Jazz breakout
Kamasi Washington—who helped shape the sound of
Kendrick Lamar's
To Pimp a Butterfly and whose sprawling
The Epic was
The New York Times' pick for 2015 Album of the Year—celebrates inking a publishing pact with
Big Deal Music. The pubco's
Dave Ayers grew an enormous jazzbo beard for the occasion and performed a few of the deal's more abstruse clauses in scatted form, like, shoo-be-doo-all-rights-in-perpetuity, man. Seen bracing for the bass solo are (l-r) Washington,
Atom Factory's
Banch Abagaze, Big Deal's
Brigitte Green and Ayers.