MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
It is time for New Music Friday. This week, we have got ambient jazz harp, late-aughts nostalgia and the return of a hip-hop legend. And that is where we're going to start handing it over to Daoud Tyler-Ameen and Ann Powers from NPR Music to dissect the new album from LL Cool J. It's called "The FORCE."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE FORCE")
LL COOL J: (Rapping) Smooth as Luther Vandross, down at St. Andrews. Shower on the yacht while we bopping to Pop Smoke. Somebody tell immigration them cases is wardrobe. Succulent juices, we sip Petruses in Bordeaux.
DAOUD TYLER-AMEEN, BYLINE: So a couple of things bear saying right away. First, "The FORCE" is apparently short for frequencies of real creative energy, which is just one of those very proudly unwieldy hip-hop acronyms, like...
ANN POWERS, BYLINE: (Laughter) Exactly.
TYLER-AMEEN: ...KRS-One being knowledge reigns supreme over nearly everyone, which I remember hearing for the first time...
POWERS: Exactly.
TYLER-AMEEN: ...Being like, nearly everyone. Not everyone?
POWERS: Because KRS-O-E wasn't...
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: ...Wouldn't really work.
TYLER-AMEEN: Right. No. 2 - produced by Q-Tip. These are guys who are - I mean, they're about the same age, but they exist in pretty different realms in people's minds now. I think Q-Tip has sort of aged into a sage of sorts. He is kept busy as a producer and sort of a production consultant. LL Cool J has aged into a sort of broad family-friendly, jack-of-all-trades entertainment industry ambassador. And the whole record, to me, feels like a re-establishing of his bona fides...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE FORCE")
LL COOL J: (Rapping) Unbelievable, but the goal was achievable. Y'all ain't the only one, boy. We scheming, too.
TYLER-AMEEN: ...Because he is one of the most important figures in the culture's history. It's easy to forget that due to the role that he's occupied for the last 25, 30 years.
POWERS: I love the fact - I love the way you keep saying, the role that he's occupied. OK, he was on "NCIS" for, like, ever. We think of him as a television detective...
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: ...You know, now. And no shame in that. Ice-T did the same thing.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: But I will point out, though, just as far as the bona fides go, alongside his long-standing career in network television, he also has received some very impressive honors, including the Kennedy Center Honors a few years ago. Kahinde Wiley's painting of him...
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: ...Is in the Smithsonian. And in fact, for all the street references, there's also a reference to that on this record. They're both here.
TYLER-AMEEN: That's the thing that I think is coming into focus for me, is - I think I hear him saying, yes, I'm a founding father, but don't put me in a museum because, like, I've never stopped listening, and I've never stopped working. So this is a showcase to show you that, like, I can do street raps, and I can do sex raps. Like, I know I'm old-school. I know I'm, like, the Grammys guy, but I'm an MC first and foremost, and please don't forget that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SPIRIT OF CYRUS")
LL COOL J: (Rapping) This is my manifesto, the reason why I did it. The press will call me evil and label me a menace. Don't let the lies deceive you. They pushed me to my limit. Racism's a disease. It's only right that I kill it. Black blood...
TYLER-AMEEN: Well, that is "The FORCE" by a resurgent LL Cool J. Let's jump now to the album "Endlessness" by the harp player Nala Sinephro.
(SOUNDBITE OF NALA SINEPHRO'S "CONTINUUM 1")
TYLER-AMEEN: She was born and raised in Belgium, where she finally found her people. And where I think her career kind of begins in earnest is in the U.K. jazz scene. Why don't we hear a little bit of a track? This is "Continuum 1."
(SOUNDBITE OF NALA SINEPHRO'S "CONTINUUM 1")
TYLER-AMEEN: By the way, every song on this album is called "Continuum." It's "Continuum" and the track number, which says a little something to me about, I suppose, the endlessness that is advertised by the title.
POWERS: Well, how do you think it serves her theme? - which is rather grand, I have to say. It is a - "Endlessness," the notes for this album say, is a deep dive into the cycle of existence, which is - that could encompass anything (laughter).
TYLER-AMEEN: It's hard to say I can really only speak to the images that this thing conjures in my mind. So "Continuum 8" - it's this series of beeps that anchors it.
(SOUNDBITE OF NALA SINEPHRO'S "CONTINUUM 8")
TYLER-AMEEN: They have a noise layer, I guess you could say - that thing that synthesizers can do that sounds a little bit like a snare drum.
(SOUNDBITE OF NALA SINEPHRO'S "CONTINUUM 8")
TYLER-AMEEN: And all I kept thinking was, there is a sentient feeling to this. It feels like the beeps are, like, little jellyfish in a nature documentary.
POWERS: Interesting. Interesting. I mean, I will note, though, Daoud, that the saxophones really jumped out for me...
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: ...Grounding this album in jazz...
(SOUNDBITE OF NALA SINEPHRO'S "CONTINUUM 5")
POWERS: ...In a way that I didn't expect when I saw the title and kind of read the mission statement for the album. I thought - I actually thought it was going to be closer to kind of new age or ambient music, and it's not like that at all. I mean, there is definitely a lot of ensemble playing and strong jazz elements.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah, totally. Ambient jazz is what you would slot it under if you - somebody, like, twisted your arm. I think that you have a collection of instruments that you wouldn't necessarily think of as natural allies to make this kind of music. But they can be summoned to cooperate in a way that does feel kind of natural.
POWERS: Yeah. Well, in that way, it does fit in with what's going on in that scene.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: That scene seems to really welcome hybrid forms.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: And that's what we have here in a really beautiful way.
(SOUNDBITE OF NALA SINEPHRO'S "CONTINUUM 5")
TYLER-AMEEN: That is "Endlessness" by Nala Sinephro. One more to listen to today - the album "Hole Erth." That's H-O-L-E E-R-T-H by the band Toro y Moi.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEAVEN")
TORO Y MOI: (Singing) Heaven is an island that's not far away from here, right behind both of my eyelids, in between both of my ears.
TYLER-AMEEN: So Toro y Moi is the performing name of Chaz Bear, who, for a lot of people, is synonymous with a particular moment in the, say, late 2000s, early 2010s. The name that we and the media gave it was chillwave (ph). Sorry for that.
POWERS: (Laughter).
TYLER-AMEEN: I think the artists associated with it - you thought emo bands hated being called emo. I think these artists pretty much hated that name. I mean, it's kind of like hearing, like, if your Beach Boys tape melted.
POWERS: (Laughter) That's a good description. I like that.
TYLER-AMEEN: This record, "Hole Erth," does not really sound like that.
POWERS: No.
TYLER-AMEEN: It has some of those elements. It's a very mood-heavy record. It's very steeped in effects that kind of warble and warp the textures. The thing that it evokes most to me - and I - this is weird to say, but I promise I mean it as a compliment - is emo rap, the thing that we called emo rap in the late 2010s. I don't know. Does that resonate at all?
POWERS: Completely resonates - this record does some interesting things with nostalgia. You're kind of framing it in a way that makes me want to talk about nostalgia, you know, of hearkening back to these earlier styles. And there's a song, "CD-R," where he talks about all the technology that we've left behind. You know, I remember burning CD-Rs and going to Kinko's, you know, to hold my CD-Rs. And there's a line - BlackBerry days, I would talk to anyone. And it just put that big, old, clunky BlackBerry in my hand when I heard that song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CD-R")
TORO Y MOI: (Singing) I remember burning CD-Rs outside every single dive bar...
POWERS: There is something about the tenderness that these songs somehow convey. And yeah, just a kind of - almost like a little bit of philosophical bent to the way he builds a sound.
TYLER-AMEEN: Totally. He seems to know where he came from.
POWERS: Exactly.
KELLY: That was Ann Powers and Daoud Tyler-Ameen from NPR Music. And you can hear more in their full episode of New Music Friday from the podcast "All Songs Considered." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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