A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn.
Brockhampton What’s not to love about a boy band whose 15 members include their webmaster? What’s not to love about group leader Kevin Abstract rapping about being gay, when so many other MCs can’t even handle other people being gay? What’s not to love about their immersive Saturation trilogy? I say all this because I’m still adding to a lengthy Twitter thread in which I make my case to join Brockhampton—come on, guys, put me in!
Jaden Smith Will and Jada Pinkett Smith have beautifully eccentric children who’ve become celebrities in their own right. I knew Willow made music, but I’d never much heard Jaden’s, so I went down a rabbit hole with the videos from his November 2017 studio album Syre (which follows mixtapes in 2012 and 2014). The videos are simple and lovely, with backdrops of picturesque nature and city shots. “Batman” is my favorite, featuring Smith as Bruce Wayne and as a modern-day hipster Batman clad in all white instead of the traditional black.
Food and Fela My heart belongs to music and food, and if any artist can help me connect those loves, it’s Fela. My parents being musicians, I grew up in a house filled with all kinds of musicians, one of whom played for Fela. He went by ID, and he taught me about macrobiotic food and all the cool knife cuts I didn’t understand. When my mom was six months pregnant with me, they saw Fela at Liberty Lunch in Austin. I still cook to Afrobeat to honor them both. Dancing to Fela’s “Expensive Shit” goes great with making macrobiotic mushroom-barley soup.
