JADE: What is your favorite Weird Al parody?
Is it "White and Nerdy"? Are you more of "An
Amish Paradise" type of person?
I personally am a "just 'Eat It'" fan, but
I think we might have a new one coming up
for you a little bit later.
It's Friday! It's May 1. And this is The Current's
Music News.
[theme music: Jahzzar - Comedie (CC By SA
4.0)]
JADE: Hey, it's Jade.
JAY: And I'm Jay.
Drummer Tony Allen has died of an abdominal
aortic aneurysm at age 79. The Nigerian musician
was an Afrobeat legend, best known for playing
in Fela Kuti's band, Africa 70. Fela Kuti
once said, "Without Tony Allen, there would
be no Afrobeat."
Tony Allen and Fela Kuti met in 1964, and
over the next several years, the two musicians
developed a new kind of African dance music,
partially inspired by American funk. Afrobeat's
songs would stretch over 10 minutes often;
they got very long. Every musician might take
a solo, and Tony Allen always knew when to
show off, and when to pull back, always shaping
that beat, always shaping that evolving groove.
JADE: Afrobeat became and remains popular.
In fact, the sound that Tony Allen helped
invent inspired bands like Talking Heads,
who were introduced to Fela Kuti's music through
Brian Eno. Brian Eno told the band, "This
is the music of the future."
And Allen remained busy right up until this
year in fact, when he released an album with
the late trumpeter Hugh Masekela, and he's
also a member of The Good The Bad and The
Queen with Damon Albarn, who you know from
Blur and Gorillaz, and in 2012, he worked
with Flea, the bassist Flea, on a record as
well. And in fact, Flea hopped on Instagram
to say, "The greatest drummer on Earth has
left us. What a wildman, with a massive, kind
and free heart and the deepest one-of-a-kind
groove. Fela Kuti did not invent Afrobeat,
Fela and Tony birthed it together."
DAMON ALBARN: This is Tony Allen!
[audience: cheers]
[music: drumming]
JAY: Musicians are really hurting right now.
More evidence of that? A $14 million fund
for COVID relief developed by the Grammy-related
charity, MusiCares, is already used up. The
fund has stopped taking new applications;
musicians were able to apply for up to a thousand
dollars to help with expenses at this time.
In a statement, the fund said, "It is the
largest amount of money raised, with the most
recipients helped, for any single event in
our history. To date this year, we've vetted
and approved 20,200 individuals to receive
assistance. For context, that's more than
double the number of music people we typically
serve in one year."
JADE: Sorry, that's a heavy story.
JAY: Yeah.
JADE: Prince.
David Bowie.
Led Zeppelin.
Metallica.
The Eagles.
Fleetwood Mac.
What do these bands have in common?
It sounds kind of like the legends of Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame, but in fact, it's the
list of artists who are going to have new
shows on SiriusXM. In fact, new channels,
an entire channel dedicated to their music.
Country star George Strait, he's also getting
a channel, and the Rolling Stones, who already
have a channel, they're getting kind of an
expanded, new channel for them specifically.
And so all these channels are debuting today.
You can stream them for free through May 30,
and the artists' estates are all on board,
so these have all gotten the clear. In fact,
Prince and his channel will feature a two-hour
demo that the artist made back in 2005 for
a proposed series show that Prince would host,
and get this: It's him with DJ Rashida and
comic Katt Williams.
I'm intrigued.
JAY: That's today's music news. We'll be back
with another update, so like and follow us
so you can be sure to catch it. And in the
meantime, listen to The Current on the radio,
on your smart speaker, on our app, on our
web stream. Click in the comments to let us
know what music news stories are meaningful
to you right now.
Jade, earlier you were asking what people's
favorite Weird Al parody is; I'm a fan of
the polka. I actually have a playlist of just
his polka parodies.
JADE: Oh, Jay, that does not surprise me at
all. Yes, that's perfect.
JAY: Yeah. Well, so I was excited to learn
that Weird Al Yankovic is going to be parodying
Ted Nugent, but he's not remaking "Cat Scratch
Fever," although I'd be very curious to hear
that. Weird Al is actually playing the Motor
City Madman in a new season of "Reno 911."
You can catch just a glimpse of Weird Al as
Ted Nugent in the trailer. The new season
starts Monday on Quibi.
[audio from "Reno 911" trailer]
WEIRD AL (as Ted Nugent): What are you thinking??
