A classically trained jazz saxophonist who wins a Grammy for Best Rap Song, scores a Japanese anime series, gets name-checked in one of the biggest hip-hop anthems of the decade, and records a Metallica cover sounds impossible on paper. This episode explains how Kamasi Washington did all of it without abandoning jazz. Born in Los Angeles in 1981, he studied at the Academy of Music at Hamilton High School and then in UCLA's Department of Ethnomusicology, where faculty members Kenny Burrell, Gerald Wilson and Billy Higgins mentored a quartet that included Cameron Graves, Stephen Bruner (Thundercat) and Ronald Bruner Jr. That group debuted as the Young Jazz Giants in 2004.

The discussion covers his years as a sideman for Snoop Dogg and Flying Lotus, the catalytic year of 2015 when he played on and arranged strings for Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp  ...