The New Yorker Radio Hour: A Visit with Thundercat

'Thundercat (né Stephen Lee Bruner) started his career playing with the venerable punk band Suicidal Tendencies, but now he lives and works at the nexus of jazz, pop, and hip-hop. A bassist, producer, and songwriter, Thundercat was a key collaborator with Kendrick Lamar on the album To Pimp a Butterfly, which is widely regarded as a modern classic. His own music, though, is quirkier, marked by a slightly absurdist humor and his vigorous playing of an unusual six-string bass. (“When people see the six-string,” he says, “it immediately denotes that you’re about to play too much.”) Thundercat was also close friends with the rapper Mac Miller, who died, of an overdose, in 2018. Briana Younger, a music editor at The New Yorker, talks with Thundercat about how to process grief in as visible an arena as pop music.' -- The New Yorker Radio Hour