An unexpected joy … as my 13-year-old son, Gus, has developed his own musical tastes, he’s turned me onto some great music. Here are three examples.

Note: some of this music uses strong language. If swearing offends you, I’d skip this post.

Anderson .Paak

This guy’s up for a Grammy this year for best new artist. His album Malibu is catchy hip hop that throws in some surprising funk elements. Here’s Come Down, the best song from that album (you might have heard it on a Kevin Durant sneaker commercial):

Childish Gambino

If you saw the movie The Martian, you saw this guy, whose birthname is Donald Glover. He’s also the star, writer, and executive producer of Atlanta. And he’s playing Lando Calrissian in next year’s Star Wars movie, so you’ll certainly know about him then if you don’t now.

He’s got some newer stuff, but if you haven’t listened to anything of his yet, start with his Grammy-nominated album Because the Internet. Here’s Sweatpants, my favorite song from that album, largely because of its English-teacher-friendly use of onomatopoeia:

Individual Songs

I like listening to albums, but that’s not the way most young people listen to music these days. Gus finds individual songs he likes from his friends or from video games, and then he bounces from song to song on various albums. I know this, because we often let him play his music in the car.

About three years ago, the songs he listened to started being less about parodies and farts and started being … good. The song below, Aerosol Can, was the first song that Gus introduced me to that I added to my own playlist because I liked it so much. There have been many more I’ve added since then (although I still usually end up listening to whole albums after hearing a song I like – old habits die hard).

By 2014, Pharrell (the rapper on Aerosol Can) was either producing or performing on about half of the songs heard on the radio. He’s everywhere. The lyrics are pretty dense – at this site, you can click on each line and find what motivated them.

Thanks for introducing me to new stuff, Gus … keep it coming 🙂