Thundercat

Anderson .Paak, Herbie Hancock, Thundercat, And More Are Set To Headline Newport Jazz Festival 2023

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Anderson Paak Concert PNE Amphitheatre 2019
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Another day, another legendary music festival lineup to announce. This go-’round is one of the most iconic festivals dedicated to jazz music lovers: the Newport Jazz Festival.

The multi-day outdoor event is set to celebrate its 69th anniversary, making its highly-anticipated return to Fort Adams State Park in Rhode Island. The Newport Jazz Festival will take place between August 4 and 6. Opening day, Friday, August 4, will be headlined by Kamasi Washington, DJ Pee .Wee (also known as Anderson .Paak), and Big Freedia. Whereas Jon Batiste and Thundercat are billed to headline the following day, Saturday, August 5. Closing out the festival is none other than jazz legends Herbie Hancock and Diana Krall.

Other notable acts include Grammy’s newest Best New Artist winner Samara Joy, Charles Lloyd, Vijay Iyer, DOMi & JD Beck, Arooj Aftab, Big Gigantic, Alfa Mist, Cautious Clay, Durand Jones, and The War & Treaty.

Tickets for the festival will go on sale to the public on Wednesday, March 22, at 1 p.m. est. The organizers are offering a student discount rate for those between the ages of 10 and 25. For more information, click here.

View the full lineup organized by day via the poster below.

Newport Jazz Festival 2023 Flyer
Newport Jazz Festival

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Steve Lacy And Thundercat Delivered An Infectious Performance Of ‘Bad Habit’ At The 2023 Grammys

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STEVE LACY GRAMMYS 2023
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Taking the stage for his first-ever Grammys performance tonight was Steve Lacy. During his performance, he sang his Billboard Hot 100 No. 1, “Bad Habit.”

On stage, Lacy was joined by Thundercat, who supplemented the poignant love song with a seductive, groovy guitar bridge.

Throughout the performance, several of Lacy’s fellow musicians were seen singing and dancing along to the song, including Machine Gun Kelly, Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift, and the queen herself, Beyoncé.

While this may be his first time performing at The Grammys, Lacy is certainly no novice. Last week, Lacy spoke with CBS Mornings about receiving his first Grammy nomination when he was 17 years old, for his work on The Internet’s Ego Death album.

When asked what the nomination meant to him at the time, Lacy replied “It meant that my mom could get off my ass about going to college.”

Fortunately, this nomination was no flash in the pan for Lacy. In 2020, he was nominated for Best Urban Contemporary Album for his solo debut album, Apollo XXI.

Earlier in the night, Lacy won the Best Progressive R&B Album Grammy for his 2022 album, Gemini Rights. “Bad Habit” is also up for Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance.

In the meantime, you can check out the performance of “Bad Habit” above.

Vic Mensa And Thundercat Team Up On The Spaced-Out ‘Strawberry Louis Vuitton’

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Vic Mensa Thundercat
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Vic Mensa teams up with jazz-soul superproducer Thundercat on his latest single, the spaced-out “Strawberry Louis Vuitton.” Thundercat offers a cotton candy backdrop for Mensa to pen a lyrical love letter to a woman who’s got a hold on him.

Singer Maeta provides backing vocals, bolstering Vic’s own sung chorus, and as the song progresses, the instrumentation grows more and more elaborate, culminating in Thundercat’s falsetto bridge and a crunchy bass breakdown. Check it out below.

Mensa is fresh off the success of his and Chance The Rapper’s Ghana-based music festival, Black Star Line Festival, which also created the opportunity for Vic to build water boreholes that will provide clean water to over 200,000 Ghanaians. Over the holidays, Vic also gave away $10,000 of gas money in his hometown, Chicago, continuing the streak of philanthropy and activism which has defined his career so far. Musically, his last collab was with Chance on The Rapper’s “Wraith (Writing Exercise #3),” the latest in a string of new collaborations they’ve created since reuniting a few years ago.

Thundercat, meanwhile, has been working on some interesting projects of his own, including a contribution to a tribute album for Japanese jazz great Ryuichi Sakamoto and an upcoming tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Flea called ‘Cat his favorite modern bassist). He also popped up on the title track for Gorillaz’s upcoming project Cracker Island, kicking off his 2023 with plenty of high-profile appearances.

A Moment-Seeking Thundercat Fan Rushed The Stage And Tried To Sing

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Thundercat RHCP 2022
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Surely many people dream of being able to sing on stage with their favorite artists and hopefully, it goes a bit better than it did for a particular fan. On Tuesday (August 16), a local singer rushed the stage in an attempt to sing with Thundercat during his show at College Street Music Hall in New Haven, Connecticut.

A video of the moment, posted to Twitter, opens with the young lady hugging Thundercat before grabbing the microphone. She enthusiastically says, “I’m here,” reveals she is a singer, and asks if she can sing before a stage manager escorts her out as the audience boos the stage crasher. It isn’t exactly the easiest job to do so a large security guard has to offer his services as well. No one was harmed nor did it appear the young woman had malicious intent, so the show’s attendees and Thundercat all got a laugh out of this.

Thundercat has had a relatively quiet year release-wise, offering “Fly Like An Eagle” from the Minions: The Rise Of Gru soundtrack and appearing on Gorilaz’s “Cracker Island.” His 2020 album It Is What It Is featured Childish Gambino, Steve Lacy, Steve Arrington, Zack Fox, Ty Dolla Sign, Lil B, and more. It makes sense someone would want to be in his aura.

Check out the video of the singer rushing the stage while Thundercat performs above.

Thundercat Shares A Warped Cover Of ‘Fly Like An Eagle’ For The ‘Minions 2’ Soundtrack

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The soundtrack to Minions: The Rise Of Gru is out today, which has Phoebe Bridgers covering The Carpenters, HER covering Sly And The Family Stone, St. Vincent covering Lipps Inc., Kali Uchis covering Stan Getz And João Gilberto, and Tame Impala and Diana Ross contributing a new song.

Along with these gems, there’s also Thundercat taking on “Fly Like An Eagle,” originally by Steve Miller Band. The idiosyncratic musician does what one would expect — he makes the song weirder and woozier. It’s full of sparkling synths and warped bass, but his vocals are clean, guiding the track forward. It ends by slowly fading away into echoes.

Last month, he shared a collaboration with Gorillaz for “Cracker Island,” about which the Gorillaz virtual band member 2D said, “It’s nice to be back, I’m well into our new tune, it brings back weird and scary memories of stuff that hasn’t happened yet.” The narrative of the tune was explained as “the world’s biggest virtual band have relocated to Silverlake, California where it turns out that the answer to life’s question — the one truth to fix the world — is to invite fans to join ‘The Last Cult,’ with Murdoc as its self-appointed Great Leader.”

Listen to Thundercat’s cover of “Fly Like An Eagle” above.

Gorillaz Link Up With Thundercat For The Punchy And Funky Single ‘Cracker Island’

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Back in April, Gorillaz kicked off their tour and made a splash by debuting some new music. One of the songs was a Thundercat collaboration called “Cracker Island,” and now they’ve gone ahead and shared the studio version of the track.

Thundercat’s influence on the tune is clear, as it’s a funky, punchy number, on which his rhythm and backing vocals mesh so well with the Gorillaz sound that’s always been so open to guest influence. Gorillaz also produced the song alongside Greg Kurstin and Remi Kabaka Jr.

Virtual band member 2D says of “Cracker Island,” “It’s nice to be back, I’m well into our new tune, it brings back weird and scary memories of stuff that hasn’t happened yet.”

As for the narrative behind the tune, a press release notes, “The world’s biggest virtual band have relocated to Silverlake, California where it turns out that the answer to life’s question — the one truth to fix the world — is to invite fans to join ‘The Last Cult,’ with Murdoc as its self-appointed Great Leader.”

The new song is the latest in a long line of collaborations for Thundercat, who has recently worked with Kehlani, Flying Lotus, Kaytranada, and others.

Listen to “Cracker Island” above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

1970s Covers From Phoebe Bridgers, St. Vincent, And Thundercat Lead The ‘Minions 2’ Soundtrack

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Phoebe Bridgers Billboard 2022 Women In Music
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Over the weekend, teasers made it seem like Tama Impala and Diana Ross were perhaps making an album together. It turns out that’s only sort-of-but-not-really true: They are appearing on an album together, yes, but that album is the soundtrack to the upcoming Minions: The Rise Of Gru movie, the full tracklist of which has now been revealed.

Their contribution is a collaborative new song called “Turn Up The Sunshine.” The 19-track album mostly consists of covers, but other originals include “Cool” from Verdine White (of Earth, Wind & Fire), RZA’s “Kung Fu Suite,” and Heitor Pereira’s “Minions: The Rise Of Gru Score Suite.”

As for the covers, they’re all of songs from the ’70s, coinciding with the movie’s setting. Selections include St. Vincent doing Lipps, Inc’s “Funkytown”; Thundercat doing Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle”; Phoebe Bridgers doing The Carpenters’ “Goodbye To Love”; and Brockhampton doing Kool & The Gang’s “Hollywood Swinging.”

Check out the Minions: The Rise Of Gru (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) art and tracklist below.

Minions The Rise Of Gru Soundtrack
Decca

1. Diana Ross — “Turn Up The Sunshine” Feat. Tame Impala
2. Brittany Howard — “Shining Star” Feat. Verdine White (Earth, Wind & Fire cover)
3. St. Vincent — “Funkytown” (Lipps, Inc. cover)
4. Brockhampton — “Hollywood Swinging” (Kool & The Gang cover)
5. Kali Uchis — “Desafinado” (Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto cover)
6. Caroline Polachek — “Bang Bang” (Nancy Sinatra cover)
7. Thundercat — “Fly Like An Eagle” (Steve Miller Band cover)
8. Phoebe Bridgers — “Goodbye To Love” (The Carpenters cover)
9. Bleachers — “Instant Karma!” (John Lennon cover)
10. Weyes Blood — “You’re No Good” (Linda Ronstadt cover)
11. Gary Clark Jr. — “Vehicle” (The Ides Of March cover)
12. HER — “Dance To The Music” (Sly & The Family Stone cover)
13. Tierra Whack — “Black Magic Woman” (Santana cover)
14. Verdine White — “Cool”
15. Jackson Wang — “Born To Be Alive” (Patrick Hernandez cover)
16. The Minions — “Cecilia” (Simon & Garfunkel cover)
17. GEM — “Bang Bang” (Nancy Sinatra cover)
18. RZA — “Kung Fu Suite”
19. Heitor Pereira — “Minions: The Rise Of Gru Score Suite”

Minions: The Rise Of Gru (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is out 5/20 via Decca.