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Growing up, John Flansburgh, co-founder of the Grammy-winning alternative rock band They Might Be Giants, loved to tinker. He loved sound and he also loved new technology—rudimentary as it might have been, even at the time. For example, he loved listening to the radio in his parents’ car. He was “hypnotized” by Top 40 songs. As a kid, he also got into tape recorders and bought a three-inch reel-to-reel to play with sound. Later, his popular band became known for its “Dial-A-Song’ gimmick where They Might Be Giants recorded new songs and put them on an answering machine for people to call in to hear. Today, the band is continuously innovating, staying fresh. It’s part of their mission, evident by the group’s newest album and accompanying tome of the same name, BOOK, out October 29.

When Richard Young, co-founder of the Kentucky Headhunters, was a boy, not even a teenager, he moved into his very own home. Along with his brother Fred and two cousins, Young lived in an old farmhouse that, at the time, felt like something of a clubhouse. But the boys didn’t waste the opportunity (and their parents weren’t far, living in a house nearby on the same plot). There, the boys played music, laughed, and farmed together. They were planting seeds, both literally and metaphorically, early on that would impact them the rest of their lives, which would later include a Grammy win and touring the globe. But one story in particular sticks out that sums up the origin of Young and his group, which has been going in some shape or another for 53 years, through today, with the release of the band’s newest LP, That’s a Fact Jack!. That story has to do with hard fieldwork.

When artist and RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 11 winner Yvie Oddly has down time, she makes sure she doesn’t. Downtime isn’t really downtime, in this way. Instead, it’s just time to do or make something else.

When Oddly won the 2019 season (a truly coveted feat), she didn’t rest on her laurels, either. Instead, she went out and recorded a new album, Drag Trap, which she released a year ago (October 23, 2020). One might think that after achieving such a major milestone, there might be only parade floats and flower bouquets. But for Oddly, there was recording booths and turning lyric notes into full songs that would go on to earn millions of streams. Even today, as Oddly performs in a RuPaul’s Drag Race Las Vegas residency, she is working on creating and completing other projects when off-stage.

For famed Spanish-born musician and entertainer Charo, music is much more akin to oxygen and water than it is to some petty piece of entertainment. Music is her lifeblood. The energetic performer says she meets new friends through it, she rejuvenates her energy by practicing and playing it, and she experiences beauty through it.

For Charo, the guitar, especially, is what thrills her. The instrument is of the people and she can make it truly sing. Charo, who boasts a shapely silhouette and who entertains with as much verve and enthusiasm as any, is also a truly world-class six-string master. She cares about technique as much as she does about her looks. It’s all part of the package, she’ll say. And all part of what she loves most to do: engage an audience and shine when doing so.

With each decision we make, a new future unfolds. If you go left or right at the proverbial fork, a certain, particular road will unfurl before you. We are in charge of our futures, whether or not we’re clear-headed and cognizant of that in the moment. As such, it can require great effort to remain focused in each move, as you try and take your future by the reigns. This is true whether you’re navigating personal introspection or racing through a new video game level, trying to grab golden rings, or meet and get to know a new character.

Today, no one gets this better than the musician, mxmtoon (aka Maia), who recently finished writing music for a new choose-your-own-adventure-style video game, and is now set to dive back into her own brand of creative world-building.

For Kristin Chenoweth, star of stage, screen, and recording studio, everything changed at seven years old when she asked herself one very important question: What would a bunny do? The query came when the young Chenoweth had a small role in the Tulsa, Oklahoma Ballet’s rendition of The Nutcracker. As a kid, she’d aspired to be a ballerina. In fact, it was in one of her early dance classes that she saw a piano, and mid-grand plié, decided music was to be her life’s work.

Around that time, Chenoweth auditioned for a role in The Nutcracker, and at first, thought she might win the role as a mouse in an important scene. But she was too small for the costume (even today, she stands at just 4’11”). So, the director gave her the role of the rabbit, a character who normally just sits in the background. Even at a young age, though, Chenoweth wanted more. She was inspired to act. So, sitting there during the show one day, she asked herself the question and just decided to get up and do exactly what a bunny would.

Everyone has heard the concept of the “blockbuster movie.” It’s a film that delivers on epic proportions. Well, Washington D.C.-born rapper Wale (aka Olubowale Victor Akintimehin) delivers to his fans blockbuster albums.

On tracks that rise like skyscrapers, the lyricist rides overtop. It’s a talent that few boast and none better than he. When considering the number of fans, size of reach, and all that go into a movie like Jaws, Wale delivers similarly sonically, and he does so with keen bravado.

Even when his music is “about nothing,” like the two albums the artist did with comedian Jerry Seinfeld—The Album About Nothing and mixtape More About Nothing—there is still momentousness afoot (see: the 2015 song, “Matrimony” featuring Usher). And on Wale’s forthcoming new record, Folarin II, which is out Friday (October 22), the emcee has arrived in a similar victorious fashion. Each song feels like a win, a big score. But, for Wale, that victorious nature first came from his introduction to the game of football.

There was a time when the name, “John Forté,” was said on the radio at least once every hour, for probably three or four years. From the mid-‘90s until 2000, Forté was on tracks or getting shouted out on them with The Fugees, which, of course, includes Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, and Pras. On songs like Wyclef’s “We Trying To Stay Alive,” or working behind the scenes on production on The Fugees’ album The Score, Forté was a major player in hip hop by the end of the 20th century. But then, as he says, his life took some major right and left turns. Forté was arrested for drug possession and spent a number of years incarcerated, and sentenced to the mandatory 14 years. Songwriter Carly Simon and Senator Orin Hatch fought for Forté, who was later released, commuted by then-President George W. Bush in 2008.

Ever since then, Forté has lived a life of renewal. He’s focused time and energies on reformation, on rehabilitation. His music has talked about the search for knowledge, no longer focused on more capitalistic and hedonistic gains. Forté is, in many ways, a new person. Yet, his path is also a return to who he was as a younger person, thirsty for knowledge and experience before the road wended wrongly.