That spiderweb is quintessentially Austin: irreverent, endlessly entertaining, and weird as hell. And among longtime veterans in the city’s rap community and upstarts alike, there’s a growing belief that the latest generation of local rap acts, led primarily by artists including Mama Duke, J Soulja, Mike Melinoe, Riders Against the Storm, Vintage Jay, Magna Carda, Abhi the Nomad, Deezie Brown, The Teeta, Chucky Blk, among others, combined with a push to create infrastructure that can support creativity, might finally elevate the Austin rap scene beyond its city’s limits even during a pandemic.
Abhi the Nomad performing at SXSW Dive Bar Sessions on March 15, 2019.Rick Kern/Getty
Austin 360
Austin360 On The Record is a weekly roundup of new, recent and upcoming releases by local and Austin-associated recording artists.
NEW RELEASES
Graham Wilkinson, “Cuts So Deep.” The indie singer-songwriter’s first release since 2016’s “Because of You” features 11 songs he wrote across several years and recorded with engineer Patrick Herzfeld at Austin-area studio Signal Hill Recording. Herzfeld also contributed drums, keys, guitar, bass and backing vocals, with other participants in the sessions including guitarist Matt Gracy, bassist Morgan Patrick Thompson and the Shinyribs Tijuana Trainwreck horn section of Tiger Anaya (trumpet) and Mark Wilson (sax, flute).
“Cuts So Deep” highlights Wilkinson’s songwriting talents with mostly folk-rock-based arrangements centered around his conversational vocal style. It’s not clear whether the title track was written before or during the pandemic, but its chorus “I miss seeing your smile/ Miss seeing y
Austin 360
Austin360 On The Record is a weekly roundup of new, recent and upcoming releases by local and Austin-associated recording artists.
NEW RELEASES
Willie Nelson, That s Life (Legacy). Closing in on 90 he’ll turn 88 in two months Austin’s greatest musical icon has hit upon a couple of deep grooves lately. Albums largely addressing Nelson’s encroaching mortality head-on (including 2018’s “Last Man Standing” and 2019’s “Ride Me Back Home”) have shared space with tributes to some of his greatest influences.
Four of the nine albums he’s released in the past five years have revisited songs either written or immortalized by fellow 20th-century masters Frank Sinatra, Ray Price and George & Ira Gershwin. You could call that a formula, but if so, it’s a formula that has resonated with his followers. Two of the three tributes preceding this one won Grammys, including 2018’s “My Way,” Nelson’s first salute to the songs of Sinatra and clearly a
And they
want you to forget.
I mean the people responsible – no, not for the weather but for the mismanaged response before, during, and after last week s winter storm catastrophe. That includes ERCOT and the energy providers who failed to adequately upgrade and winterize their equipment despite experience with a similar storm in 2011. And it includes the people running the government who show very little interest in actual governance, and have indeed actively campaigned on the promise of minimal government.
Today (Thursday, Feb. 25), the Texas House of Representatives Committee on State Affairs and Energy Resources will hold a joint public meeting to receive testimony on the statewide electrical blackouts; the response by the energy industry; and what changes are needed to avoid another energy crisis. You can watch the live broadcast at house.texas.gov/video-audio.
We are Austin music, repeats Jonathan Chaka Mahone.
He states those words emphatically in reference to not only his own musical endeavors, but the unappreciated depth of Black talent in the Texas capital. Putting the Black and brown face on music is what they should be doing, he continues. Get out of the way. Stop acting like we re still in the Willie Nelson and Stevie Ray Vaughan days. The symbol of [Austin] music is still a guitar. That day is over!
His passion transcends virtual confines necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic. After 11-plus years of hustling alongside his wife, Ghislaine Qi Dada Jean, the hyperactive social justice advocate earned the right to voice his opinion in unadulterated terms. The two unite as Riders Against the Storm, a hip-hop duo focused on uplifting its community in lieu of promoting dysfunction for album sales.