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Many of the notable hip-hop, soul, jazz, and funk records of the last decade and a half share a common fingerprint. The nexus joining the intricate grooves of Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. and To Pimp a Butterfly, Kamasi Washington’s Heaven and Earth and The Epic, Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah diptych, Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer, and records by Mac Miller, Flying Lotus, Childish Gambino, Travis Scott, Kali Uchis, Jhené Aiko, Moses Sumney, and many more is the fleet six-string fretwork of bassist, producer, and singer-songwriter Stephen Bruner, a.k.a. Thundercat. Thundercat plays notes like pregnant clouds spill sheets of rain. The riffs are dense but also affecting, spacey without ever losing sight of the ground. Thundercat songs are virtuosic, but also playful in the same way that classic funk records marry elite musicianship with carefree moods and relatable themes. His new album, It Is What It Is, out Friday, is light and uplifting, pushing back at a passing darkness like the first breezy spring days after winter breaks.
I met Thundercat on a crisp February day on the Lower East Side to talk about the new album. What followed was a sprawling conversation about anime, comedy, loss, sobriety, and the ways these threads are braided into his fourth album. We touched on life changes in the wake of losing Mac Miller, the long-lasting musical partnership he has maintained with Flying Lotus, the then-looming threat of the coronavirus (his tour with openers Guapdad 4000 and Teejayx6 has joined the long list of cancellations), the pitfalls of remastering old art for modern sensibilities, and the wonderfully weird future of swag rap.
Last year, you toured and played on a few records. What else did you get into?
Just trying to be emotionally okay. I had a traumatic end of 2018. I took some time to revamp and look at myself and turn things into something else. I stopped drinking. I changed a few things in my life. I was recording a bit. You know, just life changes.
How did ditching alcohol change your life?
Immediately, I lost a lot of weight. It was kind of scary for people who were friends of mine, because they thought I was on drugs or something. It was a bit anxious for me at first, with everything between withdrawal and emotions. It was a lot to take on. Everything would be coming at me pretty fast. But I got used to it. I found my rhythm in it. It’s fine now.
I wondered if, on some level, Drunk was about having a little too much fun.
Drunk was more like an observation. It was how I felt about [alcohol], what it was to me. I had some ups and downs, as anybody would, but for the most part, alcohol was fun. It serves this purpose. It turns you into a different person. That’s why they call it spirits. I enjoyed that very much: the unknown part, the Bukowski level.
But losing Mac was a traumatic experience. It forced me to put things into perspective, genuinely. And I got tired, you know? By the time I went through it with Mac, there were several friends that had left out of here in such a volatile manner that [alcohol] just kind of … lost its appeal.
You have a wild time with a group of people, and you start to feel infallible, like the Avengers, and it suddenly starts to go south …
It don’t feel the same. I would go to want a drink, and I would just hear Mac’s mannerisms. I’d hear his sniffling and his breathing, and it would be really weird. So I just stopped.
He once told me you two had several albums in the can. Do you have any idea what happens with those?
I don’t know, man, to be honest with you. I know moments like this are always weird, from labels to families, what gets seen and put out there and what gets held on to. But I know, more than anything, I’m thankful to God that me and him spent so much time working together.
It still feels strange. It’s been like a year and a half, but it’s still like …
He should be here.
Did I hear his voice on your album?
Yeah, the last song.
Okay. I didn’t hallucinate that. So, there’s a line in your single “Black Qualls”: “Just moved out the hood / Doesn’t mean I’m doing good.” That struck me. You grow up thinking once you get out of the neighborhood, you’re all set. But there’s a lot of people really nervous in their prosperity right now. Talk to me about that.
I remember thinking … going back to slavery, where we had to hide the things that we had because you knew it would be taken from you. If you learned how to read, you’d get killed. That trickled down culture-wise. You get in a situation where you have a chance to progress and find people not being able to comprehend or process that very well. Even getting to a point of being okay is almost eerie. Being able just to stand on your own two feet is scary. I think the song is about the idea that it’s okay to be okay. There’s no rules to how this stuff works a lot of the time. We’re left to make our own rules. It’s difficult to be okay. Erykah Badu used to tell me it’s not a race. Breathe, and you’re usually okay. It just may not feel like it.