Straight No Chaser — named after Thelonious Monk's 1967 record — is a magazine that promotes what it calls interplanetary sounds: from the ancient to the future, it travels along the connections between African diaspora music. The publication traces the lines that run from jazz to hip-hop, from Afrobeat to electronic music, from the blues to the avant-garde, treating these connections not as historical curiosities but as a living, evolving musical network that spans continents and centuries.
The magazine's editorial sensibility is rooted in the conviction that the music of the African diaspora is not a collection of separate genres but a single, vast, endlessly branching tradition — one that has shaped virtually every form of popular music on the planet. Straight No Chaser follows that tradition wherever it leads, with the enthusiasm of a record collector and the seriousness of a cultural historian.
The Monk reference in the title is not just a nod to a great musician. It is a statement of values: no sweeteners, no dilution, no compromise. The music, straight up.