San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Online extra
For The Chronicle’s playlist of this week’s picks, and to watch music videos of select songs, go to datebook.sf chronicle.com.
SONG OF THE MOMENT
Steve Lacy, ‘Bad Habit’ (RCA) Steve Lacy broke through in 2017 as a 19-year-old guitar prodigy and production mastermind with the viral single “Dark Red,” an earworm he produced using his iPhone. The former guitarist for Los Angeles alt-R&B band the Internet then received a 2020 Grammy nomination for his debut album, “Apollo XXI.” Now on his excellent newly released sophomore album “Gemini Rights,” he’s weaving songs about his first love and heartbreak, prompting Kanye West to call him “one of the most inspiring people on the planet.”
The album’s lead single is “Bad Habit,” one of the year’s best songs so far. Lacy’s sticky guitar groove and simple drum pattern interlock with his velveteen vocals in the style of Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes. The song’s bridge is especially masterful. It’s impossible to not listen to this one five times in a row.
LOCALLY MINDED
Jazz Mafia, ‘Suite San Francisco’ ( JM Collective Recordings)
Written a decade ago and inspired by recordings stolen from the band’s Oakland studio in 2012, “Suite San Francisco” is a display of the bold Bay Area collective’s combination of jazz, orchestral brass music and hip-hop.
“Over the past 10 years, we’ve slowly and painstakingly reproduced the music, even re-assembling our 50-piece orchestra for a few of the tracks,” band director/brass wizard Adam Theis said in a statement. What you hear on the album, released last month, are rerecordings of the originals created by Jazz Mafia’s cast of dozens of creators.
As its title suggests, the album is filled with nods to San Francisco, like the Emperor Norton-inspired “Love Riot,” which sees emcees Soulati, Aima the Dreamer and Dublin converging for a lyrical uprising. Meanwhile, local staples Lyrics Born and Joyo Velarde are featured vocalists on the cinematic “Over You.”
“Suite San Francisco” is the sixth release of 2022 for Jazz Mafia, who with its “52/22” project is on a mission to drop a track every week until the end of the year.