Easily one of the 21st century’s most acclaimed musicians, Los Angeles bass virtuoso Thundercat (Steven Bruner) has blazed an iconoclastic musical path through his Grammy-winning albums and collaborations. Raised in a musical household by his father, drummer Ronald Bruner Sr. (The Temptations, The Supremes, Gladys Knight), and his mother Pam Bruner, a flautist and percussionist, Thundercat joined LA skate-thrash legends Suicidal Tendencies at 16, and later found live work with Erykah Badu, Raphael Saadiq and Snoop Dogg.

During this time, Thundercat began collaborating with Flying Lotus, which led him to begin singing and making his own records. He released his debut, The Golden Age of Apocalypse in 2011, and quickly followed up that effort with 2013’s Apocalypse. Thundercat won a Grammy for his collaboration with Kendrick Lamar on “These Walls” and another for his fourth LP It Is What It Is. His latest, Distracted, features collaborations with Tame Impala, Lil Yachty, A$AP Rocky, and a posthumous production with his longtime collaborator and dear friend Mac Miller.

If it were just about production, collaboration and accolades, Thundercat would stand as one of the greatest musicians of our era, but that would be understating his stylistic adventurism through an esoteric meld of jazz, funk, hip hop, soul and electronic music delivered with prodigious wizardry and the booty busting bottom end that’s established Thundercat as a living legend in our time.

- Mike Dunn