The LA Setlist: Sep. 30 - Oct. 6, 2024

By age 26, Artist Dubose already boasted a perfect record of four out of four Billboard top 10 albums as A Boogie Wit da Hoodie. Harnessing nonchalant flows to trap beats, the Bronx prodigy really separates himself with the quality of his hooks which, from the get-go with 2015 mixtapes on his own Highbridge the Label (co-founded with fellow rapper Quincy “QP” Achempong), propelled his steep ascent marked by the endorsement of Meek Mill and DJ Khaled followed by a major deal with Atlantic Records, inclusion in an XXL “Freshman Class” feature in 2017, and then his debut album The Bigger Artist, which debuted at number four. Released in May, Dubose's fifth full-length, Better Off Alone is a characteristically guest-heavy offering featuring Young Thug, Cash Cobain, Future, Lil Durk, Fridayy, and Mariah the Scientist. The album displays its maker’s more contemplative side, mulling the trade offs between authentic expression and commercial success. Tickets at Ticketmaster.

It all happened fast for Nigerian singer/songwriter/producer Tems since she featured on Wizkid’s GRAMMY-nominated 2020 single “Essence.” Her seductively velvet timbre soon caught the attention of Drake, who featured her on his “Fountains” song that same year. Then, her sampled vocals topped the Billboard Hot 100 on 2022 Future’s single “Wait for U”;, and she appeared on the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack, co-writing Rihanna’s contribution to that album, “Lift Me Up.” Simultaneously, Tems has been releasing her own music, beginning with 2020’s For Broken Ears EP, including her first charting solo single, “Free Mind,” and 2021’s If Orange Was a Place EP. But the groundswell of admiration for Tems’ thoughtful blending of alt R&B and Afrobeats burst its banks with the near-universal acclaim for her 2023 debut solo album, Born in the Wild, which charted in multiple European countries and propelled her to Greek Theatre headliner status stateside. Tickets at AXS.

Yemen Blues took the old adage “play every note like it’s your last” to literal extremes while recording their new album Only Love Remains in Israel last November as rockets streaked overhead and explosions sent them running to the studio cellar. Accordingly, Only Love Remains it’s the multinational, multicultural foursome’s most extreme album yet – a polyglot mélange of Bedouin folk, funk, blues, avant-garde, Arabian classical, fuzzed-out rock, psych and jazz. Widely hailed as one of the most exciting bands in world music since their 2010 formation, for this latest effort Yemen Blues semi-improvised in the studio around only embryonic compositions, with now stripped-down membership (they were once a nine-piece) now leaning into the time-honored ritual potency of percussion. Focused on the trancelike performances of mercurial co-founding vocalist Ravid Kahalani, Yemen Blues’ live performances are never the same twice, with the often improvised unexpected their instinctive norm. Tickets at Dice.

Nothing announces, “I’ve arrived as an established artist” like releasing a full-length film to accompany your new album, but that’s just what Texan pop/country doyen Kacey Musgraves did with 2021’s Star-Crossed: The Film (which just became streamable on YouTube). This eponymous companion to her hit fifth album helped consolidate Musgraves’ position on the commercial podium following her hugely acclaimed, quadruple GRAMMY-winning 2018 Golden Hour opus, on which Musgraves also dabbled in yacht rock, electronica, and disco with hugely resonant results. Part of her cross-generational appeal is socially progressive lyrics which are even today something of a bold anomaly in traditionally conservative country music, tackling topics such as LGBTQ acceptance, recreational marijuana use, and safe sex. Musgraves was nearly 30 when Golden Hour hit, and her mature sense of self has shown in retaining its welcome air of authenticity ever since, culminating in this year’s politically aware, confessionally fame-agnostic Deeper Well. Tickets at Ticketmaster.

One of the few silver linings of the utterly overcast pandemic was the musical adventure that lockdown’s sheer boredom and limited options incubated. For Polish neo-classical composer/pianist/vocalist Hania Rani, this took the form of an experimental blurring of boundaries between classical, jazz, and house music. Known for her obsessively devoted practice regimen, Rani often finds inspiration in her natural surroundings, be it the rippling waters lapping the port city of Gdańsk where she grew up or the weather and landscape around the Icelandic capital Reykjavik, where she wrote and recorded her award-winning instrumental debut album, Esja, using microphones so close to the piano that every creak was captured. While this may all sound rather artsy and obscure, Rani’s haunting, ethereal creations have charted in the UK and Germany, and third album Ghosts, released last fall, is made all the more accessible by featuring her vocals much more prominently than on prior releases. Tickets at Ticketweb.

Not only would I pay good money just to see Justice perform their 2007 “D.A.N.C.E.” mega hit, but I’d shell out solely to hear its absolutely outrageous, beyond-funk (programmed) bassline. But the once ubiquitous “D.A.N.C.E.” is just the commercial zenith of the eccentric French duo who, before and ever since, have continued irreverently surprising with both their own meticulously crafted material and remixes for other artists, including the diverse likes of Britney Spears, N.E.R.D., U2, and Franz Ferdinand. While forever built on throwback disco, house, and funk foundations, Justice’s Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay also wander wide-eyed though prog rock and metal, new wave, and indie stimuli, resulting in brash yet broadly resonating music. Released in April, their three-and-a-half-years-in-the-making fourth album proper, Hyperdrama, finds Justice adding a slightly harder and darker revisiting of early ‘90s gabber techno to their already multigenre mélange.

Named in honor of NOFX’s watershed 1994 album, Punk in Drublic is a traveling fest that combines top punk acts with the best in craft beer. The brainchild of NOFX bassist/vocalist Fat Mike and concert promoter/craft beer fanatic Cameron Collins, Punk in Drublic traditionally finds LA genre legends NOFX headlining with a bunch of other national and local punk luminaries in support. But this year’s tour is extra special, and its three San Pedro dates extra, extra special, because, after over 40 years, these will be the final shows ever for scene stalwarts NOFX. Each day will feature multiple stages with strictly no overlapping set times, meaning that you can catch the likes of MXPX, Bouncing Souls, and Buzzcocks (on Friday); Descendents, Less Than Jake, and Lagwagon (on “Fat-urday”); and Pennywise, The Vandals, and Subhumans (Sun.), as well as the tearful and likely messy farewell to the beloved NOFX.

San Diego duo Glass Spells dreamily bring retro synth-pop into the here and now with clean contemporary production and nods to electro-era dancefloors. While they’ve been around for over a decade, founding instrumentalist Anthony Ramirez had a handful of different bandmates before teaming in 2020 with vocalist Tania Costello, whose emotive, ethereal timbre, and theatrical, yet unpretentious stage presence has resonated with a steadily growing fanbase. The long awaited followed up to well received 2021 debut album Shattered, Glass Spell’s sophomore full-length, Crystals (see what they did there?), emerged in July - eight stylishly melancholic and marvelously atmospheric tracks that connect through understated hooks and Costello’s glacial Spanish/English utterances. On stage, Glass Spell’s cinematic synthscapes are made more human by the addition of a live drummer – a welcome sonic and visual enhancement that more bands of their ilk would do well to consider. Tickets at AXS.

In celebration of their 30th anniversary, nu metal’s ultimate survivors Korn are staging what amounts to a mini festival at the 22,000-capacity BMO Stadium in Exposition Park. A bludgeoning collision of down-tuned metal, hip-hop sensibilities, and tidal waves of adolescent angst, the Bakersfield boys have somehow ridden out shifting trends and their own maturing to remain A-list headbanging attractions (and with still four-fifths of their original lineup). Rounding out an impressive, era-straddling bill at the normally soccer-specific BMO are de facto Hot Topic soundtrack Evanescence, hip French heavyweights Gojira, the fantastic Scars On Broadway (effectively the solo project of System of a Down guitarist Daron Malakian), and proggy Canadians Spiritbox. But this epic event will rightly be all about Korn, whose Faith No More-indebted efforts to be sonically and thematically crushing but not traditionally “metal” – in sound or image – have significantly shaped heavy music for three decades and counting. Tickets at Ticketmaster.

With model looks, star-power glamor, and prolific output, all that’s apparently kept rapid-fire Mexican American rapper Snow Tha Product from fully transcending cult status has been her admirable unwillingness to pander. Traversing aggressive, hard ‘n’ fast rhyming, pop-friendly/club-ready hooks, and forays into trap, the Cali-based emcee’s bold persona and fluid bilingual flows have resonated in both English- and Spanish-speaking markets, including breakthrough success in Mexico with her 2010 Kohen collab “Alguien,” a deal with Atlantic Records, and earning RIAA Latin Platinum certification (and a Latin GRAMMY nomination) for her 2021 track with Argentinian producer Bizarrap, "Snow Tha Product: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 39." After years of dues paying in the Southwest underground hip-hop scene while based in Texas, her appearance on the 2022 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack hinted at prolonged mainstream recognition which, considering Tha Product’s track record to date, will only be achieved strictly on her own terms. Tickets at Live Nation.