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The cast of 'Hackers'

Photo courtesy of IMDB / MGM/UA Distribution Co.

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An Oral History Of Hackers' Soundtrack & Score hack-planet-oral-history-hackers-soundtrack-score

"Hack The Planet!" An Oral History Of Hackers' Soundtrack & Score

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25 years after the cult classic's release, the film's director, composer, actors, costume designer and contributing musicians look back on the soundtrack’s emergence from a new wave of club music
Lior Phillips
GRAMMYs
Sep 15, 2020 - 10:57 am

Twenty-five years after the release of Hackers, two things outlived the time of crushed cans of Jolt cola, skateboarding megavillains, and Matthew Lillard's braided pigtails: the vibrant community of electronic music and rebellion against those attempting to shut down information. It’s a world where payphones are essential technology, floppy disks play into high espionage and Marc Anthony is a secret service agent. It’s a time when the four most predictable passwords were "Love, Secret, Sex and God." But truly unprecedented was Hackers' mercurial soundtrack and score, a beguiling coalescence that mirrored the face and sound of an era. Much like the hackers’ experience of breaking through societal barriers, the film’s music winds its way through a bramble of wires before reaching techno-nirvana. The synergy of hackers and a new wave of electronic musicians came together powerfully, pushing into new, undiscovered territory, and sharing in the discovery as a community. From The Prodigy’s "Voodoo People" scoring a first meeting to Massive Attack’s "Protection" soothing a romantic scene: the Hackers soundtrack was a rapturous primitive trip for outsiders who were insiders.

Hackers follows a crew of high schoolers led by a very young Angelina Jolie and Johnny Lee Miller (under the codenames Crash Override and Acid Burn) fighting against The Plague, a hacker turned corporate tech security expert framing the kids for his own malicious schemes. At the dawn of the internet as we know it, that meant visualizing the inside of a computer as buildings fading into circuit boards. Furious typing is matched with twisted synths, and breaking through firewalls is scored by opening up the ambient heavens a la the Math Lady meme.

Director Iain Softley and composer Simon Boswell’s conjurative imagination of what the present was and what the future could be fused invention and innovation, psychedelia, trip-hop, and electronics into a hallucinatory heroes’ journey. The film harnessed a burgeoning scene taking over the U.K. and Europe and introduced it to outsiders in the U.S. The music was so beloved that the film spawned three soundtrack releases, two of which included tracks inspired by the film. However, some of Boswell’s compositions and other songs used in the film remained unreleased—including a surprise appearance by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour. That changes, though, with an upcoming Record Store Day release, a double-vinyl set in support of the film’s anniversary.

To honor the cult favorite film’s invigorating exploration of a musical movement on Hackers’ 25th anniversary, the film’s director, composer, actors, costume designer and several contributing musicians reflect on the soundtrack’s emergence from a new wave of club music, the film’s prescient themes, and the feeling of community within and resulting from Hackers.

The Birth of a New Rebel Music

Ian Softley, Director: I grew up being absorbed in music as much as I was with film. Growing up in London, music was everywhere. And then when I went to work in television in Manchester and Liverpool, I would see bands all the time, whether it was New Order or various blues bands or reggae. That was the first inspiration for me to write about music and I was really happy for Hackers to be a way of carrying that on. My assistant for the film, Gala Wright, was a sort of creative collaborator. I was listening quite broadly, but she would help out by suggesting tracks. The music supervisor, Bob Last, was looking out for bands that had more profile, hence Prodigy and Massive Attack.

Rob Birch, Stereo MC's: At the time it was [seen as] rebel music. It was the young years of this exciting wave of electronic music, which created what we have now.

Renoly Santiago, Actor, The Phantom Phreak: That music was just part of my everyday life. That era felt like the launch of what we today call electronic dance music, or EDM. Back then we called it dance music, or raver music. I really was like a club kid listening to house music.

Roger Burton, Costume Designer: I was very familiar with the electronic music scene in the U.K. and Europe, but then I went on a trip to N.Y.C. and got inspired by the club culture. The fetish and cross-dressing scene and all these subcultures fuelled my creative decisions, so Hackers is loaded with subtle fashion references that people still enjoy spotting.

Laurence Mason, Actor, Lord Nikon: Coming from New York, I've always been into the club scene and the fashion scene. Trip-hop, acid house, rave, tribal, all this music has a primitive element to them, a universality speaks to everyone. They weren't using traditional instruments, but they did still have that primal thing. And then of course Iain definitely brought some of the ‘60s psychedelic into it, which was going on as well. I actually even helped with security for [Stereo MC’s] first appearance in New York City. I grew up with Jimi Hendrix, Cream and Deep Purple, so for me to rebel, I got into Prodigy, Tricky and Massive Attack. I've always been into science-fiction. I was a big fan of William Gibson and cyberpunk.

"Original Bedroom Rockers"

Paul Hartnoll, Orbital: I was raised by wolves! I taught myself in the backwaters of the middle of nowhere in Kent. [Laughs.] We had no idea what we were doing. I was into electronic music, and back then you just decided to copy what you like. You might have completely the wrong equipment, but you don't know that, so you get it done anyway and it ends up sounding different. If people ever say, "How'd you get your original sound?" I say, "I tried to copy other people and got it wrong." People always think I'm joking when I say that, but I'm not.

Peter Kruder, Kruder & Dorfmeister: It's actually just bedroom producers on the Hackers soundtrack. Everybody who's on that soundtrack literally made their music at home, from Orbital to Prodigy. It's probably one of the first movies that just had music made at home. We literally learned everything by doing it ourselves because there was no internet to learn from. We did everything by trial and error. It was a lot of work and a lot of hard stuff to learn in order to sound like other records. Most acts at that time were doing everything themselves. Everybody had their own label. We were always sharing information with other people, meeting at clubs or festivals. It was always an open community helping each other. That vibe stayed with people from that generation.

Richard Dorfmeister, Kruder & Dorfmeister: We actually lived in the studio. We were all like bedroom producers, just constantly programming and doing music. We were very dedicated and motivated by the fact that it was possible to do something without going to the studio, just to do it yourself with this electronic bedroom revolution.

Simon Boswell, Composer: I started composing in 1985, around the same time synthesizers and samples were becoming the thing for DJs. So, technologically, that’s what I was doing all the way through. It was actually something of an accident that I got to be a film composer. I'd been in various bands from punk time onwards. I was in a band that was less punk and more pop and toured with Blondie, but we weren't very successful. None of the bands I was in were very successful, so I became a record producer. I was working in Rome, producing Italian pop stars and rock stars, and was introduced to a horror director called Dario Argento at a party. He had seen my band play in Rome and asked me to help out on this first soundtrack, which was a movie called Phenomena. And it just went from there.

It's not normal that the film composer gets hired earlier on, but Iain knew me. So I went down to the studios just outside London where they were filming. I passed Angelina Jolie in the corridor and I stopped to introduce myself. I said the most stupid thing I've ever said: "Oh hi, pleased to meet you. I really love your dad's work." And she just looked me up and down and walked off because she and John Voight weren't getting on. [Laughs.] Also, Johnny Lee Miller owes me more than one beer. He got cast in Trainspotting because of me. Danny Boyle came down to set because I'd worked with him before, on Shallow Grave.

A Timeless Trip Through A Cyber Hallucination

Softley: My first film was called Backbeat, and music was hugely important to that because it was partly about the Beatles in Hamburg. We had a great soundtrack for that, with Don Was producing and an amazing grunge supergroup with Dave Grohl, Mike Mills, Dave Pirner, Thurston Moore and Greg Dulli. So when Hackers came next, we had a screening with a number of record companies where we had early cuts of the film and they were like, "We thought it was going to be indie guitar music, grunge. Nobody in America listens to techno." And I said, "Well, that's the music that's right for the movie. It's a cyberpunk movie trying to anticipate the internet as a sort of equivalent for that generation’s rock and roll." The music had to be futuristic and ambient. The film was sort of like a cyber hallucination in the minds of the people involved and the music was completely integrated with the storytelling of the film. And the more time passed, then the more people realized that and those bands started to become more famous.

Mason: Iain’s love of music fueled everything, but it didn’t end there. I went to meet Iain in New York and I guess I got lucky because there was a newspaper on the seat next to me on the train ride there, and there was a story about some Nigerian hackers pulling scams. So, I think I actually had something intelligent to say while I was there. It was serendipitous. But Iain cast it perfectly. He knew exactly who we were or at least who we could be and he put those colors or those flavors together. Training-wise, we had some hackers help us at least make it look like we knew how to type and we had a New York Rangers professional hockey player teach us how to skate. None of us, aside from maybe Matthew Lillard, could skate at all.

Santiago: Iain also gave us copies of the book Neuromancer and talked about the outlandish costuming and sense of genre in the film Brazil. He would talk a lot about music and the effect of music on culture. To him, Hackers was like "finding the new rock and roll," which I think really correlates to the soundtrack.

Softley: There was that searching for new frontiers, a mix of music and technology. The idea for the film was that it was like they were in a band, so we actually put guitar straps on their laptops.

The film is a technological trip in many ways, like a hallucination, a fantasy world of data and technology. The costumes reflected that and I wanted music that evoked that sense of being transported. It's very dreamlike in many ways, as well as an amazing driving dance that takes over your whole body. That combination has been consistent with house music over the years. You have these bass beats that vibrate through your body, but then laid on top of that is this almost orchestral, hymn-like, mercurial, mysterious nature. Even the older people that were involved in the early days of the internet had been the hippies in San Francisco. I also went with the designer and the costume designer to [London nightclub] Ministry of Sound.

Burton: At the time, the internet was relatively new and unknown to most people, and I became interested in it through Wired magazine, as well as the growing electronic music scene and club fashion particularly in London and N.Y.C. I envisaged this exciting underground movement of hackers who lived by their own rules and dressed in an eclectic array of styles that were drawn from many different subcultures and zine and pop culture references, but were somehow timeless. 

Santiago: They wanted to go far-fetched with the costumes, but now even the stuff we wore looks a lot more normal. For instance, the leopard suit I wore! Guys hardly ever wore that. You might've seen leopard on Rod Stewart or maybe Mick Jagger. But there were some people that dressed that way and still do, so we were celebrating that. The whole cast went out to the club together, and then another time we went to a Pink Floyd concert. David Gilmour was involved in the soundtrack and he did such a beautiful job. Even Marc Anthony came along to the concert. We sat in the V.I.P. section and went to a party afterwards.

"I'm Gonna Get Myself Connected"

Boswell: For almost 10 years before Hackers, I’d been doing electronic scores more in the vein of Tangerine Dream. Iain and I both realized that my film music was converging on this new kind of club scene or rave scene in the U.K. And when he asked me to do Hackers, he was going out to clubs and really quickly picking up on the EDM music scene. Iain was playing me all of this stuff by the Prodigy, Orbital, Underworld, all of this quite aggressive but moody EDM music.

Alex Paterson, The Orb: I looked at the soundtrack, and it was a bunch of mates of mine from the clubbing days back in London. We never really got picked up to do film scores. We’ve never been able to be pigeonholed, and that’s the fun of the game for me.

Kruder, Kruder & Dorfmeister: We heard about the film’s story and it sounded like a pretty good idea. We prefer things that are a little off and this idea was a little bit off because it was probably the first movie that put nerds on a higher level and celebrated being a nerd.

Jesse Bradford, Actor, Joey: I don't tend to rewatch movies that I'm in, but I avidly listened to the Hackers soundtrack from 15 to 17 years old. Growing up in semi-suburban Connecticut, it was a great compilation of the emergence of a new style of music, early electronic or whatever a devotee would choose to call it. At the time I remember listening to the Prodigy and it made me feel, amongst my peers, like I caught wind of something a little early, something inspiring.

Birch, Stereo MC’s: When we were asked if we'd be up for putting the song on the soundtrack, we had a vague idea of what the movie was about. At that point, I didn't have a computer and I didn't really know much about the internet. I thought hacking was something the government and the police did. Let's face it, they were all doing it as much as anyone else was—and they still are. We used to have our recording studio in the living room. Nick [Hallam] would be watching TV with his girlfriend and I'd have the headphones on, putting beats together. We just couldn't get an idea for the verses and all of that. There were those race riots in America, when Rodney King had been brutalized by police officers, and we finished it at the same time as that. That was in the atmosphere when we made that record. It was a very unsettled social climate.

Boswell: No one knew what hackers were really, but subsequently so many people have come up to me, saying, "Oh, Hackers was my favorite movie. I grew up with that film!" And many of them are nerdy programmers who told me they liked that my music was quite psychedelic because they used to take acid and do programming. When we go inside the computer in the film, I was using backwards guitars, strange psychedelic electronic music. I got to use my favorite sounds I've loved ever since the '60s, which is the Mellotron sound in "Strawberry Fields Forever." I had to tie these different acts together and give the movie some emotional heart. My job was to make you care about these kids. Film music is the consciousness of a movie. That gives it a resonance, a depth. My job was also to make some of the drama and the darkness of the bad guys in it. Most of the soundtrack with those bands is kind of what you imagined the kids were listening to. My job was to be the stuff they weren't listening to, but more like what they were feeling. There are really cheesy moments in Hackers, which is probably why people like it as well [Laughs], but it was incredibly prescient in its vision of the future.

Hartnoll, Orbital: Hackers came along at the same time as we got asked to do a piece of music for the very first PlayStation system for a game called Wipeout, which they'd feature in the film. [Angelina Jolie and Johnny Lee Miller] play a kind of souped up, fictitious version of it. Hackers was one of the early adopters, a film that wasn't afraid to use dance music in the score. Up until that point we complained that even though dance music was sweeping the world, film music was really old-fashioned. I created "Halcyon" after a big Saturday night out. On Sunday I was sitting around drinking and smoking with friends around my house, where my little studio was. I just said to someone, "I'm going to have a go at making a pop song." It was all done on a 909 drum machine, an R-8 drum machine, a Korg Wavestation, the Yamaha DX100 for the bass line, and an Emax 2 sampler. I sampled Kirsty Hawkshaw from the beginning of "It’s A Fine Day" by Opus III, because she was a friend of mine and we'd always said we'd do a track together. And then my friend Paul Isaac said, "Why don't you turn that voice backwards?" and we both said, "Oh, that's really good. That's good."

"Halcyon" is quite seductive in a friendly and all-encompassing way. It’s one of those instrumental, abstract tracks that really affects people, especially with its slow, ambient lovely beginning. Hackers starts off with a sad moment, but then it comes in with the beat and you think, "Yeah, maybe there's some hope here."

Kruder, Kruder & Dorfmeister: All our tracks took pretty long to do, in general, because it was rather difficult to get the songs the way we wanted them. That whole way of working was difficult. Now I can make a beat in five minutes, but back then you had to set the record, cut it up, and loop it, and each step took a million years. And then you went through the whole process, and sometimes you found out that it didn't really work and you had to scrap it and start again. But we really enjoyed it. It was a challenge to conquer the instruments that we used and to make things sound proper and professional.

Mason: One thing that I thought worked really well was the last cut, by Squeeze, with Johnny and Angie in the pool. It's such a special moment, and a departure from the rest of the soundtrack. Obviously those two were deeply in love at that point. Who knows how much acting was involved. It's just very sweet. It's these two outsiders that found each other. These weren't the mainstream kids, the in-crowd. It's hard being a young person, but if you can find your tribe, you can have a good life and you look at things a little differently.

Softley: We did a limited soundtrack to accompany the U.K. release, which was about six months after the U.S. release. Those acts already had a following in the U.K. so that made a lot of sense. But for some reason we weren't able to get the rights for the tracks that Guy Pratt did with David Gilmour. We're thrilled that that's now on the re-release for Record Store Day. And also for the first time we will have an album that's released on double-vinyl, and it has great art that accompanies it.

GRAMMYs

Angelina Jolie (left) and Jonny Lee Miller (right)
Photo courtesy of IMDB / MGM

Every Generation Has Its Tribe

Mason: It is a movie, at its very essence, about youth. Each generation that sees it, it speaks to them. It just taps right into that spirit. All I can do is smile. I just feel very lucky I got to be a part of it. People constantly ask me, "When is number two coming out?" And I say, "Ask Angie." [Laughs.] Cause we're all still here, thank god. I mean, they should hurry up! It's still very relevant and a sequel would do really well.

Softley: I attended this technology and techno festival that was full of people that are high up in these multimillion-pound companies, and many of them said they were hugely influenced by Hackers or they associated with it. It felt like somebody was understanding who they were. And they turned up at the festival dressed like Acid Burn, with piercings and tattoos and crop tops and spiky hair.

Burton: Like Rebel Without a Cause, it deals with teenage angst that kids of that age can still really relate to—in fact so much so that even 25 years on I still receive regular emails and fan mail about it.

Boswell: The film [gained a cult following] because it didn't conform. That's probably why it wasn't successful at the time as well. It was such a brave new world. A lot of people just didn't get it. It wasn't familiar to them. They thought, "Who the f**k are these kids? What are they doing?" They weren't a subculture that most people were familiar with. The story does work on a thriller level. The thing about Hackers was it was quite brash and fresh, a history lesson.

Bradford: The fact that it’s held up so long says a lot about the vision of the people that wrote it and conceived it, from director to soundtrack to costumes. In other words, maybe Hackers showed up at the right time, sort of like the Sex Pistols relative to punk music, to help define what that look was going to be. If you get in early enough, you help define something.

Birch, Stereo MC's: Although some electronic music has been absorbed into the corporate mainstream, the vast majority of good electronic music is still being made outside of the corporate mainstream. Most of the musicians and artists, even quite well known ones, still release on underground labels. People that are making electronic music still exist on the boundaries. They're still outsiders, even if a lot of people want to hear them. Most people that are involved in dance music, the whole vibe of it is very much one of consciousness. We're still outsiders.

Mason: Every generation has their tribe. And for the ‘90s, because the technology was really starting to kick off, there were some people ahead of the curve—and those are usually the leaders, whether it's music or fashion. All young people are about freedom and rebellion, and the added thing is the hackers were also about freedom of information, and that might've been a new element to a very common generational thing. We want to be free. We want to rebel against the powers that be, and you actually can't do that without information. I look at today and I'm so proud of these young people protesting. It just reminds me that there's always something to rage against.

How 1995 Became The Year Dance Music Albums Came Of Age

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The Chemical Brothers perform live in 1995

The Chemical Brothers perform live in 1995

Photo: Mick Hutson/Redferns

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How 1995 Changed Dance Music's Album Game 1995-dance-music-albums-electronic-edm

How 1995 Became The Year Dance Music Albums Came Of Age

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In the mid-'90s, then-scrappy acts like The Chemical Brothers, Leftfield, Goldie and Aphex Twin released landmark albums, upending misconceptions about electronic music and setting the standard for a new dance generation
Jack Tregoning
GRAMMYs
Jul 19, 2020 - 7:00 am

Back in 1995, years before the rise of Coachella, Lollapalooza was the U.S. festival to beat. Founded in 1991 by Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell, the multi-city roadshow quickly became a peak summer institution. 

Lollapalooza's 1995 lineup featured alt-rock royalty like Sonic Youth, Pavement and The Jesus Lizard alongside artists as diverse as Beck, Cypress Hill, Sinead O'Connor and Hole. For all its genre-hopping, though, the festival largely missed one sound close to its founder's heart: electronic music. Even Moby, the former punk and sole raver on the bill, turned up with a guitar and his best rock snarl. 

Across the Atlantic, iconic U.K. festival Glastonbury took an alternative view on 1995: In its universe, electronic music was on the ascent. For the first time in Glastonbury's then-25-year history, the festival introduced a Dance Tent, which featured trip-hop collective Massive Attack alongside homegrown DJs Carl Cox, Spooky and Darren Emerson. 

Elsewhere, from the main stage to the Jazz World stage, Glastonbury lined up the best and brightest of U.K.-made electronic music: The Prodigy, Portishead, Tricky, Goldie and Orbital among them. That June weekend, a musical movement coalesced on a farm in the English countryside. 

One year prior, The Prodigy's Music For The Jilted Generation lit the fuse on the momentum to come. Released in July 1994, the album was an immediate outlier in a golden age of alternative rock. Soundgarden, Green Day, Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails loomed large Stateside, while in the U.K., Blur's Parklife and Oasis' Definitely Maybe battled for Britpop supremacy. Liam Howlett, The Prodigy's beatmaker-in-chief, came from a different world. Music For The Jilted Generation cut the grit and aggression of punk rock with the ecstatic highs of raving, producing indelible anthems like "Their Law" and "No Good (Start The Dance)." The album topped the charts in the U.K., but it failed to break through in the U.S. 

By the next year, a varied cast of then-newcomers was ready to make its mark. Not all fit The Prodigy's fast and furious mold. The crop of albums released in 1995, including several remarkable debuts, showcased the many moods, textures and possibilities in electronic music. The year brought legitimacy and studio polish to the format, while also sparking an era of intense, analog-heavy live shows. 

Released in January 1995, Leftfield's Leftism reached for a more transcendent plane than the rave anthems of the day. "At the time, a lot of people thought dance music was this fake thing," Neil Barnes, one half of the duo, alongside Paul Daley, told The Guardian in 2017. "[Leftism] came out in the middle of Britpop, which we didn't really understand." 

Leftfield called on surprising voices, including Toni Halliday of alt-rock group Curve and The Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon, to challenge the demarcation of dance music. While the album was nominally "progressive house," its songs channeled the thrum of London through dub, reggae and pop hooks. Over two decades later, Leftism remains thrillingly true to its time and place.

Across the country from Liam Howlett's Essex studio, Bristol natives Massive Attack had their own designs on the jilted generation. Where The Prodigy raged, Massive Attack seethed. Like Leftfield's Leftism, Massive Attack's Blue Lines (1991) and Protection (1994) drew on dub, reggae and soul, arriving not at house music, but at the slow creep of Bristol's signature trip-hop sound. Protection collaborator Tricky broke through in 1995 with his own trip-hop masterpiece, Maxinquaye; its opener, "Overcome," is an alternative version of Protection cut "Karmacoma." Björk, a then-recent '90s transplant to the U.K. from Iceland, also called on Bristol connections for her startling second album, Post (1995).

Read: 'Post' at 25: How Björk Brought Her Ageless Sophomore Album To Life

Meanwhile, in London, motor-mouthed DJ/producer Goldie emerged from the basement clubs with a fully realized debut album. Released in July 1995, Timeless exemplified the drum & bass genre in LP form, stretching from deep and sonorous atmospherics to heads-down jungle roll-outs. Audacious to a fault, Goldie packaged his star-making single, "Inner City Life," inside a 21-minute opening track. (The opener on his next album, 1998's Saturnz Return, runs an hour long.) Grounded by vocals throughout from the late Diane Charlemagne, Timeless brought widescreen validation to an underground culture. Recognized as a key moment in dance music history by The Guardian, the album became a surprise Top 10 hit in the U.K. "Timeless was a f*cking good blueprint," the producer told Computer Music in 2017. "There were ten years of my life in that album." 

The mid-'90s also introduced one of the dominant dance headliners of the next 25 years, sharing a tier with The Prodigy and two French upstarts called Daft Punk—that is, if Daft Punk played the festival game. 

After a couple of releases as The Dust Brothers, including the propulsive steamrollers "Chemical Beats" and "Song To The Siren," Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons became The Chemical Brothers with 1995's Exit Planet Dust. (The Dust Brothers name already belonged to a songwriting/production team out of Los Angeles.) 

Exit Planet Dust contains none of the reticence you might expect from a debut album. Right from the sleazy chug of opener "Leave Home," it's a dance record with classic rock heft. Even the hippieish cover art, lifted from a 1970s fashion shoot, references a world beyond the rave. (A favorite of early fans, Exit Planet Dust set the stage for the true breakout of 1997's Dig Your Own Hole, which featured the group's career-defining single, "Block Rockin' Beats.")

Crucially, "Chemical Beats" and "Song To The Siren" put The Chemical Brothers on lineups alongside fellow gear geeks Underworld, Leftfield and Orbital. Each act brought a version of their studio hardware to the stage, working the synthesizers, drum machines and mixing consoles under the cover of darkness.

This period of live innovation dovetailed with the superstar DJ phenomenon, ushered in by landmark mix albums like Sasha & Digweed's Northern Exposure (1996) and Paul Oakenfold's Tranceport (1998). A new rank of DJs, predominantly British and male, commanded skyrocketing fees, foreshadowing the excesses of America's own EDM boom more than a decade later. In the run-up to the 2000s, DJs and live acts struck a sometimes-uneven alliance. Fast-forward to Miami's dance massive Ultra Music Festival in the 2010s: DJs represented the main stage status quo, with live acts neatly billed in their own amphitheater.

In the pre-Facebook days of the mid-'90s, dance stars turned to magazines to vent or cause mischief. Aphex Twin, who released his bracing third album, …I Care Because You Do, in 1995, enjoyed derailing interviewers with fanciful responses. Goldie took the opposite approach, talking on and on without a filter. Ed Simons of The Chemical Brothers, on the other hand, got right to the point. 

"I'm amazed at the low expectations which have always been centered on dance music," Simons told Muzik Magazine in 1995. In the same interview, he rankled at the critique that his music lacks soul: "Not everyone wants to be like Portishead, making music for people to put on when they have little dinner parties." (Later, in a 1997 Paper profile, Björk mocked America's adoption of The Chemical Brothers as electronic saviors: "The Chemical Brothers are hard rock!")

In the U.S., the top-selling album of 1995 was Hootie & The Blowfish's Cracked Rear View, ahead of the likes of Mariah Carey's Daydream, 2Pac's Me Against The World and The Lion King soundtrack. 

Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill went on to win big at the 1996 GRAMMYs, picking up the Album Of The Year award. For now, dance acts were left watching the party from the kids' table. (The GRAMMYS would later introduce the Best Dance Recording category in 1998.)

By 1997, dance music's outsider reputation was starting to shift, thanks in large part to the streak of groundbreaking albums two years prior. The Prodigy, previously overlooked in the U.S., sparked a label bidding war for its third album, The Fat Of The Land; Madonna's boutique imprint, Maverick Records, won out. Propelled by a polished big beat sound and the introduction of livewire hype man Keith Flint, The Fat Of The Land went to No. 1 in the States. That year, the floodgates opened, delivering Daft Punk's Homework, The Chemical Brothers' Dig Your Own Hole and Aphex Twin's still-creepy Come To Daddy EP. 

Lollapalooza's 1997 lineup, in turn, looked a lot different from its 1995 run. This time, founder Perry Farrell brought electronic music to the fore. The change-up had mixed results: Attendance overall was down, The Prodigy protested the venue choices, Orbital and fellow U.K. beatmakers The Orb had to follow Tool, and Tricky felt askew sharing a main stage with Korn. But Lollapalooza's gamble signaled changing times. 

Coachella debuted in 1999 with The Chemical Brothers, Underworld and Moby among the headliners. Like Glastonbury before it, the new desert festival even had a dedicated dance tent: the Sahara stage. At last, the underdog genre of 1995 had stepped into the light.

How Will Coronavirus Shift Electronic Music? Maceo Plex, Paul Van Dyk, Luttrell, Mikey Lion & DJ Manager Max Leader Weigh In

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SABA

Photo: Barry Brecheisen/WireImage

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Saba Talks Independent Artist Strategy in Chicago how-break-through-turning-digital-streams-rivers-revenue

How to Break Through: Turning Digital Streams into Rivers of Revenue

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Chicago rapper Saba teamed up with the Recording Academy Chicago Chapter for an in-depth look at how independent artists can maximize their impact and income - here's what they found...
Lior Phillips
GRAMMYs
Aug 9, 2019 - 7:41 am

While the ascension of streaming transformed the music consumption landscape, artists didn’t immediately have the means to adapt to that change. The debate throughout the industry over best payment practices continues; each technological advance necessitates new strategies for financial success for independent artists. Chicago rapper Saba (also known as Tahj Malik Chandler) is a success story in that resolution, carving a path to viability in the streaming present. 

Saba sat down with the Recording Academy Chicago Chapter for an event called “How to Break Through: Turning Digital Streams into Rivers of Revenue” to discuss how independent artists across can do the same. Held at the Virgin Hotel on July 29, the event also featured Saba’s manager Cristela Rodriguez and was moderated by VSOP owner and head engineer Matt Hennessey.

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Matt Hennessey, SABA and Cristela Rodriguez
Photo: Barry Brecheisen/WireImage

While a couple of mixtapes and guest spots on tracks like Chance the Rapper’s “Angels” cemented Saba as a rising star in the city’s vibrant hip-hop scene, his 2016 debut Bucket List Project showed a more auteurist view. The West Side native paired that careful consideration with a clear statement of activism last year; 2018’s Care For Me was dedicated to John Walt, a fellow member of the Pivot Gang and Saba’s cousin, who was fatally stabbed in 2017. In addition, he helped establish the John Walt Foundation to foster the arts for Chicago youth. 

With that duality of local connection and global intentions in mind, here are four key takeaways from the passionate, fascinating discussion. 

Invest In The Future You Invent

As may be evident from his involvement in the John Walt Foundation, Saba’s a big believer in the power of music education. He had access to the creative minds at a young age and has since driven a successful career of his own, so it’s hard to argue with the importance of creating that connection early. “My father is an R&B artist, my uncle made beats, and my grandfather was a funk musician,” he explained. “I went into the studio with my dad early on, and that was inspiring.” 

Gear and technology can be essential to building a foundation that can lead to success. However, the disparity in resources between high- and low-income communities is severe enough when it comes to traditional education, let alone music. “Adults steer kids away from equipment because that stuff is expensive, but I touched stuff I had no business touching, and now here we are,” Saba said. “Once we had the access, things got serious.”

Buld From Inspiring Friendships And Family 

Chemistry and mutual respect are essential for a successful working relationship. And while the corporate world hires HR managers to produce that environment, the music industry demands more flexibility to build your own team from the ground up. That’s certainly the case when it comes to Pivot Gang; the group was founded in 2012 by Saba, his brother Joseph Chilliams, their cousin John Walt, and their close friend MFnMelo. 

WHO WANT A PIVOT TOUR??? pic.twitter.com/2CsUz3gq08

— SABA (@sabaPIVOT) August 6, 2019

They learned quickly that one of the keys to working with family and friends is that they’ll call you out. “If Joe didn’t like the music we were making, he’d just say, ‘That sh*t is whack!’” Saba laughed. “You need to keep those people around you.”

Young Chicago Authors became another kind of family for Saba—and many other prominent Chicago rappers. At about 16 years old, fellow Pivot Gang member Frsh Waters convinced Saba to get out of his shell and start making more connections. “It’s hard to be a rap star and be shy,” he said. “I don’t share this often, but I learned I needed to have a plan: How can I insert myself and offer what I had?”

Frsh ensured he’d be able to showcase his skills. Saba became friends with people who inspired him: “Noname is the greatest rapper in the world,” Saba noted. “She’s such a rare unicorn of a person.” 

By being able to offer his access to music equipment to others, Saba was able to build a deeper network. He began recording Noname and Vic Mensa, and making connections with Chance the Rapper and Mick Jenkins. “All these people knew that I rapped, and I knew that they needed a place to record,” he said. “This was my way of investing in my art and the art of others early on.”

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Photo: Barry Brecheisen/WireImage

Find Your Finesse Locally And Expand 

“I was king of finesse. If I wanted something to happen I just figured it out,” he says. While he attended college, Saba earned coverage on more and larger sites, booked more gigs, and generally spread word of mouth. At the same time, he admittedly wasn’t always able to see the forest for the trees. But after an out-of-the-blue text from Chance the Rapper, Saba found himself guesting on Acid Rap highlight “Everybody’s Something”. While his own mixtape had been good for getting over locally, this was the start of a new level. “I knew I needed to get some followers before ComfortZone came out,” he said. “I searched ‘SABA’ every day on Twitter and favorited everything anyone said. I was king of finesse.”

Trust The Experts But Rely On Your Foundation 

Though an independent artist may need to be a jack of all trades, finding a master in a specific area makes a real difference. In fact, relinquishing control to professionals and experts can allow you to focus on your own strengths. After keeping it in-house on his first recordings, Saba brought in Papi Beatz to mix and master ComfortZone. Next came management and PR. “That experience was a test run and it took convincing to give up some control,” Saba said. “You need people to collaboratively make decisions with.” 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO A CLASSIC. COMFORTZONE TURNED 5 TODAY. WOW. pic.twitter.com/AVFVy66kFU

— SABA (@sabaPIVOT) July 16, 2019

Saba met his current manager, Cristela Rodriguez, when she was working at a venue in Oakland. At the time, tour shows might be sparsely attended—the Oakland show particularly so. “There were seven people in the crowd at one of the shows because I had seven roommates,” Rodriguez laughed. But once she officially joined the team, Saba immediately felt Rodriguez’s influence. “Cristela took care of us and made sure everything was straight,” he said. “Work with someone who knows what they are doing.” 

While younger artists may look for a manager with name recognition and apparent clout, Rodriguez argues the importance of building a foundation from the ground up. “That is key: start small,” Saba concurred. “When you’re in the trenches with someone at your lowest point, you form a bond. Struggling together is a big part of growth.”

Another bit of important expertise came when Saba’s PR representative, Rory Webb, insisted that he diversify the way his fans could reach the music. “I wanted to stick to Soundcloud, and had to be convinced to use Apple and Spotify—I was worried spreading out would make follower counts look lower,” Saba explained. “But in the end I trusted Rory.” When Saba dropped his debut album, 2016’s Bucket List Project, the reception was notably different. “I had banners and playlist placements. It looked like I was official and signed to a big label,” he said.

How Queer Rappers Are Defining The Next Generation Of Chicago Hip-Hop

Life on Planets

Life On Planets

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Life On Planets On Astrology, Inclusivity & More life-planets-talks-astrology-inclusivity-dancefloor-why-we-have-be-martin-luther-king

Life On Planets Talks Astrology, Inclusivity On The Dancefloor & Why We Have To Be Like Martin Luther King Jr.

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I've always felt comfortable [speaking] on the mic and [raising] people up and [building] that energy and [trying] to transmute it into something that can go beyond just that moment," the singer said
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Jan 18, 2021 - 6:02 am

Baltimore-bred singer, guitarist and producer Phill Celeste, a.k.a. Life on Planets, is an Aries—the fire sign represented by the ram. Aries is known for taking charge and getting things done, and that's exactly his MO. "I'm always trying to keep it flowing, keep going, keep pushing ahead. I guess that's gotten us here," he told GRAMMY.com from Miami, where he is living for the next few months with his girlfriend.

Celeste's music—a sweet blend of house, funk, R&B, and soul, bolstered by his rich, deep vocals—embodies movement. His catalog easily shifts between sunny daytime vibes and sweaty dancefloors. Yet, his joyful music is made not just with the intention of getting people grooving, but—in the vein of soul greats like Al Green, Isaac Hayes and Marvin Gaye—with thought and feeling in his lyrics that celebrate love, friendship and the possibility of a brighter future.

"Everybody always comes together to unite under the music. So, I feel like [the dancefloor's] always been a powerful place to spread messages," he said. "I've always felt comfortable [speaking] on the mic and [raising] people up and [building] that energy and [trying] to transmute it into something that can go beyond just that moment." 

The inspiring artist recently spoke to GRAMMY.com about his love of astrology and using music as a catalyst for social change. He also talks the inspiration and creative journey behind his latest single "Grateful," how he covered Afro disco classic "Only You," and more.

I really want to know where the name Life on Planets came from.

Back when I first started this project, I was working for a producer who goes by Discoogie. I guess he doesn't make music anymore, but I was busking and making these house tracks with him. I would ask him, "What's your astrology? When were you born? What's your moon sign?" All that stuff and eventually he was like, "Yo, we should call this project Life on Planets because you're so into astrology."

He would always give people names and I was like, "All right, I'll take it. Life on Planets." I guess people think it's all about aliens and space, and it is. That's half of it, but I'm really into astrology, and I like to think of ideas and places and things as planets that we orbit around.

What sign are you and how do you feel it affects your art?

I'm an Aries. I am very, how do I say? I want to say the good things because when you say Aries, people are always [look sideways at you], like, "Ohhh. Okay." And I'm a Leo moon and Leo ascendant. They say these placements can lead to performer, exhibitionist, outgoing personalities.

I feel like, as the [Aires] ram, an embodiment of this energy of pushing through things and moving forward. I tend to be very, "How can I get this done as fast as possible, as easy as possible?" Whether it's working on an idea and bringing a collaborator in, I'm always trying to keep it flowing, keep going, keep pushing ahead. I guess that's gotten us here.

Read: Justin Michael Williams Talks "I Am Enough," Teaching Kids Meditation & Pivoting Towards His Truth

This would be cool if it was an interview just about astrology, but we should also talk about music. You have a few tracks coming out on Studio 54 Records and I would love if you could take us through the creative process and the inspiration for one of them: "Grateful."

 "Grateful" I wrote when I was living in New York. To give some background, I moved to New York from Baltimore in August 2019 and was trying to figure things out and get into the scene there, start meeting people. I wrote "Grateful" shortly after I went to a show at Elsewhere [in Brooklyn] and the big headliner was The Knocks. We were walking around and hanging out and getting squished. I was just feeling really ugh [about the packed crowd] and then The Knocks started playing all this throwback stuff, like Foster the People and MGMT. It was super high school. I was like, "Oh snap," and everybody was blissed out. I was thinking, "Ah, man. I want to make something that can give that old school vibe."

I used to listen to Daft Punk and MGMT and all this cool electronic pop and I was like, "Give me some of that vibe." Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I started recording "Grateful" and trying to do some more weird effected stuff and some electronic pop-influenced stuff. The lyrics are about my girlfriend. Over the course of our relationship, I would always think, "What if that one moment never happened? Would things still have turned out the same if I hadn't offered to help her with her bags? Would we have still connected?" Because it just feels so important and this one moment led to this and then now my life is completely different.

The song is basically half about peering into the alternate dimension, looking at those moments as if I was Marty McFly or something, and the other half is appreciating how special the relationship is.

I love that backstory. I'm also curious about the technical side of the different beats and approaches you used to make "Grateful."

Sometimes I feel self-conscious about this influence, but I'm a big fan of Justin Timberlake and what he did with Timbaland and Pharrell. All of that stuff, you throw it on, I just start singing and dancing. I did a lot of vocal percussion on both this track and "Everyday." I was doing a lot of prrr chhh prrr, in the beginning, you can hear it, and then I threw that through a bunch of effects and delay and phasers and stuff to try to make it sound like this texture or this groove that you just can't always capture in a sample.

And then I've got my guitar going, just trying to hold down a little steady thing. It was always my idea to combine psychedelic guitar with house sounds and R&B influences for the vocals. For the guitar stuff, sometimes I like to run it through an effects chain where I almost make it sound like a synth. I did it on this one a little bit in the pre-chorus, where it slowly ramps up. And I'm trying to take a little bit of CHIC, Nile Rodgers, always a little bit of that chicken pickin' going throughout. 

So, there's that and then the drums. I feel like I always try to take a really soft kick. I love those hip-hop kicks that KAYTRANADA likes to throw around. On this track, I was trying to take a soft kick, but then boost it. There's some side-chaining going on, especially with the guitars so that that kick really stands out and punches. I took some trap drums and some 909s and 808s and layered them.

And there's that bass. That's also along that KAYTRA hip-hop, trap sound. I love to take 808s and put them into this dance music world. In the chorus, there's a really heavy piano sample that I found through Arturia, like the Mini V, and so I layered that and it just sounds like bam, baa, baaa. It's like "Alright, here we go!" When I wanted to take it to the next level with textures and the vibe, I went to Splice because everybody's on there. I was like, "Okay. Let me finally join the hive." I got some weird little loops. There was a clock ticking and I pitched it down and tucked it in.

\

One of the other songs I want to talk about is "Only You," one of your many 2020 releases. It's so dope how you flip the Steve Monite Afro disco classic. Can you talk about your approach to that track and, again, some of the different elements that you brought into it?

I was cleaning the house or something, and had Spotify radio going and I heard [Steve Monite's] "Only You" and I was like, "Holy f***. What record is this from? Who is this?" I started listening to that boogie and Lagos [compilation album the track is on] all the time. I started hearing it out. I would hear it at every afterparty, like Sunrise Vibes, and I was like, "Okay. This is so hot."

Then I got inspired by dvsn. I was watching the highlights from Coachella, and I was like, "Holy sh*t." [Daniel Daley] starts singing Usher, riffing, and then they go into this Usher song. I was like, "Oh, it is so cool. I need to do more covers. I need to do more singalongs." Usually, I play for an hour and it's all my stuff and it's fun, but people can't always sing along. 

I was like, "'Only You' will be perfect because ... everybody vibes with this song," and I hadn't heard a 1:00 a.m. version—not that you can only play my version then. But I wanted to have one for 1:00 a.m. at my set at the club because the original is more for sunrise or sunset. It's chilled out.

I was in Barcelona [for a show], trying to figure out what I wanted to do with this "Only You" thing because I had a couple hours and I didn't have my flash drive. I was like, "Alright. Let me just see what I can make with what I have here." I started throwing together some 808s and trying to make just some really cool little beats with that tap, tap, tap [rhythm in the original]. I was really trying everything in the box because I didn't even have my interface or a way to really record anything.

So, I arranged it all and then sung over it through my computer microphone and mimicked the guitar. Then I sent it to my homeboy Mateyo, who DJs for me when we play bigger shows, so I can be out front, jumping around. He also does sound engineering and mixing and mastering. I'm like, "Bro, what do you think of this? Can we work with it? Let's get in the studio and record this proper." 

I don't think we even really did anything to it from that initial session. He just mixed it really well and we came to the studio. I recorded my vocals and an actual guitar, but for the most part it stayed the same. That was before I had Splice, so on YouTube or Freesound.com I found a couple of [samples of] fire alarms, horses galloping and sprinklers. There are some sounds like that for the transitions at the beginning. And then of course, there's the worst alarm [sound], your alarm clock when you wake up. I was like "How can I take these elements and then make them percussive?"

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With a lot of the music that you put out this year, you've donated part of the proceeds to Black Lives Matter, ACLU and other organizations. How you see dance music and more generally being an artist as part of the catalyst for social change and racial justice?

Every time I go [to a house music party,] there are always so many different people from different backgrounds. You've got people like the OGs who have been in the scene watching it grow and do it for years and then you've got young kids, you've got DJs, you got dancers. It's like everybody always comes together to unite under the music. So, I feel like it's always been a powerful place to spread messages and somewhere that I've always felt comfortable [speaking] on the mic and [raising] people up and [building] that energy and [trying] to transmute it into something that can go beyond just that moment.

I feel like a lot of the DJs and producers I've worked with are super woke and always staying up on the issues and trying to make way and to work for change. I see plenty of other guys trying to make a stand and do what they can. This whole [donation] thing happened organically from a couple of conversations with Soul Clap. We started saying, "Yo, what can we do to still put this music out there, but to make it something, make it help?"

Since that conversation, [there's] just been more conversations with Kitsune where we're like, "We're donating X amount to Black Lives Matter. What can we do?" We picked Campaign Zero because that's a little more targeted with Kitsune ... I think we've always paid respects to those who have come before and the dance floor has always been a safer space—with P.L.U.R. [or, peace, love unity respect]—for trans folks and for gay people, for everybody just to come together and give it up to the ether.

Related: Jayda G Talks New EP, Promoting Diversity In Dance Music & Sharing Joy

What do you see as an essential part of bringing the dance music industry back to its inclusive and radical roots?

It's an interesting question because there's only so much I can do as an artist of color and people like me can do. I feel like it's really on the gatekeepers in every avenue to wake up, and it's my job to help them wake up and pass me the key. I was talking to Seth Troxler about this on this "Schmoozing and the Soul Clap" weekly talk show. We were saying it comes down to more promoters waking up and trying to add more artists of color, and of every background to their roster, to fill in the paint by numbers. It comes down to PR companies trying to get more press, writers wanting to write about and to get to know artists of color.

I think it's definitely on us to keep making our voices heard, to keep making art and to keep expressing ourselves, and to keep fighting for change, but I think the music scene, as we know, is dominated by white people that are just booking their friends or hooking up homies or whatever. And so, they have to turn around and say, "Oh, I need to make some new homies," and really try to do their part. Hopefully.

I mean, I've seen it happen. Our interaction here. Working with Infamous PR, they reached out to me and said, "Hey, we want to help and do our part and make more Black artists and more artists of color visible. That's what we've done for other artists." And so, they want to really take the time to support. A guy like me, that's just been making music and touring and trying to scrape by as an artist, doesn't necessarily have the funds to pay these crazy premiums for marketing. I've been fortunate enough to have all that come into my circle because more and more people are waking up to it. I hope it keeps happening. We'll keep waking up and we can all get to a level where things are a little more equal.

Related: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor And Elijah McClain Are Drifting From The National Discourse—These Musicians Remind Us To "Say Their Names"

In 2020, we experienced a much-needed reckoning with systemic racism in America and there's been a lot of really important conversations that have come out from it. How do you think we can keep the conversations and activism going, especially when things seem to get better, back to "normal," or how so often the cycles go?

I think we've seen it happen already. I don't hear anybody talking about Breonna Taylor. Obviously, life is going to return to some normal and we've all been cooped up, and people need to have their mimosas or their dance parties. I've been seeing all these crazy pictures of people going out here in Miami and they don't care at all, but I just think for those of us that haven't forgotten and that have to keep playing this game, I've had to keep posting stuff on social media and to just keep checking in, keep making sure that our message is there. I do think that there has to also be some sort of shift a little bit in the way we approach these things.

I was actually talking to some homies the other night. We just got really deep on all of this and I forget who said it, but you have to lead with love, right? And there are so many people that are just like, "Ah, I don't want to be a downer," or, "All lives matter," or, "You can't defund the police," and I feel we can't just isolate them. The more we let them be in their vacuum chamber, the more toxic that community is going to become. So, we have to be bigger. We have to be like Gandhi, like Martin Luther King, Jr. and not worry about the blows we might receive and approach the other side with love and try to educate them.

There's got to be a way to talk their language and get them to open their eyes and so, I think we need to almost study the psychology of the naysayer and try to meet them on their ground or something. Otherwise, there's going to be this division forever, and we need to come together in order to tackle these bigger problems.

I did phone banking with voters in Georgia and the organizers talk a lot about meeting people where they're at and how you don't have to have the same views as someone to be able to relate to them as a human. And it's not about proving them wrong, but offering a different perspective or offering some realness to the lies that they've been consuming.

It's not a sprint, right? It's a marathon and so, we don't have to immediately change or transform anybody in one conversation. That's impossible. You just have to keep having those little conversations and try to just make those little steps forward.

With music it's an easy way to capture someone. They hear that beat, they hear that bang, and then you slide in a little message. They might be affected on some level and take that message and take it to heart and impart that onto someone else. That's the hope at least.

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Record Store Recs: Estereomance Are All In Their Feels With Vinyl From El Paso, Los Angeles & Mexico City

Donny Hathaway

Donny Hathaway

Photo: Stephen Verona/Getty Images

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Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas" At 50 donny-hathaway-this-christmas-50-year-anniversary

How Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas" Became An Eternal Holiday Classic

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Donnita Hathaway, the daughter of the R&B and soul legend, tells GRAMMY.com why the iconic holiday song, which celebrated its 50-year anniversary last month, remains one of the all-time classics in that winter wonderland genre
Lior Phillips
GRAMMYs
Jan 13, 2021 - 9:07 pm

Christmas has always been a time of hope and potential, of love and joy. A time when family comes together and everything else stops so the world can focus on what really matters. And more than any other holiday, a song can evoke that feeling in a single moment. 

Nobody knows that quite as well as Donnita Hathaway, whose father, R&B and soul legend Donny Hathaway, released one of the all-time classics in that winter wonderland genre: "This Christmas," which celebrated its 50-year anniversary last month. "It's absolutely amazing to have 'This Christmas' celebrated every holiday season for the last 50 years," she tells GRAMMY.com. "It's humbling that this original song performed by my father and written by my godmother has that impact every year. And this year, in the midst of a pandemic, it's so special to feel the love from people saying that they're cueing up the song as a way to celebrate."

Born in Chicago in 1945, Donny Hathaway was initiated into the world of music at an early age. Reared by his grandmother, a gospel singer, in St. Louis, Hathaway joined the church choir at the age of 3; he later went on to study piano, eventually earning a scholarship to study music at Howard University. But after working on projects with legends including Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield and The Staple Singers, Hathaway left school to carve out his own voice and pursue a career in the music industry.

Only five months after his widely adored debut album, Everything Is Everything, Hathaway released "This Christmas" as a single in December 1970. Though it has touched hearts all around the world, the track particularly feels like it taps into the core of the Midwestern Christmases of Hathaway's childhood: the warmth of gathering with loved ones around a chimney fire, the twinkle of a special someone's eye underneath the mistletoe, the streetlights reflecting off the mounds of snow out the window. "Fireside is blazing bright/We're caroling through the night/And this Christmas will be a very special Christmas for me," Hathaway smiles as the horn section roars to life.

"This Christmas" was especially important for the distinct leap forward the song took for Christmas music released by a Black artist. "Up until then African American music wasn't represented in Christmas," percussionist Ric Powell told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2009. "There was Nat King Cole and Charles Brown's 'I'll Be Home For Christmas.' During the mid-1960s, James Brown was also cutting holiday tracks like 'Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto,' but they were more in the self-contained funky spirit of the Godfather of Soul than Christmas."

But "This Christmas" could extend beyond any box due to its unabashed sincerity and heart. "Donny was very upbeat during the session. He knew what he wanted to do musically and the impact he wanted to make with this song," Powell continues.

The song didn't necessarily take the world by storm on its initial release, but its appearance on the 1991 Soul Christmas compilation gave "This Christmas" the wider following it deserved. And while Hathaway's version of the song earned its place in the heart of the holidays, "This Christmas" has spread limitless cheer through countless covers. Takes on the track have spread across the decades, with everyone from Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, The Four Tops and Stevie Wonder through to *NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, Usher and Mary J. Blige releasing their own versions. 

"The top artists from so many different genres have covered the song, and it's so gratifying to see his musical peers honor his work," Donnita Hathaway says of her father's iconic song. "But the magic of Donny Hathaway will always make his version essential. There's the technical ability, but then there's the soul of a person that just pierces through and makes you smile, makes you want to be with that loved one. Every time I hear the song, it's almost like I can see him and feel the joy and contentment that are the essence of the holidays."

Lalah Hathaway On Father Donny Hathaway's Legacy

Within years of releasing "This Christmas," Hathaway's career grew to ever-increasing peaks. His 1972 duet album with Roberta Flack, Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, reached No. 3 on the U.S. charts and featured "Where Is The Love," which would go on to earn a GRAMMY for Best Pop Vocal Performance By A Duo, Group Or Chorus at the 15th GRAMMY Awards in 1973. Hathaway's ability to swirl soul, R&B, jazz and more into an undeniable blend—all while standing strong with his trenchant social commentary—made his ascent rapid and powerful. 

That combination earned Hathaway a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019, 40 years after his passing. "When I learned that he was earning that honor, I just jumped for joy," Donnita Hathaway says. "You can't get any higher than a Lifetime Achievement recognition from the Recording Academy. And then [in 2020], Roberta Flack was acknowledged as well, and to have both of them back to back has really been amazing and beautiful."

But even as Hathaway's profile grew in the '70s, he suffered from flares of depression and was eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. After stretches of relative success and struggle with his mental health, Hathaway was found dead outside his New York hotel in 1979, from an apparent suicide having fallen from his balcony.

While "This Christmas" is a massive element within Hathaway's expansive career, so, too, is his family's advocacy for mental health in music and art. In 2015, Donnita launched the Donnie Hathaway Legacy Project, which is devoted to honoring her father's legacy and shining a light on the importance of mental health through art, nutrition, self-care and mindfulness. "I didn't want his life to be in vain," she explained. "If I can help someone, help the mental anguish that someone may go through, then I've done my job. I lost my dad at 2, and I lost my mom at 19. I realized what happens when your heart breaks and you don't heal it. I wanted this to be a worldwide initiative that focuses on holistic tools like music, because music is a healing tool."

As many struggle with mental health over the holidays every year, "This Christmas" can be even more comforting. Donnita Hathaway's plan is to spin off a mental health initiative called Friends Christmas, which urges people to look out for loved ones, friends and even strangers over the holidays to make sure everyone has a "very special Christmas." 

"So many people have lost loved ones, lost jobs, can't be with their family members," she explains. "We need to talk about how we can make Christmas special for everyone. It helps that we can always look at 'This Christmas' as an inspiration, even throughout the year, to make sure everyone is feeling special. And it always comes back to my dad's music, while also acknowledging his life and the things that troubled him as a way to prevent that from happening to our loved ones and friends."

Lalah Hathaway On Mental Health Awareness: "You Can Never Look At A Person And See What They're Going Through"

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