BADBADNOTGOOD
Biography
**BADBADNOTGOOD**
In 2024, the Canadian jazz-fusion collective BADBADNOTGOOD announced they would be taking an indefinite hiatus, bringing to a close one of the most innovative and genre-defying musical partnerships of the 21st century. The decision came after over a decade of pushing boundaries between hip-hop, jazz, electronic music, and alternative rock, leaving behind a legacy that fundamentally altered how younger generations approach instrumental music and cross-genre collaboration.
The quartet's final chapter had been building since their 2021 album "Talk Memory," a meditative and expansive work that saw them collaborating with legendary jazz harpist Brandee Younger and showcasing their most mature compositional abilities. This record represented the culmination of their evolution from rebellious college students covering hip-hop beats with jazz instruments to sophisticated composers capable of creating entirely original sonic landscapes. The album's lead single "Signal From The Noise" became a streaming phenomenon, proving that instrumental music could still capture mainstream attention in an increasingly vocal-driven musical landscape.
Their commercial and critical peak arguably came with 2016's "IV," an album that perfectly balanced accessibility with artistic ambition. The record featured collaborations with Future Islands' Sam Herring on the haunting "Time Moves Slow" and showcased their ability to craft emotionally resonant melodies without sacrificing their experimental edge. This period also saw them touring extensively, selling out venues worldwide and proving that instrumental music could command the same audience devotion typically reserved for traditional rock and pop acts.
The breakthrough that established BADBADNOTGOOD as more than just a novelty act came through their collaborations with hip-hop artists, most notably their work with Ghostface Killah on 2015's "Sour Soul." This partnership demonstrated their ability to serve as more than just a backing band, instead functioning as true creative collaborators who could enhance and recontextualize rap music through their jazz-influenced arrangements. Their work with Tyler, The Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, and Danny Brown further cemented their reputation as the go-to instrumentalists for forward-thinking hip-hop artists seeking to expand their sonic palettes.
The group's early albums "BBNG" (2011) and "BBNG2" (2012) captured the raw energy of their initial concept: taking hip-hop instrumentals from artists like Kanye West, A$AP Rocky, and MF DOOM and reimagining them through the lens of jazz improvisation and rock dynamics. These records, recorded while the members were still students at Toronto's Humber College, possessed a youthful irreverence that made jazz accessible to audiences who might never have considered listening to the genre otherwise.
BADBADNOTGOOD emerged from the unlikely friendship between Matthew Tavares (keyboards), Chester Hansen (bass), and Alexander Sowinski (drums), three jazz students who bonded over their shared love of hip-hop and alternative music. Initially performing as a trio, they later expanded to include Leland Whitty on saxophone and guitar, whose contributions became integral to their more sophisticated later work. Their name, derived from a sarcastic comment about their unconventional approach to jazz education, perfectly captured their outsider status within both the jazz and hip-hop communities.
What made BADBADNOTGOOD revolutionary was their intuitive understanding that genre boundaries were artificial constructs that limited rather than enhanced musical expression. They approached Odd Future beats with the same reverence that traditional jazz musicians might show toward Duke Ellington compositions, while simultaneously bringing hip-hop's rhythmic complexity and electronic music's textural possibilities into jazz contexts. This synthesis created something entirely new: instrumental music that felt contemporary and urgent rather than nostalgic or academic.
Their influence extended far beyond their own recordings, inspiring countless young musicians to approach genre-blending with similar fearlessness. They demonstrated that instrumental music could be both intellectually sophisticated and emotionally immediate, paving the way for artists like Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper, and Thundercat to find mainstream success while maintaining artistic integrity.
The band's cultural impact reached beyond music into fashion, visual art, and youth culture more broadly. Their aesthetic, which combined jazz sophistication with streetwear sensibilities, reflected their generation's fluid approach to cultural identity and artistic expression.
As BADBADNOTGOOD steps away from active collaboration, they leave behind a catalog that will likely influence musicians for decades to come. They proved that innovation often comes not from rejecting the past but from fearlessly combining seemingly incompatible elements to create something genuinely new. Their journey from college experiment to international phenomenon represents one of the most
