His third album, “For My Mama and Anyone Who Look Like Her”, earned critical acclaim. Conor Lochrie from Beats Per Minute said of the album, “…where Black art often seems like it has to have a greater point, a higher purpose–indulging in traumatic images of violence in racial horror, as in the above case–white people, contrastingly, get to make whatever art they wish.” McKinley has a talent for addressing issues like the one mentioned above, and discussed the struggle of establishing a place in the music industry. Having faced both under-appreciation for the rap and jazz genres and trying to mix the two together into something beautiful for his upcoming album “Beloved! Paradise! Jazz?!”, both issues, and more, are explained below. 

When you first became a musician, did you originally know that you wanted to be both a rap and jazz artist, or did one appeal to you more than the other? 

I’ve always sort of wanted to be a storyteller; I think that’s really where it started, I wanted to tell stories through music. From there, I knew that instruments moved fast enough in my mind for me when compared to just beats. I can manipulate instruments easier than I can beats because I can just tell someone to change up what they’re playing. But I never really had the intention to do jazz; I just had the intention of making stories, and jazz kind of came out of that. 

Would you say that you only want to tell stories through music, or would you do it through writing or another medium as well? 

People always try to get me to write long-form essays and honestly, I could. It’s just that, do I want to, you know? I really enjoy animating, so I also like to tell stories through cartoons. So I think for me, an alternative to making music is animation, you know? A series or movie or something like that. 

That’s really cool, I really enjoy animation too. So, I know this is kind of a generic question, but I am just kind of curious about what inspired you specifically to become a musician? Was it friends, family, other musicians? 

I think it kind of goes back to the first question where I had these ideas and these thoughts about stories that I wanted to portray and talk about. I really liked finding moments that are beautiful and funny moments and mundane moments that are average to my life. I wanted to use those moments to show a lot of the Black experience and then sort of interpret them as if they’re being watched, you know? As if it’s a movie or cinematic, very theatrical, very dramatic. I kind of really always wanted to make beautiful stories out of moments that not everyone usually sees as beautiful moments. They are to me. 

I understand that, that’s really beautiful. Speaking of which, I was excited when I saw that your upcoming album ‘Beloved! Paradise! Jazz?!’ was inspired by writer Toni Morrison. Was she always an inspiration when it came to your music? 

Yeah, I grew up reading Toni Morrison books, and she had this trilogy called ‘Beloved’, ‘Jazz’, and ‘Paradise’. I thought they were really beautiful even though many people don’t know that those three books were in one package. So for me, ‘Beloved! Paradise! Jazz?!’ was me taking the word ‘beloved’ and being like, ‘Alright, well, these show moments in your community. They are like moments that you have.’ Paradise is where you feel safe, and then jazz is sort of the chaotic aspect of it. 

Would you say there are some similarities between her trilogy and your upcoming album? 

Yeah, I think what the similarity is between her trilogy and my album is that they both describe love. You know, she’s really good at showing you that love is not just beautiful and it’s not just harrowing; it’s both of it together, and it’s complicated. I’m trying to show that in my music, being inspired by her. And like her books, my three albums were a trilogy, and now this one will encapsulate that trilogy. 

That’s really interesting, I’m glad that she was so important for your music. So why did you want to create an album that encapsulates your trilogy? 

‘For My Mama and Anyone Who Look Like Her’ was a combination of my other two albums. So for this one, I was like, ‘What is a way that I can encapsulate the trilogy?’ It goes back to being inspired by Toni Morrison and the upcoming album title being a name from her trilogy. I just wanted to make one that could represent all three. The title is like a combination of my previous albums. 

After ‘Beloved! Paradise! Jazz?!’, would you make another album, or would you take a break? 

I think I’ve got a couple more albums to make. When people think of music, they think of band stories, but they don’t think about how, with rap, I’m just telling my story. So there’s a certain point when it comes to telling my story where I’m like, ‘Am I going too far ahead? Or am I not going far enough?’ I think I left where I was in the south and came to Chicago because I couldn’t make another album there after a decade, and I’m also just chasing experiences. So hopefully those experiences will turn into another album after this. 

Yeah, I hope it does if you want to do that. Were there any challenges or hardships when trying to get into the music industry? 

Yeah, so when I first came in, I was using instruments and the thing is, when you rap and use instruments, people haven’t really seen that. It’s not a new phenomenon, but it can seem like it is. A lot of rappers didn’t really put me in their music because my set was a lot from adding jazz. And it’s understandable that a lot of rappers also sort of don’t really know that the two can be together, since rap is more about accessibility. Like storytelling accessibility. So for me, I had a band and it made things complicated. Aside from rap, I’d be on rock shows with rock artists, and they would sort of be like, ‘Oh, you’re a rapper, so let’s cut your set short.’ Or, ‘You can only have this amount of time’, or, ‘We can just have you play at the end of the show.’ So a lot of it sort of came from anti-Blackness and also in not really knowing what to do with me, but I made it out. 

I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with that, but I’m glad that you made it out, you seem like a talented artist, incorporating both jazz and rap. 

I appreciate that. Jazz is really just a way to piece together beautiful images with words from rap, and like I said, rap is more so a genre of accessibility. It’s like, you have an idea in your mind, but you come from a place where you can’t really access the instruments that you want to show those ideas how you want to, so I sort of just did it myself. 

McKinley Dixon performed at Gabe’s on April 8 for the Mission Creek Festival. His fourth album “Beloved! Paradise! Jazz?!” will be released on June 2, 2023. 

The post An interview with McKinley Dixon for Mission Creek 2023 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

To describe her overall performance in one word, it would be “haunting.” Her voice echoed and switched from booming to delicate throughout her performance, sounding like a mixture of Adele and Sia. Her powerful voice resembled Adele’s while her planned voice cracks and tone switches were reminiscent of Sia. It was an unexpected, yet interesting combination that first culminated in her performance of “Unhate”, a rendition of her 2006 song “Hate”. She switched the lyrics and, in turn, changed the meaning from feeling depressed to feeling hopeful. 

Throughout the concert, she danced around the stage and interacted with the accompanying pianist. She covered various artists and genres, including “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra and Frank Ocean’s “Bad Religion”. She filled her voice with emotion as she sang, “If it brings me to my knees, it’s a bad religion.” 

Photo via Rolling Stone Magazine.

In addition to her “Covers” album, she also sang songs from her album “You Are Free.” Her original song “Good Woman” shifted from hopeful to saddened and back again, describing a relationship that can continue but shouldn’t. It was heartbreaking and moving. 

All of her covers sounded sadder than the originals, which could have been intentional. Her original songs were on the darker side as well, conveying a sense of heartache that seemed to resonate with the audience. Listeners stayed silent and listened to her messages, only occasionally clapping or cheering during a song. 

She showed vulnerability during the concert, stopping at times to sip her tea, check her music sheets, or just breathe. A couple times, she told the pianist to keep playing while she prepared herself, breathing and moving her hands before starting her song. She did that before singing “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”, a country hit by Kitty Wells that was a groundbreaker of its time, describing the pain of being cheated on. 

Many of Cat Power’s songs seemed to be associated with struggling or broken relationships, including the one mentioned above, along with “Bad Religion” (alluding to how religion could be a metaphor for someone who is toxic) and “White Mustang” (about a bad competitiveness between partners). 

Overall, her concert was moving and conveyed a message of both sorrow and hope. Her songs spanned genres and artists, with her morphing them all into jazzy or ballad-like renditions. She was the perfect closing performer for the first night of Mission Creek. 

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Born in Georgia and raised throughout the American south, she released her first album “Dear Sir” with Steve Shelley and Tim Foljahn in 1995. Since then, she has released ten albums, both with other musicians and as a solo artist. She will be performing songs from her most recent album “Covers” at Hancher Auditorium on April 6.

According to Apple Music, the album “…feels like a radical departure from its original form, each song stripped down to its essence, that primal and often magical thing that moved [Cat Power] from the start.” A majority of her albums have been commercially and critically lauded, including both her original content and covers. To put it simply, she is a pioneer of the alternative and indie rock genres. 

Via Spin.com

“Covers” pays homage to numerous successful artists like Frank Ocean (“Bad Religion”), Lana Del Rey (“White Mustang”) and Billie Holiday (“I’ll Be Seeing You”). One of her most interesting singles, though, is a rendition of her own.

In 2006, she released “Hate”, a single on her acclaimed album “The Greatest”. In “Covers”, she reimagines it as “Unhate”, meant to be an opposite of her first song’s message. She expanded upon this decision in an interview with Apple Music. “…I changed the lyrics to ‘I do not hate myself and I do not want to die’… it’s a much better thing to say and I don’t want that song to be so dark.” Through depression and substance abuse, she has prevailed and continues to perform and create fantastic songs for her followers. 

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