Butcher Brown is a fitting name for a group that cuts up genre so precisely. Patching together slices of hip hop, funk, rock, and soul, the group freewheels their way into contemporary jazz that’s fresh and glistening, soul-affirming and homey. “Cabbage” (an homage to their mentor ensemble, Lettuce) will have you think it’s a funk song until it unspools into a long, meandering keyboard solo. “KingButch,” their new album’s eponymous track, masquerades as a rap about the Jellowstone studio where it was recorded. With other tracks paying playful tribute to the community that’s laid the foundation for their work— see their covers of Blackalicious and Patrice Rushen— they create a collective spanning time and space. If that’s not jazz in 2020, I don’t know what is.
When we all started pandemic-buying groceries online, we should have realized the flaw in that plan— that is, the internet. Think about how e-commerce works: you express interest in something and companies then feed that thing back to you until you buy it again. Online grocers do this as a service. Did you buy pop tarts one time? Look, they’re in your cart again! WE KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE.
This classic online paradigm* serves to reinforce dietary divides between people who buy produce and stuff and people who don’t, all while undermining people’s efforts to improve their diets. And we thought labor was the only issue.
*read this one
Assuming you’re now debilitatingly skeptical of groceries, try subsisting on Reebok’s new “plant-based sneakers.” Made from eucalyptus, castor beans, algae, and rubber trees— yes, rubber trees, from whence springs all rubber— the “The Forever Floatride GLOW” is not as full of pea protein as the label would have you believe. Of course we’ll take a shoe made without petroleum, but let’s all remember that cotton is a plant, too, and I don’t see Hanes out here making any claims.
Ready for some nice proteins? ButcherBox delivers high-quality meat and wild-caught seafood directly to your door. Right now, new members receive 2 lbs of 100% grass-fed ground beef for free in every box for the lifetime of their subscription. Get yours here.
