Kelsey Dake; Photo: F. Sadou/Admedia/Zuma
On March 15, 2015, Kendrick Lamar released To Pimp a Butterfly, a jazz-infused exploration of black culture, racial inequality, and personal transformation that went on to win several Grammys. Early the next morning in Sacramento, California, 33-year-old Cole Cuchna sat in a rocking chair calming his day-old daughter, Mabel. As the sky lightened, he donned his headphones to take in Lamar’s new work. “It was a very romantic moment,” he remembers.
The album made a deep initial impression, but Cuchna, who had a degree in composing, felt that he, as “a white kid from the suburbs,” couldn’t fully access Lamar’s storytelling without some serious music-nerd analysis: “I couldn’t just listen to it casually and understand everything he was trying to say.” Could the theoretical scrutiny his professors had used to deconstruct Gregorian chants and Mozart symphonies be applied to hip-hop? Cuchna decided to find out. The following year, between work shifts at a coffee company, he began recording Dissect, a podcast that unpacks in incredible detail the artistry, historical and cultural allusions, and symbolism in rap music. His goal: “to bridge the gap between classical and contemporary.” Over three seasons, Dissect has built a solid listener base, garnering critical acclaim and spots on iTunes charts and various best-podcast lists. Last year, deeming Cuchna a “rare talent,” Spotify acquired Dissect as part of its original podcast portfolio. In December, critic Wesley Morris included it in the New York Times’ “Five Great Podcasts From 2018,” likening Cuchna to a “scuba artist” deep-diving for “little bits of treasure.” Dissect, Morris wrote, “thrives as an achievement of contemplative audio.”
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