Don Lifted is back with the third single from his upcoming record Contour, which was recently mastered by Mike Bozzi (Too Pimp a Butterfly, Damn, Ctrl, Flower Boy) of Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood, Calif.
Each of the album’s songs will come with a video, which means you’re going to be seeing a lot of Don Lifted around these parts in the coming months.
“Pull Up (Duratec V6)” was shot by Nubia Yasin, Kevin Brooks, Bailey Smith, and Martin Matthews. The skaters in the video are Kirkwood Vangeli of Fluxus Skateboard Co., Indigo, and Chuck Craig. Don Lifted, aka Lawrence Matthews, directed, edited, and also skateboarded for the video.
Music Video Monday: Don Lifted
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
Today’s music video will have you cruising into Monday.
The second single from Don Lifted’s new album Contour, “Muirfield” is an older song revitalized by feature artist Healy. The video was shot by Kevin Brooks.
Don Lifted says this song is special to him. “Every time I listen or watch the video it puts me back to 17. Dropping you off before curfew, walking back to my car, and rolling my windows down and playing In Rainbows driving home. Every sense heightened in ways I didn’t know possible. I could smell the air and feel each instrument and vocal inflection by Thom Yorke as if he was singing in the car with me. I’d take the longest way home to feel for longer, close my eyes and put my hands out the window, sing, yell, cry, and be thankful for what I was feeling. For it was new and pure and untainted and we were new pure and untainted. Hope you enjoy.”
Music Video Monday: Don Lifted
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
A world premiere from Don Lifted makes for a glorious Music Video Monday!
Artist, musician, and filmmaker Lawrence Matthews, aka Don Lifted, produced our top music video of 2016. His new video, “Poplar Pike”, begins his most ambitious work yet. “‘Poplar Pike’ is the first single of my coming album Contour, set to release this September. It is also one of eight videos created for the album by a collaborative group of filmmakers and writers including Nubia Yasin, Kevin Brooks, Martin Matthews, and myself,” he says. “The story of Contour takes place my senior year in high school through my freshman year in college. For this video, I intended to have a back yard bonfire party with a bunch of different people trying to create a fictional high school reality, one where I was cool and popular, and people came to my house in groups, and we road bikes and drove cars and danced around the fire, like how they do in high school movies. During the planning I told everyone wouldn’t it be sad if nobody showed up to the shoot… and on the two shoot days, exactly that happened. I took it as some ironic moment of art imitating my true high school experience.”
Don Lifted will debut some songs from Contour at MCA this Friday, March 23 at 8 PM. Here’s “Poplar Pike”:
Music Video Monday: Don Lifted
If you would like to see your music video on Music Video Monday, please email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
Music Video Monday is ringing in the new year with Memphis’ best music videos! A big thank you to all the artists who submitted work this year. In case you missed it, get caught up with #20-11 here.
Ready? Here we go:
10. Telisu – “Im A God”
Director Quinten Lamb won the Indie Memphis Hometowner Music Video award with this banger.
Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2017: 10-1 (10)
9. Six.oh.xiS – “Hiding Place” Chillwaver Christopher Osborne’s low-fi synth wash gets visual soma to match.
Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2017: 10-1 (9)
8. Mono Neon & A Weirdo From Memphis – “America’s Perverted Gentlemen (Drawls)” Two of Memphis’ weirdest almost got arrested filming this awesome guerilla video, directed by Unapologetic mastermind IMAKEMADBEATS.
Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2017: 10-1 (7)
7. Preauxx – “Terry Freestyle” Sometimes the simplest setting is the best. 35 Miles lets Preauxx’s charisma do the talking in this stony workout.
Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2017: 10-1 (5)
6. Aaron James – “The Wile” Taking a cue from one of the classics of the form, Aaron James and animator Shakeya Merriweather rotoscoped dancers Rachael Arnwine and Fannie Horton for this multimedia tone poem.
Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2017: 10-1 (6)
5 .Crown Vox – “Ruler of the Ball” Director Mitch Martin pulls out all the stops for Memphis goth pop queen Crown Vox’s epic Guilded Gallows video cycle.
Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2017: 10-1 (8)
4. Don Lifted – “Take Control of Me” Don Lifted’s paean to romantic surrender takes a sinister turn in the hands of director Kevin Brooks. Brooks and Don have had one of the most fruitful collaboration of any Memphis artists in recent memory.
Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2017: 10-1 (2)
3. Julien Baker – “Turn Out The Lights” At the forefront of the flotilla of Memphis women making musical waves in 2017 was Julien Baker. For the title track of her smash album, she got this explosive video from director Sophia Peer.
Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2017: 10-1 (4)
2. IMAKEMADBEATS – “Mother Sang To Us” In 2017, the most interesting music in Memphis was coming from a small studio in Bartlett, where Unapologetic Records founder IMAKEMADBEATS gathered a crew of likeminded weirdos to push the boundaries of hip hop. His Better Left Unsaid album is a kind of multimedia creative manifesto, and this Afro-samurai anime from Sky5 Productions is better than Justice League.
Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2017: 10-1 (3)
1. Snowglobe – “We Were In Love” Director Ben Siler worked for a year crafting this semi-autobiographical story of love, loss, and OCD. More than any other MVM video of 2017, it worked to solidify and expand the themes and mood of its song, while packing more plot than many feature films into just three minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, your best Memphis music video of 2017:
Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2017: 10-1
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
Music Video Monday salutes the winners of the Indie Memphis music video competition.
Last Friday night at the outdoor street party in Overton Square, 29 Hometowner videos and 18 videos from artists outside the Memphis area competed for trophies, prize money, and bragging rights. The winner of the national competition, announced at the awards show on Saturday night, was director Marcin Starzecki’s video for “BWA” by soniamiki.
Music Video Monday Special: Telisu, Don Lifted, soniamiki win at Indie Memphis (2)
The Hometowner music video award went to director Quintin Lamb’s “I’M A GOD” video for TELISU.
Music Video Monday Special: Telisu, Don Lifted, soniamiki win at Indie Memphis
The music video jury awarded a special jury prize to Lawrence Matthews, aka Don Lifted, for “Harbor Hall”—which, not coincidentally, was also the 2016 Music Video Monday video of the year.
Music Video Monday Special: Telisu, Don Lifted, soniamiki win at Indie Memphis (3)
The Indie Memphis Film Festival concludes 6:00 PM tonight at the Orpheum Theatre’s Halloran Centre with a screening of short films made with funds from the 2016 Grizz Grant competition. These works by Memphis filmmakers celebrate the Memphis Grizzlies’ female fan experience. The festival’s closing film is Tip of My Tongue by Lynne Sachs, a longtime favorite director at Indie Memphis. Sachs’ experimental documentary examines the nature of memory as a group of friends gather at her New York apartment to piece together the last five decades of their lives. For more information visit the Indie Memphis website.
The album that Memphis hip-hop artist Don Lifted drops this Thursday has been a long time in the making. Named after the car he drove when living through a particularly harrowing time, Alero will provide him no small measure of catharsis. After nearly seven years, Don Lifted will finally be able to exhale.
With neither the broad social commentary of Marco Pavé nor the street life debauchery of Yo Gotti, Don Lifted, aka Lawrence Matthews, takes his lyrics to a personal place to fashion a work of art-as-therapy. The album details a stressful period when Matthews and his high school girlfriend ventured east for college and they confronted the challenges of living away from home.
“The story takes place from September 2010 and into 2011. It was six months, but it felt like two years,” he recalls. “We just were clashing. But also it was just being thrown into the world, adulthood, alone. We both were going through a kind of hell. I slept in the car a lot. I was sick a lot, so I’d take cough medicine so I could record music, instead of being sniffly; so I could go to class, go to work.”
The car became a kind of sanctuary for Matthews. “Kappa, Sigma, Omega, Alpha, Kappa, them Deltas/ Futures, degrees and shelters and I am only a nigga/ Carpetbagger from Memphis, they’ll never see me as bigger/ I’m clapping, but I’m pretending, depression down to my tendons, these terrors, they cloud my vision.” So goes the first verse of the first song. And it’s all downhill from there.
Along the way, he struggles with his relationship, his boss, his school, and poverty. But he makes it clear that his hometown was no picnic either. “Family became opponents, all they repping is Memphis/ It offers nothing to poets, offers nothing to loners/ Wasn’t born in the system of 3-6, Elvis, and Jordans.”
Jarvis Hughes
Don Lifted
The struggles evoked in Alero also came as he tried to developed his musical skills. “I was trying to record a record in the closet of my dorm,” he says. “And my plan was to spend six months making the record, finish the record, then spend the next six months going back and forth to New York. I was gonna get on, get connections, meet people. And I got kicked outta school, so I didn’t get to do any of that.”
Instead, he returned home. But it wasn’t until much later that he could reflect on the experience creatively. In the intervening years, he found his voice as an artist, earning a degree from the University of Memphis. “My major was Studio Arts … but my main focus when I came out of college was painting. Now, it’s photography and video work.” Degree in hand, he turned inward to create Alero.
“I started the first song in November 2014, and I finished writing, recording, and producing it by the middle of 2015. And then spent the rest of 2015 just sitting on it, mixing it, being very meticulous.” This period was heavily influenced by his listening habits. “I’m attracted to Kanye West, Common, J Dilla’s production. … But the album I was listening to a lot around the album’s creation was Coldplay’s Ghost Stories. It was about his divorce. Very minimal. And there was a record by Dawn Golden, who I sampled twice.”
Performing such personal material now can still be difficult for Matthews, though he feels he’s gained some perspective on the pain. Listeners need not resign themselves to utter despair. By the final cut, “Holding On,” Matthews finds room for hope. “We’re not holding on for nothing” rings the track’s chorus, and at last it seems Don Lifted has drawn strength from his exile.
Alero will be available for download September 14th. The CD, including a deluxe booklet of lyrics and original photographs, is for sale exclusively at Shangri-La and Goner Records.
This weekend, Crosstown Arts will echo with the work of several Tennessee demolition experts in search of new space. Concertgoers, be advised: wear protective headgear; there will be genre-busting. You may be impacted by the shards of shattered boundaries and preconceptions. But tearing down generic walls is the whole point of the Continuum Music Festival.
“It’s kind of different from what you think of as classical chamber music,” muses festival organizer Jenny Davis. Several ensembles will be performing, at times collaborating with local songwriters or hip hop artists, and all with a regional provenance. “They’re actually all based in Tennessee,” says Davis, director of Memphis’ own Blueshift Ensemble, who will close the festival. “Which is kind of surprising, because you think of all this stuff happening in New York, and L.A., and Chicago. But actually it’s doing really great here as well.” Many heard Blueshift’s recent collaborations with the New York-based ICEBERG composers collective, with several shows in and around the Crosstown Concourse in June. This week’s festival brings the collaboration closer to home.
Nief-Norf
“Nief-Norf are more of an experimental ensemble, based in Knoxville,” she notes. “The director, Andrew Bliss, is the percussion director of the University of Tennessee. They do a big festival every summer for two weeks, where they host a bunch of student composers and performers, with a ton of premieres and performances. This weekend at Continuum, they’ll just have cello and electric guitar. So a small little subset of the ensemble. They’re doing a Steve Reich piece, Electric Counterpoint, for electric guitar and recorded tape.”
Readers familiar with Reich’s Different Trains may recognize the title as the Pat Metheny-performed piece that finishes that album. “And there are two other pieces on the program for cello and electric guitar. Those are both world premieres, actually. One is by [California Institute of the Arts’] Nicholas Deyoe. And the other, “Sequenza for cello,” is by Luciano Berio. His sequenzas – I think there are 14 or 15 of them – explore the extreme ranges of what the instruments can do. So whenever I see those on a program, I definitely get excited.”
chatterbird
Nief-Norf’s opening set will be followed by a “secret show” by one of the more exciting new music ventures in the city. Hint: their shows last year, recorded for an LP released this January, had the whole city raving. The following night keeps things local with the Luna Nova ensemble, major supporters of new composers via their long-running Belvedere Chamber Music Festival. “They do lots of commissioning of new pieces, and they have their festival every June where they have a student composition competition, and they premiere several pieces there,” says Davis. They’ll be followed by a new kind of Nashville sound, chatterbird. “So chatterbird have been around since 2014. They are directed by a flutist, Celine Thackston, who I go way back with from Middle Tennessee State University. Their mission is to explore alternative instrumentation and stylistic diversity. I think they’re really all about inventive experiences, using flute, soprano, bassoon, piano, and percussion. AMRO is donating a really beautiful Steinway piano for the event.”
Rob Jungklas
The festival culminates with two shows on Saturday that take the genre-busting to new heights, including collaborations with local recording artists. Rob Jungklas, whose Blackbirds album arrived earlier this year, will be reinterpreting his new songs in duets with Blueshift cellist Jonathan Kirkscey. Then Blueshift will take center stage. “We’re premiering a piece by our artist in residence, Jonathan Russ, and that’s for 13 musicians – string quartet, plus winds, plus rock band, essentially,” says Davis.
The grand finale will be Blueshift’s performance with local hip hop auteur and visual artist Lawrence Matthews, a.k.a. Don Lifted. “I graduated with a painting degree [from the University of Memphis]. But I also did photography, sculpture, painting, drawing, ceramics,” says Matthews, whose musical shows often include a visual element. “I don’t do shows unless I can do a self-curated event in an alternative space. And I try to completely transform the space. So you might come into a space and see three projections, all in sync with the music. I’m just trying to curate a whole experience.” Expect the same multimedia aesthetic to permeate Saturday’s show, where Blueshift will add new musical elements to Don Lifted tracks. “I’m excited to hear what it sounds like and excited to play with it – to the point where I kinda want Jenny and Jonathan to put strings on the album that I’m working on. I’m definitely excited about how this could work.”
Blueshift Ensemble
For her part, Davis is also excited by the possibilities. “I always thought new music was like, very experimental, no melody, maybe kind of hard to listen to sometimes. But that’s just not the case, and I think there’s really something for everybody in the world of new music now.”
The Continuum Music Festival will take place at the story booth and Crosstown Art Gallery spaces, starting at 7:00 pm, Thursday, August 3rd – Saturday, August 5th.
I’m searching for Don Lifted’s East Memphis crib, but I’m not sure which house on the crowded street is his. Then I see the battered Oldsmobile in the driveway. It’s the trusty, mid-sized domestic sedan immortalized in the title of his new album, Alero.
“The suburbs are a pause for me,” he says.
The nine songs on Alero evoke a particular moment in his life when he didn’t have a place to pause. Before he was Don Lifted, Lawrence Matthews’ girlfriend Aleq went to college in Washington, D.C., and he enrolled in a Baltimore school to be near her. “I was on my own for the first time. I had never traveled outside of the South.”
But the constant crush of people and personal turmoil threw him for a loop. “I had some demons I had to get out about that time period. It was a time that I had a lot of frustrations, but I had extreme longing for that time and place and the experiences I had there. I wanted to relive them. The reality was, it was beautiful, but it was bad at the same time. I was poor; I got kicked out of school; I was struggling. I don’t want to say it was drugs. … I was being young and dumb about what I was putting in my body.”
Matthews returned to Memphis, but Aleq stayed in D.C. to finish her schooling. For him, that meant a lot of driving back and forth. “It’s a record about the time period spent in the car.”
Eventually, he got a degree in art from the University of Memphis. “I did everything. I was a photographer, painting, sculpture work, installations, everything. I decided to focus on painting because at the time, that was what people knew me the most for.”
At the same time Lawrence Matthews’ visual art was gaining traction, Don Lifted’s music was struggling. At first, he was making beats for rappers, but when he heard the finished songs, he always was disappointed with the results. “I knew I was writing better songs than these people. So I started writing my own songs and making mixtapes,” he says. “I have to be in control. I now understand that about myself. I make decisions based on maintaining control over what I do.”
These days, the control extends to the venues where he plays. The artist’s first gigs were multi-artist showcases in traditional club venues. “I always had very elaborate visions of ways I wanted to see and express my music. … It’s an all-encompassing art experience. In these group shows, you can’t really do your own thing. You just have to be a person on the stage. That’s not why I’m doing it. I’m not doing it to just be a performer. That’s just an element of the greater scheme. After a couple of bad experiences, I decided I’m never doing that again. I have to have my own stuff, to sell and curate my own performances and experiences. It started at Crosstown Arts and then branched off from there.”
In mid-April, he became one of the first musical acts to play in the Brooks Museum’s downstairs theater, utilizing multiple digital projectors to create layered, moving images over the stage while he performed songs from Alero, his prior album, December, and some new material. “Art comes easier. Music is a challenge to me. … Being the guy who has to perform these lyrics I wrote, that’s hard. I get stressed about that. I have extreme doubts and extreme confidence in myself musically.”
The autobiographical Alero mixes chillwave synths with twisted and chopped samples. Don’s verses are quick and staccato, sounding sometimes as if the ideas and memories are coming too fast for him to keep up. “I’ve done a lot of projects, but that was the only one that flowed out like that. It happened really quickly.”
For the accompanying videos, he teamed up with Crosstown Arts’ Justin Thompson for “Harbor Hall,” and filmmaker Kevin Brooks for “It’s Your World” and “Take Control of Me.”
“I want to make as many videos as I can. I want to tell the stories through great videos,” he says. “I need people who are just as maniacal and controlling about what they do as I am about what I do.”
The mastering for Alero took place at Bernie Grundman’s Mastering studio in Hollywood, California, with Kendrick Lamar’s engineer Mike Bozzi. For Matthews, it was a life-changing experience — and one that reinforced his determination to stay in Memphis. “When I was in Los Angeles, I thought ‘I could come out here, like everyone else is coming out here, and I could make it out here.’ But every time I do something [in Memphis], the impact is much deeper and more spiritual. They don’t need me in Los Angeles. They don’t need me in New York.”
Last year, Memphis hip hop polymath Don Lifted topped the Memphis Flyer’s list of best music videos. For “Take Control of Me”, from his Alero album, he teamed up with his frequent collaborator, director Kevin Brooks for four minutes of sinister menace, starring Catherine Patton, Betram Williams, Jr., and the Don himself, Lawrence Matthews.
Music Video Monday: Don Lifted
If you would like to see your music video on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
Dr. James Gholson leads Craig Brewer’s ‘Our Conductor – Artists Only Remix’
Let’s do this.
10. Kphonix “When It’s Tasty”
Director: Mitch Martin
What goes with disco better than lasers? Nothing.
Music Video Monday: Top 20 Memphis Music Videos of 2016 (Part 2)
9. Hormonal Imbalance “That Chick’s Boyfriend”
Director: Jamie Hall Rising Fyre Productions gives Susan Mayfield and Ivy Miller’s gross-out punk the no-holds-barred video they deserve. Not safe for work. Or life.
Music Video Monday: Top 20 Memphis Music Videos of 2016 (Part 2) (2)
8. “Our Conductor – Artists’ Only Remix” Director: Craig Brewer
When the Memphis Grizzlies hired Craig Brewer to make a promotional video to help persuade Mike Connelly to stay, he gathered an A team of Memphis talent, including producers Morgan Jon Fox and Erin Freeman, cinematographer Ryan Earl Parker, assistant director Sarah Fleming, Brandon Bell, and Firefly Grip and Electric. Prolific composer Jonathan Kirkscey was tapped to write an inspiring score, which would be performed by musicians from the Stax Music Academy and members of local orchestras, and the Grizzline drummers. Dancers from Collage Dance Collective, joined jookers from the Grit N’ Grind Squad.
After a shoot at the FedEx Forum, Editor Edward Valibus cut together a b-roll bed to lay the interviews on. His rough cut turned out to be one of the best music videos of the year.
Music Video Monday: Top 20 Memphis Music Videos of 2016 (Part 2) (3)
7. Brennan Villines “Crazy Train”
Director: Andrew Trent Fleming This unexpectedly poignant Ozzy cover was the second music video Villines and Fleming collaborated on this year, after the stark “Free”. Where that one was simple, this one goes big.
Music Video Monday: Top 20 Memphis Music Videos of 2016 (Part 2) (4)
6. Lisa Mac “Mr. Mystery” Director: Melissa Anderson Sweazy
There’s no secret to making a great music video. Just take a great song, a great dancer, a great location, and some crackerjack editing. All the elements came together brilliantly for Sweazy’s second entry in the countdown.
Music Video Monday: Top 20 Memphis Music Videos of 2016 (Part 2) (5)
5. Marco Pavé “Cake”
Director GB Shannon
Shannon used the WREC building as the main setting in his short film “Broke Dick Dog”, and he returns with a cadre of dancers and a stone cold banger from Pavé. Go get that cake.
Music Video Monday: Top 20 Memphis Music Videos of 2016 (Part 2) (6)
4. Chackerine “Memphis Beach”
Director: Ben Siler
This three minute epic keeps switching gears as it accelerates to a Jurassic punchline. Its sense of chaotic fun took the prize at the revived Indie Memphis music video category.
Music Video Monday: Top 20 Memphis Music Videos of 2016 (Part 2) (7)
3. Yo Gotti “Down In The DM”
Director: Yo Gotti
It was Yo Gotti’s year. The Memphis MC racked up a staggering 101 million views with this video, which features cameos from Cee-Lo Green, Machine Gun Kelley, YG, and DJ Khalid. The video must have worked, because the song peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Music Video Monday: Top 20 Memphis Music Videos of 2016 (Part 2) (8)
2. John Kilzer & Kirk Whalum “Until We’re All Free”
Dir: Laura Jean Hocking
Two things brought “Until We’re All Free” to the list’s penultimate slot. First, it’s a perfect example of synergy between music and image, where both elements elevate each other. Second is the subtle narrative arc; Amurica photobooth owner Jamie Harmon selling false freedom seems suddenly prophetic. The social justice anthem struck a chord with viewers when it ran with the trailers at some Malco theaters this spring. The parade of cute kids helped, too.
Music Video Monday: Top 20 Memphis Music Videos of 2016 (Part 2) (9)
1. Don Lifted “Harbor Hall”
Director Lawrence Matthews
Matthews is a multi-tasker, combining visual art with hip hop in his live performances and controlling his videos. His two videos from his album Alero feature his beaten up domestic sedan as a character. Its the total artistic unity that puts “Harbor Hall” at the pinnacle of 2016 videos. Because my rules limited each musical artist to one video, Matthews’ 11-minute collaboration with filmmaker Kevin Brooks “It’s Your World” doesn’t appear on the list. I chose “Harbor Hall” because of its concision, but “It’s Your World” would have probably topped the list, too.
Here it is, Memphis, your Best Music Video of 2016:
Music Video Monday: Top 20 Memphis Music Videos of 2016 (Part 2) (10)
Keep those videos coming, artists and filmmakers! Tip me off about your upcoming music video with an email to cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Jarvis Hughes 
