Sublime

If you look at the history of professionalization of any kind, you’ll see that it tends to follow this route. In America and Europe, a great deal of professionalization occurred in the nineteenth century, when most gentlemen of breeding considered themselves amateurs at all kinds of disciplines. Go all the way back to Jefferson, who collected fossi

had never heard Mojave 3, but their songs were perfect, like witnessing something beautiful happening in slow motion. I aspired to move through the world this deliberately.

Avec ses longs cheveux frisés et blonds, ses chemises de bûcheron canadien, Aymeric avait un look grunge assez typique, mais chez lui c’était allé beaucoup plus loin que Nirvana et Pearl Jam, il était vraiment remonté aux sources et dans sa chambre toutes les étagères étaient occupées par des centaines de vinyles des années 1960 et 1970 : Deep Purp

“Back Stabbers” and “Love Train” for the O’Jays, and “Me and Mrs. Jones” for Billy Paul—all from 1972—and followed by “You Make Me Feel Brand New” (1973) for the Stylistics and “The Love I Lost” (1973) for Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, there was no stopping Gamble and Huff until “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” (1979)

Puffy was taking obvious sampling to its extreme. The Neptunes were stripping down songcraft to its skeleton and also riding the crest of a cult-of-personality wave. And where were we? Where was I? I was perched on the precipice of what would eventually be called neo soul.

If, at the start of this story, the great divide was manifest in musical taste and distaste, that too has begun to close, as musical genres bleed into each other and no longer provide the airtight identities they once did.