BadBadNotGood | |
|---|---|
 BadBadNotGood performing in Germany in 2017. From left to right:Leland Whitty,Alexander Sowinski,Chester Hansen | |
| Background information | |
| Also known as | Easy Feelings Unlimited |
| Origin | Toronto,Ontario, Canada |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 2010 (2010)–present |
| Labels | |
| Members | |
| Past members | |
| Website | badbadnotgood |
BadBadNotGood (stylized inall caps) is a Canadianinstrumental band andproduction team fromToronto, Canada. The group was founded in 2010 by bassistChester Hansen, keyboardistMatthew Tavares, and drummerAlexander Sowinski. In 2016, they were joined by frequent collaboratorLeland Whitty. Amongother projects, the group has released six solo studio albums, with the latest,Mid Spiral, released in July 2024. They have had critical and crossover success, finding audiences in thehip hop,jazz, andalternative music communities.
The group combines jazz musicianship with a hip hop production perspective and are well known for their collaborations with artists likeTyler, The Creator,Daniel Caesar,Mick Jenkins,Kendrick Lamar,Ghostface Killah,Charlotte Day Wilson,Baby Rose andMF DOOM. For their songwriting and production work, they have been nominated for fiveGrammy Awards, winning two.
Matthew Tavares, Alexander Sowinski, and Chester Hansen met in 2010 through theHumber College jazz program in Toronto.[1] The trio united over a shared love for hip hop music, including that of MF DOOM andOdd Future.[2] In this lineup, Tavares handled keys, playing rhythms on aProphet '08 and electric piano,[3] joined by Hansen, an acoustic and electric bassist, and drummer Sowinski. Sowinski often donned a pig mask during performances in the first years of the group, in part inspired by MF DOOM.[1][4] The name of the band came from the tentative title of a comedy television project that Tavares was working on, which was eventually abandoned.[5][6] In a 2012 interview, the trio commented that both Tavares and Hansen had since withdrawn from Humber, while Sowinski had remained enrolled "for the school's dental plan;"[7] Sowinski later left Humber as well.[8]
One of BadBadNotGood's first collaborations was a cover of "Lemonade" byGucci Mane.[2] They played a piece based on Odd Future's music for a panel of their jazz performance instructors, who did not find that it had musical value.[7] After they released the track on YouTube as The Odd Future Sessions Part 1, it got the attention of rapperTyler, The Creator, who felt differently and helped the trio's video go viral.[9] BadBadNotGood uploaded their first EPBBNG toBandcamp in June 2011, which included covers of songs fromA Tribe Called Quest,Waka Flocka Flame and several tracks from Odd Future.[10]
In September 2011, they released their debut album,BBNG, recorded in a three-hour session. Dante Alighieri on Sputnikmusic called the album "a welcome reinterpretation of modern jazz without the pretense of snotty wine parties and thick rimmed hipster dinosaurs."[11] The trio had their first show together at The Red Light in Toronto that September.[1][12] There, they met hip hop producerFrank Dukes who would become a close collaborator.[13] The album was followed by two live records,BBNGLIVE 1 andBBNGLIVE 2, which were released in November 2011 and February 2012, respectively.[14][15]
BadBadNotGood recorded a live jam session with Tyler, The Creator in Sowinski's basement in October 2011.[3] Videos from the session received more than a million views between them on YouTube.[1] In the following year, they also connected with other Odd Future members likeEarl Sweatshirt andFrank Ocean and their contemporariesJoey Badass andDanny Brown, among others.[16] The trio opened forRoy Ayers at the Nujazz Festival in January 2012 and played forGilles Peterson'sWorldwide Awards in London. At a February tribute toJ Dilla in Toronto, their covers of "Lemonade" and "Hard in da Paint" had hundredsmoshing.[1][17]
BadBadNotGood released their second album,BBNG2, in April 2012. Recorded from a ten-hour studio session, it features Leland Whitty on saxophone and Luan Phung playing electric guitar. The notes to the album indicate that "No one above the age of 21 was involved in the making of this album."[19] The album has original material as well as covers of songs byKanye West,My Bloody Valentine,James Blake,Earl Sweatshirt, andFeist.[20]
The trio was the band-in-residence at the 2012Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival[1] and backedFrank Ocean of Odd Future both weekends.[20]
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Prior to the release of the albumIII, the first single "Hedron", became available on June 20, 2013, when it was featured on the compilation albumLate Night Tales: Bonobo.[21] BadBadNotGood assisted in production and musical composition for the soundtrack ofThe Man with the Iron Fists.[22] On January 14, 2014, the second single fromIII was released titled "CS60".[23] The third single, "Can't Leave The Night", was released on March 11, 2014, with the B-Side "Sustain" and would later feature in thethird season opening episode ofBetter Call Saul.[24] In March 2014, BBNG took part inSXSW for a second time and played a series of shows, including one with Tyler the Creator.[25]
III was released on May 6, 2014, on CD, vinyl, and digital download, and was the group's first album of entirely original music. Following the release of the record, BBNG toured through the end of the year, first in Europe, then Canada and the US East Coast, ending their tour in December with a hometown show in Toronto.[26]
The fourth album,Sour Soul, was released by Lex Records on Feb 24 2015 in collaboration with Ghostface Killah. Unlike their earlier works, it is more of a heavy hip hop album with light jazz accents. The group toured from April through October 2015, with Ghostface making a few appearances along the way.[26] Leland Whitty joined the band unofficially at this time, with BBNG needing a fourth musician to play tracks fromSour Soul on the road, and continued to work with the group in the studio.[27]
In December 2015, the band posted covers of some holiday classics on theirYouTube channel, including a performance of "Christmas Time Is Here" in collaboration withChoir! Choir! Choir!. During this time, the group continued to song write with Frank Dukes and also began extensively collaborating with producerKAYTRANADA, with whom they wrote dozens of songs during this time.[28] Additionally, they produced "Hoarse" on Odd Future memberEarl Sweatshirt's studio debut,Doris, and "GUV'NOR", a remix onJJ Doom'sKey to the Kuffs (Butter Edition).
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Saxophonist Leland Whitty, a frequent collaborator of the group, joined the band on January 1, 2016.[5] In April, BBNG took part in the Coachella Music Festival, making their first official appearance there.[29]
Their fifth studio album, titledIV, was released by Innovative Leisure on July 8, 2016. It features several guest collaborations includingFuture Islands frontmanSamuel T. Herring, saxophonistColin Stetson,Kaytranada, hip hop artistMick Jenkins, and singer-songwriterCharlotte Day Wilson. In December 2016, the album was picked asBBC Radio 6 Music's No. 1 album of the year.[30] In the following two years, the group would release a series of unreleased tracks from theirIV sessions as singles, namely collaborative songs with Colin Stetson, Sam Herring, andLittle Dragon.[31]
To support the release ofIV, the band toured extensively for two years. This included festival and US club dates throughout Summer 2016, followed by European and Australian tours at the end of the year.[26][32][33] In Fall 2016, jazz pianist James Hill joined the group on stage for the first time as a touring member. Hill, who knew Tavares from their time together at Humber College, filled in for Tavares, who stepped away from touring to focus on producing music as well as developing his solo project Matty.[34][35][36] The group continued to tour throughout 2017 and into 2018, playing many more shows in North America, Europe, and Australia. In mid-2018, they toured Canada, before more US and European festival dates through November.[26][37] For this work, the group was awarded theLibera Award for Best Live Act by theAmerican Association of Independent Music in the following year; other nominees in the category includedRun the Jewels andKing Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. Outside of a few one-off shows and a short Fall tour in South America and Asia, the band took a break from touring during 2019.[38]
In 2018, the band served as the musical opener and instrumental backdrop to theLouis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2019 Collection runway show held in the gardens of thePalais Royal. Opening with a cover ofKanye West's "Ghost Town" from his 2018 albumYe and playing a variety of original work and covers for the remainder of the show.[39] The band worked withBenji B andVirgil Abloh, both frequent collaborators with Kanye, to refine the creative direction of the music of the show.[40]
During and following the production ofIV, the members of BBNG took time to develop other musical projects together and bringing other artists into their Toronto studio to produce and record. This included artists likeKali Uchis and Mick Jenkins, as well as fellow Torontonians likeCharlotte Day Wilson, Jaunt, andJonah Yano.[41][42][43][44] During this time, they also contributed two compositions of note forKendrick Lamar-produced albums; the instrumentals for the track "Lust" onDAMN. (2017) and "The Ways" onBlack Panther The Album (2018). Both albums receivedGrammy Award nominations forAlbum of the Year.
In October 2019, Matthew Tavares announced his departure from the band.[45] He continues to collaborate with the group as a songwriter and contributor to side projects.
In a February 2020 interview with Sowinski and Whitty regarding their collaborative film score for the indie thrillerDisappearance at Clifton Hill, the two noted that BBNG was currently working on a new album, tentatively due later in 2020.[46] Before the rescheduling and cancellation of live events in 2020, the band was planning to resume touring in April beginning with Coachella.[47] In April 2020, BBNG released the single "Goodbye Blue" backed with "Glide (Goodbye Blue Pt. 2)," their first original release in almost two years.[38]
To promote their new track "The Chocolate Conquistadors" withMF DOOM forGrand Theft Auto Online, the group was interviewed on December 12, 2020, byGilles Peterson onWorldwide FM during which Sowinski said, “we definitely will have a new album [in 2021], and that will be the first record in, like, five years... hopefully, that is what the music will represent, a path forward, and changing and growing – that's one record. We’re trying to finish two, I suppose."[48] In July 2021, they once again inferred multiple albums were in the works via Twitter.[49]
In June 2021, their track "Time Moves Slow" featuringSamuel T. Herring received renewed attention when it was sampled in "Running Away" by musician VANO 3000 in his viralAdult Swim trend onTikTok.[50] With the band, VANO 3000 officially released the single on June 21, 2021, viaInnovative Leisure;[51] as of the release date, videos tagged with "#adultswim" have been viewed some 3.4 billion times.[52]
In July 2021, the band announced their instrumental albumTalk Memory via social media.[53] The announcement approximately marks the five year anniversary of their last record,IV. To support the album ahead of the release, the band announced a limitedzine seriesMemory Catalogue distributed via independent record stores and published sheet music for the lead single "Signal from the Noise" on their website.[53][54] On July 15, 2021, they released the nine-minute single "Signal from the Noise", co-produced byFloating Points.[55] On September 8, 2021, the band released "Beside April" as a second album single and announced touring dates in three legs: Canada in December 2021, the United States in March 2022, and Europe in Fall 2022.[56]Talk Memory was well received by critics and is nominated for the2022 Polaris Music Prize and the2023 Juno Award forJazz Album of the Year.[57]
The band produced, arranged, and performed the sophomore album of collaborator Jonah Yano,Portrait of a Dog, released in January 2023.[58][59] Following their 2021–2022Talk Memory tour, the band took part in a Summer 2023 summer festival tour. On August 11, 2023, the band released the surprise collaborative EPNew Heart Designs with hardcore bandTurnstile, a reinterpretation of three tracks from their 2021 albumGlow On.[60] For this work, they were nominated for the 2024Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical, their first nomination as the primary artist.[61]
They produced the April 2024 EPSlow Burn with singerBaby Rose, including the single "One Last Dance."[62][63]
In May 2024, they released the six-songMid Spiral: Chaos on May 15, followed by six-songMid Spiral: Order on May 22. A tweet from the band on 19 May said plainly: "Mid Spiral is not an ep 🌀",[64] with an Instagram post officially confirming that these were two out of three "suites" that make up their sixth albumMid Spiral.[65] The third suite,Mid Spiral: Growth released on May 29, and the full album,Mid Spiral released October 25, 2024.
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Publications have often referred to the band's sound as a combination of jazz and hip hop (orjazz rap andinstrumental hip hop).[66][67][68][5][69] They have also been associated with the genresjazz fusion,[70][71][72]alt-jazz,[73][74][75]nu jazz,[76][77]jazz-funk,[78][79]free improvisation,[80]cinematic jazz,[75] andpsychedelic jazz.[71][81] In all, the band has generally eluded identification with one specific sound or movement, withStereogum referring to them as "genre-fluid."[70]
BBNG generally eschews being called a jazz band, acknowledging that their music contains elements of rock music, Brazilian music, electronic music, and soul music, and does not maintain jazz tradition, with Whitty commenting, "all we’re really trying to do is create something that's unique and honest to who we are... we don't really belong in any sort of box or are following any tradition or anything like that.”[4] When asked in a 2016 interview about the group's relationship with jazz,[82] Sowinski explained:
"We look at what we do as approaching music with jazz training. We use the jazz language when we’re writing, but we’re not proficient. We’re not the top musicians of the genre, so we don’t try to assume ourselves as prolific innovators because jazz has this history of boundary-pushing limitless constant progression, eight hours a day of practice. We’ve learned to find different interests—whether it’s production, recording techniques, writing, exploring totally different genres of music—instead of progressing our instruments per se as soloists. We listen to Coltrane and Sun Ra and all these progressives, but for us because of the internet and the age we’re a part of we love to study everything. It’s this weird ongoing thing for us to keep being educated and learning."
BBNG's relationship with the style is further complicated by the fact that the jazz community at large sees the group as outside of the genre but more mainstream music fans, those with less knowledge of the tradition and musicianship, perceive them to be jazz and representative of a bright future for the genre because of their accessibility. Ethnomusicologist Matthew Neil noted, “BBNG will continue to represent jazz, even as the jazz community, and even the group themselves, wish that they did not speak for jazz. Put simply: BBNG is jazz if people think they are.”[83]
BBNG has cited a wide range of influences, including Brazilian composerArthur Verocai,Miles Davis, saxophonistsJohn Coltrane andAlbert Ayler,Sam Rivers, drummersTony Williams andArt Blakey,Sun Ra, producerJ Dilla,Kurt Cobain, andWu-Tang Clan.[84]
Early on, in 2012, aPrefix magazine review called BadBadNotGood "a jazz trio on paper -- but often strange, forever imaginative, and ultimately revolutionary hip-hop and electronic beatmakers at heart."[85]NOW magazine lauded BadBadNotGood's "spastic, sonorous, genre-fucking rap covers."[17] In describing BadBadNotGood's hip hop influences, theHuffington Post wrote that the group "deconstruct the four bar loops, understanding how to work crescendos by stretching out and reshaping the music into their own vision of silky smooth key progressions, pounding drums, and tasty bass lines."[1]
Despite BBNG's rising popularity and press coverage by popular music media in the early 2010s, the band went unnoticed by the jazz community at large until after the release of their second album when off-the-cuff comments disregarding the jazz establishment were perceived as inflammatory by the jazz media.[86] Critics quickly jumped to compare BBNG's musicianship to jazz artists that had achieved similar-sized audiences, not accounting for age or experience, and thus comparing them to musicians who had spent years developing their skills.[87] In hindsight, the reactionary response was likely due to the fact that BBNG's popularity and success in popular music preceded any recognition or approval from the jazz community itself. The band was quick to walk back some of their comments and have been increasingly complimentary of their jazz contemporaries; in the following years, sentiments on both sides have relaxed and reversed.[88] In a 2017 retrospective,JazzTimes responded positively to the albumIV and their career journey thus far.[80]
Former member
Touring members
Production discography
Early in their career, BBNG helped produce two tracks for the soundtrack ofThe Man with the Iron Fists which were performed byIdle Warship andWu-Tang Clan withKool G Rap. This was followed by songs byEarl Sweatshirt,Danny Brown, and multiple tracks forMick Jenkins, among others. In the late 2010s, BBNG coproduced songs forFreddie Gibbs,Kendrick Lamar ("LUST."),Daniel Caesar (including "Get You"),Kali Uchis including "After the Storm (feat.Tyler, the Creator andBootsy Collins)," andThundercat. In the producer role, BBNG often collaborates with fellow Canadian producersFrank Dukes andKAYTRANADA.More recently, BADBADNOTGOOD co-produced the EPSlow Burn (2024) withBaby Rose, including the title track "Slow Burn."[90] In 2024, Spotify's editors named "One Last Dance" (Baby Rose & BADBADNOTGOOD) one of the Editors’ Picks: Best Songs of 2024.[91]
Grammy Awards
BadBadNotGood has been nominated for fiveGrammy Awards, winning two. Their first nomination as the primary artist was in 2024 forBest Remixed Recording, Non-Classical.
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Album of the Year | DAMN.(as a producer) | Nominated | Co-produced track "Lust"[a] | |
| Best Rap Album | DAMN.(as a producer) | Won | |||
| 2019 | Album of the Year | Black Panther(as a producer) | Nominated | Co-produced track "The Ways"[a] | |
| 2021 | Best Progressive R&B Album | It Is What It Is(as a producer) | Won | Co-produced track "King of the Hill"[a] | [92] |
| 2024 | Best Remixed Recording | "Alien Love Call"(as remixers) | Nominated | Original song byTurnstile feat.Blood Orange | [61] |
Polaris Music Prize
BadBadNotGood has been nominated for thePolaris Music Prize, Canada's most prestigious music, award four times.
| Year | Association | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Polaris Music Prize | III | Longlisted | [93] |
| 2015 | Polaris Music Prize | Sour Soul(withGhostface Killah) | Shortlisted | [94] |
| 2017 | Polaris Music Prize | IV | Shortlisted | [95] |
| 2022 | Polaris Music Prize | Talk Memory | Longlisted | [57] |
Other awards
| Year | Association | Category | Nominated work | Result | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Worldwide Awards | Album of the Year | III | Nominated | [96] | |
| 2016 | Juno Awards | Rap Recording of the Year | Sour Soul | Nominated | WithGhostface Killah | [97] |
| 2016 | Worldwide Awards | Album of the Year | IV | Nominated | ||
| 2016 | SOCAN Songwriting Prize | "Paradise"(as a songwriter) | Nominated | Primary artist:Daniel Caesar | ||
| 2018 | UK Music Video Awards | Best Alternative Video – Newcomer | "I Don't Know" | Won | [98] | |
| 2018 | SOCAN Awards | R&B Music | "Get You"(as a songwriter) | Won | Primary artist: Daniel Caesar | [99] |
| 2019 | ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Awards | R&B/Hip-Hop Songs | Won | [100] | ||
| 2019 | Libera Awards | Best Live Act | Won | [101][102] | ||
| 2022 | Best Jazz Record | Talk Memory | Won | [103] | ||
| "Qadir" (BBNG Remix) | Nominated | Originally byNick Hakim | [103] | |||
| 2022 | Prism Prize | Best Music Video | "Love Proceeding" | Nominated | [104] | |
| "Timid, Intimidating" | Nominated | |||||
| 2023 | Juno Awards | Jazz Album of the Year | Talk Memory | Nominated | [105] | |
| Traditional R&B/Soul Recording of the Year | "Please Do Not Lean" | Nominated | With Daniel Caesar | |||
^[a] Per Grammy guidelines, all fully-creditedproducers of each track on an album are Grammy-eligible.[106][107]
3.4B views
The Memory Catalogue, is a print series which provides visual language to our next instrumental album, Talk Memory.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Though criticisms of BBNG might not state this explicitly, I believe there is an implicit criticism in denouncements of BBNG—that the band had defiled the sacralization of jazz tradition by attempting to forego the normative path of development... For some, BBNG's shortcomings offered evidence that they should have in fact stayed in school a little bit longer, the band's lack of playing ability proving the merit of the jazz education mode... For the average local jazz group, lack of mastery at the age of 19 would not be a big deal, but because BBNG had already reached a national audience, a correction in the form of criticism of the band's talent was needed. The backlash then seems to have stemmed from what many felt was undeserved hype for a band whose proficiency did not match the heaps of attention they had received.
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