Few musicians today can compete with the resume of Stephen Bruner, better known as Thundercat. Bruner developed his virtuosic stringmanship alongside some of L.A.’s brightest talents. He was instrumental to Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly (widely regarded as Lamar’s best) and collaborated on albums by Erykah Badu and jazz bandleader…

Steven Ellison’s legacy far predates his role in Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 landmark album, To Pimp a Butterfly. As Flying Lotus, his glitchy, abstract production has continually pushed hip-hop’s artistic boundaries. In 2006, Los Angeles set a new standard for L.A. beat music, while 2010’s Cosmograma transcended genre boundaries as a nu-jazz space odyssey.…

Kamasi Washington performs during Outside Lands Music Festival in San Francisco in 2016. Che Holts/STAFF. Tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington does not believe in the words that describe music. Sitting on a brown sofa backstage at Outside Lands, facing a journalist sitting on a slightly different brown sofa, he draws…