Best Children's Album Nominees - 60th Grammy Awards

Since the Grammy Awards are celebrating their 60th awards on January 28, 2018, will they celebrate the Diamond Jubilee by giving all the winners diamond-encrusted-megaphone Grammy Awards?  That would certainly raise the suspense and interest in the winners, even in the smaller categories, up a notch.

But, sadly, I'm guessing the Recording Academy will not go to any such length, but we can still note the announcement of the 5 nominees for Best Children's Album.

Radio Playlist: New Music September 2017

Between catching up with stuff I missed last time and the late summer/early fall rush of new music, I've got a whopping 16 songs in this month's new music playlist. (Feel free to check out the August list here if you missed it.)

As always, these Spotify playlists are limited in that if an artist hasn't chosen to post a song on Spotify, I can't put it on the list, nor can I feature songs from as-yet-unreleased albums.  But I'm always keeping stuff in reserve for the next Spotify playlist.

Check out the list here (or right here in you're in Spotify).

**** New Music September 2017 (September 2017 Kindie Playlist) ****

"Ellen Lemon" - Gustafer Yellowgold

"Fiesta De La Brea" - Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band

"Ten Little Piggies" - Caspar Babypants

"Miss Mary Mack" - Jazzy Ash

"Come Gather 'Round" - KB Whirly

"Sway" - Alphabet Rockers

"My Purple Fox" - Purple Fox and the Heebie Jeebies

"That Thing" - Randy & Dave

"Pennies and Forget-Me-Nots" - Steve Pullara and the Cool Beans Band

"Conjunctions" - Big Don

"You Could Be the One" - The Bazillions

"Going for a Drive" - Marjo Wilson (aka Cotton Dandee)

"Beethoven's Horse" - Ralph's World

"Alphabet Tebahpla" - Danny Weinkauf

"Hooray for Spinach" - Val and the Whippersnappers

"I've Got No Strings" - Jess Penner

Video: "Shine" - Alphabet Rockers (World Premiere!)

Rise Shine #Woke album cover

The community of musicians making hip-hop for kids is small but dedicated. The Bay Area's Alphabet Rockers have, over the course of their career, gradually refined their sound and their audience, moving from preschool-targeted topics to a somewhat older crowd.

Just a glance at the title of their upcoming album -- Rise Shine #Woke, out this Friday, September 1 -- suggests that Kaitlin McGaw and Tommy Shepherd continue their journey as songwriters into the world at large.  (The band cites Lauryn Hill's classic The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as a template for the album.)   Don't get me wrong, I love me some "Shape Rap," but I'm also glad to see them tackle broader social issues as well -- Pete Seeger, after all, sang about bugs and the labor movement.

You can read as much or as little politics as you want into this new tune "Shine," but the video, with footage from a recent concert at the local Oakland Museum, features lots of beaming, dancing kids, along with lyrics celebrating kids' smiles, skin color, and self-expression, is worth pressing play.

Alphabet Rockers - "Shine" [YouTube]

Alphabet Rockers at Oakland Museum concert

Photo credit: Marcus Salinas

Catching Up (with Reviews)

Let All the Children Boogie cover

As I noted a couple months ago, I'm trying to re-think how I write in-depth about music and how I write album reviews in particular, and promised I'd clear a number of albums off my plate, as it were.  Although it's not terribly well-known, I have a separate section of the site dedicated just to album reviews, which generally included shorter takes on albums.

Over the past week or so I've written a number of briefer reviews, and I didn't want folks who normally just stop by this main part of the site to miss them.  So here's my list...

The Playground Zone - Alphabet Rockers

Sugar Free Allstars - Sugar Free Allstars

Lemonade - Justin Roberts

Could Come True - Timmy Abell

Music Is Everywhere - Mista Cookie Jar

Let All the Children Boogie: A Tribute to David Bowie - Various Artists

The Rocket Went Up!: Sing-A-Long History Vol. 2 - The Deedle Deedle Dees

Funny Faces - Michael and the Rockness Monsters

 

How I Got Here: Kaitlin McGaw / Tommy Shepherd (Alphabet Rockers)

Y'all, have I got a musical journey for you.  Kaitlin McGaw and Tommy Shepherd, the two musicians behind the Bay Area hip hop band Alphabet Rockers, have put together an epic list of songs and albums as part their entry into my "How I Got Here" series.  Soooo many cuts and classic albums to share with your kids or just enjoy by yourself, all cited as influences on their way to their latest EP, The Playground Zone.

What would make two people, one from LA and the other Boston - a “white girl from Harvard” and a “black drummer/beatboxer of 1000 stages” - come together to not only to work together, but to make music? Hip hop music - and kids music at that?

Kaitlin the star

Tommy popping and locking

It was hip hop. Not just a song, or a dance. It was a statement that we both were writing in our lives.

Truth and Soul cover

See, the music that influenced us is actually a crate of records. Our collaboration wasn’t just Carole King meets Fishbone, or Green Day meets Mary J. Blige though it was a “Share My World” (MJB, 1997) moment. We lived in different places and gained knowledge from different lives, but we had a collective deck of riffs on lyrics, melodies, rhymes and stories from decades of music history.

Carole King Tapestry cover

This is why hip hop is not just rap. It’s a world made by everything music. And for us, hip hop was life. What’s crazy about the influences within hip hop - you have the nerdy voice of “Back in the Day” (Ahmad, 1994) with eyes on everything. You’ve got the story that needs to be told -Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story.” The sport of incredible rhyme. The majesty of hooks that you sing on a loop - even knowing they are a remix of a melody of years past. The songs with beats that are so fierce you hardly hear the message until you’ve stopped blasting it and sweating it out - and actually hear what it’s about.

Hip hop was “The Message” (Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five). It was the freedom, it was the creativity, the connection, the community, the learning about the world through someone’s eyes. It was the DJ who knew the Top 40 and the basement tapes - and could mix and create something both vaguely familiar and totally “fresh” and new. It was the moves that pushed you into expression from your soul, cracking and swerving to every turn the music took. The beats that made you stop and make a stank face because it's that good. The story that changes your entire life.

Can I Kick It album cover

We started working together with a shared love of A Tribe Called Quest and the “Native Tongue” family in general. Years on the road, riffing between shows, revealed hundreds of songs that threaded together humor and wordplay, and a deck of music ranging from Christopher Cross to Kris Kross. Joni Mitchell to Janet Jackson with a Q-Tip.

The beginning of our work was about bringing hip hop to life on stage. It was about creating space for kids and parents to be who they are within this “freedom culture” and giving access to that hip hop deck of experiences while letting parents know we had the references to all the music they played out in their lives. We played out our lives in hip hop in the way we created with the kids. It led us to an incredible place in making our latest album The Playground Zone.

J Dilla Donuts cover

What was missing for us in our work was how to tell the stories that really mattered to us - our message and our truth. We went back to the drawing board of musical influences to bring out the sounds and experiences we wanted to create. We spent time with J. Dilla and The Roots  albums. We debated about old school vs. classic and pop hip hop music - and the way music and messages impacts our audience. We are a dance-driven crew of creators aiming to make kids see that they are in the center of the cypher - that everything they share changes the world around them. And the music impacted us just as it changed the way our audience related to each other, making new connections and asking us to keep going deeper with the message and the motivation.

So we are on the next wave, writing and creating with hitmaking pop/hip hop/trap producers from around the country. We’re rooted in the old school as it is our history that drives us forward. We’re riffing over the chopped up tracks thinking of our classic faves. And we’re changing cadence and timing to tell the story for today’s tomorrow.

"i" single cover

We are two individuals who began on opposite coasts, in a country where our lives would be absolutely different based on the skin we’re in. The both of us, absorbing all information and influences from the diverse American and world cultures, rendering our own voices and deciding what to do with them to be of service to the world. And yes, every step of it was musical. Our future is to be a source of musical memory for all of the kids who are questioning how they fit in this America and asking, is it me? We create for them now, to clarify through music, beats, message and movement, that they belong - with us, in hip hop. And that together we will change that world that is making it tough for them to feel like this is a place they can be “Free to be You and Me” - but it’s a place they can shout “I love myself” (Kendrick Lamar, “i”).