Music can be a salve, a companion, a fount of euphoria. But is that enough? It gave brilliant and complicated souls like Scott Weiland, Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell a tether to the world and cemented them in history, but their inner struggles nonetheless claimed them.

That's where MusiCares comes in, and why Dave Navarro — who knew all three of those rock legends — works with them. Together, they pull music colleagues out of the maw of addiction, depression and other menaces. Navarro wouldn't be able to access that storehouse of healing, though, without a liberal helping of gratitude.a

"Billy comically brought up show 47 on a world tour, and I know what he means by that," the six-time GRAMMY nominee tells MusiCares — referring to musician, producer and Billy Idol sideman Billy Morrison, who's dragging on a cigarette in the next Zoom window. "That's when you're just kind of in the trenches and the doldrums of it all."

Gavin Rossdale at Above Ground 2019. Photo: Jim Donnelly

When Navarro feels unmoored, he looks at a taped message on his pedalboard: "You get to do this." "I need little reminders for myself of just how much I have to be grateful for," he says in a nimbus of vape smoke. "But I'll tell you one thing: when we do the Above Ground shows, I don't have to read that thing one time. because that transformative magic is happening live on stage."

That magic is about to transpire again. On Dec. 20, Navarro and Morrison will bring their annual Above Ground concert back to Hollywood's Fonda Theater for a third round (they had to skip last year amid the pandemic). The premise is that they corrall famous friends to cover albums in full — this time around, it's Lou Reed's Transformer andthe Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, with Corey Taylor, Perry Ferrell and more. Purchase tickets here.

Navarro and Morrison caught up with GRAMMY.com to discuss the origins of Above Ground, the joys of digging into classic LPs in full and the central message of their work: it's OK to ask for help.

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This interview has been edited for clarity.

What can we expect from the third Above Ground concert?

Billy Morrison: Look, Above Ground started like everything Dave and I start — with a conversation on a plane based around our mutual love of Adam and the Ants. We were just larking around, going, "Wouldn't it be cool if we could play that album?

In that same month or six-week period, we lost Chester. We lost…

Dave Navarro: Chris.

Morrison: Chris. And we recently lost Scott Weiland. And Dave has been very, very much a mental health advocate for a long while now, dealing with his own traumas.

Dave Navarro: What are you talking about?

Morrison: What? Your own trauma. The stuff you tweet about!

Navarro: [Scoffs jokingly.] I don't have Twitter! Twitter, that archaic device?

Morrison: You know what I mean!

Navarro: Wasn't that, like, 2007? Anyway, go ahead.

Morrison: He was spearheading mental health awareness. We've both been connected with musicians who also are huge figureheads of mental health and suicide prevention. And it just came: "Why don't we do this annual event where we get the joy of picking two iconic albums that you can't hear [live, in full] anymore?"

The idea is, you go to a concert and you get the top three songs off of each album. And we've been very pure about picking albums and playing the whole thing. Even the strange left-of-center tracks that are often on albums.

That turned into Above Ground one, and Above Ground three is just the natural extension of that minus a year because of COVID.

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Navarro: Billy and I play in a band called Royal Machines, and we also had a band called Camp Freddy. Both bands are essentially the same band. And Royal Machines is a group of musicians who love playing music, who loved the songs they grew up on. 

We play those songs, and we have a special guest per song. We have a different singer every couple of songs, who comes out and does a song with us. Or, a great guitar player comes out and plays.

I think we've been doing that for — what, 20 years?

Morrison: Yeah, 20 years now.

Navarro: So Above Ground was an extension of that, in a way, because we kept the same model of having friends and musicians — players that we would love to reach out to.

Some of them say yes; some of them say no. But we collect as many people that we can find interested in the event and just throw a big celebration of the music that we all loved.

In Royal Machines, it's usually a song or two from a band, but they're hits, because you want to keep the house moving. You want to keep the party moving. So it's hit, hit, hit, hit, hit.

And Billy's right. We were talking about our love for Adam and the Ants' Kings of the Wild Frontier. That's one of the first records that took me a little bit out of the heavy metal genre and into the post-punk genre, if you will. And then I went backward, did my research and that was my conduit to all things goth, all things punk.

Billy being from England and having a huge understanding of the genius of Adam and knowing our shared love of Adam, I called him one day and said, "Wouldn't it be wild to play the entire album with two drummers all the way through and learn every single nuance on that thing?"

We got into it, and it was a mindf*** in terms of what those guys were actually playing and learning those songs and doing them correctly. But we did, we got together, we did that. And we also chose — this is for Above Ground one — The Velvet Underground & Nico. Which was also a monumental album to try and deconstruct and break into and figure out what's going on.

So, apart from the mental health aspect, one of the things we love in addition to raising funds and awareness is having the ability to get into these records and pull them apart and look under the hood. We become better players as a result of it.

Morrison: Oh my god. The tonality of some of the instrumentation on all the albums we've chosen is so left-of-center to where Dave and I both usually are.

When he stands on stage with Jane's Addiction, he sounds like Dave Navarro. And I stand on stage with Billy Idol and I have my Billy Morrison chunk tone. The joy for me is: Dave comes over to my studio and we are listening to guitar tones on little tiny parts that are in the right speaker and going, "OK, you use this guitar through this amp and just do this."

We take recreating in the albums very seriously to the point where, this year, we have a three-piece horn section. We have strings; we have a keyboard player. I mean, we will get whatever we need to do to totally recreate the record.

Which I think, sets [us apart]. No offense to cover bands; I'm in one of the biggest cover bands in the world. But this is more than a cover band.

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Navarro: It's an extension. But it made perfect sense for Billy and me to team up on this because we've been doing covers for so long. The idea of getting into the entire vinyl LP front-to-back is an experience that has been lost in the worldwide culture at this point. We wanted to celebrate that as well.

So that's why we do two albums that are very opposing and contradictory yet fit together very well in the same way. Kind of like a Kubrick film in terms of how we select our albums. So this year you're getting Lou Reed's Transformer and you're getting Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.

Only the stone classics, it seems!

Navarro: Well, the ones that I think — if I'm being honest, and correct me if I'm wrong — are albums that have shaped who Billy and I are.

Morrison: The process of picking the records is quite a long one, because I'll pick an album that means so much to me, but it doesn't mean that much to Dave. And I'm not going to mention the album, because…

Navarro: You can! No, you can!

Morrison: But then everybody's going to pressure me to actually do it.

Navarro: But you said yes! You said yes!

Morrison: Because I love you!

Navarro: I wanted that experience for you! To me, it was a gift!

Morrison: David is a huge Pink Floyd fan. And part of the Above Ground experience is we bring in way more production than any theater gig should have, including oversized video walls — all kinds of stuff. And Dave said, we need to do The Dark Side of the Moon.

Now, I am not a Pink Floyd fan. I'm just not.

Really!

Morrison: So, you've got to remember — one of my first memories is Johnny Rotten walking on stage in a T-shirt that says "I Hate Pink Floyd." And the Sex Pistols are the band that changed my life. And so, even before I ever heard the band as a kid, Pink Floyd was not cool.

Now, I am obviously a grown adult. And Dave is expanding my Pink Floyd dictionary, if you like.

Navarro: We just couldn't get it done by December 20.

Morrison: The deal is not sealed by 2021, but who knows? 2022 might bring that out.

Dave Navarro and Jack Black at Above Ground 2019. Photo: Jim Donnelly

To bridge the conversation into mental health, can you guys tell me about your connections to Scott, Chester and Chris?

Navarro: We both knew all three of those guys just through the work we do.

Morrison: Scott Weiland actually fronted the Camp Freddy band that we had for a year. He was the frontman. Dave, I know, was close with Chris. We were both close with Chester. We had Chester get up with us as one of those guests that Dave was talking about. Chester would always say yes when I or Dave called him. So, we were close.

Navarro: We were very close, and I attended both of those funerals back to back. And what a walloping we all took that year. Chester was always just a constant professional — upbeat, happy to help. Held the door for the catering guy. He was just the humblest, nicest guy. And then when he got on stage, he was just unstoppable.

So, those deaths really hit us hard. Chris's death hit me really, really hard because he and I used to do speaking panels for kids in rehabilitation programs and talk to them about, like, "Hey, we're out here, we're doing this stuff sober on tour and it's doable and we're having a great life."

We were trying to carry that message, because one of the things you've got to do in recovery is to carry the message — whatever type of recovery it is.

Scott, of course, I've known for 20 years, ever since Stone Temple Pilots came out. As Billy said, he was a member of our band for a while. And that was another loss too. They call it drug addiction, but there's something underlying that's underneath drug addiction, if we want to get into it.

So, we felt that since MusiCares was a force and has a reach as vast as it does — they also handle drug addiction and mental health issues — that's the umbrella that we felt that we would want to give back to, to help support people.

MusiCares has gotten people into hospital beds, both Billy and I know, for nothing. People who couldn't afford their own treatment. People who couldn't afford their own care. People who couldn't take care of themselves got taken care of. That's what they do.

Morrison: I think the personal experience that both Dave and I have had with MusiCares made it an easy choice.

Plus, as Dave says, the reach and the voice that they have is definitely a force. I've made a phone call to someone at MusiCares at 10:00, and the person who was dying was in treatment by 6:00. No questions asked, no money.

Those deaths that we talked about — the positive that came out of that for us — was a conversation that was revealed to Dave and me.

Or, it just articulated something that we had thought collectively for a long time about our traumas and our PTSD and depression and addiction issues that we've both been vocal about.

Navarro: Very.

Dave Navarro and Juliette Lewis at Above Ground 2019. Photo: Jim Donnelly

Morrison: What it boils down to is that we have a responsibility to say it's OK to ask for help, because underlying a lot of all of those issues that people suffer from is a stigma that tells us it's wrong to be depressed. Or we don't talk about depression. Or trauma is something that we lock away and don't ever articulate.

Navarro: A lot of family systems teach their children growing up that that's how you live. And I will say, he's right.

I feel like we are at a turning point in society where those issues are being taken seriously. You hear way more about mental health awareness, care, treatment and so forth than you did maybe five years ago. It's become at the forefront. It's a movement of people that just want to see other people having their best human experience.

Both Billy and I have suffered with our drug addictions and so forth. I believe that my drug addiction was rooted in trauma from when I was a kid, and at a certain point for some people like me, it's no more about treating the drug addict side of me.

We've done this; let's get in here. Let's get into the trauma, because that physically lives in the body. That can hold somebody frozen for decades.

Morrison: Dave is right that there is positive forward motion in the mental health space these days. Which is fantastic for us, because it means whatever collective voice we have and we put together for our event is all part of the greater good around the mental health space.

Navarro: I think it's nice for people to see that — sure, it's Billy and I, but there's a lot of artists that join us that people really, really look up to and love and have followed and admired for years. 

Billy Idol is one of them. Perry Farrell is one of them. Taylor Hawkins [was just inducted into] the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [with Foo Fighters], so we'll have a Hall of Famer up there.

Every one of these names has either been through it, seen it, dealt with it, gone through it or experienced it, lived it like Billy and I have. One of the tenants to the principles that we practice is that you can't keep it unless you give it away.

And we like to give it away in the form of messaging that says, "Look, even the people who you think have it all together and have the ideal life, even they feel like you do." So, let's even the playing field here.

We're just all human beings trying to have a human experience, and everything is OK if we just wait for the next breath and let it be OK.

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Morrison: Dave and I not only play the guitar, but produce the whole thing from start to finish. And the beautiful thing that happens with us is that we'll get a response from someone that neither of us knows.

Jack Black would be an example. The last time we did this, two years ago, Jack Black came forward and wanted to be involved, and was involved — [he] got on stage and absolutely killed it. He didn't do that because he wanted to get on stage and sing "Suffragette City"; he did that because he responded to the message that they just articulated.

So the beautiful thing for us is, we see all those other people out there that want to go, "Yes, we agree with this." Let's level the playing field, like Dave said.

Navarro: You also have to consider that the types of people who choose this line of work for a living are the kinds of people who need a lot of attention. So, there's certainly an undercurrent among all of us that we can all identify with. Most people don't need a thousand people screaming back at them to feel OK about themselves.

So, we come out and we share very intimate, personal stuff in a general way, and on a global level that hopefully can reach somebody who's struggling.

I mean, I had a friend of a family member kill himself two days ago because he got into an argument with somebody. So, obviously, the argument isn't the killer, it's the years of untreated, whatever it was that led to that decision.

I'm seeing it more and more. We saw an increase in drug addiction and suicides during the beginning of the pandemic. And now we're seeing an uptick in both of those things as the world is starting to come back together, because people are having a hard time wrapping their heads around getting back together.

Everybody is built differently, and their trauma lives in different parts of their body. Certain things are a trigger for one person, but they're not a trigger for another person. 

So, we're here to say that not only can you live with those triggers, but you can have a happy and fruitful life with those triggers and not have them hijack your central nervous system and dictate your entire existence.

Dave Mason On Recording With Rock Royalty & Why He Reimagined His Debut Solo Album, Alone Together

The original members of Jane’s Addiction are a diverse bunch. There’s trippy visionary singer/stylist and Lollapalooza co-founder Perry Farrell; Stephen Perkins, the monster drummer with a goofy-meets-spiritual vibe; and bassist Eric Avery, who opted not to be part of the 1997 and 2001 Jane’s reunions and played with Garbage from 2005 to 2022.

Then there’s multi-faceted musician Dave Navarro, who in addition to his work with Jane's, spent five years with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and brough his guitar stylings to songs by Janet Jackson, Nine Inch Nails, Alanis Morissette and Guns N’ Roses. The Los Angeles native has made headlines with high-profile romances, TV reality appearances, television hosting duties, and in numerous all-star collaborations and benefit performances.

But Jane’s Addiction, which formed Los Angeles in 1985, has his heart. The group’s groundbreaking 1988 major label debut Nothing Shocking and follow-up Ritual De Lo Habitual marked the band as progenitors of the alternative scene. Their DIY aesthetic in videos, art and music resulted in subversively joyful creations, including the chart-topping "Been Caught Stealing."

However, egos, creative differences and substances interferred in the band’s trajectory, and a 1991 farewell tour also marked the inception of the first Lollapalooza and of Farrell as business mogul.

Read more: 'Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza' Recounts How An Alt Rock Fest Laid The Blueprint For Bonnaroo & More

Jane’s Addiction may have helped make alternative rock mainstream, but never lost their sense of edgy creativity. They performed and recorded on and off in the ‘90 and early 2000s, in various incarnations with and without Navarro. The original lineup reunited in May 2024 at Bush Hall in London; that victorious, energized live return led to songwriting, with new single “Imminent Redemption” offering up lyrics that seem to be a rallying cry for Jane’s circa 2024 and onward: “Let's make some good trouble /  Let's stir up that karma / Let's launch us a comeback.”

The track dropped ahead of a 23-city tour that kicked off on Aug. 9 at Fontainebleau Las Vegas. GRAMMY.com caught up with an energized, loquacious Navarro ahead of that jaunt, Jane’s first with the OG 1985 lineup in 14 years.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Listening to "Imminent Redemption" conjured a mental image of shaking up a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola; You want to rock out, explosively, and you finally get to do it.

To me, it feels like a follow-up to Ritual. The band right now is in such a great place. We have the original lineup. God bless Chris Chaney, who's one of the best bass players in the world, one of my best friends. He stood in and he did two records with us,15, 20 years.

A lot of the Jane's Addiction material is primarily written from basslines Eric Avery comes up with, and those are usually the memorable singable parts of the song. You might sing the vocal, but you're not singing the guitar part. Sometimes you're not singing the vocal part, but you're singing the intro to "Mountain [Song]" in your head, or the intro to "Three Days." His input is really the musical backbone of the band. When we got together to do these [new] songs, that was immediately there.

We also wanted to keep the music under-produced. We didn't want to go crazy with modern-day technology and all kinds of crazy instrumentation, overdubs and tracks; we wanted to keep it pretty raw. In fact, I think there's parts of "Imminent Redemption" that are reminiscent of Ritual and Nothing Shocking, but I also think it's reminiscent of the Triple X record [1987’s Jane’s Addiction] because there aren't 15 guitar tracks. There aren't synths, there aren't all kinds of things that we ended up doing as we went on and probably will do on other songs.

Lyrically, Perry's coming from such a... I don't want to speak for him, but my interpretation is that it's an aggressive cry for unity and peace. There's a little bit of anger there, but anger in the name of let's not have any anger anymore, if that makes any sense.

It does.

Another weird thing about Jane's Addiction is a lot of our most well-known songs — "Mountain Song," "Stop," "Ocean Size," "Jane Says" — they really don't have choruses. They just, say, have two parts to go back and forth.

So the fact that we got away with "Imminent" and we're able to put a chorus in there is kind of unusual. But I think it works, and it still kind of keeps it like the two-part formula of Jane's Addiction. But then the outro goes into another musical direction, which is also very us, because we get bored within songs.

Do you think "Imminent Redemption" will grow into a record?

There might be stuff I can't talk about, but no one's told me not to talk about it, so that's their problem, I guess!

The idea is to release a full-length album; I would consider it the fourth Jane's Addiction record. The two records we did with Chris Chaney I love, but it's a different band. With this lineup, I really feel like this next record's going to be the follow-up to Ritual. It's really special to be back with Eric and writing with Eric; Eric and I have always worked really well off each other in terms of finding parts that work together and complement one another but are not really the same.It's like we picked up just where we left off.

I don't know if we're going to put out a record or if we're going to put out a song every once in a while. Whatever that master plan is, that I can't speak to. It's either a song comes out every month until there's 12 songs, or we put out a couple songs and then we put out the record. I don't know. We have plenty of completed material already, so it's one way or another it'll all be out there.

 A "follow-up record" more than 30 years later…

In some ways, it was such a shame for the band to part at such a musical peak, because I think that record [Ritual] is really, really special. But it also saved us from following it up with something subpar. So it is just part of the legacy. It's part of the story. And so far I've been really happy with everything we've been making.

How has it felt being back on the road?

We just finished a two-month tour of Europe, and I was so grateful to be back out, and doing it with the band, and being able to do it. But man, it was challenging.

It still has that [feel of] the early days, where we were on this edge of this cliff where nobody really knew what was going to happen from time to time, from song to song, in between songs, what Perry was going to say or do. Or if he was going to all of a sudden just go into some stream-of-consciousness banter in the middle of a breakdown of a song. And you just kind of have to pay attention and just feel where it's going to change.

We kind of lost that for a long time. And now that element of surprise has come back to the shows. Also, I think the fact that this last tour was just the four of us on stage with minimal to no production, a couple of lights and four guys playing weird music, that's all we needed. It left room for there to be magical moments that gave you goosebumps because you weren't distracted by a bunch of stuff.

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In the broadest sense, what is at the core of what makes this lineup special?

Stephen Perkins and I were in high school together, and we had a heavy metal band. We played heavy metal covers, we wrote heavy metal songs, and we were into technical wizardry. We were into fast guitar playing. He was into Neil Peart.

Perry, at the same time, was doing a goth band called Psi Com. Eric was more in the new wave punk rock world. He was doing different experimental stuff. And we ended up getting together as a result of Stephen dating Eric's sister. Perry and Eric met, and started playing together, and they needed a drummer and a guitar player. And they called us and we got in there.

The formula is that the four of us have no business being together in a band given our backgrounds. Now, since then, they've grown to love some of the music Stephen and I came up with. We've grown to love the music that they came up with. And then it kind of just blossomed.

We decided we weren't any particular kind of band. We were just musicians, and we would just pull from anything. If we wanted to go in a Pink Floyd direction, we'll do that. If we want to go in a Black Sabbath direction, we'll do that. If we want to go in an Iggy direction, we'll do that. But without consciously choosing to, just being open to all genres.

Fans would agree.

That’s kind of like the secret sauce: Combining elements that wouldn't normally go together and putting them together and seeing what happens. It's been a long road. Although in our older years, we do get along very well and have a lot of respect for each other. But coming up and through the early years, it was difficult. There were resentments, there were stylistic differences of opinions. There were multiple breakups, multiple problems that just came from adolescent ego.

Now that we're all at the ages we're at, and just about everybody has a family, we kind of just let go of that. We’re just, "You know what? We had something really special back then, and I don't know what we were complaining about." So we're doing it again.

Morgan Enos and Katherine Turman contributed to this story.

Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly. Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

Looking for more GRAMMYs news? The 2024 GRAMMY nominations are here!

He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly.

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube. This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle. This is for Illmatic, this is for Nas. We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

10 Essential Facts To Know About GRAMMY-Winning Rapper J. Cole

Imagine a world where care and concern is distributed in a holistic circuit, rather than being hoarded away or never employed at all. That's the paradigm that GivingTuesday is reaching toward.

Created in 2012 under the simple precept of being generous and celebrating generosity, GivingTuesday is a practical hub for getting involved in one's community and giving as freely to benefit and nourish others.

Since GivingTuesday has swelled not just from a single day in the calendar year, but a lens through which to view the other 364 days. You can find your local GivingTuesday network here, find ways to participate here, and find ways to join  GivingTuesday events here.

Where does the Recording Academy come in? Helping musicians in need isn't something they do on the side, an afterthought while they hand out awards.

No, aiding music people is at the core of the Academy's mission. MusiCares, the Academy's philanthropic arm, has changed innumerable lives for the better.

And through this society of music professionals and its other major components — including  Advocacy, the GRAMMY Museum and GRAMMY U — the Academy continues its fight in legislative and educational forms.

If you're willing and able to help musicians in need this GivingTuesday, here's a helpful hub of nine charitable organizations with whom you can do so.

MusiCares

Any list of orgs that aid musicians would be remiss to not include MusiCares.

Through the generosity of donors and volunteer professionals, this organization of committed service members has been able to aid struggling music people in three key areas: mental health and addiction recovery services, health services, and human services.

For more information on each of those, visit here. To apply for assistance, click here. And to donate to MusiCares, head here.

GRAMMY Museum

"Museum" might be right there in the name, but there's a lot more to this precious sector of the Recording Academy.

The GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles doesn't just put on immersive exhibits that honor the legacies of musical giants; it's a hub for music education.

At press time, more than 20,000 students have visited the Museum, more than 10,000 students have participated in the Museum's Clive Davis theater, and 20,000 students have participated in their GRAMMY Camp weekends.

To donate to the GRAMMY Museum, click here. To become a member, visit here.

Give a Beat

By now, the evidence is ironclad: Giving incarcerated people access to music and art dramatically increases morale and decreases recidivism.

Give a Beat is keenly aware of this, both on direct-impact and mentorship levels.

The org hosts classes for incarcerated people, in order for them to "find healing, transformation, and empowerment" through its Prison Electronic Music Program, which helps incarcerated folks wade deep into the fields of music production and DJing.

Its On a New Track Reentry Mentoring Program initiative connects music industry professionals with formerly incarcerated individuals in order to transfer their skills into a professional setting.

To become a member of Give a Beat, click here. To donate, visit here.

Jazz Foundation of America

Despite being at the heart of American musical expression, jazz, blues and roots can sometimes feel roped off on the sidelines of the music industry — and its practitioners can slip between society's cracks.

That's where the Jazz Foundation of America comes in. They aid musicians struggling to hang onto their homes, connect physicians and specialists with uninsured artists and help musicians get back on their feet after life-upending natural disasters.

To donate to the Jazz Foundation, click here; for all other info, visit their website.

The Blues Foundation

Headquartered in Memphis, the Blues Foundation aims to preserve the history and heritage of the blues — which lies at the heart of all American forms. This goes not only for irreplaceable sites and artifacts, but the living, breathing people who continue to make it.

The Blues Foundation offers educational outreach, providing scholarships to youth performers to attend summer blues camps and workshops.

On top of that, in the early 2000s, they created the HART Fund to offer financial support to musicians in need of medical, dental, and vision care.

And for blues artists who have passed on, the HART Fund diverts money to their families  to ensure their loved ones would be guaranteed dignified funerals.

For more information on the Blues Foundation, visit here. To donate, click here.

Musicians Foundation

Founded all the way back when World War I broke out, the Musicians Foundation has spent more than a century cutting checks to musicians in times of need.

This includes financial grants to cover basic expenses, like medical and dental treatments, rents and mortgages and utilities. Submitted grant applications are reviewed by their staff and a screening committee. If approved, the money is dispatched rapidly and directly to the debtor to relieve financial pressure as soon as possible.

The Musicians Foundation's philanthropic legacy is enshrined in Century of Giving, a comprehensive analysis of financial aid granted to musicians and their families by the Foundation since 1914.

For more information, visit here; click here to donate.

Music Maker Foundation

Based in North Carolina, the Music Maker Foundation tends to the day-to-day needs of American roots artists — helping them negotiate crises so they can "keep roofs over their heads, food on their tables, [and] instruments in their hands."

This relief comes in the forms of basic sustenance, resources performance (like booking venues and providing CDs to sell) and spreading education about their contributions to the American roots canon.

Check out their website for more information; to donate, click here.

Sweet Relief: Musicians Fund

When music people are in danger, this charitable organization sees no barriers of genre, region or nature of crisis.

If you're a musician suffering from physical, mental or financial hardship — whether it be due to a disability, an affliction like cancer, or anything else — Sweet Relief has got your back.

There are numerous ways to support Sweet Relief; you can become a partner, intern or volunteer, or simply chip in a few bucks for one of their various funds to keep their selfless work moving.

For any and all further information, visit their website.

Music Workers Alliance

The Recording Academy's concern and consideration for music people hardly stops at musicians — they're here to support all music people.

They share this operating principle with Music Workers Alliance, which tirelessly labors to ensure music people are treated like they matter — and are fairly remunerated for their efforts.

This takes many forms, like fighting for music workers at the federal, state and city level for access to benefits and fair protections, and ensuring economic justice and fair working conditions.

Music Workers Alliance also fights for economic justice on the digital plane, and aims to provide equal access for people of color and other underrepresented groups in the industry.

For more info, visit their website; for ways to get involved, click here.

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It's rare that a genre can be traced back to a single artist or group, but for funk, that was James Brown. The Godfather of Soul coined the phrase and style of playing known as "on the one," where the first downbeat is emphasized, instead of the typical second and fourth beats in pop, soul and other styles. As David Cheal eloquently explains, playing on the one "left space for phrases and riffs, often syncopated around the beat, creating an intricate, interlocking grid which could go on and on." You know a funky bassline when you hear it; its fat chords beg your body to get up and groove.

Brown's 1965 classic, "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," became one of the first funk hits, and has been endlessly sampled and covered over the years, along with his other groovy tracks. Of course, many other funk acts followed in the '60s, and the genre thrived in the '70s and '80s as the disco craze came and went, and the originators of hip-hop and house music created new music from funk and disco's strong, flexible bones built for dancing.

Legendary funk bassist Bootsy Collins learned the power of the one from playing in Brown's band, and brought it to George Clinton, who created P-funk, an expansive, Afrofuturistic, psychedelic exploration of funk with his various bands and projects, including Parliament-Funkadelic. Both Collins and Clinton remain active and funkin', and have offered their timeless grooves to collabs with younger artists, including Kali Uchis, Silk Sonic, and Omar Apollo; and Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus, and Thundercat, respectively.

In the 1980s, electro-funk was born when artists like Afrika Bambaataa, Man Parrish, and Egyptian Lover began making futuristic beats with the Roland TR-808 drum machine — often with robotic vocals distorted through a talk box. A key distinguishing factor of electro-funk is a de-emphasis on vocals, with more phrases than choruses and verses. The sound influenced contemporaneous hip-hop, funk and electronica, along with acts around the globe, while current acts like Chromeo, DJ Stingray, and even Egyptian Lover himself keep electro-funk alive and well.

Today, funk lives in many places, with its heavy bass and syncopated grooves finding way into many nooks and crannies of music. There's nu-disco and boogie funk, nodding back to disco bands with soaring vocals and dance floor-designed instrumentation. G-funk continues to influence Los Angeles hip-hop, with innovative artists like Dam-Funk and Channel Tres bringing the funk and G-funk, into electro territory. Funk and disco-centered '70s revival is definitely having a moment, with acts like Ghost Funk Orchestra and Parcels, while its sparkly sprinklings can be heard in pop from Dua Lipa, Doja Cat, and, in full "Soul Train" character, Silk Sonic. There are also acts making dreamy, atmospheric music with a solid dose of funk, such as Khruangbin’s global sonic collage.

There are many bands that play heavily with funk, creating lush grooves designed to get you moving. Read on for a taste of five current modern funk and nu-disco artists making band-led uptempo funk built for the dance floor. Be sure to press play on the Spotify playlist above, and check out GRAMMY.com's playlist on Apple Music, Amazon Music and Pandora.

Say She She

Aptly self-described as "discodelic soul," Brooklyn-based seven-piece Say She She make dreamy, operatic funk, led by singer-songwriters Nya Gazelle Brown, Piya Malik and Sabrina Mileo Cunningham. Their '70s girl group-inspired vocal harmonies echo, sooth and enchant as they cover poignant topics with feminist flair.

While they’ve been active in the New York scene for a few years, they’ve gained wider acclaim for the irresistible music they began releasing this year, including their debut album, Prism. Their 2022 debut single "Forget Me Not" is an ode to ground-breaking New York art collective Guerilla Girls, and "Norma" is their protest anthem in response to the news that Roe vs. Wade could be (and was) overturned. The band name is a nod to funk legend Nile Rodgers, from the "Le freak, c'est chi" exclamation in Chic's legendary tune "Le Freak."

Moniquea

Moniquea's unique voice oozes confidence, yet invites you in to dance with her to the super funky boogie rhythms. The Pasadena, California artist was raised on funk music; her mom was in a cover band that would play classics like Aretha Franklin’s "Get It Right" and Gladys Knight’s "Love Overboard." Moniquea released her first boogie funk track at 20 and, in 2011, met local producer XL Middelton — a bonafide purveyor of funk. She's been a star artist on his MoFunk Records ever since, and they've collabed on countless tracks, channeling West Coast energy with a heavy dose of G-funk, sunny lyrics and upbeat, roller disco-ready rhythms.

Her latest release is an upbeat nod to classic West Coast funk, produced by Middleton, and follows her February 2022 groovy, collab-filled album, On Repeat.

Shiro Schwarz

Shiro Schwarz is a Mexico City-based duo, consisting of Pammela Rojas and Rafael Marfil, who helped establish a modern funk scene in the richly creative Mexican metropolis. On "Electrify" — originally released in 2016 on Fat Beats Records and reissued in 2021 by MoFunk — Shiro Schwarz's vocals playfully contrast each other, floating over an insistent, upbeat bassline and an '80s throwback electro-funk rhythm with synth flourishes.

Their music manages to be both nostalgic and futuristic — and impossible to sit still to. 2021 single "Be Kind" is sweet, mellow and groovy, perfect chic lounge funk. Shiro Schwarz’s latest track, the joyfully nostalgic "Hey DJ," is a collab with funkstress Saucy Lady and U-Key.

L'Impératrice

L'Impératrice (the empress in French) are a six-piece Parisian group serving an infectiously joyful blend of French pop, nu-disco, funk and psychedelia. Flore Benguigui's vocals are light and dreamy, yet commanding of your attention, while lyrics have a feminist touch.

During their energetic live sets, L'Impératrice members Charles de Boisseguin and Hagni Gwon (keys), David Gaugué (bass), Achille Trocellier (guitar), and Tom Daveau (drums) deliver extended instrumental jam sessions to expand and connect their music. Gaugué emphasizes the thick funky bass, and Benguigui jumps around the stage while sounding like an angel. L’Impératrice’s latest album, 2021’s Tako Tsubo, is a sunny, playful French disco journey.

Franc Moody

Franc Moody's bio fittingly describes their music as "a soul funk and cosmic disco sound." The London outfit was birthed by friends Ned Franc and Jon Moody in the early 2010s, when they were living together and throwing parties in North London's warehouse scene. In 2017, the group grew to six members, including singer and multi-instrumentalist Amber-Simone.

Their music feels at home with other electro-pop bands like fellow Londoners Jungle and Aussie act Parcels. While much of it is upbeat and euphoric, Franc Moody also dips into the more chilled, dreamy realm, such as the vibey, sultry title track from their recently released Into the Ether.

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