This week, Local Spins probes the musical influences of the multi-talented Grand Rapids artist Dante Cope, who propels the Les Creatif ensemble. View and listen to his picks for recordings that shaped him.
Spreading ‘Dark Funk All Over the Region’: Dante Cope (Photo/Katy Batdorff)
EDITOR’S NOTE: All musicians can trace their inspiration to key recordings that captivated them and influenced their careers. Local Spins today spotlights recordings that changed the world for Les Creatif’s Dante Cope. Scroll down for a Spotify playlist of his picks, plus new Les Creatif tracks.
Support our coverage of
West Michigan's music scene
Grand Rapids’ ever-inventive music explorer Dante Cope (aka Brandon Copeland) describes his arrival this way:
“If you have ever looked up in the night sky on a brisk fall night, where the clouds have set along with the sun and the stars are shining their brightest. Only then, viewing just past the nearly full moon, can you see the constellation and the star that is ever so slowly pulling Dante Cope’s home planet towards an inevitable demise. To escape this impending destruction of his world, Dante hopped on his flying nimbus and traveled to the quaint town of Grand Rapids not only to start over, but to also spread the dark funk all over the region. Dante teamed up with fellow aliens to create wondrous collaborations such as The Beat Suite, I Don’t Know What You Know, and Les Créatif.”
Combining art, music, philosophy and community-building, Cope has stewed up a delicious bowl of hip hop, jazz, funk and rock-influenced tunes and events across West Michigan. Currently the Artist-in-Residence at the Dwelling Place, he’s also an Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts curatorial board member and a teaching artist at the West Michigan Center for Arts and Technology. (Les Creatif will be featured in one of Local Spins’ 10th anniversary events in mid-May at The Pyramid Scheme. More details to come.)
Cope says he hopes to use his time on Earth “to educate, entertain and inform the masses, so that this planet doesn’t follow the same destructive path as his home world.”
1. Flying Lotus, “Until the Quiet Comes” (2012) – This album had a huge impact on how I viewed music production and laying on songs. I love the complex textures that Flying Lotus chooses to lay on top of each other. This album feels like a suspended dream state that you can’t wake up from. I had been following Flylo for a while before this album dropped, yet this project hit all of my dopamine receptors at the same time. I like the jazz elements, the smoothness, how the songs flow together, and how each feature has their moment without overshadowing the piece as a whole.
Listen: “Hunger”
2. Lupe Fiasco, “Tetsuo and Youth” (2015) – If you were to ask me if there were ever a perfect rap album, I’d say “Tetsuo and Youth.” I love concept albums and this one is a double entendre not only in the words but in the track order and in the two stories that this album describes. This changed my perception of how words and ideas can be remixed into meaning more than what sits at face value. Telling the stories of his life and Jesus in reverse was a nice touch to, in the words of Lupe himself, “So you starting at the end, that’s the part where you begin I skip the bullshit so we can start it where we win.”
Listen: “Mural”
3. Sons of Kemet, “Black to the Future” (2021) – Shabaka Hutchings reignited my love for the saxophone with this album. I had become bored with the monotony of modern jazz and needed a breath of fresh air. This album provided that for me. It is smooth yet abrasive. It makes me want to dance and think at the same time. It blends poetry, raps, jazz, deep grooves, and throughout all of that, the sax is the driving voice of the album. Also I was blown away on how the tuba from Theon Cross was used as a driving bassline throughout the whole album. This album changed my perception on groove-based jazz.
Listen: “Envision Yourself Levitating”
ALBUMS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD: Dante Cope’s Playlist on Spotify
Copyright 2022, Spins on Music LLC
