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Terrace Martin: Young Man With an Old Soul

Multi-Instrumentalist, producer, singer, rapper, and actor Terrace Martin is a musical phenomenon in the shadows. Martin has reintroduced jazz into mainstream music in a way only Robert Glasper could challenge. Martin has production credits on some of the most groundbreaking music to release in recent years, having credits on albums with Kendrick Lamar, Talib Kweli, Travis Scott, Snoop Dogg, and many others. While Martin has certainly left a stamp on hip-hop, he wouldn't be who he was without Jazz. Martin once said, "I started producing hip-hop tracks because it was the music of my time, but I never lost my love for Jazz". Martin has helped keep a form of Jazz alive through hip-hop that feels both new and old, and it harkens to his inspirations. 

Martin was born into a musical family, so it is fair to say his first inspirations were his parents and Coltrane. His father was a Jazz Drummer and his mother was a singer, so he lived in a home filled with Jazz music. His inspirations were greats such as the aforementioned John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, And Herbie Hancock to name a few. 

The time period that housed the Jazz greats Terrace Martin was inspired by was certainly a harsh time for Jazz. The time of the roaming Jazz Ensemble were long gone, and Jazz Musicians needed to get weird with it in order to keep interest in the ever changing musical landscape. This time period, around the early 50s, was the time when bebop music rose to prominence. It was post-WWII America, and Jazz reflected the mood of the country. It developed into a more serious, analytical, and self-reflective art form that subverted the big band era of Jazz that had preceded it. Jazz greats like Miles Davis and Charlie Parker were instrumental in the development of experimental forms of Jazz like Cool Jazz and Bebop or Hard Bop. This time period saw many radical variations on the tenents of ensemble jazz. Notes were played much more freely, throwing away the 12 and 13 bar form made popular in Blues and Ensemble Jazz. Improvisation was kept, but pushed to radical points.  And that doesnt even touch on people like Thelonious Monk and his forage into Jazz subgenres like Free Jazz. In many ways, Jazz provided the punk spirit that hip-hop would later retain. It makes sense that Terrace Martin draws such inspiration from the genre.  

Before there was bebop and hard bop, however, there was Ensemble Jazz and it was pivotal to setting the stage for later forms of Jazz. This was a time when roaming Jazz ensembles would travel the road playing anything from bars to concert halls. Many noteworthy, black performers got their start in the few halls that allowed Jazz to be played, as it was known widely as the devils music by Christian black folk, and as black music by the whites. These Jazz halls where ensembles would play were known as the Chittlin' Circuit, a series of venues for black people, about black people, and featuring black people and Jazz, at that time, was implicitly for black people. Many artists, such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie had to get their starts performing at any one of these few venues along the eastern seaboard. The effects of racial discrimination heavily influenced Jazz music, at even this level. But as Jazz became more and more accepted by the broader, mostly white American society, there was a shift, a shift akin to the one seen in blues music during that same time. This new form of Jazz became accepted by the larger American audience. And that Jazz was Bebop.

With the troubled past that Jazz has had, it is no wonder it inspires Terrace Martin. It is a music form much like hip-hop in that it has allowed for unparalleled forms of expression for black people. During the Jim Crow era, during post-war America, and even today, Jazz has represented freedom of expression and freedom from persecution for black people and the spirit of Jazz and all that it represents is kept alive in musicians like Terrace Martin.

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Nina Simone: A Woman on Fire

In some of us, there burns a spark. That spark flames different fires in different people and it leads different people to different destinies. In Eunice Waymon, better known as Singer, Songwriter, Civil Rights Activist and Cultural Icon Nina Simone, the spark that fueled her was rare. It was single minded, it was powerful, and it raged in a world that fought to subdue it. Nina Simone was truly a woman on fire. She blazed. She burned. And She certainly scorched America Jazz, Blues, and RnB in a way few have since.

Eunice Waymon was to be a classical pianist. And not just any classic pianist, but the first black woman classical pianist in America. And the best, at that. She was inspired by her childhood tudor after a performance at church. From that day foward, Eunice would study 8 hours a day, 7 days a week. Piano became her life, and her talent flourished. She was so talented, in fact, that when she outgrew her first tudor, a fund was developed in her name to continue her musical education. Her talent shone through so much, that her whole family upended their life in Tryon, North Carolina to move to Philadelphia, so Eunice could attend Curtis Institute of Music. She was denied attendance most likely due to racial discrimination. Lost in a foreign city, Eunice would need to help support her family. She never strayed far from the piano, however, as she would soon find a part time job perfomring in bars. She was singing the blues, however, not playing classical piano. At the time, this was just work to her, but Eunice worried her parents would stop her if they knew so she adopted a persona: Nina Simone. She would perform for crowds in places no young girl should be at by her self, singing her blues from her soul. Evoking that legendary bluesman, Simone (as I'll be referring to her from here on out) would perform as her own accompaniment. And so, she started her musical career.

Simone's style was unique for many different reasons. Most will cite her way of seamlessly weaving Blues, Jazz, and RnB music into her music, which was and still is revolutionary. She was a sight to see by herself on piano or with a full accompaniment, and that alludes to her ability to perform as a "classical bluesman" or as a jazz singer. Simone's voice was also a key part of her persona. Her voice had a deep tone to it, that she described as having gravely qualities, but could also sound as smooth as coffee and cream.

The song that ignited her career was "I Love You, Porgy" from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. It landed her a performance on the Playboy's Playbouse and from there a performance at Carmegie hall. She reached these great heights while also performing around the country and raising a family. At a time, any one of these things is a great aspiration to reach. Nina Simone achieved all three at the same time. This would have a heavy affect on her professional and personal life. Nina worked round the clock, taking pills to go to sleep and pills to get up to go to on stage. She was being driven by her husband/manager Andrew Stroud. He wanted to be as successful as possible, and found success through Simone. This lead to physical abuse and emotional abuse that Simone silently bore, but in the hands of a few friends. She kept her flame alight with her music. Her performances were her escapes from her woes, however taxing they might have been. And as her career went on, they certainly became more and nm more taxing.

As this was the 50s leading into the 60s, Nina Simone was very much affected by the racial pressure of the time, and it reflected in her music. In 1964, she released the song, "Mississippi Goddamn", a racially motivated tune responding to the murder of Medger Evers and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Mississippi. The song became a rallying cry for the civil rights movement, and she herself an icon for it as well. She would perform for black crowds around the country singing racially charged tunes, that sparked the fires of change in many young black folk. Simone would go on to record numerous records like Mississippi Goddamn, and eventually she would pay the price for it. Simone was blacklisted in the industry for her role in the civil rig hts movement, and as her contemporaries were murdered or arrested, she was left standing much worse for wear. She had divorced her husband (who had taken a significant amount of her money) and she was taking the professional hit from that decision. She was booking far less shows, and was lonelier than ever. Her music was all she had left. So, she packed her bags and moved to Liberia to liberate herself from the country she had fought so hard to be a part of; the country that shunned her. She would then move all around the world from Sweden to France to Nijmegen. Around this time she was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and put on drugs that very possibly affected her creative capacity. It limited her motor skills, resulting in slurred speech and impaired piano playing. This would last with her for the rest of her life.

Simone would tour again, playing shows in support of her last single, "My Baby Just Cares For Me". Soon after, she would regress to France where she would spend her final days after suffering from breast cancer.

In her life, Simone was a dynamo. A mover of the civil rights movement and a leader of the Blues and Jazz scene, the flame Simone kept was a monstrous one; one that consumed her. With all she was, Nina Simone played the piano with a laser focused determination. She would be the best and brightest flame. A woman ahead of her time, she paid the price for her aspirations and her political views. Truly, Nina Simone was a woman on fire. And its arguable that she paid the price for her greatness.

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Kendrick Lamar: Man of The People

Born in Compton, California, Kendrick Lamar was set to do a whole lot of nothing. From a young age, he showed talent in school, specifically in the arts, but it was his after-school "curriculum" that was the focus of his life. Kendrick Lamar has never outright confirmed affiliation with a gang, but as he grew up on Rosecrans, a Piru street in Compton, he was heavily influenced by gang life, specifically by the Bloods. On his famous album, Good Kid, M.a.a.d City (GKMC) Lamar says, "I never was a gangbanger but I never was stranger to the folk neither", a theme we see brought up again and again. GKMC is an in-depth look at a traumatic time in Lamar's young life, that depicts him losing close friends to gang-violence while being tied up in the type of shenanigans that he admonished throughout the album. In this way, Lamar would layer use his music much like the bluesman of old, who would use his tunes to organize and share his woes. Certainly his young life was one filled with trauma, but it set the stage for him to push as hard as he could to leave Compton, no matter how much he loved it. And then he saw Tupac. When he was a kid, Lamar's father took him to the set of Tupac Shakur's "California Love" music video, and that was the day Kendrick Lamar fell in love with hip-hop.

The first time I heard Kendrick Lamar, the self-proclaimed 5 foot giant, was in 2012 when his hit single, "Swimming Pools (Drank)" was taking over the radio. There was a prominent summer when that was "the" song. Everyone sang to it, everyone clowned his voice, everyone certainly drank to it. But few took the time to really listen to his lyrics (at the time) to notice that this song was really the antithesis to the party song the radio depicted it to be. This song was about Lamar being overwhelmed by liquor and becoming controlled by it in a party setting, an ironically sobering look at the mindsets of young people at the type of parties where they would be drinking to this exact song. When I really acknowledged the lyrics to Kendrick's song, I realized there was so much more under the surface of Kendrick Lamar.

The song "Ignorance Is Bliss" from Overly Dedicated was the first Kendrick Lamar song Dr. Dre ever listened to, and it was the one that got him so invested in Kendrick. The song deals with a drive-by shooting from different perspectives, told over a unique boom-bap beat. The song lead to Kendrick Lamar being co-signed to the Aftermath label, which is run by Dr. Dre, and this move opened up many avenues for Lamar. After the release of GKMC, which Dr. Dre was heavily affiliated with, Kendrick became a living West Coast legend. The album was a stark depiction of gang life superimposed over an album that wanted to be a short film. The whole album was an experience; a merger of different west coast influences and jazz influences. Lamar himself describes the sound of GKMC as the "Sound of Compton", a sound that can be boisterous and abrasive one moment and subdued the next. It was a large undertaking, calling in big name producers like Pharrell, Dr. Dre, Hit-Boy, Just Blaze, and many more. When the album released it was met with widespread acclaim, with most reviews and publications listing the album on their best of lists for 2012. The album is still routinely listed among the best hip hop albums. Many rappers since have cited this album as a large inspiration for them, from established rappers like J. Cole and Kanye to up and comers, like JID and Denzel Curry. This album reintroduced the allure of the concept album and redefined what could be done in a west coast gangsta rap album.

Kendrick Lamar would go on to release 5 mixtapes between 2004 and 2010 before his debut album, Section .80 with Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE), most notably the mixtape Overly Dedicated (OD), a reference to the tendency of stars to use and abuse drugs. Over this time, Lamar really refined his sound. Where he once sounded like an amalgamation of Jay-Z, Eminem and Lil Wayne, he was now his own emcee. Characterized by his high pitched and nasally voiced, his pitch inflections, his ability to tell engaging stories, and his ability to talk about anything and make it flow on a beat. This man, who wrote a song about doomed love in the song "Opposites Attract" could also turn around and make a dedication song to Beyonce, and it doesn't sound out of his deck. But the specific aspect of style that Kendrick solidified during this time was his incorporation of Jazz and live instrumentation into his music. Kendrick was never going to be a trap rapper, but when he moved away from more synthetic beats on his mixtapes, like C4 for example, into the jazzier beats seen on projects like Overly Dedicated and Section .80, he would rarely regress. Overly Dedicated is the mixtape that made today's Kendrick Lamar possible.

Many people, myself included, waited with baited breath for Kendrick Lamar's follow up to GKMC. The emcee was quiet for years, dropping little more than the occasional guest verse or surprise single, but in 2015 he released a rap album that challenged the contemporary zeitgeist. To Pimp a Butterfly was the album no one asked for, but the one we needed. After singles like "The Recipe" and "Swimming Pools (Drank)" many expected Kendrick to skirt the line between radio-accesible and true west-coast gangsta rap, but this al was far from either. Supported by singles, "I", "Blacker the Berry" and "Alright", this album was a unique spin on Jazz-rap the likes of which we'd never seen, and the inspiration for this album largely came after Lamar went to Africa. Many African-American musicians report a change in themselves when they return "home" to Africa. As identity was a major aspect of personality stripped from black people when they first arrived in America, many were able to see a perspective of life that resonated with them. These musicians report seeing true poverty, true nature, and a resonant way of life. These aspects of life in Africa resonated with Lamar, and drove him to orchestrate an organic sound. GKMC was a step towards jazz-rap, but TPAB was driving head first into the subgenres of rap. Lamar enlisted musical greats like funk idol George Clinton, saxophonist Terrance Martin, Bassist Thundercat, and Ronald Isley of the Isley Brothers. This album was crafted with care by a team of high-profile producers and recording artists, all to bring Lamar's vision to fruition. The album discusses racism, institutionalization, depression, and feelings of coming home when you've been gone for a long time. All of these themes are themes weve seen highlighted in music from African-Americans since the blues, but they've never been given such a high-profile platform to be spoken from. To say the album is divisive is an understatement. The people hoping for GKMC 2 were understandably mad. The people looking for something more were given just that. But either way, almost everyone agrees: TPAB is a classic album. A unique album. And the album we needed now more than ever.

Lamar 's latest release, Damn. was a return to form, while keeping the lessons learned from TPAB. This album mixed heavy topics intricately with accessible beats and rhyme flows that any causal or hardcore hip-hop fan could enjoy. Drenched in biblical themes, this album is less of a tight concept and more of a collection based on themes. Lamar laments on love, what has brought him to the place he is now, he laments on his doubts and his fears. This album is perhaps the most personal album Lamar has released, as he tends to keep an introspective point of view throughout.

Kendrick Lamar has subverted all expectations. He manages to keep his music progressively interesting and adaptive to the times, while still keeping his music personal to him and his listeners. He is a product of the black experience at it's best, and a true show of force when it comes to bringing societal issues in the black community, to the forefront. There was always more to Lamar than meets the eye, but through his music his expression is impactful, relevant, and moving. Kendrick Lamar is truly a unique presence in the hip-hop landscape, today.