Modern Composition L.A. is dublab’s cross-genre radio series examining the dynamic, new music emerging from Los Angeles. Each installment focuses on an individual composer’s contribution to the city’s fertile sonic landscape. Through in-depth interviews, illuminating recordings, and the premiere of a new work by the featured composer, we illustrate how these distinct artists are shaping Los Angeles and how the city has influenced them. Modern Composition L.A. surveys the wide-spectrum music endemic to Los Angeles—sketching a panoramic view of this ever-evolving creative climate.

On this installment of Modern Composition L.A., we spend some quality time with Mekala Session, a young drummer and musical polymath raised in the fold of the multi-generational Los Angeles jazz band The Pan Afrikan People’s Arkesta. He now guides the outfit into the future while keeping the light of its founder Horace Tapscott shining bright. The episode caps off with the premiere of a brand new composition by Mekala for the band Yoni. On the way, we’ll hear the music that’s helped inform his community-rooted music mission.

You can hear the entire series unfold at: moderncomposition.la.