If you watched the Grammys this year, you might have noticed a musical curiosity that took place outside the broadcast proper: Karen O and N.A.S.A. (the hip-hop duo, not the space guys) covering Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff” as lounge-y disco. Appearing in a Sonos ad, the cover threw in a lot: a little of the spacey experiments of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Mosquito, a little of the unabashed synthpop of the YYYs last album It’s Blitz, more than a little of the stylistic rapacity of N.A.S.A.’s The Spirit of Apollo (which featured Karen O, as well as about a quarter of the musical class of 2009), and a lot of this year’s love for neo-disco, the slicker the better.
“It’s always risky covering a classic, but the idea of completely re-contextualizing the song into a different genre sounded exciting to me,” Sam Spiegel of N.A.S.A. tells TIME. “One of my favorite collaborators and inspirations is Karen O, and she was the first person I reached out to.”
Animator San Charoenchai, who Spiegel met while working on his side project Maximum Hedrum, illustrated and directed the lyric video for the clip, and it’s as high-concept as the track – a soylent western, the frontier according to ‘70s futurism: a world of neon wanted posters, and bandits getting down to disco balls. Watch the premiere above.
More Must-Reads From TIME
- East Palestine, One Year After Train Derailment
- How Tech Giants Turned Ukraine Into an AI War Lab
- Highlights of Usher's Halftime Show
- The Closers: 18 People Working to End the Racial Wealth Gap
- An Alternative Guide for Valentine’s Day
- Why Do I Keep Getting COVID-19 but Those Around Me Don’t?
- Taylor Swift Is TIME's 2023 Person of the Year
- Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time
Contact us at letters@time.com