How to Turn Your Baby Into a Musician

I don't fuck with music made explicitly for children. Some random fool singing "The Wheels on the Bus" over some garbage ass beat made by some loser producer? No dude, I don't want to hear that trash. "Pop Goes the Weasel"? Fuck that, bruh. I see some educational value in the Alphabet Song but I'm not trying to bump that in the whip.

I don't even think babies really like that shit either. The baby will go on your phone and play Thugger. The baby will cry when Drake comes on. The baby gets it. The baby will have a working link to the next Yeezy album leak before you. The baby will put you on to at least three new obscure SoundCloud producers a week.

Music is as primal as it is complex, which is maybe what makes babies connect with it so hard. Your baby understands Sketches of Spain. It can sing along, teach you how to hear it like Miles intended. Jazz, dude, I'm telling you, they fucks widdit. Dog, Ornette Coleman? That's top tier music for the kids.

Get some of those tiny baby-size noise-canceling headphones and bring it to an underground rap show so it can see what struggle rap looks like. Take the baby to a hardcore show so that when it's older it can be one of those assholes who's "been going to hardcore shows since I was a baby." Take the thing to a wine bar where old people are covering jazz standards so it can recognize a bad first date when it sees one later. Take the baby to a festival, teach it how to pickpocket shirtless EDM bros passed out from too much Molly—you'll clean up.

But don't just let them listen to the shit, get the baby some musical instruments. Babies can shred. It's almost as if it's what they were born to do. They do some real mind expanding stuff, on some Cecil Taylor super out, out, jazz shit, daddio. Babies are very good musicians, very avant-garde. Philip Glass stuff going on. Highly recommend a kid if you're into fiercely experimental music. Like Uncle 40 Water says, "You can learn from a baby."

Get the baby a major label record deal early and from there on out it will be smooth sailing. Or maybe it can be more of a warehouse party darling who eschews major labels and has an indie deal. Or maybe the baby is in a local, politically involved, fiercely DIY vegan straightedge hardcore band. Maybe the baby does the Chitlin' Circuit. Maybe the baby is a traditional dancehall serenader roving the land. Maybe the baby is first chair viola in a major municipal philharmonic. Maybe the baby sells drugs and does brief paid appearances at the club to promote its most recent mixtape. Maybe the baby is more in a backpacker type lane. Maybe the baby mostly plays drone music in heroin dens. Maybe the baby understands the world as one sustained chord in an endless song, a single orchestral moment that is forever and never.

So in conclusion, babies are some real Egberto Gismontis, man, they really do they thing. Kick back, relax, and enjoy some sweet, chill tunes with your bb. I think I mentioned in an earlier column that babies enjoy "sick tunes" and I would like to now reiterate that notion.

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