Even after nearly 30 years in the entertainment business, Brian Tyler is still seeing his childhood dreams come true. He's scored reboots of Rambo, Rescue Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers and Power Rangers, and worked with heroes like Steven Spielberg and Danny Elfman.

This year, the award-winning composer added the 2023 reimagining of Super Mario Brothers to his extensive list of dream gigs. Like many kids growing up in the '80s and '90s, Nintendo was a fixture in Tyler's life, so when "Mario" creator Shigeru Miyamoto reached out to him about scoring the reboot, the decision was a no-brainer. 

A longtime admirer of legendary composer John Williams, Tyler decided to craft new themes imbued with what he calls "built-in nostalgia" (á la Williams' E.T. score) while paying homage to the trailblazing game. His strategy worked — the bombastic score has earned praise from critics and fans alike.  

Six weeks after The Super Mario Bros. Movie was released, Tyler had another big-time score hit theaters: Fast X. He has helped craft and evolve the sound of the blockbuster Fast & Furious franchise since 2006, and while he counts all of his Fast work among his proudest achievements,  Fast X is his favorite to date. 

Whether he's working on a theme for Rita Repulsa, Luigi or Dom Toretto, one thing can be certain: Tyler is giving it his all. "The only thing that gives me any anxiety about writing music is that I don't wanna let down anybody that created this thing that I love. I want to be associated with it. I want the movie to be great." 

In the midst of preparing for his next endeavor — an immersive live concert experience — GRAMMY.com caught up with the composer to chat about some of the most epic moments of his career. 

Passing Out Programs To His Musical Heroes At The GRAMMYs

At 12, I was a drummer on The NAMM Show, and I remember talking to a producer, either Elton John's or Metallica's, and telling them, "I want to go to the GRAMMYs. It's my dream." And they were like, "Okay, you're not really hired. But you can come, you can wear a little suit and hand out [the programs]." 

So I was there and they put me where the artists come in. I was meeting legends, one after another — Joe Satriani, Metallica, A Tribe Called Quest, Chuck D, Q-Tip. It was crazy. I was so stoked because I was looking up at these artists, like, "Wow, that's the impossible dream." 

The funny thing is, Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine — who I met at either NAMM or the GRAMMYs — now we're friends. Years later, we've reconnected and now, as Madsonik, I've recorded a song with him called "Divebomb."

Playing With Taylor Hawkins

I was in a band with Taylor Hawkins from the Foo Fighters when I was 13, and he was a little older. We were both drummers. I introduced him to hip-hop and Depeche Mode, and he played me Rush for the first time, which changed my life. He was such a fan and, of course, he became friends with them. I met Neil [Peart] and all that. But Taylor was a friend, and we recorded together here at my last studio. We did songs together through the years. 

I remember we played in these battle of the bands [competitions], and one of the bands — right before they hit it big — was No Doubt. We were the younger guys, [and] we loved playing super-complicated things. You know, you're like 13 and you want to run before you can walk. We would just shred.

Befriending Kobe Bryant

I met him at a John Williams concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Kobe is my favorite all-time sports figure. I started scoring the same year Kobe joined the Lakers, so we have this thing, right? 

I've known John Williams for years and years. He helped me out early on and has always been supportive. And I'm backstage, and then I look over and it's Kobe Bryant! I'm like, "Oh. My. God." And I'm standing there, and he's kinda looking over at me and I go over, and he's like, "You are? Oh yeah, yeah, I know who you are!" 

Turns out, he's a huge film score guy. His daughter too. He rehabbed his Achilles to the Ironman 3 score, amongst other things. He loved Hans [Zimmer] and John Williams. 

We ended up becoming friends. We would go to lunch and dinners and talk about how he was the heir apparent to Jordan. And how we're standing on the shoulders of giants. He saw John Williams, who is my Michael Jordan. And when he saw me conduct, he noticed that I copy this same really idiosyncratic move that John Williams does when he's conducting. I didn't even realize that I did it! And Kobe is like, "That's just like me. I didn't realize I stuck my tongue out when I would be in iso," which is a Jordan thing. 

When he was coming back right after rehabbing his Achilles, Nike wanted to do an ad campaign about how he's weathered the storm and he's coming back. So Kobe's like, "Do you wanna write my theme?" So I did. This is my favorite basketball player, and we became friends, and I didn't wanna let him down.

Composing For "Yellowstone"

With ["Yellowstone" co-creator] Taylor Sheridan, whether we're working on "1883" or "Yellowstone" he sends me the script and I start writing just based on an impression. I don't write to scenes; I usually write themes and suites. 

In a sense, the music has a true actual history to it before they even film. As opposed to, I get the film, I look at it, then dive into some random theme in the middle — and it might only be 30 seconds, and you can't develop the whole theme. 

What I want is to be almost like a writer — good screenwriters do this — for even a minor character, they'll write a whole background for themselves, and they [share it] with the actors. I want all those themes and everything to almost feel like they exist outside of time and before the story happened. So I'm already making references and kind of variations on a theme at the beginning of the movie. It's not the exact way the theme ends up being developed later in the movie. It's almost like doing it ahead of time, telegraphing what it might become and then it can develop.

I always find it very important to establish those things at the very beginning. The cool thing about Taylor Sheridan, he takes those themes and plays them on set, like through the speakers while they're doing the scenes. And whenever I meet the actors, like Sam Elliott and everyone on the show, they know my music. Even the costume designer and the director of photography.

Our lives are marked by music. You get married, you have your first dance — and the music as you walk down the aisle — and you go to work out or take a run. So it's really cool that Taylor recognized that and will imbue the performances with this kind of musical soul that I was already giving it before they even shot anything. 

Reimagining "Super Mario"

When I was growing up, I played "Mario Kart" and "Donkey Kong Arcade." I had my N64. And when I was a little kid, I would get [Electronic] Gaming magazine. I remember I had cutouts of stuff, and I remember articles about Koji Kondo and Shigeru Miyamoto — the guy that invented Mario. And then, here I am, just cruising along working and it's like, "Hey Brian, we want to set up a Zoom call with Shigeru Miyamoto." And I was like, "What?!" We talked about Mario.

I told them I wanted to pay tribute at times to the original themes from the game, but do new things that could flow into the scale of what a movie is, as opposed to a game. I wanted to pay homage, but at the same time, I want to write new themes — like the music John Williams did for E.T. — that feel like what I call "built-in nostalgia," where it's new themes, but you feel like it is Mario already. They loved that idea. 

I wrote this 12-minute suite before I started the movie, and played it for them. By the end of it, they're like, "This is also Mario. And we want these themes to be the new Mario themes, along with making a nod to me — a love letter to my experience as a kid playing the game. Like it became real, you know?

There was no ego from Nintendo at all. And the fact that they came to me, way on the other side of the world. Koji Kondo, the guy that wrote all the original Mario themes, he's showing me his DVD collection on Zoom to prove that he's a fan. It was so cool.

Adding To The "Fast & The Furious" Legacy

At the very beginning, the movie's conceit was, "Hey, what's up? I'll race you for pink slips. Sick." So I did more hip-hop. Let's say 80 percent was licensed songs and 20 percent was score. Then all of a sudden Fast and Furious Five comes along, and it starts becoming a little more serious. It's about heists and family, and it's epic.

As each movie kept going, the balance started switching. The score started becoming more prominent. We're always kind of pushing forward the envelope of what you can do with the idea of orchestra with beats, and sound, and groove, and all those things that are sonic ear candy. But at that point — and now it's evolved even more with each movie — the big change is I started writing leitmotifs [themes] for a character. 

Before we knew it, the sound of Fast and the Furious was utterly its own. If you look at a chart of how I did the score, it most closely resembles something like a Star Wars or a Lord of the Rings, where you have all of these different themes. It's like an old-school John Williams' score but it sounds modern. 

Now we have [Jason] Momoa, the coolest villain ever. And the new theme for him, I'm so happy with it. Typically, with a villain in a movie, people go low dirge-y, just bad-guy music. And here's the thing — Momoa's character, since this is told from his perspective, you have empathy for him, and you understand his origins and sympathize with why he became who he was. So I didn't wanna write, like, a bad guy theme. 

It's elegant. It starts in the strings, violins and the harp, but it kind of has this sneaky, sensual vibe that's very attractive. You almost admire the way he cuts you down and talks to you. And he's one of those villains that you have to admit to yourself that you like. So the theme is really elegant and kind of sophisticated, but you know something is f—ed up with this guy, in a beautiful way.

I feel that Fast X is our Empire Strikes Back. It's dark. It's intense. It's really amazing. And you have an introduction of a character that kind of takes over. He can walk in a room and suck all the air out of it, you know? So the theme had to be up to par, and a central idea — which is usually not the case in these types of films that are usually kind of relegated to commercial summer blockbusters. 

For me, the bar of difficulty is in a different universe than anything else, because people have associations and judge books by their covers. For me, it's always been the most interesting, challenging, pushing forward. And this is my favorite score of the series.

From 'Encanto' To "Euphoria" And "Grand Theft Auto V": Behind The Making Of A Great Soundtrack

When an interviewer once asked Miles Davis about the nature of a standard, the trumpeter exploded conventional notions of the word before his ears. "You don't have to do like Wynton Marsalis and play 'Stardust' and that s**t," Davis told NME in 1985. "Why can't [Michael Jackson's] 'Human Nature' be a standard? It fits. A standard fits like a thoroughbred."

 In 2021, why does the creative-music composer Anthony Braxton plumb the works of Simon and Garfunkel? Largely for the same reason, he says.

"My friends call me Anthony 'Simon and Garfunkel Boy' Braxton," he announces to GRAMMY.com over Zoom, sounding proud. "I have always loved their great music." On his new boxed set, Quartet (Standards) 2020, which arrives June 18, Braxton not only covers luminaries in the jazz sphere, like Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane and Dave Brubeck, but a handful of classics by the folk duo, like "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)."

"We tend to put people in compartments about what they like or don't like," he continues. "It was wonderful to play that music."

Braxton's two new extended releases don't fit into any compartment. The first, 12 Comp (Zim) 2017, is an 11-hour marathon on Blu-Ray, featuring ensembles ranging from a septet to a nonet. The second, Quartet (Standards) 2020, spans 13 discs. At 76, the composer remains preoccupied with deconstructing categories—not only of genres and forms but of race and politics.

When discussing standards, Braxton's mind shifts to his love of the American songbook in all its forms. From there, he sets his gaze on what—or who—seems to be tearing asunder American unity in 2021. Where many see the modern movement christened "anti-racism" as a wholesale positive, this giant of Black American music sees it as a new, insidious form of separatism.

"The new woke academia is like everything else we see in this period," he asserts. "An inversion where far more people can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy."

Read on for an in-depth conversation with Braxton about his progress on an unimaginably ambitious opera system, why Charlie Parker is his North Star and why he feels those who sow disunity between racial groups deserve contempt.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

How are you, Mr. Braxton?

I'm doing very well in the sense that I'm coming to the end of a project that has lasted for seven years. I think by the end of this week, I'll finally be finished with the opera Trillium L, which is a five-act opera—part of a system that, when completed, will be comprised of 36 acts that can go into many different orders. I'll talk to you about this more as we move along.

I look forward to hearing more about it!

Look, the way I see it—if you're going to be broke, you might as well do your best! From the beginning, it was always clear to me, when I was 15 or 16, that this is an area which will encompass everything I'm looking for. But it won't have anything to do with making money. I have since always tried to advise my students, as you evolve your music, to be sure to get a job or learn about some occupation where you can support yourself and your family.

Because if you're interested in the zone that I'm interested in, there is no way one can make a living from playing this kind of music. And in a strange kind of way, it protects the music. Because if you're interested in making money, it won't take you long to understand that this zone—the zone of creative music and creativity on the plane of creative music and creativity—is a triplane phenomenon. 

It's a subject that won't involve making a lot of money, and if it's money you want, go into the zones where you can make money. I would love to make money! But it just so happens that I made a decision a long time ago. [Voice cracks with emotion.] Hooray! And so I'm going in the direction of the decision I made as a young man when I found myself listening to Warne Marsh and Charlie Parker and I thought [awed silence] "What is this? What is this?" 

And so I'm blessed to still be alive and to be working toward whatever seems to be it, as it relates to the work that I've been doing for something like 60 years—maybe a little more or less. I'm very grateful that I would have the opportunity to be a professional student of music and that the Creator of the universe [voice cracks again] would allow me to outlive my father, my brothers, all except one. 

And here I am, moving toward 76 years of being on this planet. I can't believe it! That's what I would say.

That central question: "What is this?" when you heard Bird and his contemporaries. Have you spent your whole life chasing that question?

Yes, yes, yes. For me, I was somewhat different than my brothers in the sense that I wasn't what you would call a social guy. I didn't go to parties. I didn't like that. I was the kind of guy who either hung out at the train-freight yards of the great New York Central Railroad or the Great Pennsylvania Railroad along with Howard Freeman and Michael Carter. We would check freight schedules and talk to engineers. 

I wasn't what one could call a real hip guy, but I was fortunate to discover the kinds of things that would help me not just be alive, but want to be alive and to be grateful to have the opportunity to experience a spectrum of focuses. Life is really far out. I'm almost 76, and I must say, how miraculous it's been to have the opportunity to play music, meet people and learn about learning. The challenge of trying to learn about yourself.

As the Egyptian mystics would say, the concept of self-realization is the beginning of developing insight into yourself. Because that's one of the first challenges we all have to look at, which is ourselves, our lives, the experiences that we've had. To somehow bring this information together in a way where you can look at life and know how lucky you are to actually have an experience of consciousness. The wonder of manifestation. Life is really something.

Anthony Braxton in 1973. Photo: Ib Skovgaard/JP Jazz Archive/Getty Images

As far as I'm concerned, what we call being alive in this state is—I'll use the word "superior," but that's not really the right word. I'm thinking of the idea of heaven. The idea of hell. The idea of paradise. I'm saying, "Great, great, great." But for me, what I like is manifestation. A design from whatever perspective or non-perspective or vibration that a creator would declare manifestation in the first place.

So, it's like, "Wow, you know? This is really something!" And not only that, but the discipline we call music is intrinsically embedded in the concept of—I'll say actualization or manifestation, but what I'm really trying to say is that everything is music in various densities and intensities. From there, I would say, "Hooray for the Creator, who miraculously brought in manifestation with consciousness!" It doesn't get any better than that. I'll take it!

"Everything is music in various densities and intensities."

More: 'Bitches Brew' At 50: Why Miles Davis' Masterpiece Remains Impactful

Along the lines of Quartet (Standards) 2020, I'm interested in the role of the standard in creative music. I think of Miles Davis saying "A standard fits like a thoroughbred."

Before answering your question—[raises voice astonishedly] You've heard Standards 2020? Wow! Wow! That means it's really coming! It'll be out soon! OK, let me go to your question. 

For me, I'm just a country boy. [Voice cracks with emotion.] I'm a lucky guy to be born an American citizen. When I think about all the great music that's happening—especially the music that's come from Americans—again, I can only just bow to the Creator. Now, as far as I'm concerned, the work that I've dedicated my life to has never been opposed to the tradition. Rather, I see my work as an affirmation of the tradition. 

What I've tried to do every decade is a project from the American Songbook. From the repertoire of the great American people, we take everything for granted. But, actually, in America, we have so much. We have options on so many different levels. There are so many different kinds of musics. We are so lucky, but of course, not everyone is able to recognize how fortunate we are, because it's all around us all the time.

We're so used to abundance, we have somehow come to take things for granted. We have the creativity. We have the men and women who are dedicated. Our complexity, in my opinion, is not whether or not we have the goods.

It's more like, there is a separation between real America and what is being reported about our great country. More and more, there is an effort to teach our young people that America has not been an agent of something positive, but rather, America has been an agent of something that is negative.

I respect everyone's viewpoint, but I would say this. In my opinion, the United States of America is one of the greatest countries that has ever happened to humanity. I think the men and women of America are some of the best people on this planet. But every day, I look at the internet—I gave up television and the radio years ago—and I'm reading about a perspective that is outrageous.

I'm a guy from Albert Ayler. From Dave Brubeck. From Hildegard von Bingen. I live in all their worlds. I'd better go to work and try to come up with something because one of the traditions that exist is the tradition of restructuralism and innovation and exploration. This is not always understood anymore. Of course, young people aren't being exposed to it. The music is not presented on television. 

In fact, when I think about Sun Ra, I think he was on "Saturday Night Live." He had 10-minute sections; two of them were something where he was able to play. So, what am I talking about? I'm talking about a super-great visionary where, if the children could hear this person, they would have to come to a position on some intellectual, spiritual or vibrational level. But, no, we don't get that anymore.

Read: Sun Ra Arkestra's Knoel Scott On New Album 'Swirling,' Sun Ra's Legacy & Music As A Healing Force

Anthony Braxton with pianist Alexander Hawkins, bassist Neil Charles and drummer Stephen Davis. Photo: Edu Hawkins

How are young people growing up going to learn about Charles Ives? How are they going to learn about Dinah Washington and her great work with Quincy Jones? The new generation of educators don't seem to know that information either. So, we watch the ascension of the great nation of China while, at the same time, our country is sinking because many of our young people are not being taught about what and who we really are as Americans.

I'm happy to be coming to an end with Trillium L, which is a five-act opera from 10 to 12 hours. Now—starting, say, in July—I can move to the next Trillium, which will be about change and change-state logics. In my opinion, [that idea] has real relevance because it seems that we are going through a period that's profound. Either we will rescue America or we will find ourselves dealing with change and change-state logics on a tri-centric level.

My hope is that America can hold together. But if no one respects holding together and what that means—and what it means to have a unified country—my viewpoint is that the breakdown after a civil war will be either three countries or four countries in our place. 

America East, America South, America West—we might lose the West, but certainly Northwest—and there could be an insertion somewhere in Kansas, somewhere in the middle of the country. What am I describing? I'm describing the post-woke time parameter that's coming up. Unless change happens, we will have no way to avoid a cataclysmic experience. It's already starting to happen. 

People beating up strangers walking down the street. What the hell is that? People jumping on someone they've never met and beating them up or bullying them. What the hell is that? If you think it happens to "them," maybe you need to go back and study history. Because you are the "them."

There's always room for improvement, but I'm not interested in utopia. No heaven, no paradise. Give me America! There are good people, so-called bad people, people on the left, people on the right.

Do you believe that the modern movement to combat racism might be contributing to a greater split than ever between communities?

There are complex forces in the air that are very separate from what one would have thought. The majority of the American people have been moving forward on the issue of slavery from the beginning. The whole concept of free states and slave states demonstrated immediately that there was opposition to slavery. 

Not only that: The earliest genesis documentation of slavery was part of the menu that every ethnic group experienced. Blacks enslaving Blacks. Caucasians enslaving Caucasians. You name it, we enslaved it. In America, there's always been a movement to challenge those ideas. But you would not know that today!

What we have in this time period is the concept of critical race theory that is far out. I would say this: The American people have unified in such a beautiful way, in such a quick and short time period, when looking at the subject from, say, the last 3- or 4,000 years, that we have everything to be proud of. And yet, what has happened? I would say this: Certain sectors have been brought in to create separatism that didn't really exist in the same way that we are experiencing it now.

It's very fashionable to be racist against white Americans, especially white men. How far motherf**king out! But this could only have happened not only due to one or two deranged stuggy thug guys who decide they would be super-racist. You can always find individuals who are far out. What I'm saying is that someone made the decision to promote that vibration and put it in a different position.

For example, I could say [faux-screams] "Charlie Parker! Charlie Parker! Charlie Parker!" Would it be reported tonight or tomorrow? Who gives a f**k about a Black guy who likes Charlie Parker? If I would say, "Kill everybody, especially if they have a blue coat," then certainly, I'd be accepted. That's what I'm talking about! Someone is making the decision of who is going to succeed and who is not going to succeed.

What a time to be alive! If we lose America, [voice grows grave and slow] shame on us.

Anthony Braxton with bassist Neil Charles and drummer Stephen Davis. Photo: Edu Hawkins

There's some force that wants to keep us divided by racial lines.

I agree completely. In fact, there are several forces which are slicing and dicing our population. Someone is hated because they're from the South! Someone is hated because they're from the Midwest or something! We're being cut like some kind of chef who has all the knives and knows how to dice it up! They're separating us from one another, and they have been very successful.

But more and more, the American people will hopefully begin to look at this. We elected an African-American president and voted for this guy two times! Certainly, it looked as if things were coming together! And now we're at this place, and it's been solidified within 10 or 15 years. Even 15 years ago, it's been better than this! It's gotten really serious, and it's also become crazy.

In being crazy, we have flex-logic possibilities to start to challenge some of these ideas. How did white Americans get to be so evil? I don't [think that]! I think white Americans have been doing very well! Which is why I love white Americans! [livid voice] What the f**k is happening?

We're seeing young African-Americans say, "No, we want our dormitories to only be Black. We want to graduate in a different ceremony from non-African-Americans." Well, if that's the case, why did we waste 150 years of Reconstruction? 

We're running out of time if our hope is to keep America together and moving forward. This, to me, is frightening and depressing. This is the new intellectualism: Critical race theory. The 1619 Project started out with a fundamental error in the whole foundation, accusing America of being racist, when in fact, the spectrum of historians has already looked into most of these questions.

But the new woke academia is like everything else we see in this period: An inversion where far more people can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy. This has become a problem.

I don't agree with racial essentialism and the notion that anyone is poisoned forever by virtue of their birth, always the oppressor, always the conquistador.

I'm going to say this: That perspective, in my opinion, is evil.

We're running long, but thank you for the catharsis about the ills of 2021.

It's good to talk to someone like yourself about what is actually happening in America.

Virtuosos, Voyagers & Visionaries: 5 Artists Pushing Jazz Into The Future

It’s a fact: Asian people face discrimination in America. And as composer and multi-Instrumentalist Jen Shyu points out, it happens everywhere—including the conservatories and concert halls on the coasts.

The comments and microaggressions in those spaces come fast and hard. At an upstate artist's residency, she was called "an Asian Meredith Monk." The vocalist/composer is frequently mistaken for various musicians of Asian descent—and vice versa. One time, a composer approached her and complimented her bass playing—and Shyu replied that she wasn't Linda Oh. 

"He scurried away like a rat!" Shyu tells GRAMMY.com with a sharp laugh. "And I just wish I could remember his name!"

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Shyu takes these instances in stride and files them away in her memory bank. This is apparent on her new album, Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses, which came out on Pi Recordings on April 12. A harrowing-yet-beautiful grief journey, the album braids the shock of Shyu's father's death with memories of racism and sexism from throughout her life.

On tunes like "Lament for Breonna Taylor," "When I Have Power" and "Father Slipped Into Eternal Dream," personal and global sorrow pool into one. "I just think these themes are interlinked," she explains, in the context of a deadly pandemic and continuing police violence. "You kind of see how differently that manifests for people, depending on your privilege." But by examining both micro and macro grief through the same lens, Shyu sees both with more clarity—and by communing with Zero Grasses, listeners can too.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Jen Shyu over Zoom to discuss the traumatic experiences that informed Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses and how she continues to rise above daily challenges in her field.

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This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

This album is about grief in various forms. The pandemic and police killings add new dimensions to global sorrow.

I just think these themes are interlinked. You kind of see how differently that manifests for people, depending on your privilege. Now we're seeing it with Daunte Wright. It's frightening and can be paralyzing. You see no justice being served. It's hard to fight through that and carry on.

When my friend Joko [Raharjo and his family were] killed in a car crash, his mother and I were texting and she wrote, "I've cried all the tears." This is all in Indonesian. "I don't have any more tears left. But we still have an obligation in this life. Those of us who are still alive still have an obligation in this world." That has really stayed with me.

The word for "obligation" is wajib in Indonesian. So, indeed. That is the effort to carry on and inspire and comfort.

I can connect the dots as to how a family dying in a car wreck would compel you to express yourself in an unvarnished way. Loss makes it incumbent to tell people the things you always meant to tell them because they might not be around tomorrow.

Yeah, absolutely. It comes from life experience. I think this will always be part of my artistic output—immediacy. Wanting, being hungry for that rawness. When I created "When I Have Power"—where I talk about the young boy calling me a ch**k—that was written in August or September of 2019. That was before the pandemic. And the text was from when I was 15; it was from my diary. 

So, it's like: "Oh, that's always been there." It just happened that this is coming out when there have been incidents of violence [reported] in the media. These instances of violence have finally been shown. That feeling of anti-Asian racism has always been there. All these things—if they stay hidden and remain unspoken, nothing's going to be done. Nothing's going to change. 

Just to speak these things out: First, it makes people aware, and second, if it's visible, then OK, we can do something.

Jen Shyu. Photo © Marco Giugliarelli for Civitella Ranieri Foundation, 2019.

I'm curious as to where this album fits into your larger body of work.

This is my eighth finished recording. The first featured standards done in an unusual way. I did a couple, then, that were just digital. You can find these on Bandcamp. But then, when I started working with Pi, the first album was a duo with [bassist] Mark Dresser, who's amazing. 

After that, I went to Indonesia right away! I got my Fulbright. That was 2011. I became a dual citizen of East Timor since my mom is from there. I came back and did [2015's] Sounds and Cries of the World. It was personal, song-to-song, which I recorded after producing my first solo theatrical work called Solo Rites: Seven Breaths that involved a lot of that music. It was autobiographical in the sense that it was about a woman on this journey to, first, her homeland, and then to all different areas and what she discovers. Very abstract, though.

That was the first time I connected the theatrical and the dramatic with the musical aspects of my vision. Definitely, an early influence on that would be Meredith Monk, whom I got to meet when I was at Stanford. She was kind of the first example of that for me.

Now, funny story! [sharp laugh] This is evidence of what one goes through as an Asian artist. There was this residency I was doing and this very famed composer—more in the classical world—he was at that same residency. I think this may have been at Yaddo, which is an artist residency upstate in Saratoga Springs.

We often do these presentations for each other. It's all voluntary ... So, I presented something and this composer came up to me after. He was like, "Oh, Jen, that was amazing. Your voice is so incredible. You're like an Asian Meredith Monk!"

And I was like, "Oh, thank you! Yeah, she's great!" Because he clearly meant it as a compliment. And then I thought about it: "Oh, I don't know about that!" So, yeah, that was pretty interesting.

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Do you get patronizing comments like that often?

All the time. Oh my god! All the time. In different forms. There was a manager who's a veteran. I won't mention her name. She had told me, "Oh, yes, I looked at your work. Ostensibly, you'd be a perfect client for me, but I just signed a koto virtuoso and I think there might be some overlap there."

Noooooo!

[loud laugh] I looked her up and she's not a singer. She's not a composer. She just plays koto, and she does some interesting projects. She's great! But not the same, you know? The only thing we had in common was "Asian woman." Alright.

There are so many examples. First of all, I always get mistaken for Linda Oh, and she gets mistaken for me. Susie Ibarra. We get mistaken for each other. There are so few of us, perhaps. That's a big thing. It's the white male gaze. That's nothing against you personally. A lot of the gaze is from that perspective.

[Being mistaken for Linda Oh], that was at a Henry Threadgill concert.

An academic, learned crowd.

[This guy] introduced himself to me and said, "I'm so-and-so. I'm a musician. I just wanted to say: You are an amazing bassist." I was like, "I'm so sorry, I'm not Linda Oh." And he literally ran away. He scurried away like a rat! And I just wish I could remember his name! It's too bad.

It's even from friends. Recently, a friend just sent me a link to a video that an amazing gayageum player made. She's come to a lot of my shows. She's from Korea; she went to New England Conservatory. Amazing player, and I love her. She made this beautifully edited video that had her singing and playing.

This friend of mine sent me this video and said, "Hey, have you seen this yet? It reminds me a lot of you and your work." It kind of makes sense. She's been following me and she said I've been influencing her. But I kind of just told him, "You know, I've often been told this." People say, "Oh, I saw Bora Yoon and I thought of you!" She's a friend of mine also! But very different! So different!

It's this grouping together that's frustrating. People can't see the difference. It's like, "All Asian people look alike." This is what we're up against. Not only are we grouped and stereotyped, but if that's already what people can or cannot see, then how is our music going to even be appreciated?

I’m an artist who really embraces my ancestry. I go deep into it. That’s my path. But I know how frustrating it must be for other Asian artists who people might expect that of them. They just want to make music, you know? It’s just being the other. I’ve never let it stop me because I’m so hard-headed. I just go forward.

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How can people bridge cultural gaps without obsessing over ethnic differences? Maybe the answer lies in feelings and stories as much as music or cuisine. Tomoko Omura, a violinist, composer and arranger, is aware of the role of the intangible in battling xenophobia. This potential for immaterial connection especially applies to Japanese folktales, which deal in the primary components of the human condition—love, death and mystery—in a way anyone can grasp.

"They're stories you can relate to, those folktales," Omura tells GRAMMY.com over Zoom. "They've been told for a long time for reasons, right? Because we're humans at the end. Those children's folk songs and folktales have lived so long because the messages are strong. I think it's a great way to connect us as humans. It's an easy way to communicate."

For instance, the folk song "Come Firefly" is about the magic of those starry insects. "To Ryan Se" conjures visions of irreversible loss. And "Bow's Dance" is a song of the dwindling Ainu people, an indigenous group from northern Japan. "The culture diminished and the people had to adapt to Japanese culture," Omura explains. "Not so many people know about them."

These three traditional songs appear on Omura's immersive new album, Branches Vol. 2, which arrives June 18 via Outside In Music. "Urashima Suite," one of the album’s three original tracks, premieres exclusively below, with illustrations by Noah MacNeil.

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Featuring masterful performances by guitarist Jeff Miles, pianist Glenn Zaleski, bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Jay Sawyer, Branches Vol. 2 marks the latest installment in Omura's Roots series, which pays homage to her Japanese background. (Roots [2014] and Branches Vol. 1 [2020] precede it.) This elegant album braids jazz with the collective unconscious, using centuries-old melodies to travel from darkness to light.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Tomoko Omura to discuss the inspirations behind Branches Vol. 2, the Japanese traditional songs she used as both framework and springboard, and the role of the folk canon in fostering racial harmony.

Photo: Desmond White

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Tell me about your ongoing musical homage to Japan and your relationship with the country.

I moved here, to the States, in 2004. I went to Berklee College of Music in Boston. I [initially] went to university in Japan and started playing jazz over there at the college with my friends. Then, I really, really fell in love with jazz, and I decided to pursue it. I wanted to study more, so I decided to come to the States. Being at Berklee, I decided to do more.

Then, I ended up in New York in 2010. When I went to New York, everyone was doing their own music. I didn't know that was the thing, but then I realized everyone brings their different thing to create new music. That was the time when [I realized], "OK, I have to bring my own thing." That's when I [got in touch with] my Japanese roots.

I started writing a lot of arrangements of preexistent Japanese melodies—Japanese folk songs, Japanese popular music, TV songs—and I had a lot of fun, so I decided to continue with it. That's how I got here, and I have three albums dedicated to my Japanese roots.

What do the traditional songs on Branches Vol. 2 mean in Japanese culture?

"Come Firefly," the first track, is a Japanese folk song. I always liked this song. There are a lot of famous choir versions of the song. It's a song that everyone sings. In the early summer, you see fireflies everywhere, and it just lights up. That's how they communicate with each other, right? And I thought, "Wow, that's pretty sci-fi, communicating with lights." Humans don't do that, but they do.

I had a sci-fi image, so I combined this Japanese folk tale about the firefly into this sci-fi element.

How would you describe that "sci-fi element" in musical terms?

Well, the solo form is open. I use a lot of effects, and the instrumentation is a five-string violin with pedals and electric guitar. I have a keyboard in it also—keyboard, piano, bass and drums. It kind of goes into an electrifying, frayed, extreme, free zone. I told them to imagine a UFO coming above you to take you up. So, everyone was doing that sci-fi theme.

"To Ryan Se" is also a Japanese folk song. It's from that era. Children play the song as they sing. They hold their hands together to make a bridge, and at the end of the song, the bridge goes down and one of the kids gets trapped inside. The lyrics are very vague; it's kind of haunting.

If I had to explain it, it's like, “Passing through, passing through, I am on my way to the shrine in Japan, and it's easy to go there, but it's hard to get back.” But people have imagined in the past, "What does that mean? Does that mean that you might not come back, ever?"

It's very vague, you know what I mean? It's not very obvious. I wanted to have some sort of crazy adventure with the music.

Once again, how did you and your accompanists achieve that?

It's a fast-swinging version of that. Everyone plays in unison, instrumentation-wise. Everyone's playing the theme together, then it gets to a solo section and goes to the piano section. It opens up wide. It slows down, then it comes back to the fast. Then, it goes to a fusion-rock kind of section when the electric guitar takes over, and an epic end.

What can you tell me about "Bow's Dance"?

"Bow's Dance" is a Japanese folk song, but, I should say, an Ainu folk song. Ainu is a tribe in Hokkaido, somewhere in the northern part [of Japan]. They have their own language and culture. They have history on their own; it's sort of connected to Russian ones. But then, the Japanese, early on, took over their territory. There were small wars a long time ago.

The culture diminished and the people had to adapt to Japanese culture. It was almost like the Native Americans to American people. Not so many people know about them. My friend showed me this music of Ainu sung by Umeko Ando. I really loved the sound. It was very unique. It's not typical Japanese folk. I was intrigued, so I was listening to this CD a lot. Recently, I went back to it, listened to it and [thought], "Wow, I should make my version of it." 

"Bow's Dance" is a direct translation. They literally danced with a bow. At the end, it gets sped up, sped up, sped up and people sing together. That's how my arrangement goes at the end. Many repetitions on the same melody.

I just looked up the Ainu. It looks like there are approximately 20,000 of them according to official estimates, but unofficial estimates say there could be many more.

Yeah, they had to adapt and live as mainland Japanese at one point. They were suffering poverty, too. The Japanese gave them a very bad deal after the leader of the Ainu got murdered. It's a sad history, and not so many people know about it anymore. I think it's good to remember, though.

Okinawa is a similar type. They have their own culture, their own language and their own musical instruments. They were in the southern part of Japan and the Ainu were in the northern part. Some historians believe that they are, in fact, derived from the same tribes of mainland Japan before they moved to the North and South, as a lot of people from Eurasia entered Japan and spread in the North and the South and occupied the land.

They had very similar cultures—their own musical instruments, like jaw harps and string instruments; a very similar type. It's a very interesting history.

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Branches Vol. 2 gives me a sorrowful feeling—sorrow, but in a good way. Were you intentionally trying to convey that?

Interesting! I didn't intend it to be. "Urashima [Suite]," at the end of the album, gets kind of happy. I think it starts dark. I didn't want it to end dark, and that's why the end song is a little bit optimistic, musically. Vol. 2 is definitely sadder than the first one.

Obviously, right now, there's a conversation about xenophobia in America in the wake of violence against Asian-Americans. I've been thinking that by sharing folk songs from other traditions, their humanity and history can make people from other countries seem less like interlopers.

Definitely, music can be the savior for that. I think people can connect [that way]. I've performed these songs a lot, and I've often had to explain what the songs are about. They're Japanese folk tales, but people relate to the folk tales a lot! Especially people who are not Japanese. They were fascinated by the story and related to the story and felt, "That's funny," or "That's scary."

They're stories you can relate to, those folk tales. They've been told for a long time for reasons, right? Because we're humans at the end. Those children's folk songs and folk tales have lived so long because the messages are strong. I think it's a great way to connect us as humans. 

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"Sadly, this album will never be out of date, but I know the universal language of sound will reverberate beyond my years. Listen closely. Raise your children to love like children; embrace humanity, regardless of hue."

With those words, Adrian Younge closes his latest album, The American Negro. The moving 26-track album, released Feb. 26, combines spoken word, classic soul and free jazz sensibilities. 

Everything the Los Angeles-based multi-hyphenate (He's a multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, singer, and label head) does pays tribute to his roots and is filled with heart and soul. Beyond using analog equipment to pay homage to golden era soul records of the '60s and '70s, he's composed T.V. and film scores for "Luke Cage," Black Dynamite and others. On his latest musical project, he crafts a haunting, powerful soundtrack of America and her racist past and present. With it, he shines a light on the harm this country has inflicted on Black people so we can enact change and move forward together.

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Ahead of its release, GRAMMY.com caught up with Younge over Zoom to learn more about his vision for the project—which also includes a film and a podcast—and how Marvin Gaye and James Baldwin inspired it. The "Revolutionize" artist also explains the magic of analog recording and the power of spoken word.

Your powerful new album, The American Negro, is out now. What is your hope for this project once people get to hear it?

My hope for this project is that people receive the message. And the message about the evolution of racism in America. Most people don't realize how America pioneered the racism that has affected the entire world.

In America, we're a nation that is derivative from a slaveocracy. We didn't just have the enslaved, we're a nation that was formed around the concept of maintaining a slave system. So when our laws are being created, when our constitution is being drafted, when people are making money at the cost of Black lives, it's something that gets fermented into our system. It's become institutionalized and we still feel the vestige of that today.

And most people don't understand the connection to the past. A lot of people say, "Oh, there isn't slavery [anymore]," or "The civil rights laws were passed." But people don't understand that when an institution that you believe in is complacent towards certain people based on their skin color, it has a negative effect on posterity for all. With this album, I really want people to become better educated on what's going on and be able just to disseminate the message. That's what it's really about.

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In what ways did James Baldwin and Marvin Gaye inspire the music and the message?

So with Marvin Gaye, he's one of my favorite artists of all time, if not my favorite. My two favorite albums by him are I Want You and What's Going On. I have to put What's Going On on top because it's more important than just my enjoyment of hearing the composition of the melodies.

Not only do I love the composition, the melodies and the recording, but the message resonates on such a higher frequency than everything else. The reason being that he's talking about life. He's not just talking about love and "let's have sex" and "let's get married." He's talking about life sh*t. He's talking about changing the future for our children. He's talking about real change ecologically. He's talking about change in regard to discrimination to how the people coming back from patriotically serving in the war are being perceived. He's talking about so much that resonates with people like myself who want to be as virtuous as possible.

So that, coupled with James Baldwin, who is such an intellectual scholar and poet, talking about the Black consciousness, talking about what it's like to live our lives, even though we're in a place that looks at us as the face of evil, in many cases. His work combined with Marvin Gaye's work is what inspired me to make this. Because I don't really see many musicians trying to create that kind of work at this moment. People talk about certain issues, but not many have invested themselves to this degree of making something for the purpose of change.

Listening to James Baldwin's words and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, it is crazy, how much they could have been written last year or this year.

It could be coming out in two weeks. That's how relevant it is, right?

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On your "Black Lives Matter" track, you talk about how America is pretending to be blind. What do you think we, as a country, can do to finally stop pretending to be blind to this system of deeply embedded racial injustice?

There are so many things. First of all, just educate people. My seven-year-old daughter was talking to me last night about who she's learning about right now [in school.] She's learning about Abraham Lincoln. I'm like, "Oh, dope. What do you know? What are you learning?"

"Oh, he was the 16th president and he helped to free the slaves," [she said.] I was like, "Do you know where the slaves came from?" So I'm talking to her about that. I'm not ready to hit her with, well, did you know that Abraham Lincoln actually didn't really care about the disposition of  Black people? And actually, him and Thomas Jefferson at various times were trying to figure out how to send [freed] Black [slaves] people back to Africa. It's not like that's something I want her to learn as she grows. But this is the kind of stuff that we did not learn in school.

I say this all to say that with The American Negro, I want to stimulate thought and help people that don't have malice to act in a way that's not racist. A lot of people that act racist aren't doing it intentionally. They're just following custom and don't realize certain things. It's up to America to help them.

You're right, it's difficult to summarize all the things we need to do. Which is why things like The New York Times' 1619 Project are so powerful because it draws direct links between way back then and, for example, our banking system now. American capitalism was founded on slavery.

Even moreover, American capitalism is based on white imperialism, which is supported under the doctrine of manifest destiny. These white males at the time felt that they had the God-given right and authority to expand their nations throughout the world. Expanding westward in America and killing all the [Native Americans] was manifest destiny. "We're making their life better. They can be civilized." It's a very paternalistic perspective. And this is still happening today.

Can you speak a little bit to your reasoning for using spoken word on the album?

I was a law professor for a few years, and in my teachings I loved to research Jim Crow laws, Black codes, slave codes. These were laws that were created to subjugate the Black person and edify the white male and female.

I wanted to create an album where I'm synthesizing music that speaks to Black excellence. Music that is run underground, but it's so opulent with rich textures and an orchestra that you have to take it seriously. But at the same time, you have somebody speaking to you in a poetic, yet professorial manner. I guess oral pontification is my way of delivering a message to some people that may not otherwise hear it unless they're digesting it with a sweetener, which is the music.

With The American Negro, I also have a film coming out in March on Amazon called T.A.N. and I have a podcast that I started a couple weeks ago on Amazon as well called Invisible Blackness. All these pieces put together really help to further explain the ideology of racism here in America and throughout the world.

"And my real message with all this stuff is that race is a social construct… But you have to realize that and stay in touch with your humanity so you can really live life to the fullest and allow others to live life in a way that they're not ensnared by all this nefarious bullsh*t that the institutions have been promulgating for centuries."

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What's going on in the film T.A.N. and why was it important to you to create that visual counterpart to the project?

So T.A.N. is a film that is like watching the "Twilight Zone." It's a very psychedelic, very cinematic and thoughtful arthouse-type film that deals with a group of individuals in purgatory. They are discovering their own bigotry and really finding themselves through discussion. To me, these characters in the film represent so many types of people in America and around the world. I want people to watch the film and see if they could identify with some of the characteristics of these people. And if so, help them change some of their negative ways.

I've been moved by so many different songs, but there's something specific about spoken word. And I feel it on this album, where the songs are moving you and you feel it, but the spoken word, it feels like you're looking at me. It feels more direct.

It was something that was a real choice for me because I said, "All right, there's a substantive message that I want to get across. Then there's a musical message that I want to get across which is more important?" I said the substantive message is more important because I can make music any day, but I can't bring people in to listen to my thoughts every single day. I really want this to be a timeless piece that inspires people in a way that is not wholly musical, but contextual.

"I can make music any day, but I can't bring people in to listen to my thoughts every single day. I really want this to be a timeless piece that inspires people in a way that is not wholly musical, but contextual."

I've talked to a lot of different artists about the way that music is a medium to get powerful and radical messages across—look at Marvin Gaye's music. It will transcend his life, I think, for a long time.

Absolutely. What's Going On is the most important project he ever did. It's interesting because if you look at the periodicals of the time, in '71, Billboard said this is the greatest work Motown has ever done and it sounds like something derivative of Curtis Mayfield. Curtis Mayfield, in 1970, came out with his first solo album. Before that, he was doing stuff with The Impressions, but in the late-to-mid '60s his music with The Impressions was political. But it was not brazenly political. He had songs like, "If you had a choice of color, which one would you choose, my brother?" He was talking about Black consciousness in a very beautiful, non-offensive way.

And in 1970, Curtis Mayfield has a song called "If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to To Go" where he's talking about Nixon, about ni****s, all that shi*. And then you have Marvin Gaye with What's Going On. And then in '72, you have Curtis Mayfield's Superfly and the Black Power movement is just getting bigger and bigger because we're going from the '60s where we're going from this non-violent protest to Black is Beautiful, Black Power. And it's something that is analogous to the concept of Black Lives Matter now because the white media saw Black consciousness as something that was violent and racist, and it's the same thing that's happening now.

My real message with all this stuff is that race is a social construct. Race is something that's a fallacy. We're actually all the same. And Black ain't better than white, white ain't better than Black. But you have to realize that and stay in touch with your humanity so you can really live life to the fullest and allow others to live life in a way that they're not ensnared by all this nefarious bullsh*t that the institutions have been promulgating for centuries.

You recorded the project fully analog, right?

Everything I do is analog. Everything.

What do you feel like you gain from using tape? Is there a spiritual element to using analog technology?

[Moves camera.] This is my reel-to-reel machine. Over there, there's a whole big live room and that's where I recorded the orchestra [on the album]. I record everything I do. The recording technique is very important to me because my golden era of sound is between '68 to '73. That's everything I'm about.

With this album, I really put myself to work as if I enslaved myself because I played every single instrument for the rhythm section. After that, I wrote for an orchestra and I brought them in. So, I'm playing everything from drums to flute to sax to bass to guitar to keys and then I'm ready for a full orchestra. I can't put myself in it any more than I am. I want people to feel my soul. I want them to feel how organic and real my message is. So sonically, it has to be right.

People make dope digital recordings. But for what I do, if you're trying to have that classic, timeless sound, you cannot do that with a computer. You can't do that by pressing the space bar. You have to have real instruments. And that's why I do that. It means a lot to me.

"I played every single instrument for the rhythm section. After that, I wrote for an orchestra and I brought them in…I can't put myself in it any more than I am. I want people to feel my soul. I want them to feel how organic and real my message is. So sonically, it has to be right."

Do you feel like there are specific textures that come across on tape that don't come across on digital?

Absolutely. With tape, I always explain it like this. When you record digitally, you're pouring water into a bucket with holes in it because digital recording just can't handle certain frequencies. The bass frequencies, all that, it just literally can't. The difference between analog is that you're pouring the same water into a bucket with no holes and it has a sweetener in it. You're getting something back and you're not losing frequency. Digital recording is the emulation of analog recording. So yeah, tape gives you a texture back to it. You can't copy tape.

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I want to look a little bit more into the sonic elements on "Revolutionize." I really love how the sounds of it really dance with the repetition of "Black is beautiful."

In that song, I wanted to do something that was very chaotic and organized at the same time. I wanted to also give you the sense of Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." It's just a reminder that Black people deal with something called double consciousness where you see yourself in the mirror as you are, but you also see yourself through the vantage point of white America—that sees you as a criminal, as somebody that is feebleminded, as the problem of America. You have to synthesize these two perspectives in order to better understand who you are supposed to be. And this song [says], "Revolutionize the way you see yourself. Black is beautiful. You're beautiful."

And what instruments were on the song?

I'm playing drums, bass, piano, guitars, vibraphone, drums and various percussion. Then I wrote for a 30-piece orchestra, for strings and oboes and all that stuff.

For your parts, you had to obviously record them each separately?

Exactly. So I'll record drums first and then I'll record keys, then I'll record bass and guitar, and I just layer it.

Do you have the vision of what it's all going to sound like together or does it come together after?

I always know what the roadmap is. I'll sit there and say, "Okay, we'll make this change here, that change here. We're in this key here, I want this to be funkier, I want this one to be a little more chill. I want to have space so I can have more movement for bass here." I map it all out and I see it my head, and I just go in there and execute.

And did it feel different on this album doing most of the instrumentation yourself versus bringing in a band or collaborating with other people?

Well, it's interesting because most of the music I do I'm playing 90 to 95 percent of the instruments anyway. It's not really anything really new to me. My Midnight Hour album project with Ali Shaheed Muhammad [of A Tribe Called Quest], we both share in what we play, but everything outside of that is pretty much me playing all the instruments I know how to play. I really don't record with a band, per se.

Could talk about some of the specific people you honor on the album—James Mincey Jr., Margaret Garner, George Stinney Jr.? And one of your collaborators, Loren Oden, is related to James, correct?

Yeah, James Mincey Jr. was the uncle of my dear friend and collaborator, Loren Oden. James was somebody that was killed by the police unlawfully. He was choked to death, died by asphyxiation, like Eric Garner. And there was no judicial reprisal. Nothing happened to them.

Margaret Garner, she was enslaved and she ran away for freedom. When she was caught, she killed her child because she did not want them to be in perpetual bondage. America pioneered the concept of perpetual slavery, whereby your offspring is going to be the property of the enslaver in perpetuity.

George Stinney Jr. was the youngest person executed in America, a 14-year-old Black boy that was wrongfully accused of killing two young white girls. And he had a very speedy trial and he was murdered. So, this concept of vigilante justice has been plaguing people of color for centuries. I wanted to bring up certain names in order to inspire people to research the stories and find the connections between what happened back then and what is still happening now.

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