meta-scriptMeet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Ranky Tanky On The Lasting Influence Of Gullah Music And Being Global Genre Ambassadors | GRAMMY.com
Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Ranky Tanky On The Lasting Influence Of Gullah Music And Being Global Genre Ambassadors

Ranky Tanky

Photo: Peter Frank Edwards

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Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Ranky Tanky On The Lasting Influence Of Gullah Music And Being Global Genre Ambassadors

The South Carolina quintet is making GRAMMY history and bringing the genre to the international mainstage at this year's awards

GRAMMYs/Jan 22, 2020 - 07:00 pm

Over the past three years, Gullah music, a centuries-old sound from the South Carolina Lowcountry region, has entered the mainstream. That's largely thanks to Ranky Tanky, an effervescent quintet hailing from Charleston, S.C., who've become global ambassadors of Gullah music and culture. 

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For those unfamiliar, Gullah music is part of a wider culture rooted in the Lowcountry along the South Carolina coast. The Gullah people, meanwhile, are a tight-knit local community and descendants of slaves from the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina. Through art and music, they’ve preserved and honored West African traditions and culture for generations.

Ranky Tanky first brought Gullah to the spotlight with their 2017 self-titled debut album, which topped the Billboard Jazz Albums chart in 2018. The album is composed of covers and arrangements of Gullah folk songs and classics. 

For their 2019 follow-up, Good Time, Ranky Tanky broke the mold. Released last July, Good Time features Gullah standards and, for the first time ever, brand-new original compositions, which are informed by the Gullah tradition yet modernized through Ranky Tanky's contemporary lens.

The approach paid off: In 2020, Ranky Tanky are nominated for Best Regional Roots Music Album for Good Time. With the nod, the group and release are also making GRAMMY history as the first-ever album of Gullah music to receive a nomination, now bringing the genre to the international mainstage.

For founding member Charlton Singleton, the group's trumpeter/singer, Ranky Tanky's nomination is a massive honor for both the band and the wider Gullah community.

"We’ve been very fortunate and blessed to have the support of the Gullah community," he tells The Recording Academy. "Gullah is something that everybody is all in on… So any sort of celebration that can take place is something that everybody is just all in for."

Ahead of Ranky Tanky's big night at the 2020 GRAMMYs, The Recording Academy caught up with Singleton to discuss the lasting influence of Gullah music and the group's newfound role as global ambassadors for the genre. 

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What was your reaction when you first heard Ranky Tanky were nominated for a GRAMMY?

Oh, it was just sheer joy. It's something that I think every artist appreciates and wants to be recognized for their contribution in the music world and with the highest honor that there is: a GRAMMY. I jumped on my bed for a little while and yelled. There was nobody else at the house at that particular time, so I kind of ran through the house a little bit, just yelling and screaming. But it was an amazing thing to see it posted right there on the screen, saying that we were in this final group of talented artists and other great recordings. It was a great, great moment.

There seems to be a rise in awareness and listenership of Gullah, largely thanks to Ranky Tanky. But at the same time, this is likely the first time a lot of people are learning about the genre, through your GRAMMY nomination and through your various accomplishments. How do you describe the Gullah sound and its associated community and culture to first-timers?

When we're on stage, I have these moments where I start talking with the audience in between a song, and I tell them about certain things that they have either seen or heard of in their lifetime that are uniquely Gullah… Then I usually graduate into things that people would know. For example, have you ever sung "Kumbaya" before?

Of course.

"Kumbaya" is a Gullah song—uniquely Gullah. I know there's [probably] not a whole lot of people on the face of the Earth that have not come across "Kumbaya." And as a matter of fact, sometime last year, it was finally recognized as being a song composed uniquely from the Gullah community.

Music-wise, the Gullah rhythm has a distinctive beat to it. I think with some of the other music that is out there today, you can really put a strong debate on the fact that Gullah, especially in music, has been an informant to a lot of different genres like jazz, folk music, rhythm and blues. There are so many similarities in those music [styles] that it's inevitable that you would get back to Gullah because Gullah predates all of those things.

Read: Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Black Pumas On Their Breakout Year, Creative Process And "New Chapter"

Gullah is also part of a wider culture and a regional community. Do you need to know about Gullah culture as a whole in order to truly understand the music?

It helps to know where things come from, but not really. There are some groups out here in the Lowcountry and Gullah communities that are still singing some of these songs in the purest form. So when you hear people singing some of these spirituals, especially the gospel spirituals, that's probably the truest form of the music that people would recognize.

With us, adding drum sets, basses, standup basses, a trumpet player, electric guitar, that's where you get the contemporary assessment that we do with Ranky Tanky. If someone were to be down in the Lowcountry, in the Charleston area or the Beaufort area or some of the islands that are in our vicinity, they would definitely be quick to understand just the whole atmosphere in some of these Gullah communities.

Gullah music is a centuries-old sound. As Ranky Tanky, do you update the sound for contemporary audiences? Or do you try to stay loyal to the original sound?

Well, just because of the instrumentation of our band, that's automatically going to make it for contemporary purposes. But you can still hear and feel the original spirit of the music when you listen to Ranky Tanky onstage or on record. I think that we have caught lightning in a bottle with regards to having it right down the middle where we're still paying homage, in a respectful way, to the traditional Gullah sounds, but at the same time, giving it that contemporary assessment and contemporary fresh coat of paint to make it so that when audiences of today listen to it, it's a special blend and mix.

Is it a challenge to introduce and educate audiences to a sound that is considered to be so traditional and that's been around for so long?

I don't think it's a challenge. Our music, the way that we present it, it's been very universal. The crowds that we've played for have been a really wide variety in age, in ethnicity. But it really hasn't been a challenge for people to understand what they're listening to. There are so many things on our album that you can listen to and you could say, "I can play that on this particular genre radio. I can play that on a bluegrass radio station, I could play that one on a jazz radio station, I could play that one on a R&B radio station, I could play that one on a pop music station." The way that we have been performing and how we have crafted the sound of the band, it's pretty easy to introduce it to everybody.

Read: Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Nathalie Joachim On The Haitian Musical Roots Of 'Fanm d'Ayiti,' Community Building & Standing In Her Truth

What is the role or significance of Gullah in relation to the wider roots and Americana genre and community?

Geographically speaking—let's take folk music, for example. Most people put that [genre] with like the Appalachian Mountains and that region: North Carolina, Western North Carolina, the upper parts of South Carolina, West Virginia, all of those areas. Now geographically, that's not too terribly far from the Gullah region. So it's easy to have those two blending over, if you will, when you listen to some of the [sounds].

It's kind of hard to explain sometimes, unless you're listening to a couple of the [genres] back to back or side by side and you can really get a sense of how Gullah has influenced these other styles. When we're onstage and we're talking to our audience and engaging with them, it's a little bit easier for them to get it and listen to it when we speak about it and then we play right immediately after.

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Your new album, Good Time, is split between covers of traditional Gullah songs and, for the first time ever, brand-new original Ranky Tanky compositions, which are also in the spirit of the Gullah tradition. How did you go about creating new Gullah songs for the album?

In the Gullah community, especially in church, there is a term that is called "raising up a song." Basically, somebody is going to stand up and they're going to start singing something that probably nobody knows at the time. And so nine times out of 10, they start with that song and they'll "raise it up." Maybe about a minute into it… somebody's going to pick up on whatever they are repeating, someone's going to harmonize to it. And then about a minute or so later, you've got the whole church and they're all in on this song. At the beginning of it, they didn't know what the song was, but they're just going off of what that person started.

Now, to carry that over to the creative process for us, there have been times when we were in soundcheck and somebody would just do something. There's a song that we have called "Freedom." [Vocalist] Quiana [Parler] was just standing at her mic… I think she was on her phone and she had read a text or something like that and she was a little frustrated and she went, "Ahh Lord, I need freedom." [Singing]

She was just sort of wailing it out, and it was comical. But she did it a couple of times and I just joined in with her, just to be funny, and I harmonized with it. And the next thing you know, [guitarist] Clay [Ross] started playing something, and he joined in and we made it a three-part harmony. And it sort of gained some traction that way. I pulled out my phone, I hit the voice memo, I put it down on the ground and everybody was sort of singing there. Next thing you know, [bassist] Kevin [Hamilton] was playing a little bassline, and the song just sort of was born right there. 

That's pretty much been the nucleus of our creative process with regard to the new songs that are on the Good Time recording. You had to know the beginnings and how they would do it with the Gullah community to get to how we would do that. 

Read: Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominees: Tank And The Bangas' Leader On 'Green Balloon,' Chilling With Michelle Obama & Quitting IHOP To Make Music

The group's members come from a predominantly jazz and gospel background. Do those genres lend well to Gullah? Are there sonic and stylistic similarities?

Definitely. Gullah has been such an informant to so many different styles of music, especially jazz. The rhythm that's in the Gullah rhythm… you can incorporate that in any sort of swing pattern, you can incorporate that into a shuffle, which are two of the primary rhythms that go in jazz. So that makes sense on how you can take that Gullah from way back when and then shift it into what we think about as jazz music today. Same thing with blues, same thing with rhythm and blues. When it comes to us and playing that music now… you're going to find those increments of what we listened to as jazz today in what you hear from Ranky Tanky.

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Your nomination is a big recognition for Ranky Tanky as a group, but also for Gullah as a sound and as a community. What does this sort of honor mean for you individually as well as a representative of the wider Gullah community and scene?

It's a huge honor. We’ve been very fortunate and blessed to have the support of the Gullah community, as well as our family and friends. Everyone in Charleston has continued to love and embrace and push us and encourage us to keep doing what we're doing. The city is all in. 

Any sort of positive recognition, any sort of positive experience, any sort of positive event that highlights the Gullah community is something that everybody in Charleston, South Carolina, and the surrounding areas of the Lowcountry—they've just been ecstatic for us about it. Gullah is something that everybody is all in on… but we got to remember, this isn't something that was always celebrated. So any sort of celebration that can take place is something that everybody is just all in for.

Aside from the GRAMMYs, what are some of your plans and aspirations for 2020?

Continue to tour, continue to entertain and enlighten. Just trying to go forward. Everything is forward. Positive, and forward with the music.

The 62nd Annual GRAMMY Awards, hosted by Alicia Keys, will be broadcast live from STAPLES Center in Los Angeles Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020, at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT on CBS. Learn more about where and how to watch Music's Biggest Night.

2020 GRAMMY Awards: Complete Nominees List

A Year In Alternative Jazz: 10 Albums To Understand The New GRAMMYs Category
Linda May Han Oh

Photo: Shervin Lainez

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A Year In Alternative Jazz: 10 Albums To Understand The New GRAMMYs Category

"Alternative jazz" may not be a bandied-about term in the jazz world, but it's a helpful lens to view the "genre-blending, envelope-pushing hybrid" that defines a new category at the 2024 GRAMMYs. Here are 10 albums from 2023 that rise to this definition.

GRAMMYs/Jan 9, 2024 - 02:47 pm

What, exactly, is "alternative jazz"? After that new category was announced ahead of the 2024 GRAMMYs nominations, inquiring minds wanted to know. The "alternative" descriptor is usually tied to rock, pop or dance — not typically jazz, which gets qualifiers like "out" or "avant-garde."

However, the introduction of the Best Alternative Jazz Album category does shoehorn anything into the lexicon. Rather, it commensurately clarifies and expands the boundaries of this global artform.

According to the Recording Academy, alternative jazz "may be defined as a genre-blending, envelope-pushing hybrid that mixes jazz (improvisation, interaction, harmony, rhythm, arrangements, composition, and style) with other genres… it may also include the contemporary production techniques/instrumentation associated with other genres."

And the 2024 GRAMMY nominees for Best Alternative Jazz Album live up to this dictum: Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily's Love in Exile; Louis Cole's Quality Over Opinion; Kurt Elling, Charlie Hunter and SuperBlue's SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree; Cory Henry's Live at the Piano; and Meshell Ndegeocello's The Omnichord Real Book.

Sure, these were the standard bearers of alternative jazz over the past year and change — as far as Recording Academy Membership is concerned. But these are only five albums; they amount to a cross section. With that in mind, read on for 10 additional albums from 2023 that fall under the umbrella of alternative jazz.

Allison Miller - Rivers in Our Veins

The supple and innovative drummer and composer Allison Miller often works in highly cerebral, conceptual spaces. After all, her last suite, Rivers in Our Veins, involves a jazz band, three dancers and video projections.

Therein, Miller chose one of the most universal themes out there: how rivers shape our lives and communities, and how we must act as their stewards. Featuring violinist Jenny Scheinman, trumpeter Jason Palmer, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, keyboardist and accordionist Carmen Staff, and upright bassist Todd SickafooseRivers in Our Veins homes in on the James, Delaware, Potomac, Hudson, and Susquehanna.

And just as these eastern U.S. waterways serve all walks of life, Rivers in Our Veins defies category. And it also blurs two crucial aspects of Miller's life and career.

"I get to marry my environmentalism and my activism with music," she told District Fray. "And it's still growing!

M.E.B. - That You Not Dare To Forget

The Prince of Darkness may have slipped away 32 years ago, but he's felt eerily omnipresent in the evolution of this music ever since.

In M.E.B. or "Miles Electric Band," an ensemble of Davis alumni and disciples underscore his unyielding spirit with That You Not Dare to Forget. The lineup is staggering: bassists Ron Carter, Marcus Miller, and Stanley Clarke; saxophonist Donald Harrison, guitarist John Scofield, a host of others.

How does That You Not Dare To Forget satisfy the definition of alternative jazz? Because like Davis' abstracted masterpieces, like Bitches Brew, On the Corner and the like, the music is amoebic, resistant to pigeonholing.

Indeed, tunes like "Hail to the Real Chief" and "Bitches are Back" function as scratchy funk or psychedelic soul as much as they do the J-word, which Davis hated vociferously.

And above all, they're idiosyncratic to the bone — just as the big guy was, every second of his life and career.

Art Ensemble of Chicago - Sixth Decade - from Paris to Paris

The nuances and multiplicities of the Art Ensemble of Chicago cannot be summed up in a blurb: that's where books like Message to Our Folks and A Power Stronger Than Itself — about the AACM — come in.

But if you want an entryway into this bastion of creative improvisational music — that, unlike The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Associated Ensembles boxed set, isn't 18-plus hours long — Sixth Decade - from Paris to Paris will do in a pinch.

Recorded just a month before the pandemic struck, The Sixth Decade is a captivating looking-glass into this collective as it stands, with fearless co-founder Roscoe Mitchell flanked by younger leading lights, like Nicole Mitchell and Moor Mother.

Potent and urgent, engaging the heart as much as the cerebrum, this music sees the Art Ensemble still charting their course into the outer reaches. Here's to their next six decades.

Theo Croker - By The Way

By The Way may not be an album proper, but it's still an exemplar of alternative jazz.

The five-track EP finds outstanding trumpeter, vocalist, producer, and composer Croker revisiting tunes from across his discography, with UK singer/songwriter Ego Ella May weaving the proceedings with her supple, enveloping vocals.

Compositions like "Slowly" and "If I Could I Would" seem to hang just outside the reaches of jazz; it pulls on strings of neo soul and silky, progressive R&B.

Even the music video for "Slowly" is quietly innovative: in AI's breakthrough year, machine learning made beautifully, cosmically odd visuals for that percolating highlight.

Michael Blake - Dance of the Mystic Bliss

Even a cursory examination of Dance of the Mystic Bliss reveals it to be Pandora's box.

First off: revered tenor and soprano saxophonist Michael Blake's CV runs deep, from his lasting impression in New York's downtown scene to his legacy in John Lurie's Lounge Lizards.

And his new album is steeped in the long and storied history of jazz and strings, as well as Brazilian music and the sting of grief — Blake's mother's 2018 passing looms heavy in tunes like "Merle the Pearl." 

"Sure, for me, it's all about my mom, and there will be some things that were triggered. But when you're listening to it, you're going to have a completely different experience," Blake told LondonJazz in 2023.

"That's what I love about instrumental music," he continued. "That's what's so great about how jazz can transcend to this unbelievable spiritual level." Indeed, Dance of the Mystic Bliss can be communed with, with or without context, going in familiar or cold.

And that tends to be the instrumental music that truly lasts — the kind that gives you a cornucopia of references and sensations, either way.

Dinner Party - Enigmatic Society

Dinner Party's self-titled debut EP, from 2020 — and its attendant remix that year, Dinner Party: Dessert — introduced a mightily enticing supergroup to the world: Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin, and 9th Wonder.

While the magnitude of talent there is unquestionable, the quartet were still finding their footing; when mixing potent Black American genres in a stew, sometimes the strong flavors can cancel each other out.

Enigmatic Society, their debut album, is a relaxed and concise triumph; each man has figured out how he can act as a quadrant for the whole.

And just as guests like Herbie Hancock and Snoop Dogg elevated Dinner Party: Dessert, colleagues like Phoelix and Ant Clemons ride this wave without disturbing its flow.

Wadada Leo Smith & Orange Wave Electric - Fire Illuminations

The octogenarian tumpeter, multi-instrumentalist and composer Wadada Leo Smith is a standard-bearer of the subset of jazz we call "creative music." And by the weighty, teeming sound of Fire Illuminations, it's clear he's not through surprising us.

Therein, Smith debuts his nine-piece Orange Wave Electric ensemble, which features three guitarists (Nels Cline, Brandon Ross, Lamar Smith) and two electric bassists (Bill Laswell and Melvin Gibbs).

In characteristically sagelike fashion, Smith described Fire Illuminations as "a ceremonial space where one's hearts and conscious can embrace for a brief period of unconditioned love where the artist and their music with the active observer becomes united."

And if you zoom in from that beatific view, you get a majestic slab of psychedelic hard rock — with dancing rhythms, guitar fireworks and Smith zigzagging across the canvas like Miles. 

Henry Threadgill - The Other One

Saxophonist, flutist and composer Henry Threadgill composed The Other One for the late, great Milfred Graves, the percussionist with a 360 degree vantage of the pulse of his instrument and how it related to heart, breath and hands.

If that sounds like a mouthful, this is a cerebral, sprawling and multifarious space: The Other One itself consists of one three-movement piece (titled Of Valence) and is part of a larger multimedia work.

To risk oversimplification, though, The Other One is a terrific example of where "jazz" and "classical" melt as helpful descriptors, and flow into each other like molten gold.

If you're skeptical of the limits and constraints of these hegemonic worlds, let Threadgill and his creative-music cohorts throughout history bulldoze them before your ears.

Linda May Han Oh - The Glass Hours

Jazz has an ocean of history with spoken word, but this fusion must be executed judiciously: again, these bold flavors can overwhelm each other. Except when they're in the hands of an artist as keen as Linda May Han Oh.

"I didn't want it to be an album with a lot of spoken word," the Malaysian Australian bassist and composer told LondonJazz, explaining that "Antiquity" is the only track on The Glass Hours to feature a recitation from the great vocalist Sara Serpa. "I just felt it was necessary for that particular piece, to explain a bit of the narrative more."

Elsewhere, Serpa's crystalline, wordless vocals are but one color swirling with the rest: tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, pianist Fabian Almazan, and drummer and electronicist Obed Calvaire.

Themed after "the fragility of time and life; exploring paradoxes seeded within our individual and societal values," The Glass Hours is Oh's most satisfying and well-rounded offering to date, ensconced in an iridescent atmosphere.

Charles Lloyd - Trios: Sacred Thread

You can't get too deep into jazz without bumping into the art of the trio — and the primacy of it. 

At 85, saxophonist and composer Charles Lloyd is currently smoking every younger iteration of himself on the horn; his exploratory fires are undimmed. So, for his latest project, he opted not just to just release a trio album, but a trio of trios.

Trios: Chapel features guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Thomas Morgan; Trios: Ocean is augmented by guitarist Anthony Wilson and pianist Gerald Clayton; the final, Trios: Sacred Thread, contains guitarists Julian Lage and percussionist Zakir Hussain.

These are wildly different contexts for Lloyd, but they all meet at a meditative nexus. Drink it in as the curtains close on 2023, as you consider where all these virtuosic, forward-thinking musicians will venture to next — "alternative" or not.

Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily On New Album 'Love In Exile,' Improvisation Versus Co-Construction And The Primacy Of The Pulse

GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016
Kendrick Lamar

Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

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GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016

Upon winning the GRAMMY for Best Rap Album for 'To Pimp a Butterfly,' Kendrick Lamar thanked those that helped him get to the stage, and the artists that blazed the trail for him.

GRAMMYs/Oct 13, 2023 - 06:01 pm

Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly. Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

Looking for more GRAMMYs news? The 2024 GRAMMY nominations are here!

He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly.

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube. This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle. This is for Illmatic, this is for Nas. We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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Press Play: Ranky Tanky Offer A Powerful Performance Of "Stand By Me" Using Traditional Gullah Techniques
Ranky Tanky's Quiana Parler

Photo: Courtesy of Ranky Tanky

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Press Play: Ranky Tanky Offer A Powerful Performance Of "Stand By Me" Using Traditional Gullah Techniques

South Carolina-based musical ensemble Ranky Tanky provide a glimpse into Gullah musical culture with this live performance of "Stand By Me," which features a call-and-response singing style and body percussion.

GRAMMYs/Jan 19, 2023 - 07:33 pm

As members of the tight-knit Gullah community, jazz-influenced gospel group Ranky Tanky constantly aim to keep the culture alive. Together, five members of Ranky Tanky — Quiana Parler, Quentin E. Baxter, Kevin Hamilton, Clay Ross, and Charlton Single — have made strides in educating people on Gullah, serving as the ethnocultural group's global music ambassador and leading initiatives to teach students about Gullah's history.

The lifelong friends turned bandmates released their sophomore album, Good Time, in 2019, which helped Ranky Tanky snag their very first GRAMMY Award for Best Regional Roots Music Album, marking the first Gullah music recognition in GRAMMY history.

In this episode of Press Play, Ranky Tanky presents "Stand By Me," the opening track from the award-winning album. The musical ensemble utilizes traditional Gullah performance techniques, emphasizing body percussion and call-and-response singing. Vocalist Quiana Parler stands centered at the microphone as a dancer performs a contemporary routine.

Ranky Tanky ended 2022 with their second GRAMMY Award nomination in the Best Regional Roots Music Album category for their live album recorded at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The 13-song LP includes another live rendition of "Stand By Me."

Later this year, Ranky Tanky is expected to release their third studio album and is currently slated to perform a string of shows throughout the United States.

Press play on the video above to watch Ranky Tanky's performance of "Stand By Me," and keep checking back to GRAMMY.com for more new episodes of Press Play.

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Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Kabaka Pyramid On Embracing His Voice & The Bold Future Of Reggae
First-Time GRAMMY Nominee Kabaka Pyramid

Photo courtesy of the artist

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Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Kabaka Pyramid On Embracing His Voice & The Bold Future Of Reggae

Kingston-born reggae star Kabaka Pyramid is one of a handful of artists bringing positivity back into the genre. His messages of consciousness are more powerful than ever on his third album, 'The Kalling' — and now, he’s a GRAMMY nominee because of it.

GRAMMYs/Jan 11, 2023 - 08:27 pm

Kabaka Pyramid answers to a higher power — and his third album, fittingly titled The Kalling, is a testament to his beliefs.

The Kingston-born rapper, singer and producer is one of a handful of artists bringing positivity back into reggae, often channeling the empowered, political, and spiritual vibes of  roots artists. Kabaka Pyramid is often labeled a "reggae revivalist" for this reason, but The Kalling manages to be both classic and incredibly of the moment. And while his previous albums Victory Rock and Kontraband are testaments of lyrical and genre-blending prowess, Kabaka's latest is a notable ascension.

One of five nominees for Best Reggae Album at the 65th GRAMMY Awards, The Kalling showcases Kabaka's passion for using hip-hop, soul and dancehall to iterate on the sound of conscious reggae. The record also overflows with messages of growth, contemplation of addiction, and gratitude — an antidote to some of the more crude attitudes present in Kabaka's favorite genres.

"The older I got, the more I felt responsible to represent myself in a certain way," Kabaka tells GRAMMY.com from his home in Miami. “I wanted to inspire, like how artists like Sizzla and Damian Marley inspired me. I wanted to have a similar effect, and I knew I needed to put out positive music to do that.”

Kabaka called upon his community to achieve this vision. The Kalling was produced by the reggae scion also known as Jr Gong, and features the late icon Peter Tosh in addition to Buju Banton, Jesse Royal and fellow 2023 nominee Protoje. Together, they created an album that pulls from contemporary pop, rap and '80s era reggae, with songs that are meditative ("Stand Up"),  club-ready ("Energy" and "Mystik Man"), and fit for a kickback ("Mary Jane").

Ahead of the 2023 GRAMMYs, the first-time nominee spoke to GRAMMY.com about inspiring higher vibrations through music and action.

Was the GRAMMY nomination a milestone you were working towards, or one that caught you by surprise?

I was shouting, screaming, everything; a couple tears of joy. I'm probably the only person on my team and label that it kind of caught by surprise. I just always thought that the GRAMMY was just this huge thing and something that is best if I don't think about it too much, because I feel like that can lead to disappointment.

So I was just more focused on putting in the work and really representing myself with the music, and then let the awards come. But it's definitely a huge achievement for me. I wouldn't have dreamed of it when I was back in high school, but here I am now, so I have to give thanks.

It's cool to reflect on how far you've come — like, man, I'm living out my dreams from high school or dreams you didn't even know you had.

I'm 37 now, so it's been a 20-year journey since I first started to pencil down some lyrics. And most people start super early, whether they're in the church, or in the choir, or whatever it is. Or they come from a musical family, so they watch their parents do it or whatever. But for me, it wasn't that.

I always loved music, particularly hip-hop and dancehall. So I was just inspired by music, but I never thought of it as something I'd actually be doing until around 17, 18. That's when I realized that I have a talent for actually writing lyrics. And from then it was just working on my voice. A lot of self recording at home, home studios over the years, different places.

Tell me a bit about the creation of the album; what was going on in your life at that time?

The recording and writing and stuff was mostly throughout the pandemic. For the first few months, I was in Jamaica; Damien was sending me beats that he was working on from his studio in Miami. And eventually, I flew up and we started just going at it together in studio and from just jam sessions with me, him and his musicians, just coming up with ideas from scratch.

There were some conversations about what we want to do differently from the last album and what kind of song we wanted to go for, what kind of vibe. We wanted some traditional reggae, we wanted some hip-hop vibes in it, wanted to sample some classic reggae records as well as some soulful stuff. "Grateful" was a soul record that was sampled, and of course, "Mystik Man" [featuring] Peter Tosh is originally "Fade Away" by Junior Byles, a classic reggae record too.

Over two years, it just slowly but surely started to shape itself. We did "The Kalling" and Protoje and Jesse came to studio while Stephen [Marley] was recording, and they ended up dropping their verses that night. And I knew from that night that this would end up being the title track for the album. And we just kind of themed the whole album around "The Kalling." Having a higher calling, a higher purpose to the music, tying it into the teachings of Rastafari and what it means to me. It was just a beautiful process.

What do those Rastafari teachings mean to you and how are they presented on this album?

For me, Rastafari is first and foremost about knowing where you come from, seeing yourself as royalty, as kings and queens — especially for Black people who have been through slavery and coming to the West by force. So it's really a reconnection to Africa, but it applies to anybody that wants to reconnect with who they are, where they're from, and their identity.

We practice a vegan diet, ital, and man and woman relationships — being wholesome, the family unit. These are all Rastafari is and is coming from his Imperial Majesty, the emperor of Ethiopia. Ethiopia being the country that was never colonized in Africa, that really maintained their identity. That's really where Rastafari culture and expression stems from.

This record also has a lot of messaging around being aware of yourself and your addictions, and things that you're doing in your daily life that might not be so healthy. Was that something that you've been thinking about for a long time, or was it something that came to you during this production process?

As Rasta, we reason about these things all the time. It's all about looking at how we live, what's our mentality towards life. And a song like "Addiction" just came out of countless reasonings about social media, about our phones, about the radiation and our phones give off. I don't sleep with my phone near me because I wake up with headaches.

I felt like that song was so important because with the pandemic, we're taught to social distance, we're taught to stay inside and we just turned to our phones and our devices. So we're even more technologically oriented now after the pandemic than even before. It’s kind of continuing from a song I did from Kontrabrand called "Everywhere I Go."

The Kalling is much more centered in traditional reggae, though "Energy" is sort of pop and R&B, and the opening track from your last record is a pop tune. Yet you're branded as this revival reggae artist. What are your thoughts on that?

The whole revival thing came about in like 2011, 2012 when my first reggae project came out; Protoje's album was out, Chronixx [had] transitioned from being a producer/songwriter to being a recording artist, and he took Jamaica by storm. We started going to Europe with our bands, and I think that is what really cemented the whole idea of a revival, because …there was kind of a dying down of Jamaicans coming with their bands. And you had [Jamaican artists using] these backing bands that were local in Europe because it was more economical. And then a lot of artists couldn't travel anymore because of what I consider their freedom of speech being questioned and violated. So you had a lot of key artists that couldn't travel.

So because of that, when we came on the scene, it was very refreshing for people to see these young acts in their 20s coming with their bands and sacrificing where we could have made more money if we went with backing bands, or with track shows or whatever. And then not only that though, we were sampling Black Uhuru records and Sly and Robbie bass lines, and drum and bass.

If you check my song "Revival," "Here Comes Trouble" [by] Chronixx, and Protoje's "Kingston Be Wise," all of these tracks kind of brought back an '80s vibe. And then when we translate them on stage with the bands, people felt like it was a revival of the '70s and '80s.

Musically we definitely fuse a lot of the sounds. There's modern elements, there's hip-hop elements, R&B, pop elements to it too, because we're all influenced by that. We're in an era where artists kind of have more creative control with their sound — it's not like you just go to one producer that has one sound. We can call on different producers, we produce ourselves and the stuff that we are influenced by, that's what we try and recreate.

So it's partially a revival of sound but also a revival of style and performance.

Definitely.

Are there any tracks on The Kalling that you're particularly proud of?

"Mystik Man," I’m really proud of that, especially with the whole Peter Tosh family behind the song. We were able to list it officially as featuring Peter Tosh, so I have a song with one of my idols. Overall, his life, what he represents, his mission — him and Sizzla are right up there in terms of who inspire me the most. "Addiction" from a songwriting perspective, I'm really proud of that one.

I'm proud of the fact that I stuck to my roots. When I was early in my career, I couldn't sing to save my life; rapping was easier for me to do. I was working on my reggae, but I wouldn't let anybody hear those songs. So doing a song like "Kontraband pt. 2" where I'm rapping with this Jamaican accent, [or] "Mystik Man," — being able to represent that and still maintain my identity as a Jamaican [and] as a reggae artist, and to get nominated, is a great achievement for me.

I read in Dancehall Magazine that you think that the subject of a lot of Jamaican music is holding artists back. How did you try to combat that notion on The Kalling?

I think my music is naturally more wholesome. It's more readily accessible to older and the young. Maybe it can be a bit too deep for some people, but just generally speaking, I don't put a bunch of slack lyrics or derogatory lyrics to women or violence, gun violence. And that's kind of typical for Jamaican music. But I feel these younger artists are kind of pushing the limits of it. There's a lot of talk about drug use now in songs, and scamming, and all of them kind of things.

I've seen artists that are on the verge of breaking into mainstream do collaborations with other mainstream acts, but then it's just crazy curse words in the song and super derogatory lyrics. I could see somebody at a radio station like, "no, I can't playlist this because it's too difficult." Especially, being an international artist. So it's trying not to shoot ourselves in the foot by having too extreme lyrics.

How did you meet Damien Marley and what did he bring to this project?

I met him at the Bob Marley Museum, I think it was around 2013. He was shooting some videos with Nas for Distant Relatives.

The first time working with him, he sent me a riddim that he wanted to do a juggling [on]. It was originally a Wayne Marshall record, but he wanted to voice some other artists on it and Chronixx, Juliann Marley, others are on it too. I wrote the song "Well Done" on it, and we all loved the song. I was there when the song was being mixed and prepared, and that's when we really bonded, and we started to just hold our vibe, reason about music.

We played football at the field at his house. And it just felt like a brother kind of relationship from early. He's like a mentor to me; I ask him advice and everything musically. And just being with him, I learned so much about sharpening up my songwriting skills and making my lyrics more potent and more absorbable for people. From there, we just grew to the point where we had a discussion about doing two albums at minimum, and we did Kontrabrand.

He produced five of the tracks [on The Kalling], but it was all put together in his studio, [and] he executive produced the project. I wanted to give him the chance of doing a whole entire album. I felt like there was enough versatility with his production style to do it. I think he really did an excellent job. It's almost like it doesn't make sense to not do an album with him anymore.

Is there somebody who gave you props about this record that were really meaningful?

I just got a very long voicemail from Pressure Buss Pipe, who is an artist I'm really inspired by. He was telling me how much I stepped up with this album, and I'm just in the right gear now. It was really a heartfelt voice note. He's somebody that I listen to a lot, and his vocal ability inspires me, and his songwriting. I have five, six, maybe seven songs with him too.

I should say Protoje was one of the first people to call me when I got nominated. And obviously, I congratulated him as well. And even how excited Damian is [means a lot], because he's not somebody that gets excited very easy. There’s not many others who can impress you more than Damian Marley, you know what I mean?

Why did you want to feature Protoje on The Kalling and, together, what are you guys showcasing about contemporary Jamaican music?

Protoje is somebody I always want to collaborate with. He was instrumental in the start of my career; most of [my 2011 EP] Rebel Music was recorded at his home studio. About four of the beats were beats that he gave me and from other producers. Europe knew about me because Protoje kind of helped me to get my name out there. And I respect him so much.

We're all about innovation. I think Protoje's [nominated] album is super cool. The intro and "Family" and "Hills" kind of go back to his original, more hip-hop flavor. Both of us have evolved so much vocally; I love the vocal tones that he experimented with on his album. And sonically, he's always pushing the genre further and I really appreciate that about him. And similar with me, there's so much versatility around the album, but still rooted in reggae.

The two of you are nominated in a category that has a next generation artist and very established musicians. How do these nominees reflect the state of reggae?

It means a lot for everybody now because of who won last year. Big up to SOJA; I really think they put in a lot of work in this music industry, especially in the U.S. And they unified the whole U.S. reggae industry on their album; they featured all of the major acts in the U.S. and I really think it was effective.

But people see it and say, "Oh, reggae is being taken away from Jamaica" and there was a lot of backlash for that. Based on that, it's very refreshing to see an all-Jamaican lineup of artists; artists that have done so much for the industry who have been on the frontline internationally, who put out wholesome music too. It's not like any real slackness is being represented.

I would hope that this lineup of artists inspires the younger generation that you can do music without all of the negativity and it can reach the highest level. It's not that the U.S. is greater than any other nation, but it's our biggest market for the music. So to be recognized within the U.S. with this GRAMMY Award is tremendous, and everybody feels it and appreciates it.

There’s so much versatility represented: Shaggy, did a Frank Sinatra cover album. Sean Paul is modern dancehall pop. Koffee is kind of similar, but there's so much fusion going on there and she's so lyrical and so young and, just blowing up all over the place. Me and Protoje are kind of in a similar bracket. It's an interesting group.

Speaking of the next generation, who or what are you listening to these days that's giving you life? Anybody you want to big up?

There's a bunch of artists, Medicine, who actually did some songwriting on my album. Irie Soldier, Nattali Rize, Runkus, Royal Blue, Blvk H3ro, Imeru Tefari, Five Star. There's a bunch of artists out there that's doing good music, and I'm always here to support them and want to do some more production with them as well. The future is bright, for sure.

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