death grips
Indie Rock Is Too White; Meanwhile Two Black Dudes Are Behind the Baddest Punk Rock Records of 2015
We, as Americans, have a long, proud history of segregating music. Rock and country are white. Rap, hip-hop, soul, and R'N'B are black. Go further back, and jazz music was off limits to those of fair skin with and over-protective parents. Removing one word, "indie rock," from the history of music segregation will do little to change the musical landscape. No "indie rock" simply means people will need another phrase to describe music outside of the top 40, ideally, something less wordy than, "Underground rock music, and some electronic music, and a metal band or two, and every once in a while something popular like Kanye." Yet, what grates me the most about the whiteness of indie rock think piece in 2015 is that these writers are missing the big picture. On this very day, in the year 2015 of our lord, the two most exciting bands in indie rock/underground rock/punk rock/not top 40 rock, are lead by black men: MC Ride of Death Grips and Lamont "Bim" Thomas of Obnox.
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The Rockometer: The Powers That B by Death Grips
Death Grips' double album, The Powers That B, features both the best and worst of these Sacramento noise-rap agitators. On the first album, subtitled, Niggas on the Moon, we get principals MC Ride and Zach Hill indulging their worst impulses. I'll be damned if there's a song here, but there's a lot of busted up beats and slobbering spit takes from MC Ride. Believe it or not, Icelandic national treasure, Bjork is on here, too. Unfortunately, her vocals and pitched, cut up and wrecked to the point where she's no more than another source of irritation, perhaps the primary irritation.
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A Fistful of Jams: New Jams by Liturgy, Death Grips, and Thee Oh Sees
The tech world loves its disrupters, those whose ideas and products shake up the status quo. The music world has a much more troubled relationship with those who dare challenge convention. Acting out in public is disruptive and accepted. Flamboyance and egos can be accepted form of disruption, too. Can you say Kanye? Live hard and live fast, destroy your shit and destroy yourself and you'll be admired for your edge. But try to change the way people engage with music through philosophy? No, no, no, now you're being a conceited asshole.
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An All-Star Jam Packed Tuesday with New Pornographers, Spoon, J Mascis, Mastodon, and Death Grips
By now, you should be able to tell when an artist is talking out of his arse in a gamely attempt to get music journos to type any old ...
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Friday Jam Pack with Jesu, Death Grips and The Dirtbombs
So that thing where Justin K Broadrick of Jesu was going to compartmentalize his creative output lasted, oh, let's say two years. At one point ...
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Two For Wednesday: New Jams by Torche and Death Grips
The Florida metal band Torche do a lot of things well, but one thing they do especially well is distilling the power of metal into concise ...
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