{"id":535273,"date":"2026-03-14T05:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T05:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/535273\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T05:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T05:32:11","slug":"rapping-with-kim-gordon-bandcamp-daily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/535273\/","title":{"rendered":"Rapping with Kim Gordon | Bandcamp Daily"},"content":{"rendered":"

FEATURES<\/a><\/p>\n

Rapping with Kim Gordon<\/p>\n

By <\/p>\n

Martin Douglas<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00b7
\n March 13, 2026<\/p>\n

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Photo by Moni Haworth<\/p>\n

Born in the Bronx and spread across the Black and Brown neighborhoods of uptown Manhattan, it was only a matter of time before hip-hop made its way to where the cool art kids met\u2014so when Fab 5 Freddy first brought this radical new style of music and culture downtown in the early 1980s, Kim Gordon<\/a> was around.<\/p>\n

While rap was in its early stages as an art form, Gordon found her place in the no wave scene<\/a>, a loose confederation of musicians rallying against the commercialization of punk rock by making resolutely uncommercial music, soon forming the generation-defining band Sonic Youth<\/a> in 1981, with whom she would play for the next three decades. Eight years after Sonic Youth\u2019s 2011 breakup, Gordon released her full-length solo debut, No Home Record<\/a>. Working with producer Justin Raisen, Gordon forged new artistic territory\u2014no one could\u2019ve possibly predicted one of art rock\u2019s marquee names kicking vocals over the beat for \u201cPaprika Pony.\u201d<\/p>\n

Subwoofer-cracking rap beats are the bedrock of Gordon\u2019s third solo album, PLAY ME<\/a>. Although there are other styles represented on the 12-track LP\u2014single \u201cNOT TODAY\u201d is propelled by a motorik pulse, for instance\u2014the triumphant horn sample figuring prominently on the opening\/title track feels more like something that would appear on Digable Planets\u2019s 1994 masterpiece Blowout Comb than on a record from the singer of halcyon indie rock classics like \u201cStar Power\u201d and \u201cKissability.\u201d More than a third of Raisen\u2019s productions here sound like they could have been outtakes from JPEGMAFIA\u2019s cult favorite Black Ben Carson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Gordon\u2019s lyrics pair exquisitely with Raisen\u2019s beat-heavy selections, as they are fractured, imagistic, and, in the case of \u201cDIRTY TECH,\u201d outright ironic.<\/p>\n

We recently had the pleasure of chatting with Gordon about her relationship to hip-hop music, her collaboration process with Raisen, her approach to songwriting, and more.<\/p>\n

One thing I\u2019ve noticed about your, for lack of a better term, \u201cproper\u201d solo work is that you\u2019ve been going in a more hip-hop-oriented direction. I was wondering if you were interested in exploring these sorts of beats before you even released No Home Record.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I mean, I\u2019ve always been inspired by rhythm more, and beats and melody, because it\u2019s just the way my vocal style is. It\u2019s not made for pop songs. I also really just like the idea of sampling, reusing sounds, and building on that.<\/p>\n

Hip-hop, when it evolved, it came from outside the mainstream culture, which I always identified with in Sonic Youth. It was more anti-corporate.<\/p>\n

Was there a moment where you recognized hip-hop culture and hip-hop music and said, \u201cOh my gosh, that\u2019s cool?\u201d<\/p>\n

In the early \u201880s, we were into what the Beastie Boys were doing, but also those records Rick Rubin was producing, like LL Cool J\u2019s first record. And also these hits like [\u201cIt Takes Two\u201d by] Rob Base<\/a>\u2014it was just part of the sounds of Downtown New York in a way. It\u2019s such a melting pot of sounds. Later, when we were recording Daydream Nation <\/a>and the same studio as Public Enemy, that was super cool. We were really jazzed by that.<\/p>\n

An artist that I\u2019m a big fan of, DJ Haram<\/a>, has cited you as a formative influence\u2014and I\u2019ve wondered if that influence goes the other way.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s cool. I mean, maybe not me so much, but my collaborator, Justin Raisen, he\u2019s in that world, and he works with a lot of hip-hop artists. He sort of gets a kick out of like, \u2018Is this gonna fuck with people in the hip-hop world?\u2019 He knows what I like, and he works off of that.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been collaborating with Justin for about a decade now. Was there a moment when you felt working with Justin was working, or was it a gradual process where the more you worked, the more you realized it worked?<\/p>\n

The first song we did together was \u2018Murdered Out,\u2019 which came about through me going into the studio and singing on somebody else\u2019s song he was working with. And then he took these bits and pieces, and he put this trashy drumbeat [behind it]. He sent it back to me, and I was like, \u2018Oh, he really gets my sensibility.\u2019 I was very surprised, and I went back in and did more.<\/p>\n

That was the beginning and he\u2019ll try things on me to open up my idea of what I feel comfortable with; he also doesn\u2019t care if I don\u2019t like something that he presents me with. On The Collective<\/a>, he used an Auto-Tuner on \u2018Psychedelic Orgasm.<\/a>\u2018 And at first I was like, \u2018Dude, I fucking hate that filter. It\u2019s on every R&B song!\u2019 And he said, \u2018Yeah, but if you do it, it\u2019s, it\u2019s ironic, you know?\u2019<\/p>\n

It was a pretty startling moment to hear your voice processed through Auto-Tune.<\/p>\n

Yeah. I think it\u2019s really the most musical moment on [that] record. [laughs]<\/p>\n

There is a notion of immediacy in PLAY ME, and it\u2019s very, very apparent. Did you and Justin go into this recording knowing that you were going to complete these songs very quickly? Was that part of the process?<\/p>\n

We did want to make short songs and do it fairly quickly. I don\u2019t know, it just happened that way, and I think maybe it\u2019s just being more and more comfortable working with him. It becomes more apparent how it works together, how we work together.<\/p>\n

Your lyrics are often a reaction to\u2026basically every aspect of society. Do you feel like that\u2019s your primary function as an artist? Is it a moral imperative? Or a combination of both?<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s part of my instincts to be an interventionist. I mean, it\u2019s not a moral imperative, but it\u2019s kind of built in. [My lyrics are] observational, even in Sonic Youth, with certain lyrics like \u2018Swimsuit Issue<\/a>.\u2019 Some things were sociological or observational. A lot of it is kind of reactive to what\u2019s going on. I think my lyrics are also kind of abstract, so hopefully they don\u2019t come off as finger-pointing in a certain way. Maybe they do, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

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How is approaching your solo work different from, say, Body\/Head<\/a> or Free Kitten?<\/a> Is it, is it the nature of your collaboration with Justin?<\/p>\n

Yeah, pretty much. Body\/Head, that\u2019s all unscripted, improvised music; it\u2019s just very free music. So it\u2019s fun. And then Free Kitten was when Julie [Cafritz] and I were inspired by what comes about in our personalities. It\u2019s a lot of music I\u2019ve done\u2014even in Sonic Youth\u2014that comes from what each person brings to the band. Julie and I were really inspired by Royal Trux.<\/a> It\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, you can have a band with just two people.\u2019 Then we added on. But when it started, it was just the two of us and we would basically just record while we were making it up and then have to learn how to play.<\/p>\n

How does your practice as a visual artist inform your approach to making music? Do you think of music in texture or shapes or color, or is it a different process?<\/p>\n

Music is certainly very visceral and physical in a way that, for me, is very performative. I also don\u2019t really know anything about music, so it\u2019s very freeing for me. Like I said, I may be more of an interventionist than a musician. The best visual work I make is when I can psych myself into a place where I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing when I\u2019m trying to make art, so it\u2019s similar in that way. Sometimes they overlap.<\/p>\n

It sounds like the work dictates what you do rather than the other way around. Would that be an accurate observation?<\/p>\n

Yeah, I guess so. My art is fairly performative as well. I guess it\u2019s also similar in that way.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been creating art for decades now, pretty much half a century. Are there any styles of art that you\u2019ve encountered that you haven\u2019t tried that make you say, \u201cI think I wanna attempt something in this style\u201d?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know. Every now and then, I think about trying to do a fucked up jazz record or something, or something with, like, Brazilian beats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FEATURES Rapping with Kim Gordon By Martin Douglas \u00b7 March 13, 2026 Photo by Moni Haworth Born in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-535273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}