The Plug’n Play: September (‘24)
September 30, 2024
Illustration by Malaaya Adams
You can listen to the full playlist on Apple Music, Spotify, or Tidal
On the cover: Bilal
Each month, Kevin and I select some of our favorite songs from the month, searching high and low for something new (to us at least, and hopefully for you too!), compiling them into a monthly playlist. While our tastes overlap in a lot of ways, they also diverge. If you’re looking for new music, this is the place for you!
Songs 1 - 15 were selected by me, Stanley, while songs 16 - 31 were selected by Kevin. We hope you find a song you like and check out the larger body of work, whether it’s an EP or an album. Below are a few words on some of my favorite songs from the month:
Passion — LL Cool J
In the weeks leading up to New Blue Sun, Andre 3000’s latest, flute-centered album, the rapper asked, what might he rap about at 48 years old? Coyfully posed, the question sparked conversation amongst fans and critics alike. For many, the question returned to Andre 3000 was some manner of: why wouldn’t we want to hear from someone that has long been revered and served as the soundtrack to various points of our lives? Understandably, Andre 3000’s comments speak to the market that’s been built on top of Hip-Hop’s forbearers. Indeed, Hip-Hop, more than any other genre, has been marketed as a “young man’s” game — both a racialized and gendered expression of music’s intentionally narrow economy.
In early September, LL Cool J — the 56-year old rapper, turned TV-cop, turned rapper again — released THE FORCE, his first album in over a decade. THE FORCE is collaborative effort with veteran producer Q-Tip, who had a hand in producing, mixing, and/or engineering all of its songs. In many ways, the album is a callback to a Hip-Hop of yesteryear. Aesthetically, LL Cool J uses little vocal effects and his delivery is both clear and consistent. Though, his subject matter can often feel like an artist in search of something, and empty at times.
Still, THE FORCE is an exciting display of what a rapper and producer can do together and the sonic worlds they can explore. In this way, the album is in line with other, recent collaborative projects between Gen X rappers and a single producer: Common and Pete Rock’s The Auditorium Vol. 1; Black Thought Streams of Thought series with 9th Wonder, Salaam Remi, and Sean C., respectively; Nas and Hit-Boy’s King’s Disease series all come to mind. As Hip-Hop ages, I would like to see its artists, subject matter (even if it is about getting a colonoscopy), and sound continue to evolve.
The Story — Bilal
The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has caused considerable amounts of discussion regarding the future of music creation and its creators. The ability to generate songs, mimicking the voices of artists, feels like something that was once of a distant future. But, this summer, during the early portion of Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s beef, Drake used AI-generation to mimic the voices of Tupac and Snoop Dogg. In the days after, Metro Boomin, the producer, threw his hat in the ring, using an AI-generated sample. The once seemingly distant future has become the present.
While the threat of AI looms over what will come, the seeds had been planted nearly a century ago when music executives — and surprisingly, furniture stores — decided that music should be categorized into genres; an effort to maximize profits. The result: “race records” to be marketed to Black folks, and “hillbilly music” to be marketed to white folks. From these two genres, we get labels like, “Jazz”, “Rock & Roll”, “Rhythm and Blues”, “Punk” and every other contemporary genre. (If you’re interested in learning more about the origins of American Popular Music, I’d highly recommend checking out Race Music by Guy Ramsey and Blacksound by Matthew Morrison). Put plainly, the connection between genre and AI is that AI is (only) able to exist by using the pre-defined parameters that genre has set, like following a script or a formula. But what if you reject genre? What then will the AI then do? Where will AI take it cues?
On Adjust Brightness, Bilal’s first studio album in nearly a decade, the artist moves beyond the bounds of genre, to create something more. R&B, Neo-Soul, Rock, Gospel, Hip-Hop, Choral Music, Classical Music, or whatever else the album might be called, are all present, but these containers are too limiting. On his new album, Bilal shared: “I realized a long time ago that, with the specter of AI and streaming, we risk losing our humanity…let’s make some shit that is going to confuse the damn computer. We’re bringing a love frequency.” Indeed, Bilal’s has created something that defies genre in such a way that AI could never contend with.
