I’m writing this to the gentle vibes of “2 Hours of Chill Playboi Carti Songs.” It’s easy to hear why the Atlanta hip-hop star, real name Jordan Carter, developed such a massive online following from this early output on SoundCloud. The music is psychedelic but catchy, almost ambient, liable to melt into the background in minutes. With the help of go-to producer Pi’erre Bourne, Carti contoured this sound for his first project, 2017’s Playboi Carti mixtape. He followed it up just a year later with a guest-filled studio LP, Die Lit. The production was more of a sugar high, with…
In an earlier incarnation, Kanye West’s most recent album was called Yandhi and billed as the sequel to Yeezus. This was not to be. “Everybody wanted Yandhi, but Jesus Christ did the laundry,” Kanye explains early in the album we did end up getting, Jesus is King. The changeup left many fans (understandably) blindsided. But as enticing as the idea of a Yeezus sequel was, we should have known better than to take Kanye at his word. Since Yeezus, his harsh and confrontational left turn away from the revered My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (“Soon as they like you, make…
In their review of Rough and Rowdy Ways, Bob Dylan’s first original album in eight years, Pitchfork alludes to the once-in-a-blue-moon interview that Dylan gave the New York Times shortly before its release: “Dylan is asked whether the coronavirus could be seen as a Biblical reckoning — a difficult question to imagine posing to any other living musician. We have learned to come to Dylan with these types of quandaries, and more often than not, we have left satisfied.”
Bob Dylan might as well be two thousand years old. Even in his mid-60s heyday, rather than riding the wave of…
Growing up in the suburbs has given me plenty of opportunities to drive around. When staying at home starts to wear thin, and I realize there are only a few crumpled singles in my wallet that seemed much fatter yesterday, I’ll hop in the car, usually with a friend or two, and cruise along without any particular destination.
I don’t do it for the novelty. On the contrary, some days I feel like I could weave my way through every tiny cross street in my town blindfolded. And I don’t see it as a way of getting to a destination…
All I want is for you to be happy. All you want is for me to be happy. The only way for you to be happy is to make me feel happy, and the only way for me to be happy is to make you feel happy. It seems that my happiness and your happiness both hinge on being the instrument of each other’s happiness.
So, I pour myself into making you feel happy, and you do the same for me. The harder I work at the job, the less work you have to do, since the process of working…
