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You see, no one likes talking about death.But Flying Lotus has never been one to lead the people on a simple journey.With You're Dead! he has managed to create a shamanic pilgrimage into the psychedelic unknown of the infinite afterlife. At once reflective, restless, heart wrenching and joyous, this is a melodic ode to those who have died young, suddenly and unexpectedly -- those who have passed away into another realm completely -- while also existing as a comfort to those mourning the loss of a loved one, those left behind in our here and now. You're Dead! serves as an exploration, a eulogy and a portal between these parallel domains."My perspective comes from having lost a lot of people. A lot of my family members passed, but a lot of my colleagues passed away too soon," says Flying Lotus. "I felt like in my own experiences, I wanted them to have this same sense of self."Musically, the album treats death as a transition from one experience to another, from one dimension of sound to another. Masterfully, Flying Lotus bathes death in the sensitive, affectionate light of a storyteller.Flying Lotus takes listeners on a consciousness-fracturing journey as they follow those who've passed away as they embark on their tender new existences "on the other side." This life in the new dimension is rife with excitement, adjustments and reconciliation for some who are struggling to make sense of how they got to the other side in the first place."The album isn't about the end," says Flying Lotus. "It's really the beginning. It's the beginning of a new experience," he says. "It's not hey you're dead," he says somberly. "It's hey you're dead!" he says with an uptick of enthusiasm. "To me it's a celebration of the next experience. Also, it's the transition and the confusion," he adds. You're Dead! is a hefty undertaking, but Flying Lotus aptly creates an engaging sonic delight, part spiritual carnival, part melancholic symphony, all the while coaxing listeners out of their fears of the unknown -- and sometimes indulging those same fears. This aural procession through the afterlife does not trade on our clichéd catalog of pop-culture references to extinction. You won't find grim reaper-referencing rote drama, or the pallid somber palette of reverential muzak. This is a sonic, visual and metaphysical fusion of technological innovation and technical virtuosity that amounts to a transcendent, mind-expanding plasm that could only exists between our world and another.Land of History & FutureAlways existing simultaneously as an insider and outsider in the great lineage of jazz, here Flying Lotus has taken up the mantle of a generation. "I really wanted to do something that came from the jazz spirit instead of a beat record," he says.In thus in the spirit of the great fusion collectives of the 1960s and 70s, so has Flying Lotus' universe of supporting cast expanded and evolved to encompass incredible musicians, visual artists and personalities, young and old. "I recorded every instrument individually. There was never a set band," he says. "I can't write sheet music, so it's better for me to work with each person and perfect each part.""I had so much fun making it because I got to try different techniques. I got into all kinds of techniques; I tried to bring in techniques from old jazz records and psychedelic rock records into how I mixed things and arrange things." Flying Lotus credits his work with Thundercat on previous work for opening him beyond the more solo work of the beat producer to collaborative work with musicians. "I've never been so open to the process as I was with this album," he says. Thundercat co-produced several songs and wrote the eerie "Descent into Madness."The gravity of this musical utopia has been growing ever stronger over time, and so it attracts very powerful travelers. Here, this includes Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg. These living legends provide a recognizable lifeline from the hallucinatory turmoil of the afterlife back to present-day Los Angeles. In fact, when Snoop, Kendrick and the cunning Captain Murphy are present you're privy to an evolutionary triptych of the history and future of Los Angeles hip-hop mould-breaking.Speaking of history and future, the pairing of jazz legend Herbie Hancock and Flying Lotus is a supreme highlight of You're Dead!. Playing the Fender Rhodes, the iconic electric piano that Hancock himself popularized over myriad essential recordings, the meeting of two generations of jazz fusion innovators is a historic occasion.It was the coolest," says Flying Lotus of working with Hancock. "In the middle of a take he'll tell you a story about Miles Davis for 20 minutes. I was really flattered that he wanted to be a part of my music."The twosome challenged themselves. "We were trying to figure out how to make a jazz record that feels new. We said, what if Miles came and they showed him all the jazz records made today. We wanted to have a jazz record that would fuck him up."Eternity TripThe album's opening piece is a pure sonic manifestation of the moment of ending. This wrenching into a new and unfamiliar setting quickly ushers in "Tesla," a searching for equilibrium in new and impossible surroundings. "Cold Dead" finds metaphysical eternity and futuristic fusion jazz locked in an acid-fried shredding match for the prizes of minds and souls. "Never Catch Me" is a sprint through a netherworld as Kendrick Lamar flaunts death with equal parts world-beating confidence and introspective conviction. "Life and death is no mystery and I've won against it," raps Lamar."Dead Man's Tetris" plays with the pogo stick harmonics of the nostalgia-inducing video game and features Snoop Dogg and Captain Murphy trading verses about flirting with death and those musical legends who now reside in the hereafter, in which they find themselves upon the mic."Stirring" maintains this sense of vertigo as it slips into "Coronus, The Terminator." This screwed soul dirge drags itself past the ghosts of ATLiens and Soulquarians while splicing the DNA of the classic sci-fi film with the saga of You're Dead!. "Siren Song" sees Angel Deradoorian lead a wordless incantation over a chiming mystical backdrop, seamlessly morphing into the fourth-world tumble of "Turtles" and onto "Ready Err Not" a creeping radiophonic transmission which marks the mounting curiosity of the journeyer around the idea of death."Descent into Madness" features Thundercat and highlights the heavier side of this exploration with a heavy dose of kaleidoscopic soul operatics, while on "The Boys Who Died in Their Sleep" Captain Murphy scours prescription meds for the right cocktail to "take the pain away." Slipping into the album final suite of songs there is much resolution and yet much that is left to the listener to internalize, questions to be answered by looking inside.You see, no one likes talking about death.But Flying Lotus has never been one to lead the people on a simple journey.

Freddie Gibbs doesn’t exhale. The Gary, Indiana native has spent the better part of the last decade vacuum sealing the grittiest, most unflinching gangsta rap in America. The mixtape dominance is thorough and well-documented: The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs, midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik, Str8 Killa No Filla, Cold Day In Hell, and Baby Face Killaall hit in a three-year window, and collectively they established him as an unapologetic realist, a specter lurking in the shadows of the industry, waiting for you to slip. This November 20th, he’s back with Shadow of a Doubt, a new mixtape issued through his own ESGN and executive produced by Gibbs, Ben “Lambo” Lambert and Sid “Speakerbomb” Miller.  Shadow comes a year and a half after Piñata, Freddie’s long-awaited, critically lauded collaboration with the Los Angeles-based producer Madlib. “Piñata was a turning point in my career,” Gibbs says, citing the doors it opened up after years of being ostracized by an increasingly political record industry. “It’s like I went in the gym with Madlib to train,” he says, “and now I’m clean and cut, ready to box like Apollo Creed.” That album saw him at his most daringly technical, deploying both a singing voice and never-before-heard cadences over some of Madlib’s most challenging instrumentals. Piñata commanded respect; now Gibbs is ready to use those tools he honed on the LP. As he says: “It’s liberating, man.”  From the first song, Shadow chronicles the long, twisted road Gibbs has taken to the top of rap. There’s the loudspeaker from LAX on “Rearview”; the Midwest native has spent the last decade in Los Angeles, first moving West as part of an ill-fated deal with Interscope. Gibbs sees the city as a crucial part of his process: “ I didn’t have anybody in L.A., didn’t know anybody,” he says. “It’s like God just dropped me off somewhere where I didn’t have anything and I had to make something out of nothing. That city motivates me to make anything and everything happen.” And that he does. The songs on Shadow run the gamut from heartbreaking confessionals—Gibbs says he can barely listen to “Forever and a Day” in mixed company—to dead-eyed self preservation. If his life story didn’t seem stark enough already, two events have shifted its course in the past year—an attempt on his life in New York last fall, and his daughter’s birth earlier this year. (The Roots’ Black Thought invokes the intersection of those two events on”Extradite,” saying, “Crossfire missed my little daughter by inches.”) The hour-long effort is Gibbs at his most human, his most vivid, his most potent. “I don’t care about being the realest—cause I know nobody as real as me.

Five short documentaries tell poignant stories of separation and identity. Join us for this evening of diverse, personal films that offer a perspective on immigrants’ experiences. In these films — produced by Op-Docs, The New York Times Opinion section’s series of award-winning short documentaries, with Concordia Studio —see the heartbreak of those detained by ICE and the hope that’s found on a dance floor, as well as the optimism in a contest for girls in “the toughest town in Texas.” Director Laura Nix will be on hand to speak with subjects from her film, dancers Paul and Millie Cao — as the evening culminates in a flash of sequins. National immigration correspondent Miriam Jordan will moderate, and dancers Maksym Kapitanchuk and Elena Krifuks will perform. “El Vacío,” directed by Deborah S. Esquenazi. In a confessional built from home video and animation, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio explores the mental prisons and personal trauma created by immigration policy.   “To Be Queen,” directed by Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman. In Luling, the “toughest town in Texas,” two Latina high school girls compete to be the next Watermelon Thump Queen.   “La Boca del Lobo,” directed by Jesse Moss. Mario Guevara, a reporter for Mundo Hispanico, investigates the impact of ICE arrests on his Atlanta community. “Darlin,” directed by Isabel Castro, follows a Honduran family in the months after their separation under the zero-tolerance policy.   “Walk Run Cha-Cha,” directed by Laura Nix. Paul and Millie Cao lost their youth to the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Forty years later, they have become successful professionals in Southern California — and are rediscovering themselves on the dance floor.

Gabe Bondoc

Gabriel Iglesias

girl in red - world in red

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

THE STORY THUS FAR:....hungover it's awful, the sound of trains collapsing back behind here; outside there are distant birds circling in front of 7 miles of heavy cloud falling down, &from where you're lying one of those clouds looks like a hanged man leading a blind, indifferent horse...THIS IS MILE END MY FRIEND, the hollowed out ruins here & a train runs straight thru them... we made a record here in mile End, at the mighty Mxx HOTEL2TANGO, where lonesome trains ramble thru the backyard while the wind plays in the trees where nervous birds hide from a dog named wanda, a kat named lu... 16 rented tracks moving 7.5 inches per second onto ampex456 W/OUT ANY KEYBOARDS, while don & ian rode the faders, tired-eyed&stoic... the whole thing recorded under threat of great threat on a 1933 stahltonbahnd maschine... IT ALL HAPPENED IN MAY; winter was just starting to fade then, and the money hadn't run out yet... 6 months later: we record two songs w/ chemical daryl at chemical sound; broke again, john gives us free tape, & brian plays some trumpet there... w/ daryl we remix the old stuff too, & then we sequence the record up the street w/ rod at mile end studio... mark helps us pretty the package and we put thing to bed & try to carry on... we've been plowing our little field up here for a couple of years now, but the yard is still filled w/rocks&dust&n&sick trees... SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom... & the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful... & the van is gassed but the pistons are cracked, and when we close our eyes alls we can see is: open road, telephone poles, a sun that is always setting, and a tangled up melody falling down slowly...O.K.GOODBYExoxoxoLOVEGODSPEEDYOUBLACKEMPEROR! mILE eND MONTREALQUEBECCANADAxoxoxox...........................

THIS EVENT IS 18+ W/ VALID ID ONLY