. With the current advancements in AI, he was now able to take those ideas even further and try new ones. His only customer? Himself.

I’m doing the same.

The first weekend of each month, I analyze my music listening from the previous month. I nerd out on this blog about it relatively regularly. It’s a tedious process. I spend several hours extracting, transforming, processing, and categorizing the data so that, in the end, I can tell myself the story of my music habits. I blog about it, but this is just for me. It’s a labor of love. Really, though, it’s mostly just labor. The part I most want to do, categorize music based on my taste and context, is maybe 25% of this effort. This weekend, though, I changed it up.

After three or four hours of doing my normal process, I opened up Claude and said,

“I want to automate the labor and leave the part I love to me. Here are the tools I use. Here’s my existing workflow. Suggest a plan.”

And it did. I reviewed it, made adjustments, and put it to work. Claude Cowork turned a tedious data analysis job I didn’t want to do (and likely would have done poorly) into something that will make my little music hobby project infinitely more enjoyable. Now I can spend those hours categorizing songs and artists if I want. Or doing something completely different. As I watched Claude manipulate my web browser and work in the terminal on my laptop to output what I requested, it felt like magic.

These little moments of magic powered by AI are becoming ever more frequent. There are work cases, sure, but that’s not what has got me excited. It’s about trying shit, learning new ways to do things, and surprising myself with the results. I’m not trying to use AI to come up with million-dollar ideas or 10x my work output or whatever else some self-appointed industry guru or tech CEO-cum-snake oil salesman is claiming that this technology can do.

I’m chasing the “wow, isn’t this fun” feeling. It’s a hobbyist’s enthusiasm rooted in figuring out how to do something that maybe only you will think is cool, but, damnit, that’s all that matters.

Cruftbox calls it tinkering. 40 or 50 years ago, we might have thought about it as homebrew computer culture. Before that, ham radio enthusiasts.

But is collaborating with my computer in any way close to what might be when humans come together to make things?

I find AI as a “creative partner” distasteful at best and gross, at worst. I don’t want to read things in “AI voice.” I don’t want to be assaulted with your AI-created images, videos, or audio. Especially if the output is for artistic pursuits. Whatever for your slide decks or infographics, but if you’re trying to make me feel something? Get that slop out of here. Prompting is not creating.

I’m not being holier than thou. I’ve tried it myself. There is writing I’ve done where I’ve used AI as a writing assistant, and I can clearly identify when I let the computer replace my words, style, and voice with its own flattened idea of what constitutes good writing. There are a couple of things I’ve published over the last year that are absolutely cringeworthy to read.

Over the last few weeks, though, I’ve been floored by the power of accessible agentic AI software. Charlie Warzel, in conversation with Anil Dash, said the “aha” part of this moment in AI’s development is that we’ve moved on a bit from trying to get AIs to mimic Human conversation and, instead, found real material benefit in talking “Computer” to AI so that it will then do computer things beyond our capabilities. That’s been the thing for me as well.

I’ve gone from being highly skeptical of the rise of AI to enthusiastically discussing what I’d like to try next.

Digital tinkering has a cold-start problem that is often very difficult for non-techies to overcome. You don’t know how to talk computer. Having a tool that can understand you, figure out the computer shit necessary to get it done, and actually execute on those things is incredible.

Still, I never want to see your fake video of Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt. Please, though, put the latest Gorillaz music video on repeat.

I’m not a hypocrite.

I don’t want art made by software cosplaying as a person. Damon Albarn hasn’t replaced Jamie Hewlett with a drawing program that can simulate his style. Hewlett isn’t asking an AI song maker to create soundalike hits from their discography. There’s no humanity in that. It would have no value. Artistically, they’ve only opened the aperture for more people to contribute to their creative spectacle.

And yet, I’m having fun playing in this digital sandbox with AI agents solving the silly little computer-centric problems that only matter to me.

How human.

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.

A concert crowd with their hands raised many forming the shape of a heart with those hands. — Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash

November 20, 2025 / 1 Comment

Sometimes I Be Extrovert

We drove the backroads from Burbank to Hollywood, reminiscing about a time when our nights out felt more random: talking with strangers at the bar, late-night vittles, bad ideas powered by bartenders with heavy pours and better stories. Back in my day, we didn’t trade friction for convenience. Back in my day, we were outside.

What a bunch of middle-aged bullshit.

As I surveyed the near-capacity crowd at the Hollywood Palladium on a Tuesday night, I realized the city hasn’t stopped moving. I might just be comforting myself with old stories instead of paying attention. Folks still pack into venues, still dance and sweat and sing along. They’re still out on the sidewalk buying bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Randos still ask odd questions.

And I still have feet and hips that work.

Despite our comfortable balcony seats, I got up and danced for most of Little Simz’s final stop on her North American tour. Midway through her nearly two-hour set, Simz brought out her DJ kit and cranked the energy up another level. Even the usher paused her aisle-policing to break it down for a minute. I took that as my cue to see if I still had a little step-ball-change in me.

I do.

After the dance party, Simz shifted gears to talk about the creative process behind Lotus, her latest album. She called it “muddy waters.” She wasn’t feeling inspired. She didn’t trust her ear. There was self-doubt. But she kept showing up. She kept working. Eventually, she found her way through and made one of her most personal and mature records—raw, intentional, and honest.

On “Free,” she raps, “Love is every time I put pen to the page.” Hearing that live hit me harder than I expected.

I’ve been wading through my own swamp—circling ideas, hesitating, telling myself I’m waiting for inspiration while ignoring the truth: creatives create. A writer writes.

Before getting back to rocking the mic, Simz dropped one more gem: “It’s easy to get started. It’s much harder to finish.”

Whew.

It was a fantastic show.

When I complain things have changed, maybe I’m the one choosing comfort over friction. Am I becoming the curmudgeon wistful for the way things used to be? Or am I still the person willing to adapt, stay open, and lean in when things get difficult?

Because surprise, delight, and joy still show up for the people who put in the work.

And on a night when I said yes and stepped out with a friend for an adventure in Hollywood, the city rewarded me.

Sometimes I be extrovert.

four people holding hands and dancing in a circle with big smiles on their faces

November 2, 2025 / 2 Comments

Shake what your mama gave ya

As we tumbled out of BB King’s on Beale Street after a night of celebration, a family friend said, “This may be the drinks talking, but I never saw you dance with your mother.”

I had danced with her—there’s photographic proof—but she wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t danced much that night.

There was a time when I was always the first on the dance floor. My mother tried to awaken that version of me when Bell Biv DeVoe’s “Poison” came on.

But the dancing machine would not be roused.

I could offer excuses: my age, my weight, the era of constant surveillance and online judgment. But the truth is more straightforward, and harder.

I’ve struggled to find unabashed joy these past few years. And dancing, sweaty, silly, all-in dancing, has always been my most authentic expression of that relentless, unyielding, undeniable pleasure.

One of my mantras this year is get over yourself.

Another: don’t let these motherfuckers steal your sunshine.

When I don’t dance, especially with the people I love most, I’m not honoring the goals and values I’ve set for myself.

Worse, I’m not being true to who I am.

And worst of all, I’m letting the onslaught of negativity win.

No, ma’am.

I recently caught a clip from The Grits & Eggs Podcast about the power of Black joy: how it remains both antidote and anathema to the race-based authoritarianism rising around us.

It felt like a challenge.

So with two months left in the year, let’s shake what our mamas gave us.

A last.fm labs wall image where the "bricks" are the top musical artists this year for Jason Toney

July 8, 2025 / 0 Comments

2025 in Music (So Far): A Soundtrack for Grief, Joy, and the Battle for Los Angeles

The day before this country celebrated its 249th year of independence, a neighbor was kidnapped from the streets by a federal agency. Four days later, she recuperated in an area hospital while our government played bizarre patriot games in MacArthur Park. Over 100 people are dead from a flood in Texas, while wildfires once again scar California’s geography. It’s 10 p.m., and I’m in front of my laptop trying to figure out what music to play when the dark soul of your nation removes its mask.

2025 told us early on that this year would be a battle for Los Angeles. The Palisades and Altadena fires burned while Top Dawg Entertainment disciples and homegrown hip-hop heroes dominated my headphones with full-throated representations of our spirit. Kendrick Lamar’s “Dodger Blue” is a tour of the city, focusing on its black and brown parts, in particular. He and SZA would sell out stadiums throughout North America later in the year, bringing LA sensibilities to the rest of the country and beyond.

Self-expression, self-confidence, introspection, and, ultimately, togetherness across color lines is the “California Dream” of Ab-Soul’s Soul Burger and Tyler, the Creator’s Chromakopia. We love our home and the people in it. We’ve got our problems, but they are ours to fix, and they aren’t solved by militarized theater and separating families.

In February, a friend died. Through shock and tears, I yearned for the kinetic spirit of Sharon Jones and Hepcat’s Right on Time, specifically “Together Someday.” In my grief, the flirtatious refrain transformed into a spiritual declaration: “I know that we’ll be together someday…” Shannon, Dad, and all those I’ve loved who have passed. I don’t worry myself with the unknowable, like the afterlife or what happens when we die, but the certainty of that “I know” brings me comfort.

Perhaps it’s my Hayward friend’s influence that’s nudged me north musically as this year has gone on. E-40, Souls of Mischief, and, more recently, Ruby Ibarra have inspired and ignited. After the tears, we dance.

By March, Poptimism arrived in the form of Blackpink solo albums from Lisa’s Alter Ego to Jennie’s Ruby. With so much heaviness, I craved escapism. Forgive me if I’m dreaming about the resort life at The White Lotus or the ideal Coachella Weekend. I watch from the comfort of my couch now, but memories of those desert festival days still reside in my bones. Let me have a renaissance with Beyoncé’s Renaissance. I’ll be over here consuming Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n Sweet (Deluxe) like the confection it is. GloRilla’s GLORIOUS takes me on imaginary flights to Memphis. I’m revisiting Amy Winehouse’s discography and imagining smoky clubs and late nights in London. I love LA, but I’m longing to be anywhere but here.

Scenes like those in MacArthur Park or outside Glendale Hospital—where local officials are trying to stand up for us against the dim-witted cruelty of this administration—pull me back to reality. I’ve got the blues. The kind of blues that runs through the film and music of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. The score and soundtrack are easily my albums of the year thus far. Alice Smith’s rendition of “Last Time (I Seen The Sun)” is my song of the year. My heart and head have been living in the same liminal space between hope and despair that defines the composition and the genre.

I don’t like feeling this way, but I’m grateful for the opportunity it gave me to explore a style I’d previously ignored. Ludwig Göransson has long been a composer particularly adept at crafting the right musical textures for films that explore the Black experience. He and his contemporary, Nicholas Britell, have soundtracked the movies and shows that have had the most impact on me over the last decade.

The city seems quieter, but I’m unsure if this is a seasonal pattern or a survival strategy. Bounty hunters and emboldened immigration agents roam our communities in masks with weapons and zip ties, while our beaches still fill with sunbathers, our local teams try to win games, and movie premieres go on. You’re never truly able to get a pulse on this city. LA is too big, too diverse, too vibrant to be any one thing. But you can pick up the vibes. There’s something about the energy when we remember to fight for each other.

That was on display when the city’s hip-hop community came together in the spring to support Altadena resident, Madvillain.

Magic happens here. I’m not thinking about our soundstages—many of which are unused while Hollywood transforms. I mean the magic that hides in the open if you’re only willing to get out of your car and explore. That’s where the happy accidents happen, like discovering Brandee Younger inside an Alice Coltrane exhibit at The Hammer Museum. Magic is in a sorcerer like Terrace Martin, the prolific LA native, who releases music constantly while producing and appearing on many of the best records this city has made over the past twenty years.

Even in the chaos, magic is what we do.

Ice Cube said, “Mix them and cook them in a pot like gumbo,” on N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton” some 35 years ago. LA is like that seafood stew, blending cultures into something surprising, delightful, and uniquely ours. LA is Korean BBQ tacos and elote pizza. LA is donuts in pink boxes served with horchata, boba, or Thai iced tea. That spirit will survive this battle for Los Angeles. It is our greatest strength.

The music I’ve spun so frequently this year isn’t for a nation’s wayward heart. Instead, it’s the soundtrack of resilience and rebellion. I’m spinning records for people who believe, who beat the odds, and who stand up for one another.

The best music of the year represents the spirit of this city I call home, even if the songs and artists didn’t originate here or now.

Albums

Sinners (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) – Sinners Movie
Sinners (Original Motion Picture Score) – Ludwig Göransson
GNX – Kendrick Lamar
Right on Time – Hepcat
Somewhere Different – Brandee Younger

Artists

Kendrick Lamar
Ludwig Göransson
Terrace Martin
Tyler, The Creator
Brandee Younger

Songs

Last Time (I Seen the Sun) – Alice Smith
Love & Struggle – Brandee Younger
Dodger Blue – Kendrick Lamar
Heavy, California – Jungle
I Lied to You – Miles Caton

Ruby Ibarra sits on the NPR Tiny Desk Concert stage with her left fist raised and wearing an "I *heart* Pinays" t-shirt

July 2, 2025 / 0 Comments

Freedom is a Joyful Noise

I’m at The Regent Theater in Downtown LA to see Ruby Ibarra, the 2025 Tiny Desk Contest winner from the Bay Area, perform. Local public media stations, including LAist and KVCR, are in the building, handing out fans and making the case for public media. The Regent is packed with a classically multicultural Los Angeles crowd—this time, with a strong showing from the Filipino community. People came out to see the diminutive Pinay rapper with a big voice and even bigger presence.

Initially scheduled for June 11, the show was postponed when the mayor instituted a curfew in downtown during protests against ICE raids that are still tearing through our communities.

Ruby doesn’t mention the delay until her final song, but when she does, she doesn’t mince words. She’s a first-generation immigrant, and her music centers the Filipino immigrant experience. Before launching into “7,000 Miles,” she reminds us: “No one is illegal on stolen land!”

Everything is political.

Earlier that day, I’d been listening to We Insist 2025!—the new album from Terri Lyne Carrington and Christie Dashiell, a reimagining of Max Roach’s We Insist! One song in particular, “Joyful Noise,” features a spoken word piece that stayed with me:

And when we struggle, when times are tough, we draw strength from our ancestors.
We put away our differences and we come together.
When folks try to take away our freedoms, we don’t just let them.
We fight back!
We don’t become despondent or complacent, and we don’t drown ourselves in escapism or give up on what we know is right.
No!
Instead, we say, “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”
Emmett G. Price III

That’s the spirit that got me out of the house on a Tuesday. That’s what I felt in the room.

Shoulder to shoulder with my neighbors—many of them immigrants or their American-born children—we smiled, sang, and bobbed our heads as one. During Ruby’s homage to Bay Area hip-hop, we even got a little hyphy.

When opener Tish Hyman performed her song “Lucky,” that’s exactly how I felt, too.

There’s not a lot going right in my life—or in the headlines—but after a night of making joyful noise, I can at least envision a better tomorrow.

Freedom is smiling in the face of adversity because you know in the depth of your soul, just like your grandma told you, everything is going to be alright.

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.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, The New York Public Library. "The Savoy" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1935 - 1943. — Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

May 29, 2025 / 1 Comment

What Does Jazz Mean to You?

Originally published at DC Jazz Fest.

In Late March of this year, the Mellon Foundation hosted a virtual symposium titled “American Jazz, American Culture.” Elizabeth Alexander, president of the foundation, moderated the conversation, which included Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lynne Carrington, and Dr. Farrah Jasmine Griffin as panelists. Alexander prefaced that this would be a bit of a “bebop”-style conversation, so she opened it with a curveball.

Jazz means many things: a genre, a style, a sensibility, a culture, a history, a tradition, a way of being. It is a noun. It is a verb. With the word ‘jazz,’ tell me some things that come to mind.

Dr. Griffin was the last to speak on the topic, but the Professor of English’s words were profound:

Excellence. Not in a standardized way, but in which you only compete with yourself. You are achieving something better than you did yesterday. Jazz models a way of being in life: creative, free, and aspiring towards something better than you were yesterday.

That question—‘What does jazz mean?’—has lingered with me.

The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles is currently exhibiting Alice Coltrane: Monument Eternal. While it is more than worth it for the varied ways the installation explores Alice Coltrane’s music, life, and spirituality, I must confess that the unexpected appearance of Brandee Younger in the short film “Isis & Osiris” by Ephraim Asili is my highlight. The first time I visited the exhibit, I walked into a dark viewing room where the short plays on a loop, and I was immediately transfixed. Younger’s voice, grace, and performance as she plays Coltrane’s signature harp conveyed all those things about jazz that Griffin discussed. It was creative, unbridled, aspirational excellence on display. Leaving the room before her harp playing ended felt rude and uncouth, so I lingered until the short restarted. And then I watched it all the way through again.

While the Hammer doesn’t present the full 19 minutes and 21 seconds of the film—which tells the story of Alice Coltrane’s life in the years following the death of her husband, John—the part on display features several quotes from the artist.

This one feels like her answer to Elizabeth Alexander’s question:

It comes from the heart, and it comes from the spirit, and that’s the major character of creative music. It doesn’t come from the brain. It comes from within. Your creation comes from the heart, spirit, and soul; you’re not manufacturing somebody else’s plan, blueprint, or idea that’s not yours, so when you’re creating, that’s the beautiful side of art, you know? It comes from within you.

NEA Jazz Master Terri Lynne Carrington calls jazz expansive rather than monolithic, while also referencing a quote from Duke Ellington:

Put it this way: Jazz is a good barometer of freedom… In its beginnings, the United States of America spawned certain ideals of freedom and independence through which jazz eventually evolved, and the music is so free that many people say it is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country.

Esperanza Spalding calls it a sanctuary.

But what does “jazz” bring up for me? My mind goes to fingers on instruments. Jazz musicians are known for their cool, right? They are reserved, commanding presences that keep time independent of whatever rhythm happens in our chaotic world. And then, their hands come alive, unleashed across wood, brass, ivory, plastic, metal, and string in ways that demand attention as they transform wherever they are into some elevated state. That’s what I felt watching Brandee Younger’s fingers glide across those harp strings. It’s how I remember my father, Kevin Toney, playing the keys.

That freedom of expression erupts from the fingers of all these musicians, driven by the desire to breathe life into something that comes purely from within. That ability to keep time and then manipulate it on a whim, bringing your bandmates and audience along for the ride, is otherworldly. Jazz is a magick. At its best, it gives performers and listeners the space for their spirits to reign supreme, even if only for a song, an album, a concert, or a festival.

That’s jazz.

What does the word bring up for you?

The cast of the movie Sinners during the performance of "Magic What We Do" in the film.

May 1, 2025 / 2 Comments

‘Sinners’ Sings the Blues

They say the truth hurts, so I lie to you

Yes, I lied to you

I love the blues

—Miles Caton (as Sammie in the movie “Sinners”)

Sammie’s song for his father is called “I Lied to You”(Co-written by Ludwig Göransson and Raphael Saadiq). Sinners begins at the end with this preacher’s boy returning to his family’s makeshift church after surviving the harrowing night at the Juke. As Sammie holds onto the neck of his destroyed guitar for dear life, his father begs him to put the guitar down and embrace the pulpit. Isn’t all he’s seen enough to give up the devil’s playthings and stay safe with him and pray?

Sammie can’t do that. He loves the blues.

Sammie loves the blues because he loves life and all that comes with it. Born into poverty under Jim Crow, Sammie greets each day with gratitude, kindness, curiosity, and a desire to share his incredible gifts with the world.

I didn’t love the blues—maybe I never knew it. I have always associated blues with its maudlin themes, ignoring until now that joy stands right next to it. I have long preferred the rhythm of R&B—that boogie woogie—over the wobbly strings of a guitar or the warbles from a harmonica. Blues thrives in contradiction. It loves the saint and the sinner equally. It doesn’t seek to hide from grief, anger, frustration, weakness, or the devil. To do so would also deny the pleasure and possibility of being alive.

Ludwig Göransson’s score and the soundtrack album for this movie have me considering the blues with fresh ears. On the In Proximity Podcast, Göransson and Ryan Coogler discuss their love of the genre as they explain how the film’s music came together. Coogler finds a throughline between “Tha Crossroads” by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and the work of folks like Buddy Guy, who appears as the elder Sammie in the post-credits scene. Hip-hop artists Rod Wave, Young Dolph, and OG DAYV appear on the soundtrack.

Where “Tha Crossroads” lingers in grief and mourning, I find my hip-hop blues in De La Soul’s stripped-down reflections. Songs like “I Am I Be” and “Trying People” (see also The Grind Date & And The Anonymous Nobody…) remove artifice, mute the boom bap, and bare the soul of rappers taking stock of their lot in life at specific moments in time. These songs provide clarity and hope during challenging times, not by false bravado but through vulnerability and tenderness. Their mere existence as marvels of creativity let me know that whatever I’m going through, I will survive it. I may even thrive.

That is the motivation of all the film’s protagonists. They all buy into the Juke Joint dream of the Smokestack Twins because they can see the possibilities despite the dangers. They all gladly trade the doldrums of their everyday for just the chance to feel truly free away from the watchful eyes of their oppressors. By the end, most lose their lives but never give up their agency.

I’m starting to understand the blues.

In the film, Delta Slim tells the tragic tale of a friend who was a victim of the oppressive racism of 1930s Mississippi before turning his harmonica into a beautiful expression of all the trouble he’s seen and endured. My mind turns to Nina Simone and the unimaginable woe she conveys in her performance of “Mississippi Goddamn.” Simone doesn’t appear on the soundtrack or the official playlist that Coogler and Göransson put together, but Alice Smith does. She covered Simone’s “I Put A Spell on You” on a tribute album from a decade ago. In the weeks before the release of Sinners, I just so happened to be revisiting Smith’s debut album, For Lovers, Dreamers, and Me.

The surreal montage “Magic What We Do” awakens the lead vampire’s interest in Sammie in the movie and has stirred something deep in me. I’m weaving across genre, time, space, and race, as I reckon with my relationship with this powerful music.

Later in the podcast, Göransson refers to the silver-adorned instrument Sammie carries with him throughout the film as “The Hero Guitar.” Woody Guthrie—the American folk singer and songwriter inspired by the black blues artists of his time—often performed with a hero guitar of his own. Guthrie’s axe wasn’t meant to ward off vampires like those in Sinners. He wanted his audiences to know that “This Machine Kills Fascists.”

Woody Guthrie holding a guitar with the words 'This Machine Kills Fascists' written on it, promoting social justice through music.

Those were the monsters of his time. And ours.

I may not be well-versed in B.B. King, Albert King, Geeshie Wiley, Lightnin’ Hopkins, or Professor Longhair. Yet, I understand their willingness to acknowledge the trauma of the human condition while still delighting in the wonders of life.

I lied to you.

I love the blues.