Fiona Apple / Thundercat / Kaytranada

Apart from the biggest categories, there were some noticeable wins at the Grammys last night. Kaytranada won Best Dance/Electronic Album with 'Bubba', Fiona Apple won Best Rock Performance with 'Shameika' as well as Best Alternative Music Album with 'Fetch the Bolt Cutters', Brittany Howard won Best Rock Song with 'Stay High', The Strokes won Best Rock Album with 'The New Abnormal', Thundercat won Best Progressive R&B Album with 'It Is What It Is', Gillian Welch & David Rawlings won Best Folk Album with 'All The Good Times', Burna Boy won Best Global Music Album with 'Twice As Tall', Body Count won Best Metal Performance with 'Bum-Rush', even Kanye West won, in Best Contemporary Christian Music Album category with 'Jesus is King', tying Jay-Z as the most ever Grammy-awarded among hip-hop artists with 22 awards.

Getting to the bottom
July 02, 2020

50 best bassists of all time

A great bass line is like a mantra: It sounds like it could go on forever, and it only feels more profound the more you hear it - Rolling Stone says in its introduction to the list of 50 best bassists of all time. It starts with Thundercat - who went from Suicidal Tendencies to West Coast Get Down - on spot No 50, to Motown's home bassist James Jamerson.

An immensely talented, LA-based collective that has grown from a group of school friends using jazz as a form of escapism to become one of the most influential forces in contemporary music - Dazed writes in a big profile of West Coast Get Down. They were playing for years in LA jazz bars perfecting their craft and style – "they" being Tony Austin (drums), Ronald Bruner Jr (drums), Stephen ‘Thundercat’ Bruner (bass), Cameron Graves (keys), Brandon Coleman (keys), Miles Mosley (bassist), Ryan Porter (trombonist), Patrice Quinn (vocals), Terrace Martin (multi-instrumentalist), and Kamasi Washington (saxophonist) – when they got their big break, playing of Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly'. That wasn't the highpoint, rather a kick - West Coast Get Down is only just getting started, Dazed argues.