BadBadNotGood

Formed in 2010 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, BadBadNotGood is known for their intriguing jazz-influenced instrumental interpretations of hip-hop tracks. Founding members Matthew Tavares, Chester Hansen and Alexander Sowinski all attended Humber College in Toronto where they were enrolled in the school's jazz program. Their jazz/hip-hop explorations received a lukewarm reception from college tutors but found favor with rapper Tyler Okonma who enthusiastically promoted the band's interpretation of Odd Future material via social media. After a debut live performance in 2011, the band have steadily grown in stature whilst maintaining close musical connections with members of Odd Future. Their fourth album Sour Soul, released in 2015, was a collaboration with Ghostface Killah. Sour Soul widened the band's commercial appeal drawing more upon hip-hop for inspiration and relying less on jazz. Saxophonist Leland Witty became a permanent addition to the line-up in 2016 and the band's fifth album, misleadingly titled IV, featured more collaborations including contributions by Canadian singer-songwriter Charlotte Day Wilson and Future Islands' shape-shifting frontman Sam Herring. After the release of IV, the members worked on several different projects together including co-producing the track “Lust” from Kendrick Lamarr’s Grammy-winning 2018 album DAMN and “The Ways” (featuring Khalid and Swae Lee), which was featured on the Grammy-nominated Black Panther: The Album. They won another Grammy Award for co-producing “King of the Hill” for Thundercat’s It Is What It Is album. Five years after the release of IV, BadBadNotGood returned with their fifth album Talk Memory (2021), which reached the Number 1 position on Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Albums chart.

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