Jazz Fest News: Lorde Takes the Subway, and Nas and The Soul Rebels Hate Me Now

A look ahead to Lorde and Nas with the Soul Rebels at Jazz Fest.

Last weekend, Jonah Weiner profiled Lorde for The New York Times Magazine. The piece follows her into the studio as she finishes her second album, Melodrama. Lorde will play Jazz Fest's Gentilly Stage Sunday, April 30 at 5:45 p.m., and according to Weiner, "Lorde has a sly facility with pop craft that often exhibits itself in curveballs. She likes self-reflexive lyrics, off-kilter rhyme schemes and other irregularities just pronounced enough to draw attention to her songs’ animating mechanics without breaking their spells."

Her take on Katy Perry's pop smash "Teenage Dream" illustrates his point. 

"There’s this sadness about it, where you feel young listening to it, but you feel impermanence at the same time,” Lorde said. "When I put that song on, I’m as moved as I am by anything by David Bowie, by Fleetwood Mac, by Neil Young. It lets you feel something you didn’t know you needed to feel.”

Last weekend, Lorde previewed "Homemade Dynamite" from her upcoming album at Coachella.

In other Jazz Fest news, today Okayplayer.com posted a video of Nas and The Soul Rebels live. The Soul Rebels have made clear their affinity for hip-hop in their own music, in their Power = Power mixtape, and in their collaborations with such rappers as Talib Kweli, Curren$y, Joey Baddass, and now Nas. Recently, Nas and The Soul Rebels played a show together in Australia, and here's a track from it--their version of "Hate Me Now" from Nas' 1999 album, I Am ....