In the pits of quarantine, Stephen Bruner, the madcap maestro bassist known as Thundercat, thought he was going to spend a whole year on the couch. The tour surrounding his new album, It Is What It Is, a jazz-pop masterclass written in the wake of his friend Mac Miller’s untimely passing, was canceled. The future seemed uncertain. For the first time since he was 14, he wouldn’t be on the road playing music.
He and childhood friend Kamasi Washington spoke, trying to make sense of the downtime. “We were going back and forth with it, because we’ve been playing all our lives, and he expressed this sentiment where he was just like, ‘Man, I have not done anything like this since we were children,’ ” said Bruner. “I remember the first gig that we played around L.A., when we would play at the Laker games, or play at Catalina Bar and Grill. This hasn’t happened since we weren’t allowed to stay out past the street lights. It was like Clockwork Orange—it was a bit of a mindfuck.”
To make the best of a bad year, Bruner made some life changes and tried to practice self-care. He ate better and took up boxing. He indulged his serious love of anime (lately he’s rewatching Attack on Titan to prep for the new season). And his year is ending on a high note—It Is What It Is is nominated for a Grammy.
We asked Thundercat to look back at his favorite music from one of the weirdest years ever. He didn’t disappoint. Here are 12 Thundercat-approved tracks, from Ty Dolla $ign’s epic posse cut to anime theme songs to Frank Zappa.
Fairuz – “Habbaitak Be El Saif”
At the start of the year, a friend turned me on to an artist by the name of Fairuz. I immediately became enthralled by the music. She’s singing in Arabic, and I dig her voice. That wasn’t my first introduction to Arabic music, but sometimes you find stuff, sonically, that fills a certain space in the right way, and you can’t really deny it.
Dreamville – “Don’t Hit Me Right Now” with Bas & Cozz feat. Yung Baby Tate, Guapdad 4000, and Buddy
This actually came out last year, but I was listening to it a lot more at the beginning of 2020. First of all, Revenge of the Dreamers is a dope album. I love this track. It just made me feel good—like, that’s my crew, that’s my people. There was this tension that they would be sharing throughout the whole entire thing.
Thundercat – “It Is What It Is”
My album came out immediately when everything shut down. It was wild. I didn’t know what was going to become of that.
This song, [the title track], came from a lot of heartache. That’s exactly how this song came to be. Pain.
GQ: Was there any healing that came through making the song?
I mean, if you consider a bullet wound scabbing over, and then having to cover it with tar, yeah, you can heal from that. But time heals everything, right?
Ambrose Akinmusire – “Yessss”
Ambrose Akinmusire released an album this year called on the tender spot of every calloused moment. It’s one of the best albums of the year, and the second track, “Yessss,” became one of my favorite songs. I feel like that was when stuff hit a certain place—you could feel the turning point of the year in that album. I remember sitting with this album and thinking, “Man, it feels like a genuine snapshot.” I know Ambrose pretty closely, and I feel like he really showed his teeth on his album. He’s never been one to play games with sound, trying to tiptoe lightly around ideas, especially as a trumpet player.