Skip to main content
GRAMMYs Breaking News
Breaking News
  • MusiCares Launches Help for the Holidays Campaign Apply HERE
  • Recording Academy
  • GRAMMYs
  • Membership
  • Advocacy
  • MusiCares
  • GRAMMY Museum
  • Latin GRAMMYs
GRAMMYs
  • Advocacy
  • Membership
  • GRAMMYs
  • Governance
  • Jobs
  • Press Room
  • Events
  • Login
  • MusiCares
  • GRAMMY Museum
  • Latin GRAMMYs
  • More
    • MusiCares
    • GRAMMY Museum
    • Latin GRAMMYs

The GRAMMYs

  • Awards
  • News
  • Videos
  • Recording Academy
  • More
    • Awards
    • News
    • Videos
    • Recording Academy

Latin GRAMMYs

MusiCares

  • About
  • Get Help
  • Give
  • News
  • Videos
  • Events
  • Person of the Year
  • More
    • About
    • Get Help
    • Give
    • News
    • Videos
    • Events
    • Person of the Year

Advocacy

  • About
  • News
  • Issues & Policy
  • Act
  • Recording Academy
  • More
    • About
    • News
    • Issues & Policy
    • Act
    • Recording Academy

Membership

  • Join
  • Events
  • PRODUCERS & ENGINEERS WING
  • GRAMMY U
  • GOVERNANCE
  • More
    • Join
    • Events
    • PRODUCERS & ENGINEERS WING
    • GRAMMY U
    • GOVERNANCE
Log In Join
  • SUBSCRIBE

  • Search
Modal Open
Subscribe Now

Subscribe to Newsletters

Be the first to find out about GRAMMY nominees, winners, important news, and events. Privacy Policy
GRAMMY Museum
Membership

Join us on Social

  • Recording Academy
    • The Recording Academy: Facebook
    • The Recording Academy: Twitter
    • The Recording Academy: Instagram
    • The Recording Academy: YouTube
  • GRAMMYs
    • GRAMMYs: Facebook
    • GRAMMYs: Twitter
    • GRAMMYs: Instagram
    • GRAMMYs: YouTube
  • Latin GRAMMYs
    • Latin GRAMMYs: Facebook
    • Latin GRAMMYs: Twitter
    • Latin GRAMMYs: Instagram
    • Latin GRAMMYs: YouTube
  • GRAMMY Museum
    • GRAMMY Museum: Facebook
    • GRAMMY Museum: Twitter
    • GRAMMY Museum: Instagram
    • GRAMMY Museum: YouTube
  • MusiCares
    • MusiCares: Facebook
    • MusiCares: Twitter
    • MusiCares: Instagram
  • Advocacy
    • Advocacy: Facebook
    • Advocacy: Twitter
  • Membership
    • Membership: Facebook
    • Membership: Twitter
    • Membership: Instagram
    • Membership: Youtube
GRAMMYs

Anjimile

Photo: Kannetha Brown

News
Anjimile Talks 'Giver Taker,' Sobriety & More anjimile-opens-giver-taker-sobriety-identifying-trans-more

Anjimile Opens Up On 'Giver Taker,' Sobriety, Identifying As Trans & More

Facebook Twitter Email
How a musical and religious upbringing, battles with addiction and a long road to gender identity shaped a gentle soundtrack for recovery and hope
Noah Berlatsky
GRAMMYs
Sep 18, 2020 - 11:35 am

"Buried under earth/All our living worth/How I long to be/blooming from your tree." Boston singer/songwriter Anjimile sings in an otherworldly tenor vibrato on "Your Tree," the first song of his debut album Giver Taker on Father/Daugher Records. The chorus sings back to him, "Nothing dies, nothing dies," as Anjimile's fluid finger-picked guitar is augmented by drums and flute. You can almost feel the tree unfurling and reaching for the sky.

Anjimile wrote Giver Taker in a time of political and personal turmoil. Most songs came together in and around 2016, while he struggled with addiction and his trans identity. But the album's mode is comfort, not chaos. Justine Bowe of Photocomfort and New-York based artist/producer Gabe Goodman join Anjimile to mix folk melodies mix with upbeat grooves to create gentle baroque pop. When on "1978" Anjimile sings, "I am loved/I am learning how to receive loving," it's music of hard-won gentleness. The year 2020 has, understandably, produced a lot of angry songs, but Giver Taker is soundtrack for recovery and hope—water in an arid time.

The interview below is edited for length and clarity.

I just wanted to start off making sure I know what pronouns you use?

They/them or he/him. Either of those is totally cool.

Your parents were born in Malawi, is that right?

Yeah, my parents were born and raised in Malawi. And they didn't come into the US until like the '80s.

Was there music your parents liked that you've been influenced by?

I think the biggest African artists that they listened to, or at least that that made the biggest impact on me is Oliver Mtukudzi, who's Zimbabwean. My dad used to play his album Tuku Music on car rides and stuff. And over the past couple of years, I've come to realize how dope my parents taste in music is. And this album and a couple of his other records have entered my regular listening rotation.

Could you describe Mtukudzi's music? I'm not familiar with it.

It is like a hybrid. I guess kind of like traditional Zimbabwe and percussive rhythms hybridized with Western US influenced guitar and pop melodies.

Your parents were Christian. Did you sing in choirs when you were young?

Yeah, from fifth grade and even acapella in college. But it was actually a school choir.  When I was growing up with my parents we would go to church every Sunday.  Curiously, the church had not only no choir but no music. And I remember being like, "This is wack!" And I feel like if there had been music in church, I might have grown up to be some sort of theologian or oriented to the church in some way, because I love music so much.

https://twitter.com/BostonGlobeArts/status/1306627230303428616

With new album "Giver Taker," the buzz about Anjimile is getting even louder https://t.co/DUMeZghYIL pic.twitter.com/gyr2dEpjmk

— Boston Globe Arts (@BostonGlobeArts) September 17, 2020

They missed a chance!

Yeah, honestly. It was a two-hour service. My parents are Presbyterian. I was like three years old to ten, and services were super, super long, like two hours. I feel like that's long for a first grader. You know, "Yawn, are we going to McDonald's?" I wasn't very engaged.

You're a lovely guitar player. How did you develop your style?

Well, I started playing guitar when I was 11. And I didn't really start learning to finger pick until a couple of years later. That's my predominant style. And it initially emerged because when I started playing guitar I had trouble holding a guitar pick correctly. And I don't think I hold it correctly even now.

Was there a reason you had trouble?

I'm not sure. I took guitar lessons for a year and my guitar teacher would be like, you hold it like this. And it just did not connect. And it still kind of doesn't. It would just fall out of my hand when I was playing and I was like, how hard am I supposed to hold this f**king thing?

So I always found it difficult to play guitar with a plectrum. And when I was in my late teens, I got introduced to folk music and I started listening to Iron & Wine. Their album Our Endless Numbered Days became a huge teaching tool for me in terms of learning how to finger pick. My guitar playing style is heavily, heavily influenced by Iron & Wine. And I think also a bit of Oliver Mtukudzi, with his electric tone. He played with a pick, but it's very clean, which I like.

The album is very gentle and uplifting, but you wrote it after some personal turmoil, while you were recovering from addiction.

So I got sober in 2016 through a treatment facility. I'm a recovering alcoholic. I live in Boston, and it involved me going out of state to enter a treatment facility in Florida. But when I went down there, I didn't really have a lot of stuff at the time. And I also just didn't have a suitcase somehow. So I brought a plastic bag with my clothes and I brought an acoustic guitar. And those are the things that I brought with me to Florida and I was there for a year.

And I was able to find recovery, get a job, start improving my mental, physical and emotional health. And I play guitar when I'm happy and I like to sing when I'm happy. And my emotions started returning and I just kind of started writing again. And I wrote a bunch of songs down there.

Something that alcohol or alcoholism can do is numb feeling. And so once I was able to get sober and stop drinking, a flood of emotions came back to my life. I think that that influenced the emotionality of a lot of the songs.

There's a bit of a myth in the music industry that getting sober can make it harder to create, but that doesn't sound like it was your experience.

I think people kind of get confused with the writer just drinking scotch while looking badass and the guy who just seriously has a drinking problem. There are a couple tunes on the record that I did right before I got sober. "Maker" and "Baby No More."

In "Maker," one of the lyrics is "I'm not just a boy, I'm a man/I'm not just a man, I'm a God/I'm not just a God, I'm a maker."  Is that song about being trans, would you say?

I think it's kind of funny because at the time, I wasn't really thinking much. I don't really remember very strongly writing that tune, if I'm being completely honest. But I remember listening back to it after I'd written it, and it just felt like something meaningful to me. And in retrospect, looking back now, it's just kind of wild to me that that song was even written because I didn't identify trans at the time. I was definitely exploring my gender identity. And looking back on it now I can see that it was a spiritual coming out, almost. A part of me very much recognized that I identified as trans and trans masculine, or like at least under the trans umbrella.

Was coming out difficult for you?

So before I realized I was trans, I was cis and a lesbian. I came out as a lesbian when I was like 16, 17, 18. And it really f**king sucked. It sucked being in Texas, and being openly queer. It sucked having really, traditionally Christian parents.

They were not super supportive?

No, they were not. It's been a long time so they've come a long way, but it really f**king sucked.

The album has a lot of spiritual themes. I wondered how your parents lack of support as Christians affected your own relationship to spirituality?

It definitely drove me away from spirituality. I mean, I never identified as a spiritual person until a couple of years ago. I was definitely like, "F**k y'all. F**k the Lord. This is wack."

It wasn't until I started getting comfortable with my trans identity and experiencing the miracle of a new sober life that I was like, holy s**t, you know, the sky is really blue. The birds sound really pretty. I became a hippie basically. I definitely believe that there's some sort of driving force of good and harmony in the universe and that informs a lot of tunes on the album as well.

You're not a Christian yourself though?

No, no. No shade, you know, but no.

Lastly, I wanted to ask you about the song "1978," which is kind of a love song. Is it written to someone in particular?

That was dedicated to my grandmother, who had an incredibly hard life. And I never actually met her because she died when my mom was pretty young. But my grandmother's spirituality has informed the faith of my parents. And even though it's manifested harmfully in terms of their past homophobia like it's also provided them with a lot of strength and clarity and wisdom. And I realize those things in the writing of that song.

Jacob Collier Decodes The Magic Behind 'Djesse Vol. 3,' Talks Working With Tori Kelly, Daniel Caesar & More

Grammys Newsletter

Subscribe Now

GRAMMYs Newsletter

Be the first to find out about winners, nominees, and more from Music's Biggest Night.

 

 

Lin-Manuel Miranda (L) and host/creator Hrishikesh Hirway (R) in "Song Exploder"

Lin-Manuel Miranda (L) and host/creator Hrishikesh Hirway (R) in "Song Exploder"

Photo: Eric Veras/Netflix

News
How "Song Exploder" Unlocks The Intimacy Of Music song-exploder-netflix-hrishikesh-hirway-interview

Beat By Beat: How "Song Exploder" Unlocks The Intimacy Of Music And Creativity

Facebook Twitter Email
Based on the popular podcast, the newly launched Netflix series dissects classics and current hits one layer at a time, while host and creator Hrishikesh Hirway finds the human connection behind it all
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Oct 20, 2020 - 4:54 pm

Most people know "Song Exploder" as the popular podcast giving die-hard music fans a deep, inside look into the sonic mechanics behind their favorite tracks. A whole new class of music-heads now knows "Song Exploder" as the new Netflix series bringing the creativity behind music to the digital screen.

Originally launched as a podcast in 2014, "Song Exploder" dissects classic and current fan-favorite songs, with guest artists breaking down each individual track and element in detail to paint an intimate audio portrait of their art. The podcast, which has accumulated more than 60 million streams and downloads over the years and has hosted guests like U2, Selena Gomez, Björk, Fleetwood Mac, Solange and many others, now breathes new life as a Netflix docuseries. 

Introduced on the streaming platform at the beginning of October, "Song Exploder" adds an even deeper layer of storytelling and personal insight to the songs being deconstructed beat by beat. The show's inaugural four-episode run features Alicia Keys ("3 Hour Drive"), Lin-Manuel Miranda ("Wait For It" from "Hamilton"), R.E.M. ("Losing My Religion") and Ty Dolla $ign ("LA"). (Last week [Oct. 15], Netflix unveiled its next slate of guests for the show's second season, set to debut Dec. 15: Dua Lipa, The Killers, Nine Inch Nails and Natalia Lafourcade.

Whether in visual or podcast format, the core of "Song Exploder" remains the same: "an intimate portrait of an artist telling the story of how their artistic mind worked through creating one of their songs," host and creator Hrishikesh Hirway tells GRAMMY.com.

GRAMMY.com chatted with Hrishikesh Hirway about the human connection behind his new "Song Exploder" Netflix series and how he hopes the show will inspire others to create their own art.

You have an endless supply of songs from which to choose for any given "Song Exploder" episode, podcast and show. What needs to stand out in a song in order for you to develop it for "Song Exploder"?

The first step in the process is really identifying the artists before even getting to the song, because, frankly, I don't know necessarily which songs might have the best stories. The most famous songs don't necessarily have the most interesting stories, and the people who know that better than anyone are the people who made the songs.

But what I can try and determine is which artists seem really interesting and thoughtful, good storytellers, and who are also beloved by a lot of people. That's kind of where I start. And once I can get an artist onboard to talk about a song in this way, then I start the process of trying to narrow down which song it's going to be with them.

I feel like I don't know what the story [of the song] is all the time. There are a lot of songs that haven't necessarily been delved into, and frankly, I'm always interested in something like that ... where the backstory [of a song] hasn't been canonized and "Song Exploder" can be a place to tell it for the first time. So I really am relying on input from the artists ... The question that I ask them, frankly, is: Which of your songs do you feel the most emotional attachment to?

Ultimately, the most interesting stories, I think, when it comes to making songs or really making any kind of art, are about people and their feelings and the things that inspire them to make something at all. Even though the show is about music, it's also a portrait of each of these artists. In order to tell you something insightful, especially for it to be something that could be interesting to people who aren't people who make music themselves and also aren't necessarily even familiar with the artist or the song, it has to be something that connects to something in the human experience that feels significant.

I always try to make "Song Exploder" a show that reflected a broad range of genres and artists and backgrounds. So there's kind of almost a guarantee that you couldn't just get people hooked on the show based on who the artists were and what the songs were; I want everybody to watch every episode and listen to every episode of the podcast because I think that it's a worthwhile conversation to have. I think the creative process is something that's really fascinating in and of itself. It's an example of how people react to their own experience, to actually decide to make something based on their ideas, what they lived through, what they love ... The thing that I'm actually most interested in is that kind of emotional experience: the emotional attachment to the act of creating a piece of music.

Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in "Song Exploder"

Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in "Song Exploder" | Photo: Courtesy of Netflix/Netflix

There's a moment in the R.E.M. episode where frontman Michael Stipe gets almost emotional listening to his own voice on the band's classic, "Losing My Religion," and hearing the song elements broken down and presented to him in such an intimate manner, even after so many years since the song's release. How do you go about getting artists to open up to you and dive into their art so deeply?

I think one thing that helps is that I'm not really approaching [the interview process] head-on, certainly not right away. The questions don't start off front and center in like an emotionally investigative way. I think I have to earn their trust first, and part of that is from talking about the mechanics of the process first. That's the entry point in all these conversations. One of the reasons why having the [song's] stems is important, not just in terms of letting the listeners know what's going on in the song, but in terms of being able to facilitate that conversation with the artist.

Of all of the questions, the hardest one to answer is probably, "Why?" "Why did you decide to make the song this way? Why did you write this lyric? Why did you choose this chord progression?" That's the hardest [question], but it's also the one that I'm most interested in. But it's a little easier to start off with, first of all, "What?" "What are we listening to?" And then to ask them, "OK, how did you make it? And when did you make it?" All those basic factual questions are a way to just let them and me submerge ourselves into the memories of making that song.

Once they're there and able to relive some of the experience of it by hearing the actual evidence of the stuff that they did on that day—hearing their voice, hearing the instrument, hearing the actual track that they recorded around that time—it's a lot easier to ask them to then dig a few layers deeper and ask what was going on in their lives and how that might've fed into some of those creative decisions.

Read: Rhyme & Punishment: How NPR's "Louder Than A Riot" Podcast Traces The Interconnected Rise Of Hip-Hop And Mass Incarceration

You're now juggling the show and the podcast. How do you decide what songs go on the podcast format and what goes in video format?

Well, the podcast is a lot of work for a podcast, but that means that I'm still able to turn around an episode in a few weeks, whereas the TV show takes a much longer time to put together. There are just so many more components to it, and it's so much more work.

Part of the pitch for doing the television show is that I was trying to ask these artists to take a leap of faith, [like,] "This is something that's going to take a while to make, so you can't tie it to your promotional calendar, necessarily. I can't guarantee that it'll come out on such and such date to coincide with your single release or something like that." It was really more like, "Would you like to participate in this thing where there'll be this really meticulously crafted mini-documentary about this work that you did, and it's sort of evergreen."

That's a different pitch than with the podcast. Although with the podcast, I say all those things, too. I say it's evergreen and it's always better when it's not necessarily tied to your release schedule and more like when people have had a chance to live with the song a little bit. But one of the advantages of the podcast is it can be a little more nimble because it's a little easier to put together.

So this is a long way of saying that a lot of times that question is answered by the artists themselves or their publicists or managers, who are looking for a very specific outcome or timing, or they have something in mind, and that could be a matter of scale. It really depends on the circumstances of the artist and what works for them.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CF-896qlScx

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Song Exploder (@songexploder)

Fans who've been following the podcast for a while will find a totally different experience when they come to the show. There are two types of storytelling when I hear "Song Exploder," the podcast, and when I watch "Song Exploder," the docuseries. The podcast is very audio-heavy: You get to really hear all of the isolated bits and pieces of the song. The show has a lot more historical and cultural context, sort of like a mini-documentary for a song, and you also hear from a lot more voices beyond just the recording artist. Beyond the visual element, what do you gain in terms of storytelling through the show?

I think one of the things that you mentioned is absolutely key to the TV show, which is that often on the podcast, it's just a single voice or maybe two voices together … But with the TV show, because the timeline was so different, there was a chance to stop and say, "OK, who do we really want? Who are all the voices that are involved in the creation of the song?" Maybe not just the artist, but also the collaborators that were essential to making the song. 

Having that kind of breadth and depth, it isn't always afforded to the shorter turnaround time and the scale of the podcast. But here, to really immerse the audience and give a really full picture of what the song was, having those other voices in there was really important. For [the] Alicia Keys episode [about the song "3 Hour Drive,"] we traveled to London to film with [the song's guest vocalist and co-writer/co-producer] Sampha and the [song's] co-writer/co-producer Jimmy Napes because we knew that they were going to only expand and flesh out the story.

I think a part of it is also a matter of craft, too. When you're working in audio, you're kind of only working in one dimension, which is time. You're just relying on one sense, hearing, and you're just basing everything on how long things take; the rhythm comes from just that one sense. But with TV, you have to also give a rhythm and complexity visually, too. You can't just transliterate the podcast into a TV format, where it's just one person talking, mixed with the isolated stems, because it wouldn't work; it would get very boring very quickly. So in order to have that kind of texture and nuance, we wanted to involve all those different people and try and give a little bit bigger of a picture than maybe what comes out in the podcast.

Do you see the podcast and the show as separate entities or related in the same family? Do you need to engage with both formats to fully appreciate or understand what "Song Exploder" is trying to do?

Oh, I don't think you have to engage with both. Of course, I would love it if people did, just because they're both things that I've put a lot of work into, and you want people to enjoy the stuff that you've worked on. This is not a great analogy, but I think it's sort of like reading a book or watching a movie that's been adapted of that book. I don't think you need to read the book to enjoy the movie, and vice versa, you don't need to have seen the movie to have full enjoyment of the book. But maybe you'll get something out of the experience of taking both in. Maybe it changes the way you feel about both.

This is, of course, a little bit different, because it's not even the same story that's being told. It's really just taking the core concept, which is an intimate portrait of an artist telling the story of how their artistic mind worked through creating one of their songs, and taking that concept and expressing it in these two different media. So it's much looser even than something like an adaptation of a book to a movie.

What artist or what song is your holy grail for the podcast or the show or both?

I don't have one holy grail—I think I probably have about a thousand. Anytime I start listening to music, I start wondering about it. That's not new since I started "Song Exploder"; it's the other way around. That's always been the way I listen to music. When I fall in love with a song, I want to hear it from the inside out. I want to hear what the individual tracks, what the individual stems sound like. I want to know what the ideas were that inspired all of these things that I'm falling in love with. "Song Exploder" was just a way of me being able to actually make that happen for myself. So anytime I'm listening to music and I hear something great, you could put it on the list.

Ty Dolla $ign in "Song Exploder"

Ty Dolla $ign in "Song Exploder" | Photo: Courtesy of Netflix/Netflix

What is your ultimate goal with "Song Exploder"?

I wish people would either watch the show or listen to the podcast and come away with a feeling that they want to make something themselves. Part of my aim with the show is to democratize the act of creation a little bit. I think it's easy to look at very successful artists or very successful songs or any kind of art in any format, where it has reached a certain level of success, and think that there's some uncrossable boundary for everyday people that keeps them from making something as great as those songs …

I think the best feeling that I always get from finishing working on an episode is something akin to that. That like, I just want to go make something, and it doesn't just have to be music. I think that anybody who is interested in making anything at all, to get something from the show, just the idea of going from nothing but an idea and following that all the way through to a finished piece of art, I hope that might be inspiring to everyone.

Glen Ballard On How His Netflix Show "The Eddy" Puts Music, Jazz And Performance First

Grammys Newsletter

Subscribe Now

GRAMMYs Newsletter

Be the first to find out about winners, nominees, and more from Music's Biggest Night.
Michael Romanowski

Michael Romanowski

Photo Courtesy of Michael Romanowski

News
Michael Romanowski Talks "Angel From Montgomery" michael-romanowski-interview-dolby-atmos-immersive-audio-john-prine-angel-montgomery

Mastering Engineer Michael Romanowski Talks Dolby Atmos Mix Of "Angel From Montgomery" And The Benefits Of Immersive Audio

Facebook Twitter Email
Romanowski spoke to GRAMMY.com about the song's double mix and master treatment and the differences between a typical audio experience and one with Dolby Atmos
Lily Moayeri
GRAMMYs
Dec 21, 2020 - 5:00 pm

When John Prine died due to COVID-19 complications this past April, a notable group of Recording Academy members quickly released its version of the revered songwriter's classic, "Angel From Montgomery," the following month, on May 22. 

Led by Michael Romanowski, a GRAMMY-nominated mastering engineer and trustee of the Recording Academy's San Francisco chapter, the aim of the release was to honor Prine, with revenues from the song going directly to MusiCares' COVID-19 Relief Fund.

Nearly seven months later, Romanowski and his formidable team of collaborators, which includes Tammy Hurt, Eric Jarvis, Susan Marshall and Jeff Powell, among many others, re-released their version of "Angel From Montgomery" last week (Dec. 16). This time, it's mixed and mastered in Dolby Atmos.

One of the forerunners in the immersive sound space, Dolby Atmos takes the surround sound concept to the next level. Where surround sound focuses on the two-dimensional sound axes of the standard left and right and the additional front and back, Dolby Atmos adds a third axis: height.

A 30-year studio and sound veteran, Romanowski is a leader in mixing and mastering immersive audio. In fact, he had already mixed and mastered the recording of "Angel From Montgomery" in Dolby Atmos at the same time he did the conventional stereo mix. 

Romanowski spoke to GRAMMY.com from the mixing and mastering hub of his Coast Mastering in Northern California about why "Angel From Montgomery" received the double mix and master treatment, what the differences are between a typical audio experience and one with Dolby Atmos, and how come we're hearing the immersive version so many months after the original MusiCares release.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What's the difference between Dolby Atmos and other iterations of immersive audio? 

It started with quadraphonic sound [4.0 surround sound] in the '70s, which was an attempt to do multichannel with four corners with a phantom center image from the left and right and a phantom side image from the back and front. In the mid- to late-'80s, we got into 5.1 because of movies and games, and it took hold in music. In the '90s, we had Super-Audio CDs and DVD-Audio—competing formats, but same-sized discs. Ultimately, consumers just ended up listening to what was coming out of their computers. Now with Dolby Atmos, we've taken immersive audio a step further and added a height component, which is built on psychoacoustics and how the brain perceives localizations, frequency and height at different angles.

How does Dolby Atmos, which began in movie theaters, make the shift to consumer listening spaces?

It was originally geared toward the rake of the floor of the theater. Because the floor goes up, the back speakers are essentially the height speakers. That was a built-in feature—or a flaw, depending on how you want to look at it. 

Moving to music, when consumers don't have the right floor, and they're sitting in their living rooms or cars or on headphones, we still want to give them that sense of what's in front of them and what's behind them. All the localization cues that give us direction that tell our brains that we are in a space are enhanced by having a more dedicated ceiling system array. 

How does mixing and mastering in immersive audio lend itself to the consumer listening experience?

We're creating a sound stage and a place and an environment where the listener can feel like they're engaged in active listening versus passive listening. It's a way of having folks attentive to what they're hearing, to be present when listening to audio, rather than letting it be in the background or covering up kitchen noise when they're making dinner.

For a lot of folks, mastering has been relegated to finishing the mix. When we leave the stereo world and think about what immersive mastering is, you're adding not just two speakers, but 12 or 16 speakers. There are potential problems with translatability: phase problems, level problems, EQ problems, clashes, comb filtering, all sorts of stuff.

Do you have separate rooms at Coast Mastering for mixing and mastering in stereo versus in immersive audio?

Ninety percent of my work is in the stereo field, but we're starting to see overlap between the stereo component and the immersive component. The difference between a stereo speaker room setup and an immersive room setup is dimensionality. When you have a well-tuned stereo room, throwing speakers up can cause more problems like frequency response, reflections in the room and speakers' time arrival. 

I engaged acoustician Bob Hodas, who has been working with me for just about every room I've ever been in. When we designed the room, we already knew what the dimensions were going to be, scientifically: the room reflections, calculations with absorption, diffusion, height, bass trapping. We worked all that out in advance to make sure this was an effective stereo room and also an immersive room.

Were your fellow musicians who worked on "Angel From Montgomery" aware of Dolby Atmos when you were working on the song?

No. At that point, the conversation was, "We don't know what that is, but sure, go ahead." It gave great perspective to not blend the contributions, but pull them apart so we could envelope the listener in a very cool way, a chance to create a 3D canvas and texture that pulls you in even further. When you listen to music in a club or go to a show, you're not just listening in stereo; you're listening to the environment, the reflections on the walls, the localization. This gave us a really great opportunity to do that with this track.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAgGl0YBjpq

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Michael Romanowski (@coastmastering)

Do you see remixing and remastering in immersive audio as a way to update classic recordings?

My intent is not necessarily the reworking of back catalog. That's cool, but we're given a fixed perspective in the back catalog. For us in the Recording Academy, this particular project is a way to inspire people who are creating music moving forward to think about the possibilities of what they could do to create this listening experience for the consumer, the fan. 

How does mixing and mastering in immersive audio have an effect on what's heard through streaming services, which generally have lower-quality audio?

If the consumer is playing it back with slow bandwidth, it's more important for them to hear something immediately than to wait a few seconds to allow it to play. In this instant-gratification world, you hit play, it's buffering and you have to wait five seconds or two seconds, you're already gone. Some companies send small data first to get you in and stay while buffering the high-resolution stuff.

This is something that is greatly expanded on by multichannel. If you've got 12 channels of audio, the encoding process becomes very particular. This goes back to mastering. By using multichannel audio, we deliver multiple versions of encoding layers of complexity and resolution, so there [are] less differences between the smaller low-resolution and larger high-resolution files.

Is this one of the main benefits of mixing and mastering in immersive audio?

Having a great mix and a great master is hugely important for lots of reasons, among them: future aspects of recordings. We got into the digital world at 16-bit/44.1 kHz recording, then we moved to 24-bit/48 kHz. As technology allowed us to get higher resolution, musicians that had recorded in 16-bit/44.1 kHz were locked into that. As technology and digital distribution evolve and resolution gets higher, you will always be limited to the top of what you got. You can't make it more resolute than it is. 

At the moment, Dolby Atmos is limited to 24-bit/48kHz. Most people are recording at higher resolution than that. I recorded "Angel From Montgomery" at 24-bit/192 kHz. We're locked in at 48K for now, but that doesn't mean that I'm not prepared for when we go higher. 

Will a non-audiophile consumer be able to notice the difference between the stereo version and the Dolby Atmos version of "Angel From Montgomery?"

When you listen to "Angel From Montgomery" in the stereo world, the phantom center image is right in the middle of your head. In the immersive world, we're trying to engage the listener in a sense of space. The music and the musicians are coming from all directions, rather than [from] two speakers in front of you. Stereo music can't recreate the same sense of environment. With "Angel From Montgomery" in Dolby Atmos, and the collaborative nature of the recording, we could better highlight each part that is additive to the bigger picture, rather than squeezing it down into two channels. This gives the listener a more active and engaging experience.

What I would recommend to folks is [to] take the time, sit and listen to things; absorb it rather than judge it or compare it. Obviously, people are spending a lot of time listening on headphones. The best ear training anybody can have is to sit and listen with other people and talk about what they're hearing. That shared experience causes people's attention to hear things they wouldn't necessarily think about or listen to. 

Why are you releasing the Dolby Atmos version of "Angel From Montgomery" at a different time than the stereo version?

We thought that if we put it out at the same time, the message would get muddied. On Amazon, you'd see two versions and it would confuse people. The stereo release was to get it out there to do as much good as we could from the start. Holding the Dolby Atmos release gives us an opportunity to revisit it, to draw attention back to the good the song can do, but also, the possibility of imagining the release in a different way and how that can inspire folks. 

What is your ultimate goal with what you're doing with immersive audio?

My hope is we'll get to a distribution model other than streaming, like HDtracks or Blue Coast Music that sell high-resolution multichannel audio where people are putting their own servers together. We're going to get to where people are going to have that ability without limiting what they're doing now for convenience. Don't lock yourself down with resolution, distribution and download possibilities. Go as high as you can because, as we have demonstrated for 100-plus years, the audio industry will be moving forward.

Behind The Record Returns To #GiveCredit To The Behind-The-Scenes Music Creators

Grammys Newsletter

Subscribe Now

GRAMMYs Newsletter

Be the first to find out about winners, nominees, and more from Music's Biggest Night.
Harry Chapin

Harry Chapin

Photo: Courtesy of artist

News
Rick Korn & Jason Chapin's Revisit Harry Chapin harry-chapin-when-doubt-do-something-filmmakers-rick-korn-jason-chapin-revisit

'Harry Chapin: When In Doubt, Do Something' Filmmakers Rick Korn & Jason Chapin Revisit Singer/Activist's Legacy At A Vital Time

Facebook Twitter Email
The new documentary looks at the life of the late GRAMMY-nominated folk singer and how his message of hope and making a difference resonates so strongly today
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Oct 21, 2020 - 3:40 pm

In 1972, not long after signing to Elektra, a 29-year-old folk singer/songwriter named Harry Chapin released his debut album, Heads & Tales, spawning the hit single "Taxi." Later that year, he'd release his sophomore album, Sniper & Other Love Songs, and receive his first GRAMMY nomination, for Best New Artist at the 15th GRAMMY Awards.

Just two years later, in 1974, the Brooklynite released his fourth album, Verities & Balderdash, along with his most well-known song and only No. 1, the deeply moving "Cat's in the Cradle." The memorable track also brought his second GRAMMY nomination, for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 17th GRAMMY Awards.

Almost as quickly as Chapin rose to global fame, he began using his platform to make a difference in the world. With nudging and support from his wife Sandy Chapin, he and radio DJ Bill Ayers founded WhyHunger in 1975 to address the root causes of food insecurity and poverty. The "Shooting Star" singer, who died at just 38 in car accident, would spend the rest of his time on earth hosting and playing benefit concerts, mentoring rising artists, advocating in D.C. and raising money and awareness to fight hunger.

Now, with the release of Harry Chapin: When In Doubt, Do Something on Oct. 16, World Food Day, viewers get a deep dive into the inspirational man behind the music, along with the message that one person really can move make a difference when they put their mind to it. We recently spoke to the documentary's director, Rick Korn, and co-producer/Harry Chapin's stepson, Jason Chapin, about the film, what the great folk artist's legacy means to them and much more.

Watch: History Of: The World-Famous Troubadour In West Hollywood

Harry Chapin, When In Doubt, Do Something comes out soon, on October 16. What messages do you hope viewers will get from watching it?

Korn: Well, there are two messages with Harry's story. The most important thing is about his activism, his music, his way to really inspire generations of music artists, of people like myself. I think the most important thing for people to get out of this is it's a break from the craziness of what's going on in the world around us, it's a 93-minute escape into Harry's world, which is just so entertaining and inspiring. I hope that people look at it from that perspective. I know people that have seen the film have walked away from it thoroughly entertained and thoroughly inspired. That's what we hope people get out of the film.

Chapin: I'll add that my father's been gone for a long time, but over his 10-year career, he accomplished a lot musically. His music continues to be listened to by younger generations, which is great, but the humanitarian side, starting WhyHunger in 1975 and Long Island Cares in 1980 and being involved in a lot of other important causes and organizations, is also big. It's amazing that those organizations have grown so much and continue to help, literally, hundreds of thousands of people each year. If you think about today, hunger and poverty is a much bigger issue now, but, fortunately, because of my father's work and many organizations fighting against it, there's a lot being done.

The takeaway, I'm hoping, for those that see the movie, is that it's one individual who was motivated to do something, who inspired many others to continue to support what he did, but they also are doing great things on their own. It's really inspirational to know that one person can make a difference.

Related: Darius Rucker To Receive Harry Chapin Humanitarian Award At Music Biz 2019

I feel like that answers this question a bit, but I still want to ask it this way. Why did you decide to make a documentary about Harry Chapin?

Korn: Harry was unique in a lot of different ways, and if this was a story about another music artist that focused on their vices and the destruction of their lives, we would not have been interested in making the film. What interests us about Harry is his prolific creativity and his ability to literally move people, to save people. What really blew our minds when we did our research on Harry was he was so incredibly effective in fighting for the underdog.

He could write a protest song and you can do a benefit concert, but Harry was more than that. He literally got his hands dirty doing the work, and figured out what the root causes of hunger and poverty are and attacked them in every way. He spent a good portion of the most vital 10 years of his life just trying to help people, and that is unique in the world, particularly in the world today. That's why we made the film. We made the film because I think the world needs a little bit of Harry today.

Chapin: One thing I'll add, maybe it's not known to a lot of people, but my father was a successful filmmaker before he became a successful musician. I think film helped him really understand stories better and made him a much better songwriter. It's also just amazing, so many years later, when Rick and S.A. Baron [who co-produced the film with Korn and Chapin] asked if we would be interested in a documentary, it was special to me because there had never been interest in a film about him. They saw a different subject matter that others didn't.

Also, it's just the right time, because there's so much going on that my father was passionate about and committed to, and, as Rick said, there's so much negativity out there, but this is the right film at the right time.

Why do you feel like it's so important to share this story and these messages now?

Korn: I don't want to say we rushed it because we didn't, but we really worked hard getting this film out now because of all the divisiveness in the world. Harry's story is unique from any other music artist because he really inspired a generation of music artists. You look at Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel, Bob Geldof and Ken Kragen, all these people that created Live Aid and "We Are the World"/U.S.A for Africa and Hands Across America. Harry inspired these people in that way, and his music, on top of that, was just so moving and so incredible.

I want to follow up on something that Jason said about him being a filmmaker. One of the things that surprised me when we did our research, was that he was a filmmaker, and not only that, but an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker and documentarian, but we learned that was the way Harry wrote songs. It's very similar to the way a director writes a film. His songs are these mini movies. His storytelling feels like you're the character, one of those two people in the taxi in the song, "Taxi." And you always feel like the parent in "Cat's in the Cradle." He and Sandy just had a way of making songs that you find yourself in, and that's the brilliant part of his songwriting.

Explore: It's The One: 45 Years Of Bruce Springsteen's 'Born To Run'

Do you have a favorite story or anecdote from any of the artists you talked to while making the film?

Chapin: I was at the Billy Joel interview and he told us a lot of things that I didn't know. I learned that he opened for my father and years later, my father opened for him, and they had a nice friendship, and supported each other. And Billy Joel started talking about how people would think that "Piano Man" was written by my father, and he really loved the way my father wrote songs, and he was describing how much he loved the song "Taxi" and how it gave him goosebumps. And then he was talking about my father as a humanitarian, and he called him a saint. I think that was probably my favorite experience with this whole project.

Korn: Yeah, the Billy Joel interview was certainly a great one because I didn't realize how close Billy and Harry were, just on a human level. The reason for that, I think, was the fact that Harry treated everyone like your kid brother. The fact that he would support Billy, which was so rare in the music business then, and even now, it just broke down whatever barrier or competition they normally would have with each other. That surprised me.

My favorite interview—there's so many, because after each interview, you love everybody that you interviewed because they loved Harry. You can't make a movie just with that one interview, but the two that stand out for me is DMC [a.k.a. Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC], because he taught us something we didn't know about, how he did "Cat's in the Cradle" [on 2006's "Just Like Me" with Sarah McLachlan] and they were one of the first rap groups. The fact that Harry was considered cool in the early days of hip-hop music blew my mind. He's a great guy. He's done so much for WhyHunger over the years, and he's just a really genuine guy, so I really loved that interview.

I have to say that the most entertaining interview for me that maybe I've ever done was Sir Bob Geldof, which ended up being a two-and-a-half-hour interview when my average interview is about 45 minutes. I literally asked two questions in the entire interview. He just went on and on and on. He would come back and say something about Harry, but then he would go on.

They all loved Harry. Harry changed their lives, just as he did mine. Harry came to my high school in 1974. Everyone in the school, teachers, coaches, janitor, everyone came into the auditorium, and he came running in and played for two and a half hours and talked about hunger and poverty, and it was the greatest lecture you ever went to in your life. It was inspirational.

Read: From Aretha Franklin To Public Enemy, Here's How Artists Have Amplified Social Justice Movements Through Music

What does his legacy mean to you?

Chapin: When I think of his legacy, I think of all the people that my father looked up to, and one of them was Pete Seeger, and I think he saw that Pete was doing great things over many years. He was completely selfless and hugely impactful. As I look at my father's legacy, it's the fact that so many fans can tell stories about meeting him after a concert in the lobby, so many fans talk about how they shared his music with their kids, and now grandkids, and the fact that he started these organizations and that continued to grow and help more people each year.

I think the overall, in terms of his legacy—he even says in the film that he wanted to matter. That's another way of saying he didn't want to be forgotten. The fact that people are still talking about him, people are still inspired by him is just amazing.

Korn: I'd like to tag on to that. When I think of Harry's legacy, obviously he was a great songwriter. Music is important, and his music is important, but when I think of Harry's legacy, I think of what is going on right now with this pandemic and the fact that what he and [N.Y.C. radio DJ] Bill Ayres and Sandy Chapin created in 1975—and Sandy and Bill are still at it—is still saving lives today. That is a legacy that is larger than life.

Can you talk a little more about WhyHunger's work and why specifically the issue of access to healthy food was so important to Harry?

Chapin: I think what's important to understand is that it was my mother who really nudged my father and said, "You should get involved in more things, not just do music." My father was interviewed by Bill Ayres on his radio show, "On This Rock," and they had instant chemistry. They started talking, with my mother at some of their meetings, they decided that they wanted to focus on something that would really have a big impact on a lot of people. They did a lot of research. They talked to a lot of experts, and they realized hunger and poverty was at the root of all of our issues, and if they tackled that, that could solve so many of our problems. They continued to educate themselves and talk to experts. They spent a lot of time down in D.C. talking to legislators, and they were really committed to being knowledgeable and informed and getting other people to understand.

I think what my father knew is that if you tackle hunger and poverty, you're also tackling social injustice, you're tackling women's issues, you're tackling racial issues, you're tackling so many root issues, and so I think it was very insightful for them to talk about that. It wasn't just about giving people food.

My father was very into being self-sufficient, so he wanted people to have access to education and work to become self-sufficient. At the same time, I think he wanted people to understand that people don't choose to be hungry or poor, that there were certain policies that were put upon them that created a lot of the problems, a lot of the barriers that they faced.           

I think it's also important to say that the fact that we still have a problem doesn't mean that we're losing the war. It just means that there are more people that need to get involved in order to solve the problem. WhyHunger's job is not to solve the problem, it's to help other people it, so it's a very grassroots focus. They do a lot of work with groups around the country and internationally to help support what they're doing and connect them to other organizations so that they can realize their potential and do even more great work.



View this post on Instagram


Join us tonight for a very special Docu-Concert to inspire us all to DO SOMETHING AND VOTE! Harry Chapin is the original reason I love folk music. I listened to “Cats in the Cradle” on repeat as a kid. Very surreal to be a part of this event with him and more of my heroes @springsteen @blackpumas @kebmomusic @alabama_shakes @theheadandtheheart and @derekandsusan ! We’ll be raising money today for many nonprofits including @return2heart ! Tune in tonight (link in bio!)!

A post shared by RAYE ZARAGOZA (@rayezaragoza) on Oct 20, 2020 at 11:27am PDT

What do you each see as the connection between art and service?

Korn: Art is service in a certain way. We have a livestream docu-concert coming out called Do Something and there's an artist participating by the name of Raye Zaragoza. Raye is a young artist/activist. She's Native American and she's all about the environment and has devoted her life to it. She doesn't just write the songs. An artist/activist is someone, in my opinion, who doesn't just write and perform great music, but as Harry taught us, they get their hands dirty.

If you care about the pipeline going through South Dakota and the reservations, you're going to go to protests. You're in Washington. You're writing motivational songs. It doesn't mean you have to write motivational songs, because Harry didn't have many protest songs, but he understood his nature and human feelings and empathy, and he had tremendous empathy. I think that's the connection, that's what makes an artist an artist/activist.

Chapin: Yeah, and my father and my uncle Tom [Chapin] did a lot of benefit concerts, and I know they had a lot of conversations. My father was always fascinated with Pete Seeger's philosophy about being an activist, getting involved, and he said it was because he got to work with great people, people who were very passionate and committed. My father and Pete Seeger and others, I think they were getting more out of the experience than they were giving to the experience, and it made their lives richer.

My father, he spent a lot of time in high schools, middle schools and colleges talking to young people. He always felt that young people were the future, and he wanted to know what they cared about, what they were interested in doing, and to encourage them to get involved. It didn't have to be hunger and poverty, but just get involved, to commit to something. It was all about letting them know that they could make a difference.

Lastly, a lot of musicians, I think, tend to be a little bit self-centered, but my father was very generous when it came to other musicians. He used to do these songwriting workshops where he would spend time with a group of up-and-coming musicians, those who wanted to learn more about songwriting and composing music. My father had these regular meetings with different musicians on Long Island. I think the musicians who attended really enjoyed the experience of learning from my father, but my father also enjoyed the experience of hearing what they were thinking and collaborating with them. I think that was also very rewarding for him.

Read: From Chicago To Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Here's Who Was Honored At The 2020 GRAMMY Salute To Music Legends

It becomes so much more than the artist saying, "I care about this, you should too." When it's like, "I really care about this. What do you care about?" it feels different.

Chapin: Yeah. I think it's a beautiful community when musicians collaborate and they do things together. I think that really attracted my father's interest, he just loved other communities, whether it was other artists or not. He was really into a lot of intellectual stuff. He did a lot of reading. He was intellectually very curious, and I think he also liked learning from other people and finding out what motivated them and what inspired them. I think that gave him a lot of, I don't know, excitement just to be around people who were very eager and action-oriented.

Do you think art can change the world?

Korn: You know, I think that music is, by its very nature, a healer. I'm not saying it can cure cancer, but it can help cure cancer. Maybe that's an overstatement. I just mean it that it's got that power. People get moved by music. I was working with a gentleman by the name of Carl Perkins, who wrote the song, "Blue Suede Shoes." We were flying over to London [in 1997] to do a benefit concert with Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton and a bunch of people, and for the island of Montserrat after a volcano eruption. I asked, "Why is it that it seems like music artists are always the first ones to jump in and do benefit concerts?"

Carl's response was, "Did you ever meet a great songwriter that didn't grow up poor or have some sort of difficulties in their life? They just tend to be more empathetic towards the common man. They write about it." From that standpoint, I don't know if they can save the world, but I think Harry in a lot of ways has saved lives, and I guess that's your answer. [Chuckles.]

Chapin: Yeah, that was well said, Rick. I can't think of anything else that brings people together more than music. It's a universal thing, and once you bring people together and there's somebody who plants a seed as to something they should all work toward or work on together, then anything is possible. We know, going back decades, whether it was Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, the Beatles and their Concert for Bangladesh, or Live Aid or "We Are the World," we know when groups come together, anything is possible. They may not be solving all the world's problems, but they can certainly make a huge difference.

It's so true. I have to share, my dad grew up in Brooklyn Heights and went to Grace Church, so he knew all the Chapins. The first concert I ever went to was Tom Chapin—my dad took us to his shows all the time when we were kids.

Chapin: I'm so glad you shared that because that's where everything happened, at Grace Church. That's where my uncles Tom and Steve were in the choir. My father was a little older, so he wasn't as involved, but that's also where they met Robert Lamm from Chicago. John Wallace was also a member of the choir, and he ended up being a key part of my father's band. That was such a magical time back then, because there were so many musicians and they would all go into Manhattan and play at the different clubs and community events. Everybody wanted to be a musician or go listen to musicians. Brooklyn now is still—that's the hot borough in New York City. That's where the musicians want to live, and that's where they want to perform. It's a fabulous tradition.

Great to hear that you've been to some of my uncle Tom's shows. I don't know if you're aware, but my father had two GRAMMY nominations, but Tom won three GRAMMYs, so that's fun family history.

Beat By Beat: How "Song Exploder" Unlocks The Intimacy Of Music And Creativity

Ziggy Marley

Ziggy Marley

Photo: Kristin Burns

News
Ziggy Marley On 'More Family Time' & Toots Hibbert ziggy-marley-talks-more-family-time-joy-toots-hibbert-bob-marley-legacy

Ziggy Marley Talks Working With His Kids On 'More Family Time,' The Joy Of Toots Hibbert & Bob Marley's Revolution

Facebook Twitter Email
The GRAMMY-winning reggae legend chats about his latest music, an upbeat, collab-rich children's album inspired by—and featuring—his youngest son
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Oct 5, 2020 - 3:16 pm

The rhythms and ethos of reggae very much run through Ziggy Marley's veins. Not only was he born into reggae royalty as one of the sons of the late, great Bob Marley, he has spent most of his life immersed in it. As a young kid, he absorbed it during his father's studio sessions and, not long after, he and his siblings began making it themselves as the Melody Makers.

Back in 1989, Ziggy took home his first GRAMMY, with the Melody Makers, for Best Reggae Recording for Conscious Party. He has since earned eight total GRAMMYs to date and put out eight solo studio albums. Throughout it all, he has continued to spread messages of love, equality and unity through music, as his father did and other members of the Marley clan also continue to do.

And just as his father encouraged him and his siblings to make music, Ziggy's passing the torch to his children. On his latest album, More Family Time, released on on Sept. 18, four of his kids (Gideon, Judah, Abraham and Isaiah) contribute, along with their dog Romeo, Ziggy's brother Stephen Marley and famous friends including Lisa Loeb, Sheryl Crow, Angelique Kidjo, Alanis Morrissette and more. The lively, joyful family album was inspired by the four-year-old Isaiah and is a follow up to 2009's Emmy- and GRAMMY-winning Family Time.

Read: This Is What We Live: Damian Marley On The 15th Anniversary Of 'Welcome To Jamrock'

We recently chatted with Ziggy to hear about all the magic that went into the album, his memory of the great Toots Hibbert, what his father's legacy means to him and more.

So, you just released more Family Time, which follows 2009's Family Time. What are you hoping that kids and parents experience while listening to this album?

Well, for this one, especially since we're in such a situation, a lot of kids aren't in school and we've been in quarantine with the COVID issue. I just hope this is some relief and some positive energy that the family can enjoy together. This is really simple, that's what it is really.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFKvZLlpV35

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ziggy Marley (@ziggymarley)

Can you talk a little bit about how your four-year-old son Isaiah inspired both the "Goo Goo Ga Ga" song and then the project as a whole?

Isaiah, since he was born, he has been around me a lot. Even more than the other kids, he was actually in the studio. And he is on the cover of my last album, Rebellion Rises and he was always in the studio during that album. So, when I'm around him, and you see him, he used to just go on and say "goo goo gaga, goo goo gaga, goo goo gaga." And so, that kicked off the process of me writing. And after that, it just kept going in that direction, so I let it go that way. To make an album for family and children specifically, it's always good to have children around. For me, it's natural. So it was just a part of the inspiration.

GRAMMYs

Ziggy Marley at home with his family | Photo: Kristin Burns

And both he and some of your other kids sang on a couple of the songs. Was it fun for them? What was it like getting the family involved?

When Isaiah first tried, I was so surprised. He just did it. The song called "Move Your Body," he just did this thing which was incredible to me. I was so amazed. He had so much expression. I was just blown away. I didn't expect him to have fun to do it. So, it's so real, what he did and how he did it. And from all the other kids, I bring them in just like my father would bring me in, I bring us in.

For the older ones, the teenagers, it was tedious because they're teens and they only want to do so much for it. But I made them do it and afterwards they got into it. We enjoyed doing it together. Sometimes they're happy to hear themselves on the record again. My daughter, Judah, is 15. She was the inspiration for the first Family Time album. She was about the same age then as Isaiah is now and she's on the first album also. So, it's just a continuation.

All of the songs on the album are really fun and joyful, but I really love the upbeat energy of "Move Your Body." And the fact that Tom Morello and Busta Rhymes are on this awesome kid's song, it blows my mind. How did that track come together?

I think that track is the weirdest track on the album, in terms of how it came about, because it started out as something totally different. And as we went along, as Tom added his piece to it, it kind of changed my perspective on it. And then Busta did it, so my whole perspective was actually changing from the original idea as the creative process went along and it morphed into this "Move Your Body" song.

It's just all about moving. It's an energy song to move to, really. There's not a lot of lyrical stuff, "la la lee lee lee la la lo," is actually from the Ethiopian alphabet. So some of the things that I say in that song have meaning to them, but it's okay if you don't know the meaning. It's one of the crazier songs I've done, with Tom and Busta. [Laughs.]

Read: Tom Morello On Storytelling & Rocking Out, Mixed-Race Identity, The 2020 Election & More

When you were making the song, were you like, "I need Tom and Busta on the song?" I'm also curious about the rest of the collaborations and how they all came together.

All of these artists pretty much, I've known for years. Most of them, we'll see each other, we'll talk to each other. Busta Rhymes is an old friend of ours, we've known him for years. Sheryl, Ben [Harper], Angelique, all these people, we have a comradery from working together in the past.

As the album went on and I did each song, each song kind of told me—because I know each individual—who would be good on it. I was like, "Oh, this song sounds like it's a Sheryl Crow sound." When I wrote "Everywhere You Go" the chorus reminded me of one of her songs. I was like, "Oh, Sheryl would be good for that." So each song spoke to me about who would fit in it, and that came from me knowing them and knowing their music.

You sang "Three Little Birds" with Toots Hibbert on the new Toots and the Maytals album [Got To Be Tough], which came out shortly before he passed away. What does that track and having sang it with him mean to you? And what was one of the biggest things you have learned from Toots?

I feel for me to sing a song with Toots is to understand what Toots brought in, to me it was a great interpretation, but so different and still good. I mean, sometimes you do something different, but this one was really good. I really liked it. We did it a few years ago, actually.

Toots was like a good luck charm. Toots was an angel of joy, he brought joy. He was the type of angel that no matter where you are when they appear, magically everybody's happy. He had that power in him to bring joy and happiness. I don't know anybody like Toots who has that ability, just by his energy, to just bring joy. He was a very unique spirit with a very unique gift. It was unique to him as far as I know, I don't know anybody that's like that.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFXmacNJPe2/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ziggy Marley (@ziggymarley)

Watch: Skip Marley Asks Us To "Slow Down" For Press Play

That's beautiful. This year has also brought 75th anniversary celebrations for your dad, Bob Marley. What does his legacy mean to you?

My father was about being a good human, being righteous and just and fearless. And he treated people of all walks of life with respect as human beings. It's not about music, it's about humanity. That is what legacy is. It's much deeper than music, you know? That is how I see it.

That's so fitting for the time we're in right now. What message do you think he'd have for what's going on in the world right now? Or what is one of his messages you think would most apply right now?

There's a few, especially with what's happening in America and the Black Lives Matter movement here. He was very aware of the oppression of African people and people of African heritage. He had songs like "Blackman Redemption," Africa Unite" and others in that spectrum of it that was a part of a revolutionary movement. And he is that, but he was also on the side of love too. There's "One Love," "Three Little Birds" and stuff like that. So he's the balance.

But right now, in the situation that we are in, I think the tone would be more on the side of "Get Up, Stand Up" and even "Blackman Redemption," because it is important that equality is for everyone. This is something that people have fought for years, and we still have a fight for it today. We still have to stand up and march in the streets for it because inequality and injustice does exist. And I don't think we can just stand by and not put our voices towards it. His messages are a part of that that movement also.

Sometimes people are kind of look over the more revolutionary side of my father, they want to just see the "One Love" and "Three Little Birds" and forget that other side to him. I won't forget that.

Bob Marley & The Wailers' 'Exodus': For The Record

What was it like growing up in the Marley family? Did you always know that you would dedicate your life to music? Or did you have other ideas?

I knew I could do anything I wanted to if I put my mind to, but music kind of came upon me because of the inspiration to write songs. If I wasn't inspired to write songs, I wouldn't be doing music. That is the only reason I'm a musician is because, for some reason, I write songs.

I mean, nobody taught me to write songs. I didn't go to school write songs. Nobody told me how to do it, it just happened. It is a gift that was given to me by nature or by whatever forces you want to call it. So, I accepted that gift and I put that gift out there so other people can get something from it too. That is why I do music, I could have done anything, but nature called me towards music. I was skilled, you know.

Part of the proceeds from More Family Time support the U.R.G.E. Foundation you lead in Jamaica. Can you share a little bit about the work that the organization does?

Yeah. I mean we love children. We have a school in Jamaica, and we help with the teachers' salaries, sports equipment and making sure to keep them on a good playground. And then we've also joined with other organizations in other areas. In Los Angeles here, we work with an organization that is an after-school program for underprivileged kids and we help them out also. We do stuff in Mexico too.

It's all children-focused. I think that is the most important part of society—if we can help the children, that is where the world will change. And so, we just focus on that.

Watch: Positive Vibes Only: Kalani Pe'a Whisks Us Away To Hawaii With A Feel-Good Performance Of "E Nā Kini"

Obviously, giving back and being of service is a big part of what you do, so what do you see as the connection between art and service?

Well, art is service. But as an individual person that does art, also outside of my art, even if I wasn't doing art, I would still be who I am. And so, what I do is just something that is in me, regardless of my art. Art in itself is a part of giving, right. I mean, it all depends on the individual. Generalizing, some people's art is for giving and some people's art as for taking. [Laughs.]

We have the art, that's a given, and we are giving individuals also, so it's like two like-minded forces coming together, me as a person and the art, coming together to give. It works in a full circle really, you get full service.

It's kind of the mindset you put in, going into creating your art.

Yeah, who you are goes into your art, right? for me, I don't pretend, my art isn't a pretending thing. I don't sing about things I've pretended to do, pretended to see. What I sing about comes out of my heartis in my art—is in my art.

Unearthing A Lost Ella Fitzgerald Recording, 60 Years Later

Top
Logo
  • Recording Academy
    • About
    • Governance
    • Press Room
    • Jobs
    • Events
  • GRAMMYs
    • Awards
    • News
    • Videos
    • Events
    • Store
    • FAQ
  • Latin GRAMMYs
    • Awards
    • News
    • Photos
    • Videos
    • Cultural Foundation
    • Members
    • Press
  • GRAMMY Museum
    • COLLECTION:live
    • Explore
    • Exhibits
    • Education
    • Support
    • Programs
    • Donate
  • MusiCares
    • About
    • Get Help
    • Give
    • News
    • Videos
    • Events
  • Advocacy
    • About
    • News
    • Learn
    • Act
  • Membership
    • Chapters
    • Producers & Engineers Wing
    • GRAMMY U
    • Join
Logo

© 2021 - Recording Academy. All rights reserved.

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Copyright Notice
  • Contact Us

Some of the content on this site expresses viewpoints and opinions that are not those of the Recording Academy. Responsibility for the accuracy of information provided in stories not written by or specifically prepared for the Academy lies with the story's original source or writer. Content on this site does not reflect an endorsement or recommendation of any artist or music by the Recording Academy.