Music Mondays — 9/3
Happy Labor Day aka happy long weekend that I’ve never been clear on (nor questioned) why it exists. From Wikipedia: “It honors the American Labor Movement and the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, laws, and well-being of the country.” I’m not sure what that means, but I’ll happily take the three day weekend.
Currently the weather in NYC is 89°F aka hot enough to not want to move all day. Labor Day is supposed to be a big barbecuing holiday (via my Wikipedia research) so that begs the question: how in the world are people outside today? And cooking food over fire? I attempted to be productive today and pick up miscellaneous cleaning supplies from my local Bed, Bath and Beyond, but barely make it back to my apartment before melting into a puddle. No Florence, the dog days are not over. Stop getting my hopes up.

1. Watsky — Welcome to the Family
George Watsky is a slam poet (examples here and here) turned hip hop musician. I had a brief slam poetry watching phase in high school that led me to his music, but I never got super into Watsky as a musician. Since then he’s written a NYT bestseller, grown a kind of creepy goatee and refined his music such that I feel it’s worth sharing.
Mr Jukes is the independent project of Bombay Bicycle Club lead vocals Jack Steadman and features notable “jazz, funk and soul” influences (cite: Wikipedia). Except, as Mr Jukes, Jack’s shaved his head. That fact doesn’t affect his music, but I thought the shaved head was too much to look at so I picked a YouTube link with just audio.
3. Childish Gambino — This is America
I never posted about this song when I did the original version of Music Mondays (see explanation here) so I’m doing it now.
I went to EZoo and Tiësto was the headliner so this is just a self call. Tbh all his songs sound the same/most EDM sounds the same to me, but live performances are always entertainingly over the top so I guess I can justify the experience.
Wanted to end on something a little folksy/mellow and now that I’m only sharing YouTube links (I used to do a Spotify playlist as well) I can do LIVE/ACOUSTIC versions! I find this Audiotree Live version way better than the Spotify version of the song, but alas it’s only available via this video.
