For many artists, creating works of art is a deeply personal process –not a lucrative one. But for others, it’s an opportunity to make money. A lot of money. Take today’s pop music artists – you can hear commercially promoted music by tuning into America’s Top 40. But if you want to find emerging artists and diverse sub-genres from the Bay Area and around the world, you should check out All Day Play from Oakland’s Youth Radio. The station DJs follow the latest trends from hip hop to soul to electronica, rock, and house.
Brandon McFarland is editor with All Day Play, and he joined KALW’s Holly Kernan in the studio.
HOLLY KERNAN: So tell us what you’ll be listening to at All Day Play this week.
BRANDON MCFARLAND: Well, we’re definitely looking for the next progression in R&B music. And it lead us to Canada for this band call The Weeknd made up of producer Jeremy Rose and lead singer Abel Tesfaye, and their song “The Morning” is my song of the week right now.
KERNAN: Great, let’s listen to it.
[“The Morning” by The Weeknd]
KERNAN: So tell us what you like so much about this song and this band.
MCFARLAND: I think the great thing about this band is when you first hear them, you automatically think of Drake, who’s one of the hottest artists right now. But what separates them from Drake is that I think their lyrical content is a bit darker and they’re more lenient towards the alternative rock side of themselves and influencing R&B with that, and that’s pretty special. I haven’t heard or come across that.
KERNAN: Brandon, what else are you listening to at All Day Play this week?
MCFARLAND: Right now we’re listening to SBTRKT, this artist from the UK – he actually produces and sings. And this is definitely very new and very experimental. But you have to love it. It’s got all the greatest influences put together. And this song is called “Wildfire.” [“Wildfire” by SBTRKT] MCFARLAND: SBTRKT is a product of the London club scene, the different parties you have going on in London. The dubstep parties, and our strong house music scenes. And broken beat was invented there. It’s just a big DJ club influence culture and I think he was able to take all those different things and make something very original and very special and sing pretty amazingly on top of there.
KERNAN: You’ve taken us on a bit of a music tour aroud the world. What are you listening to locally that we should hear about?
MCFARLAND: Locally, I’m listening to one of my favorite DJs, his name is DJ Sake One. He’s actually on AllDayPlay.fm – he has a podcast every Friday at 4pm that you can check out. He plays different music but it’s all in the R&B genre and I think that’s we I am at right now.
KERNAN: What’s exciting about him?
MCFARLAND: He has the ability to, because he’s back and forth from New York and San Francisco, he’s able to collect a lot of different music from different parts of the world and be connected to the scene in New York, which for us out here, we could be totally oblivious of what’s going on. And so he provides that for Bay Area listeners.
KERNAN: You can hear DJ Sake One at AllDayPlay.fm and we’ve been speaking with Brandon McFarland, who’s the editor of AllDayPlay.fm.
Brandon McFarland is the editor of Youth Radio’s All Day Play internet radio station. Tell us what songs you’d like to hear – on the radio or in our program – on our Facebook page. This interview originally aired July 13, 2011.
