A widow's wish explodes with love
William Onyeabor, David Byrne and Hot Chip walk into a bazaar
This week’s playlist is here. I’ll link it again at the end because I’m annoying like that 😬
I used most of my creative writing energy this week on another project that you’ll know about soon so this week is a little shorter than usual. Working on this other project did however get me thinking about a time a decade ago. Somehow, 2015 was a decade ago, which, vomit emoji.
I know it’s at the top of 2025’s Most Impossible Things To Pull Off list, but try closing your eyes for a moment. Transport yourself. Breathe it in - it’s 2013. Facebook was social capital. Nobody thought about their digital footprint. A handful of people were still rocking an iPod.1 I’m sitting in my apartment2 in London when I get a Facebook notification. ‘You’ve been invited to 70s West African Jazz’ group. Today, I’m going to share why that was the most on-point notification I’ve ever received in my life.
It’s no secret that over the last two (three? four?) decades, the synth has joyfully taken over the world of flanneled, bearded, hipster hat-wearing white men in this country (and others but I can’t not call myself out). Dancey, indie-pop, guitar-and-electric-piano-inspired music from LCD Soundsystem, Parcels, Hot Chip and a zillion others has become mid-mainstream.3 It’s all the spawn of Joy Division and Bowie and Prince and Talking Heads. But before you get too irritated that I missed an obvious artist in the offspring or the parent group just remember that I don’t get paid to do this so you should be focused on the broad sketch, not the minute detail.4
At some point, I became aware of William Onyeabor. I’ll let this 30 minute YouTube doc do the talking for me but basically, Onyeabor was a Nigerian superstar musician that appeared in the 70s out of nowhere, somehow managed to procure a bunch of equipment right around the time James Murphy was born, and turned it into the ripple effect that eventually became Hot Chip and LCD.
Back to Facebook: my friend Lee invited me to this group knowing I was one of a few people capable of utilizing it to rabbit hole myself into submission. How many white American men born in the late 80s knew that much about this sub-sub genre from a whole generation before they were born? My Dad’s sharing of jazz and the blues and soul and Motown and R&B are what laid the foundation for me. I was right where I wanted to be at a time when The Internet was full of off-topic comment threads and music discovery was in its awkward teenage years.
Then, the entertainment Atomic Bomb hit us - David Byrne had put together the Atomic Bomb band, a supergroup he put together to play the music and honor the life of William Onyeabor. It includes members of LCD, Hot Chip and Beastie Boys. We were in the nosebleeds but we had the pleasure of catching them on their 2015 tour in London. Luckily for you, a full-length, officially sanctioned YouTube clip exists of the show we witnessed. It was one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen. It combined all of my favorite artists into the same building. I got the chance to rewatch it this week and when I say full body chills, I MEAN IT SO HARD.
Onyeabor’s widow came out at the end and it was e-mo-shun-uhl.
Drobbits & Bobs
This week I discovered that The Alchemist, Sounwave and Pharrell sampled The Funkees, another Nigerian group in the same universe as Onyeabor, on “Worldwide Steppers” off Kendrick Lamar’s 2022 Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers album. My jaw was legit on the ground when the song came up on shuffle. Not often you say ‘holy shit’ out loud while listening to music. Or maybe it’s not often for normal people. Great song. Original : Spotify / Apple Music / YT. Kendrick sample: Spotify / Apple Music / YT
Sly Lives! soundtrack is out. Questlove back on his documentary (not) BS. Sly is one of my favorite artists ever but I need someone to convince me to see the doc. Anyone seen it?
RIP Funky Gregg. The JBL portable speaker that I bought a little over a decade ago finally hit the skids this week. I used it almost every day and it went all over the world with us, blasting on hiking trips and seaside towns and on hotel room balconies. We named him after The Mighty Boosh skit ‘Old Gregg’, one of the first things we ever saw on YouTube. Hasn’t aged well but the George Clinton references still make me laugh. I bought a new WKing that’s about 3 times bigger and way less convenient. Rest in power chords to Funky Gregg.
This week’s playlist is here:
When I play my kind of music I play it for your body and soul5,
Drob
Still have mine. Throw it on from time to time.
Flat? I only lived there for a total of four years and - it’s called an apartment.
I’m guilty. I love them all. I’m the target audience. Your recourse, as always: be litigious. Dare ya.
‘Get mad at people that do the thing for a living’ is America’s worst personality trait.
An Onyeabor lyric, not some weird out of context thing I’m saying to sign off. Would I ever do that to you?