Thundercat

Thundercat is the name adopted by the bass player, singer, songwriter Stephen Lee Bruner, who works mostly in jazz, but also plays in other genres as well, funk, R&B, and hip-hop. He is a much renowned and highly sought after musician as a bass player because his level of technical proficiency is roughly in the same ballpark as some of the great players of previous generations, like Jaco Pastorius and Marcus Miller. His best known collaboration may be with Kendrick Lamar, but he has also had some long term and productive partnerships with Kamasi Washington and Flying Lotus as a part of LA's jazz scene. He sings in a style that is more in tune with the R&B tradition, which creates a nice contrast with his very jazz and funk driven intricate bass lines. He is clearly one of the leading figures of R&B/jazz fusion in contemporary music. His songs are not overly melodic, but have enough of a flow to give his instrumental work a pop-adjacent flow.