BadBadNotGood

BadBadNotGood (stylized in all caps) is a Canadian instrumental band and production team from Toronto, Canada. The group was founded in 2010 by bassist Chester Hansen, keyboardist Matthew Tavares, and drummer Alexander Sowinski. In 2016, they were joined by frequent collaborator Leland Whitty. Among other projects, the group has released six solo studio albums, with the latest, Mid Spiral, released in July 2024. They have had critical and crossover success, finding audiences in the hip hop, jazz, and alternative music communities.

The group combines jazz musicianship with a hip hop production perspective and are well known for their collaborations with artists like Tyler, The Creator, Daniel Caesar, Mick Jenkins, Kendrick Lamar, Ghostface Killah, Charlotte Day Wilson, Baby Rose, Arthur Verocai and MF Doom. For their songwriting and production work, they have been nominated for five Grammy Awards, winning two.

History

2010–2012: Beginnings and mixtapes

Matthew Tavares, Alexander Sowinski, and Chester Hansen met in 2010 through the Humber College jazz program in Toronto. The trio united over a shared love for hip hop music, including that of MF Doom and Odd Future. In this lineup, Tavares handled keys, playing rhythms on a Prophet '08 and electric piano, joined by Hansen, an acoustic and electric bassist, and drummer Sowinski. Sowinski often donned a pig mask during performances in the first years of the group, in part inspired by MF Doom. The name of the band came from the tentative title of a comedy television project that Tavares was working on, which was eventually abandoned. In a 2012 interview, the trio commented that both Tavares and Hansen had since withdrawn from Humber, while Sowinski had remained enrolled "for the school's dental plan;" Sowinski later left Humber as well.

One of BadBadNotGood's first collaborations was a cover of "Lemonade" by Gucci Mane. They played a piece based on Odd Future's music for a panel of their jazz performance instructors, who did not find that it had musical value. After they released the track on YouTube as The Odd Future Sessions Part 1, it got the attention of rapper Tyler, The Creator, who felt differently and helped the trio's video go viral. BadBadNotGood uploaded their first EP BBNG to Bandcamp in June 2011, which included covers of songs from A Tribe Called Quest, Waka Flocka Flame and several tracks from Odd Future.

In September 2011, they released their debut album, BBNG, recorded in a three-hour session. Dante Alighieri on Sputnikmusic called the album "a welcome reinterpretation of modern jazz without the pretense of snotty wine parties and thick rimmed hipster dinosaurs." The trio had their first show together at The Red Light in Toronto that September. There, they met hip hop producer Frank Dukes who would become a close collaborator. The album was followed by two live records, BBNGLIVE 1 and BBNGLIVE 2, which were released in November 2011 and February 2012, respectively.

BadBadNotGood recorded a live jam session with Tyler, The Creator in Sowinski's basement in October 2011. Videos from the session received more than a million views between them on YouTube. In the following year, they also connected with other Odd Future members like Earl Sweatshirt and Frank Ocean and their contemporaries Joey Badass and Danny Brown, among others. The trio opened for Roy Ayers at the Nujazz Festival in January 2012 and played for Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards in London. At a February tribute to J Dilla in Toronto, their covers of "Lemonade" and "Hard in da Paint" had hundreds moshing. BadBadNotGood released their second album, BBNG2, in April 2012. Recorded from a ten-hour studio session, it features Leland Whitty on saxophone and Luan Phung playing electric guitar. The notes to the album indicate that "No one above the age of 21 was involved in the making of this album." The album has original material as well as covers of songs by Kanye West, My Bloody Valentine, James Blake, Earl Sweatshirt, and Feist.

The trio was the band-in-residence at the 2012 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and backed Frank Ocean of Odd Future both weekends.

2013–2015: III and Sour Soul

Prior to the release of the album III, the first single "Hedron", became available on June 20, 2013, when it was featured on the compilation album Late Night Tales: Bonobo. BadBadNotGood assisted in production and musical composition for the soundtrack of The Man with the Iron Fists. On January 14, 2014, the second single from III was released titled "CS60". The third single, "Can't Leave The Night", was released on March 11, 2014, with the B-Side "Sustain" and would later feature in the third season opening episode of Better Call Saul. In March 2014, BBNG took part in SXSW for a second time and played a series of shows, including one with Tyler the Creator.