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Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio: ‘David Bowie was dressed like a European dad on vacation. He could wander around NYC unnoticed'
This, explains Tunde Adebimpe, is where the magic happens. The TV on the Radio frontman gestures around his garage, grimacing at the disorder. 'Yeah, this is very magical,' he deadpans. 'I've been moving a bunch of things around, so it's a total mess in here. I'm not proud, but this is where I am a lot of the time.' This little corner of Silver Lake, in Los Angeles, is where Adebimpe has lived for the past 11 years, after migrating west from New York. He and his bandmates had become one of the most iconic Brooklyn indie bands of the early 2000s, purveyors of cerebral, imaginative art-rock that Adebimpe once memorably described as 'Earth, Wind & Fire meets Wu-Tang Clan'. It's also where he pulled together the bones of what would become his long-awaited debut solo album, Thee Black Boltz, which came out in April. His solo venture doesn't mean the end of TV on the Radio, however. Last year the band reunited for the first time since 2019 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut album, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, and will play their first Irish gig for 17 years at the Beyond the Pale festival this month. [ Tunde Adebimpe interview from 2004: 'It's as if you can't be black and be in a rock'n'roll band' Opens in new window ] 'I feel really lucky that we've been able to do it for so long, especially considering we're not making, y'know, the poppiest of pop music,' the 50-year-old says with a chuckle. 'And, also, it is very strange to think it's been that long, which is almost half my life.' He shakes his head in disbelief. 'Wow.' READ MORE In the mid-2000s TV on the Radio were at the vanguard of the emerging Williamsburg indie scene. One of their high-profile fans was David Bowie, who agreed to sing on Province, a track from Return to Cookie Mountain , their celebrated 2006 album. 'First off, he was the coolest,' says Adebimpe, grinning as he recalls how his bandmate Dave Sitek, a noteworthy producer in his own right, pounced on the opportunity to ask Bowie to be on their record once he heard that he was a fan. 'He was wearing a Tommy Hilfiger short-sleeve collar jacket, cargo shorts and socks, and New Balance sneakers. That was one of the first things I noticed: he was dressed like a European dad on vacation,' he says. 'And after about 15 minutes I was, like 'Oh, it's another disguise – of course he's got a normcore outfit where he can just wander around New York City unnoticed'.' He laughs hard. 'I was pretty much just sitting there, like, 'I still don't believe David Bowie's here,' but then it got to a point where it was kind of, like, 'Oh, we're just hanging with our cool uncle.' And then he went into the booth to get to work and sang the first harmony on Province, and everyone was, 'Wow. David Bowie is here, singing on our record.' He was incredibly gracious. David Bowie with TV on the Radio during David Bowie Presents The H&M High Line Festival 2007. Photograph: G Gershoff/WireImage 'Then, later, [in 2007,] we played his festival, the High Line, and he walked into the room in a suit – completely the regular, glamorous David Bowie – and I was just, like, 'It's fucking crazy. You're like Batman'.' He grins widely. 'But he was such a lovely person. What a privilege to be able to even hang out, let alone have him record with us.' Not all of Adebimpe's memories of the band's early years are so fond. He admits that he reached a point several years ago where he realised that he needed to step away from music. The recording/touring treadmill had become a grind, he says, and he didn't take enough time to process the losses in his life, including that of his sister Jumoke, who died in 2021. The break that the band took following a period of heavy touring, he says, was 'a good thing' for him. 'It wasn't that I never wanted to do it again; I just wanted it to feel good and purposeful, and not just something I was doing just because I've done it for so long. 'And I feel like that was the right move, because now I do feel like it's something I love, and I feel a purpose in it. Even touring with the brief run of shows we did last year, it just felt so good, and now I'm excited to go on tour. That sounds weird to come out of my mouth,' he says, laughing. 'But everyone's connected in a really good way, and it's kind of hit a refresh button on everyone. It's good to take a break so you realise what it is that you love about something.' During TV on the Radio's downtime, which coincided with the pandemic and the death of his sister, the seeds for Thee Black Boltz were sown. Sitek and their bandmate Kyp Malone had pursued solo projects years earlier, but Adebimpe had dabbled in visual art and acting instead. When someone broke into his garage and stole 15 years' worth of hard drives containing scraps of songs and ideas he had intended to get around to developing some day, it forced him to go back to basics. The resultant album is a celebration of the music that he loves, from the glam-tinged rock of Pinstack to the tender acoustic flutter of ILY and the experimental electronica of Blue. 'They took my laptop and a couple of small drum machines, too. I think they just took whatever they could carry,' he says, shrugging. 'Since I didn't have any of my recording equipment, I took out my old four-track and started recording on that again, which was definitely helpful in the whole process of rediscovering what I liked about making music. 'It felt like I was back to zero in a lot of ways – which at first felt mortifying but shortly after was pretty liberating. It was, like, 'Well, that stuff's gone. I have nothing to do but make more stuff – and anything that was on those hard drives that I can't remember, I don't need.' That was an important realisation.' That's one of the things about acting: the stomach that you have to develop for rejection is a weird thing Reuniting as TV on the Radio for the run of dates late last year was a joyful experience, even if Sitek has chosen not to join them on tour – which his bandmates have given their blessing to. 'It's all good,' says Adebimpe with another shrug. 'And when it's time to do that again, whether in a studio or on stage, I'm sure it'll happen.' Does that mean another record – their first since Seeds, from 2014 – is a possibility? 'It's possible,' he says, smiling. 'I mean, I feel like it's more possible than impossible.' In any case, Adebimpe has plenty of other work to keep him busy, not least his acting career, which recently saw him take prominent roles in the Star Wars: Skeleton Crew TV series and Lee Isaac Chung's movie Twisters. The NYU film-school graduate is laid back about the prospect of further roles. 'The funny thing is, during the pandemic I started doing more auditions because I was just at home – and almost nothing came of those,' he says. 'That's one of the things about acting: the stomach that you have to develop for rejection is a weird thing. But you realise that you've built networks of friends who are making stuff, and I get tagged in every once in a while. It's something I love doing, and if these things yield more things I'm super down for that.' Despite his acting career, his art career and his solo album, Adebimpe has no feeling of inner conflict about returning to his frontman role with TV on the Radio. 'It's just been really good to get back,' he says. 'I didn't feel like I was getting pulled into the past. I felt like we'd spent 20 years building this motorcycle, and then we put it in the garage. Then we took the cover off of it, and it's still pretty rad. And now we've had enough experience where we can do tricks on it: we're not learning how to ride it or build it; we can just Evel Knievel all over the place. 'And it's weird how the muscle memory comes back. We were on stage, and I'm looking around at my friends playing, and I'm just, like, 'Oh my god. Okay. Yes.'' He grins again. 'I don't feel like it's an ego trip to say we're a really good band.' TV on the Radio play Beyond the Pale , at the Glendalough Estate in Co Wicklow, on Sunday, June 15th; the festival begins on Friday, June 13th Five other acts to catch at Beyond the Pale 2025 Róisín Murphy. Photograph: Tom Honan Róisín Murphy Saturday night at Beyond the Pale sees the Arklow native play her first headline gig in her home county. You can expect pomp and pageantry, plenty of costume changes and wall-to-wall bangers from one of our finest musical exports. Jon Hopkins The English electronic musician's music is tailor-made for festivals, whether it's the pulsating electronic fare of Emerald Rush or the elegiac beauty of Small Memory. As he's collaborated with everyone from Coldplay to Charli XCX, he could drop a few surprises during his Friday-night set. Marc Rebillet Rebillet forged a career for himself online, but the Texan's music is best experienced live, when his mastery of a loop station and his offbeat stage persona make for a heady brew where anything could happen. The Sugarhill Gang The rap legends, now in their 46th year as a group, are always worth a watch, not least because you can challenge your mates to a game of Who Knows the Most Words from Rapper's Delight? Boney M Who doesn't want to sing along to songs such as Daddy Cool and Rasputin in the (with luck) blazing sunshine? The German Eurodisco pioneers are the go-to act for communal feelgood vibes at this year's festival.
CBC
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe on going solo
In a Q interview, the American singer-songwriter discusses his new album, Thee Black Boltz Tunde Adebimpe made a name for himself fronting the art rock band TV on the Radio. Now, he's released his first solo album, Thee Black Boltz. Adebimpe joins Tom Power to talk about making music without his long-time band, the spirit of rebellion that runs through his new record, and how an album that's born out of some pretty tough stuff ended up sounding so dancey. Plus, he shares a pretty deep philosophical take on what punk rock has in common with Calvin and Hobbes. :
Forbes
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Q&A: TV On The Radio's Tunde Adebimpe On His Debut Solo Album
Tunde Adebimpe at A24's "Opus" Los Angeles Premiere held at The Egyptian Theatre on February 19, ... More 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by JC Olivera/Variety via Getty Images) With beloved indie band TV On The Radio, frontman Tunde Adebimpe has made some of the most adventurous and acclaimed music of the twenty-first century. The Brooklyn band's first three albums alone won the 2004 Shortlist Prize and Album of the Year honors from the likes of Spin, Rolling Stone, The Guardian and more. The band collaborated with David Bowie, Trent Reznor and more. TV On The Radio remain a highly active touring band, with a run of dates this summer. But the band has not released new music since 2014. So, Adebimpe has released his debut solo album, Thee Black Boltz, a brilliant collection that covers his many diverse influences. I spoke to him about the album. Steve Baltin: What was the span these songs were written? Was it a concentrated period or was it over time? Because that mood swing from "I Love You" to "God Knows" is pretty gigantic. Tunde Adebimpe: It was definitely a long time. I think I started it without knowing I was starting a record. In 2019 TV on the Radio took a bit of a break. We were going to take a break that we didn't really know when it was going to shore itself up. And I started working with some old demos that I found. But then the pandemic hit, and we had a longer period of time to take that break. So, a lot of the songs started then and we worked in fits and starts from 2019 until the middle of 2024 or the beginning of 2024. So, a long while, the bulk of it though, like the sewing things up and finishing happened from probably spring of 2023 to 2024. Baltin: When you go back and look at it after such a long period do you find that your mood and your interpretation of the lyrics changed quite a bit? Adebimpe: Yeah, always. Especially now that I've sat with the songs for such a long time and I'm far away from when we finished it. I will say that It's the record that, of anything I've worked on, that I've been able to listen to the soonest after it's been done. I should say the soonest after it's done without feeling incredibly uncomfortable. And I think that's because we did sit with the songs for such a long time and we're cool enough with them to be not too attached and not too detached to them now, which lends itself to going back in. Sometimes you're writing something and you don't exactly know what it applies to or you think it applies to one thing and then you're mapping it onto your life and world events in the present and you're like, 'Oh, that also works in this new way.' But yeah, I feel like they're pretty multi -purpose. I feel like anybody can use them for whatever you feel like using them for. Baltin: How do you use them then? Do you find that they've shifted quite a bit? Adebimpe: That's hard for me to answer because I feel like they shift for me. I have the ground floor of what I feel and think about the songs, that was pretty established when we were done and turned it in to the label. But yeah, in the months after, I feel like I have the consciousness of the intention and can also hear that detachment from it to feel like it's a document of internal events that now can soundtrack a bunch of external events. I can feel like the song 'I Love You,' I wrote it for my sister who passed away. But it can be applied to any expression of affection in the face of perhaps certain doom. It can be used for that. 'God Knows,' like you were saying, is a breakup song. It wasn't my breakup, but it was me interpreting what a friend had gone through. And again, I feel like that's a good multipurpose breakup and makeup song. That's what I like. I like the message in a bottle connection that a record or a piece of art makes for someone where they can find themselves in this thing that someone else made. Baltin: On your Instagram, when you shared 'God Knows,' which I love that song, you asked the question, 'What's the worst thing you ever loved?' I started thinking about it last night and I was just thinking about it and it's an unintentionally deep question. Because first, you have to determine how many things you truly loved then decide if you regret it or not. Do you have an answer to that question? The worst thing I've ever loved? Adebimpe: It's open ended, but that applied to this friend who was very much expressing they were so deeply in love with this person who did not give a f**k about anybody else, and was a very manipulative, self-destructive person. She expressed a lot of like, 'I'm gonna save you.' And this person doesn't want to be saved. Ultimately that person isn't here anymore. And she was left with the guilt of that, but also this feeling of, 'You suck.' Realizing that person flat out fell for all the affection and the little kernels of probably very true and mutual love. That person didn't hold up their end of the deal and they also weren't strong enough to say, 'I don't want to lead you on. I'm gonna use you as a support system for my narcissism. But I'm sorry, some risk coming through.' What's the worst thing I've ever loved? I also don't know. I feel like everything I've truly loved has been pretty. I don't have that many regrets about relationships. It's an interesting question because you're kind of like, 'What is that? What's the sliding scale?' Baltin: I love the fact that it's called 'God Knows' because I think "God Only Knows" is the greatest pop song of all time. You have the most loving, wonderful pop song of all time and you have the total antithesis called "God Knows." Was that intentional? Adebimpe: No, definitely not, but I so appreciate it cause I agree with you about that song. Baltin: On a solo album, it's, I've talked about this with someone recently and it's very different because in a band everybody has their opinion, whereas a solo album, it's, it's all on you. So, when you hear this record do you hear influences like Fugai and The Flamingoes come together? Adebimpe: There's a Fugazi element to 'Magnetic.' In 'Ate the 'Moon, there's a moment from 'Another one Bites the Dust' that's in between the intro and the main part. There's a reversed piano key and a weird flange on it before it goes into the rest of 'Ate the Moon.' I feel like a lot of acapella stuff that I will do or that harmonizing is definitely from doo-wop things I heard my parents listen to, definitely from the Beatles, all of that stuff pops up. I feel like how couldn't it? There are so many times where I've written this song and I have to call a friend and say like, "Is this a Pixies song that I am like ripping off?" Something sticks with you in that way. Absolutely it's part of your musical and social vocabulary in a lot of ways. So it's all a homage and no biting.
Los Angeles Times
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Tunde Adebimpe explores ‘tenderness and rage' on debut solo album
Nearly 25 years ago, Brooklyn band TV on the Radio took over the airwaves and MTV with their haunting, near-operatic synth-rock. Tracks like 'Staring at the Sun' and 'Wolf Like Me' seduced listeners with melodic hooks upon hooks, and an urgent, insistent percussive drive. Leading man, Missouri-born, L.A.-based Tunde Adebimpe's restless creative spirit never lost momentum, but the intensity and demands of band life lost its lustre until a 20th anniversary re-release and tour for album 'Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes' in 2024 reunited TV on the Radio. Such was their renewed chemistry that the band are now in the throes of a new, sixth album. It will ride on the heels of Adebimpe's debut solo album, 'Thee Black Boltz,' which reinforces the fact that Adebimpe is one of the most adventurous, incisive singer-songwriters of the last few decades, at least. The references to 'boltz' are scattered throughout tracks, brief glimmers of gratitude and joy which emerge from clouds of gloom. Adebimpe tells The Times that the album mirrored his own experiences of being in, and coming through, a series of traumatic events and grief that intensified during the pandemic. '[In 2019], I was doing a lot of free writing to get ideas, to put messy thoughts into a place, and I was visualizing a way out of a pretty heavy period of grief that I was in. I was writing about what had happened, making my way through it, and committing myself to documenting every way to get through it. In the middle of all that writing about grief, there were moments of remembering things that happened before the tragic events, and the gratitude for those little breaks, shots of inspiration, that wouldn't have otherwise come to you without those clouds of depression. Boltz are a metaphor for shocking you out of a bad situation.' Many of these songs were written during the onset and thick of the pandemic, when there was a feeling of panic and something encroaching that nobody with the power to stop it was actually acting on, he said. 'American events, world events, felt intense and still do … It's the feeling of elemental forces versus human beings, and that will never go out of fashion.' A series of studio robberies — first Adebimpe's home garage-studio, then the complex of studios he was working in — could have hobbled his momentum. So, too, could the round of rejections he got after trying to shop around six demos to no avail, but despite the elements putting up a fierce battle, Adebimpe prevailed. 'When TV on the Radio took a break in 2019, it was indefinite, and I was not in a place where I thought I'd be making music for a long time. A couple of things happened,' he said. 'Somebody broke into my garage, which is my studio, and stole 15 years' worth of archives, and my laptop. They unplugged the hard drive in my computer and left that there — a weird act of charity, or something? They took drum machines, my weed — the icing on the cake — but I found my old 4-track recorder and a box of tapes that went from 1998 to 2008.' The singer went through, listened to those tapes, and found half-finished songs that he brought out and re-demoed. 'Since I had only the 4-track to record with, I started playing around with it and writing demos on it.' His solo album hadn't been anticipated by most, since the versatile Adebimpe had been thriving on a busy combination of acting ('Twisters' last year, 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' and TV series 'Star Wars: Skeleton Crew'), directing and collaborating across genres as both a guest vocalist or supergroup member. He's also been busy with touring TV on the Radio's first album in celebration of its 20th anniversary. After their 2014 album 'Seeds,' the band had toured on and off and released singles here and there. Outside the band confines, there's been numerous shared projects since 2010 when Adebimpe featured on Dave Sitek's album 'Maximum Balloon.' He's lent his signature urgent, momentous vocals to tracks by Massive Attack, Leftfield and Run the Jewels, and even found time to hook up with Faith No More and Mr. Bungle mastermind Mike Patton and Doseone in the supergroup Nevermen. It seems surprising that it has taken so long for him to set out to make a solo album. 'I thought about it before,' he concedes. 'The thing about being in TV on the Radio is that whenever we've all decided to get together to record a new thing, everyone comes with a bunch of new ideas and a lot of demos, and we always have a surplus of songs.' There have been times over the course of the band being together that they've had a little break, and Adebimpe thought about taking these songs that nobody else — for lack of time or interest — wanted to do anything with. 'I wrote the demos; I don't want to abandon them,' he said. The TV on the Radio DNA is there, undeniably. 'Sometime after 2008, I had a moment where I was like, what does a TV on the Radio song sound like? And that went through the band like a stomach bug, and we all realized we don't really know because we'd never thought about that before. I can't plan something out in that way. I write what sounds good to me and what works to me. I certainly don't mind if people hear similarities, and I am never trying to get away from writing the way that I write.' 'Thee Black Boltz' is Adebimpe with nothing to prove. He's not determined to differentiate his solo voice from his work with TV on the Radio, but there's a definite shift in the mood here. Where there was an urgency and climactic intensity to TV on the Radio tracks, 'Thee Black Boltz' revels in more space for introspection in the instrumentation and lyrics, whimsy and emotional candour. Over a concise 11 tracks, Adebimpe traverses heartbreak, drama, frustration and space exploration. Rewind just over 20 years to Adebimpe crooning about the transience of material possessions, the inevitable human transcendence into light and air on 'Staring at the Sun,' and 'Thee Black Boltz' is merely the extension of Adebimpe's long-running fixation on existence and our relative meaninglessness. New track 'Drop' features Adebimpe's own plea in the face of imminent death: 'We're gonna feel it when we drop / Send no flowers / The visions never stop / Of this life / And a time / We can all come together / Burn so bright / And rise into the night.' 'Drop' opens up with bare-bones looped beatboxing before threading in dramatic melody upon layers of synth and howled refrains. This is not Adebimpe's rebellion against TV on the Radio, but the evidence that in that band, and solo, he only knows how to be fully authentic. ''Drop' came at the time when it felt apocalyptic during the pandemic,' he says. 'I was thinking about people I'd lost, and thinking, what exactly do you feel when you die, when you drop this body that you live in? Is there nothing, not even a consciousness? We don't know. It could be wonderful, or we could all be doomed, but we can think about that because we're here now. What's the best use of our very limited time on our planet?' Adebimpe's ephemeral musings on death became very real when his only relative in the U.S., his younger sister, died in 2021. A week after signing to Sub Pop with a handful of demos, he had to pause everything to react. 'I'd started writing the record, and I didn't know that I was writing a record. It was after all my stuff got stolen … so that was the minor, material stuff that happened. Then in 2021, out of nowhere, my younger sister passed away very suddenly. I don't feel weird talking about this because everyone is going to experience some sort of massive upheaval and tragedy and it's possible to get through it by focusing on the moment in front of you. She passed away very suddenly. I have no other family in the country, so I had to travel to Florida, organize the funeral, deal with her house, in a very short period of time.' When he returned to L.A., 'I didn't want to do anything at all for a long time,' he says. 'But making things is a great way to process. I took the messy feelings, joyous feelings, and downloaded them into free writing, making demos for what eventually became the record as a way to get through it. I'd had losses throughout the years that I hadn't taken the time to think about or make any kind of peace with, not that you ever can. The pandemic gave me a second.' His sister is the focus of the song 'ILY,' or 'I Love You,' on the record. 'That song is entirely for her,' says Adebimpe. 'It's a simple, clear song and it's multipurpose. It's not a Valentine's Day card, but you can use it to love yourself, someone else, as the very simple expression of gratitude for this person you're lucky to land with on the universe. You can't choose your family, but she was the absolute best, and I'm so grateful I got to be … get to be … her brother.' The beauty and liberated spirit of 'Thee Black Boltz' is exemplified in how diverse the musicality and lyrical themes are. It is, exactly as Adebimpe suggested, akin to a mixtape that acts as a time capsule for a portentous period for an individual as much as the collective. Where should listeners begin? Adebimpe says, 'All the songs are so different, but if you were to make your way in, I really like 'Somebody New.' It was a mash-up of two different things we were working on individually — me and [producer Wilder Zoby]. I came into the studio while we were working on a job — writing a soundtrack for a kids' TV show ['City Island' on PBS] — and he was working on this synth thing and I said, 'We should keep that for us.' Then, on a whim, we sewed it together with something I'd been messing with, and while it's changed melodically, it's a good dance track. It's a power-up; you can take it with you.' Now that it's out there, he says, 'I feel great about it. There were a lot of breaks in between working to finish it, but now it's done, I am really glad people are going to get to hear it. I feel like both [Zoby], I and Jahphet [Landis] have just been with it so long that any sort of nervousness or anxiety or uncertainty about what it is has kind of faded away. It feels like being in high school and a friend giving you a mixtape and saying, 'This has a whole bunch of weird s— on it, I made it for you, and I hope that you're into it!' That's exactly how I feel about this record.'
The Guardian
18-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Tunde Adebimpe: Thee Black Boltz review – a sparkling solo debut
You would not know, on first listen, that this effervescent debut solo album by the sometime frontman of TV on the Radio was steeped in grief. Tunde Adebimpe's sister died during the pandemic when these songs were taking hesitant shape in an LA studio that Adebimpe, now a successful actor, shares with multi-instrumentalist and co-producer Wilder Zoby. Those difficult feelings – and others, about living in 'a time of tenderness and rage' – became snaggle-toothed synth-punk cuts and bouncy synth-pop sounds. On Drop, there's beat-boxing; on The Most, a Sleng Teng reggae riddim ambush; while on Somebody New, you can hear a punk-funk echo of New Order. Only ILY, a finger-picked folk song addressed to his sister, breaks character, adding 'balladeer' to Adebimpe's varied CV (former stop-motion animator, illustrator). 'How'd you get so low?' asks God Knows, a perky, doo-wop-adjacent song about a flailing relationship. Everything about Adebimpe's magnetic presence fronting of one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the 00s is present and correct on Thee Black Boltz: his warm fluency, wistful anger and genre versatility. But his pop instincts have come to the fore on these 11 streamlined songs; witness Magnetic, one of the best things he's ever done.
