Los Angeles, CA · jazz-fusion · funk · alt-r&b

Thundercat

1 festival played

Six-string bass played like a lead instrument, sung over in a helium falsetto — virtuosity worn so lightly it reads as comedy until you follow the changes.

Thundercat is the stage name of Stephen Bruner, a bassist, singer and songwriter from Los Angeles. He comes from a musical family — his brother Ronald Bruner Jr. is a drummer — and spent his teens and twenties as a working sideman, including a long stretch playing bass with the hardcore-turned-crossover band Suicidal Tendencies.

His solo work, built around six-string electric bass and a light, high vocal register, sits between jazz fusion, funk and R&B, and has been closely tied to his long collaboration with producer Flying Lotus. Thundercat's albums include Apocalypse, Drunk and It Is What It Is, and he played bass on Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly. The songs often pair dense harmonic writing and fast, melodic bass lines with deliberately deadpan, self-deprecating lyrics.

jazz-fusionfunkalt-r&b