THENEWYORKER,JULY27, 2020 5
ILLUSTRATION BY SADDO
The sound of dissent takes many forms—voices rising, chants echoing.
In New York, dissent also sounds like Pop Smoke. The Canarsie-born
rapper, who was shot and killed, in February, at a Hollywood Hills home
he was renting, was known for his low, rumbling style of Brooklyn drill,
which, as Pitchfork and Nylon have noted, has recently filled the streets
and shaped the soundtrack of local Black Lives Matter protests. Songs
such as “Dior,” with its roaring, rallying spirit, capture the current mo-
ment, but Pop Smoke’s posthumous album, “Shoot for the Stars Aim
for the Moon,” is a flash into a future that never was. His signature bark
has been tempered for radio-friendly production, resulting in a surpris-
ingly commercial project, with guest spots by the likes of 50 Cent and
Karol G. Softened performances on “What You Know Bout Love” and
“Something Special” illuminate new sides of the artist, yet, even in those
quieter glimpses, his presence looms large—an enduring force, too big
to contain.—Julyssa Lopez
HIP-HOP
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MUSIC
The Beneficiaries:
“The Crystal City Is Alive”
TECHNO At a moment when dance music’s
spotlight is firmly on its African-American
origins, the arrival of “The Crystal City Is
Alive,” the début album by the Detroit techno
supergroup the Beneficiaries, is particularly
well timed. To be fair, it would be notable at
any time, if only because the project’s partic-
ipants include the producers Jeff Mills and
Eddie Fowlkes—two of the style’s key archi-
tects—and the poet Jessica Care Moore. Their
cosmic beat-scapes evoke an incense-lined
sitting area as much as a dance floor, and the
set’s sprawl feels apt—reaching for the stars
requires some elbow room.—Michaelangelo
Matos
S. G. Goodman:
“Old Time Feeling”
ROCK In June, S. G. Goodman made a video
of the Depression-era song “I Don’t Want
Your Millions, Mister” as part of a series
supporting Charles Booker’s ultimately failed
bid for the Democratic nomination for the
U.S. Senate in Kentucky. Hidden beneath a
mop of hair and mammoth granny glasses,
Goodman sings in one of those ancient folk
voices that reach back to the tune’s troubled
era, but her lyrics address a bogeyman from
the current one: “We don’t want you, Mitch
McConnell.” The performance is not included
on Goodman’s new album, “Old Time Feel-
ing,” but the record is awash in its antique
color and righteous spirit. The LP is a work
of Southern leftism: a farmer’s proudly gay
daughter applies singing that she learned in
her Baptist church to rail against societal ills.
Goodman’s prevailing tone involves less rage
than it does forgiveness—which, more than
any Kentucky lilt, makes the young singer
appear refreshingly out of step with these
divisive times.—Jay Ruttenberg
Tatiana Hazel: “Duality”
INDIE POP The Chicago-born singer Tatiana
Hazel frequently pairs her homemade indie
pop with music videos that are as colorful as
fistfuls of confetti. Her bold aesthetic, in-
spired by her Mexican-American upbringing
and her background as a fashion designer, has
stood out since she began releasing music,
in 2012, but with her new EP, “Duality,”
her sound seems to have fully caught up
to the bright intensity of her visual work.
Hazel’s voice, which has always been gentle
and slightly subdued, glides along effort-
lessly, even as she turns up the dial on her
production and tests quaking, dance-driven
electronic beats. Each part of her artistry
comes together on “IN MY ROOM!,” an
inward yet empowered breakup song that
pulses with neon, eighties-inspired synth
lines.—Julyssa Lopez
“prisoner of the state”
OPERA David Lang is a canny architect of mod-
ern music. In the New York Philharmonic’s
new recording of Lang’s opera “prisoner of
the state,” with the conductor Jaap van Zwe-
den, the composer doesn’t necessarily change
the way we hear the orchestra—the strings
yearn and shiver, the percussion thumps and
forebodes, the vocal lines rise effortlessly out
of the instrumental texture—but his keen
efficiency directs our attention to each sec-
tion’s impact. The opera reimagines the plot
of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” as an investigation
of authoritarianism’s abuses and pernicious
appeal. Lang’s originality lies in the Gov-
ernor (sung by the ingratiating tenor Alan
Oke): the composer transforms Beethoven’s
cardboard villain into a despot who quotes
Machiavelli and sings sleepy, seductive arias
about holding his constituents in thrall and
lulling them into complacency. When the
Governor is shot in the finale, he doesn’t
die; authoritarianism, as a mind-set, outlives
any one practitioner after it takes root in the
citizenry.—Oussama Zahr
Max Roach: “We Insist!”
JAZZ The original cover art for the 1960
album “We Insist!: Max Roach’s Freedom
Now Suite” shows three Black men taking
their rightful place at a presumably off-lim-
its lunch counter, making it instantly clear
that the drummer and bandleader Roach,
who was by then legendary, and his cohorts
meant business. Gathering up-and-coming
players (including the trumpeter Booker
Little), venerated veterans (the tenor saxo-
phonist Coleman Hawkins), the percussionist
Babatunde Olatunji, and the vocalist Abbey
Lincoln, Roach produced a pointed musical
statement that addresses African-American
history and celebrates African peoples with
passion. The album’s climax, “Triptych:
Prayer/Protest/Peace,” is a haunting, word-
less duet between Roach and Lincoln that
transforms contemplation into a defiant wail
of anger in its central movement. Revisited
sixty years later, the album retains all its bite
and intransigence.—Steve Futterman
Tanglewood Online Festival
CLASSICAL The venerable Tanglewood Music
Festival, the summer home of the Boston
Symphony Orchestra, has reimagined its
season with a schedule of newly taped re-
citals and archival programs, both free and
ticketed. This week’s lineup of fresh fare
includes a performance by the adventurous
