Culture club: Drake, Chris Rock and Adele; Bang on a Can All-Stars

Canada had a big Monday night. There was a new election and a new prime minister. Then, out of nowhere, Drake dropped his "Hotline Bling" video. It's this James Turrell-esque ecosystem he's dancing throughout. The Internet went bananas.

Drake proudly borrows. D.R.A.M. has a cha-cha song. It was packaged as a remix. Eventually it got so big. Drake filters what he borrows and makes it appealing to the masses. The video makes him look like a giant dorkus who's never danced in his life. I think that's what makes it so popular.

I don't think it's a surprise they want to go back to a comedian as established as Chris Rock. He has a knack for awards shows. It doesn't matter whether it's the Oscars or the BET Awards. He brings this edge with him that can be really entertaining in a way that says he's not too worried about who he's going to tick off, or what relationships he'll destroy. So that makes for great TV.  

Chris Rock doesn't mince words when talking about race in Hollywood. It's interesting: the Academy and Hollywood know they have this problem, at least as a PR problem. Everyone references it — this is what happened earlier this year with the Oscars. I don't think Chris Rock will go that route. He's in a position of being able to speak truth-to-power as opposed to making uncomfortable meta-jokes that reference the problem but don't do anything about it.

I never thought I'd listen to a Bieber song unironically-- or dance to one which I’ve also done in the past couple weeks. Bieber talks about going through a lot in the past few years and you can’t help but laugh because he's 21 years old and going through a lot was like being arrested for speed-racing in a Lamborghini in Miami. But I got to say the kid’s wising up and pulling in the right people to help him make music. There's a great profile in the New York Times this week about [the producer] Poo Bear, who's writing all these songs for Justin, and he works with Skrillex and Diplo. And this week he released the song "Sorry" and again, it’s infectious and you can’t help but love it.

There's a wonderful thing about how Adele has approached her career. She stepped away and had a kid. She's enjoying her life. She said, To hell with you guys. You'll wait. I'll put my music out on my time. And that's what happened. People are happy about this new song. It feels like classic Adele.  She displays a lot of faith in herself and in her talent. The thing for pop stars is usually you have to keep reminding people you exist.

Lang: One of the amazing things about the All-Stars is that they all are able to do lots of different kinds of music, and so in the band, you have Ashely, who began her life as a classical musician and is now playing all these other kinds of music. And everyone has that kind of attitude and that kind of outreach.



For example, our guitarist Mark Stewart is also the music director for Paul Simon and he's regularly on tour, or his phone will beep and you'll look at it and it'll be Bruce Springsteen calling. David Cossin, our percussionist, is also a drummer and has played percussion solos on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.



All of these people have very wide abilities, and the exciting thing for us as an organization is trying to design projects that take advantage of all of their abilities.

Lang: Yeah, it's a been a goal of ours to be in every airport on the planet. So obviously starting in America is a really great idea. [laughs] The thing about the project which I think is so beautiful and the reason why Eno chose airports, is because they're a public space we're required to pass through.



We're killing time, we're in transition, but we're not actually some place where we're supposed to notice where we are. And it became a kind of metaphor for him about how music works in our lives — most of the music that we hear is in the background of our lives, very little of it is actually music that we choose for ourselves.



But if you think about it, there's music in the car, music on the radio, music in the elevator, music in the grocery store, and his very powerful idea was, Why can't the music in the background of our lives, that we didn't choose and we don't pay attention to, why can't that music be made with as much care, concern, love, and structure as the music that we choose?

Bathgate: We're going to be in Terminal 2, and I don't know the answer to that question. [laughs] I think we'll find out once we get there?

Lang: I don't think we're going to be sitting on the baggage carousel, but I don't really know much more than Terminal 2.

Bathgate: The last time that we did this, we did have an actual stage and there was an audience area that was blocked off. But then there were lots of passersby who would just stop for a few minutes, maybe some of them would sit, and of course you've got all of this other sound going on — babies crying, people giving announcements, the beeping car that goes through the airport. That's all part of it.

Lang: The first time we did it in an airport was in Stansted Airport, and Brian Eno was there, and that was right after we made the project and premiered it in 1998. And one of the things that was really beautiful was that we were sitting there in the audience, and while I was trying to pay attention, most of the people listening were just people passing through.



So you'd watch them stop, pay attention for a minute, you'd hear the announcements for what plane was landing or what plane was taking off, and I remember thinking, Oh my god, this really works! It really is the most beautiful background music in the world.