M.I.A. Breaks Hiatus to Pay Tribute to K-Swift

Radio and club DJ K-Swift, who passed away earlier this year in a swimming pool accident, tirelessly championed her hometown's bombastic brand of hip-hop/dance music known as Baltimore club. Swift's longtime record label, Unruly Records, will release a tribute album, K-Swift's Greatest Hits, on December 23rd, which will show just how far the DJ's evangelistic fervor spread. "I'm a big fan of Baltimore club music and the movement that Unruly Records has established," says Sri Lankan MC M.I.A., who hosts the 36-track compilation. M.I.A., who has been taking time away from music since announcing her pregnancy in October, agreed to host the disc out of her appreciation for Swift, who is among the only female DJs to host a Number One rated radio show and a nationally syndicated mixtape show. On the day of the album's release, BET's The Deal will host a tribute to Swift.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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