Zambian songwriter, rapper, and singer Sampa the Great in the latest episode of Song Exploder tells the story of her song 'Let Me Be Great'. Sampa the Great and producer Mag44 break down the song, which features vocals from legendary West African singer Angélique Kidjo. Sampa the Great speaks about how she went from being defensive about her culture in her music to celebrating it.
Maxi Jazz, the lead singer of British dance act Faithless, has died "peacefully in his sleep" in his south-London home on Friday night, aged 65. A statement shared on Jazz's Instagram and signed by his former bandmates said: "He was a man who changed our lives in so many ways. He gave proper meaning and message to our music". Beyond Faithless, the versatile musician formed Maxi Jazz & The E-Type Boys, playing "melodic funk and blues mixed with reggae beats, dub baselines [and] Jamaican melodies". The music world pays tribute to Maxi Jazz.
“At its core, this song is my way of saying ‘this too shall pass’ but in a way that feels honest” says Brooklyn singer-songwriter Brian Dunne of 'Sometime After This'. He offers a perspective to the song: “It starts with a big idea and gets smaller with each verse. The first one addresses the social and political state of things, and how sad it is that we can't even agree on what it is that we disagree about (and also has the first, and likely last use of the word ‘email’ in one of my songs). Verse two is about everything that led me here, to this particular song, and finds me asking a classic NYC vampire - a sacred character to me - what exactly to do with it. And verse three is just about a single cup of coffee and how it all just comes down to that; being grateful for a hot beverage.”
Terry Hall, the singer of the influential English ska band The Specials, has died at the age of 63, following a short illness, the AP reports. Hall dropped out of school at 14 and found himself in the English punk scene, joining a band called the Squad. But in 1977, he joined The Coventry Automatic, the first incarnation of The Specials. Melding the British punk of the late-70s and Jamaican ska of the 60s, the band broke through, influencing a generation of anti-racist punk and ska bands. “His music and his performances encapsulated the very essence of life… the joy, the pain, the humor, the fight for justice, but mostly the love” - the band's statement reads. Guardian selects 10 of his recordings.
"In the punk world, 2022 was a year of innovation, a year of new generations staking their claim, a year of new trends emerging and old trends making comebacks. For the purposes of this list, "punk" incorporates punk, pop punk, indie-punk, emo, hardcore, post-hardcore, screamo, metalcore, ska-punk, and various other microgenres that fall under those" - Brooklyn Vegan introduces their list of 50 best punk albums. The top 10 are:
10. The Interrupters - 'In The Wild'
9. Pinkshift - 'Love Me Forever'
8. JER - 'Bothered / Unbothered'
7. The Wonder Years - 'The Hum Goes On Forever'
6. Pool Kids - 'Pool Kids'
5. Mindforce - 'New Lords'
4. The Callous Daoboys - 'Celebrity Therapist'
3. Drug Church - 'Hygiene'
2. Anxious - 'Little Green House'
There are many, many great books released this year - Variety introduces its list of the best music books released in 2022. "Bono writes beautifully about his relationship with his parents and his wife... Tom Breihan’s new book looks at how 20 top tracks affected the culture, and/or changed the game, musically and sociologically... Stunning 'The Byrds: 1964-67', a comprehensive oral history and a gorgeous coffee-table photo book all in one... In his first book, the ace New York Times reporter Coscarelli puts a microscope on the thriving and enormously influential Atlanta hip-hop scene".
Only one of the top ten most-searched songs of the year on Google came from a Western artist, the search engine's trending searches of 2022 show. The list features several Indonesian and Japanese singers, a reggaeton-inspired Pakistani track, and one from Nigerian singer-songwriter Burna Boy. The top spot is taken by 'Tak Ingin Usai' ('Don’t Want to End'), by Indonesian singer Keisya Levronka. The only Western artist on the list is Harry Styles with 'As It Was' at number seven.
Space rock jazz band Chui three years ago have accompanied a screening of the 1927 silent movie 'Berlin: Symphony of a Great City' ('Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt') by director Walter Ruttmann, This year, Chui have released a full album 'Zagreb-Berlin' based on those compositions. This week, they have a new video out, 'Symphony Of A Metropolis Act I' from the Berlin part of the album.
Music streaming service Anghami is claiming that it will soon become the first platform to host over 200,000 songs generated by AI, MBW reports. Anghami has partnered with a generative music platform Mubert, whose tech takes samples written by human musicians and sound designers, and then, using Artificial Intelligence, arranges them into finished tracks. Mubert’s technology is being combined with Anghami’s user data and algorithms to create thousands of AI-generated songs. According to Anghami, the service has already generated over 170,000 songs.
ChatGPT is a prototype artificial intelligence chatbot that specializes in dialogue. The OpenAI-developed chatbot is a large language model fine-tuned with both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques. Trapital's Dan Runcie has a few ideas on how musicians could use it - "to generate ideas for new songs or to help them come up with lyrics. They could also use it to help them brainstorm new ways to arrange their music or to come up with unique melodies and chord progressions. Additionally, chatGPT could be used to help musicians write press releases or other promotional materials, or to generate titles and descriptions for their music on social media or streaming platforms.”
