Prince Rogers Nelson’s presence looms large over the musical landscape of the last half-century, and his death in April 2016 left a gaping hole almost as big. We know the résumé and list of accolades he earned during his career: More than 100 million records sold. Seven Grammy Awards. 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee. SPIN magazine’s “Greatest Frontman of All Time.” Prince also ventured into movies, including his starring role in the iconic Purple Rain, which garnered a Golden Globe nomination and won an Oscar in 1985.

 We normally see the arc of talent play out in public … The rising star ascends to the lofty heights of fame, then fades into the distance. But while the sex, drugs, and rock & roll cliché is almost expected of our musical giants, Prince was never one to play by the rules. He stayed active and relevant right up until his sudden passing, and though his romantic status and exploits are the stuff of legend and were a big part of his early career, they pale in comparison to the expansive range of artists and styles colored by Prince’s enormous musical legacy.

 Like Stevie Wonder before him, Prince was a wunderkind who seemingly played every instrument and wrote songs that spoke to so many facets of our human identity. Sophisticated sexual themes shared album space with religious underpinnings and worries of an impending apocalypse resulting from nuclear war. Prince also bared his inner turmoil and openly displayed his gratitude for his fans.

 Meanwhile, the rhythms and styling were lush with pop sensibility, layered with funk and infused with rock & roll. It was pop music that people could own, internalize and fit to their anonymous lives. It was music that brought strangers together in a mutual connection. Where Michael Jackson was an overwhelming pop supernova, Prince was a slow burning flame whose impression deepened the longer it flickered in the minds of his consumers.

 Yet, his influence ran deeper. “1999” actually preceded Jackson’s “Billie Jean” as one of the first videos by a black artist on MTV. “Little Red Corvette” followed, providing some more much-needed colorization to the previously lily-white network. The sexy lyricism of “Darling Nikki” is noted as one of inciting causes that eventually led to the Parental Advisory stickers that are now commonplace on retail albums (and that influenced the video game rating system, too). The list of artists who have covered or referenced Prince’s songs run the gamut of music genres including the Foo Fighters, Cee-lo Green, Goo Goo Dolls, Kansas City indie rap giant Tech N9ne, Nicki Minaj and the irrepressible Tupac Shakur, among others.

Some say that South by Southwest’s growth over the years has made it hard to do the sort of networking that can launch projects that show up on stages and screens. But director Judd Apatow—who is in Austin showing two films this year, the romantic comedy The Big Sick and the music documentary May It Last—can tell you that those key connections still happen.

 In 2012, Apatow came to SXSW to premiere the HBO series Girls (which he executive produced) and appeared on comedian Pete Holmes’ “You Made It Weird” podcast alongside Kumail Nanjiani and Chris Gethard. And in the years since that one meeting, Apatow has gone on to do projects with all of them.

 “They were all just fantastic,” Apatow recalls. “After we did the podcast, Kumail pitched me on this idea related to his wife Emily and their relationship. That turned into The Big Sick. We’ve also got Pete Holmes’ Crashing (TV series) coming up on HBO, and we’re shooting Chris Gethard’s one-man show, Career Suicide, for HBO.

 “So yeah,” he concludes with a laugh, “it was the most successful podcast of all time.”

 Directed by Michael Showalter and co-produced by Apatow, The Big Sick premiered to acclaim at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it was acquired by Amazon for release this summer. In acknowledgement of where the whole thing got started, the film will also show at SXSW.

 May It Last, which Apatow co-directed with Michael Bonfiglio, is a documentary about the North Carolina folk-rock group Avett Brothers, and a seeming departure for a filmmaker best-known for bawdy romantic comedies like Bridesmaids and Knocked Up. But in another example of the power of casual networking, the project grew out of a 2013 backstage conversation at an Avett Brothers concert between Apatow and their producer, Rick Rubin.

 A major fan, Apatow had already used the Avetts’ song “Live and Die” as end-credits music for his 2012 comedy This Is 40. When he mentioned that he’d love to do a film project with the band, Rubin suggested that Apatow film recording sessions that were about to start for the Avetts’ 2016 album True Sadness. Apatow enlisted Bonfiglio (with whom he made the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary Doc & Darryl) as co-director, and in early 2014, they began what turned into two-and-a-half years of filming.

 While the genesis of True Sadness provided the framework, May It Last is hardly a conventional making-of-an-album documentary, and it covers a particularly momentous stretch for the band’s members. Over the course of filming, both Scott and Seth Avett had children; cellist Joe Kwon got married; bassist Bob Crawford’s family was still dealing with his young daughter’s malignant brain tumor; and the Avett Brothers had their first-ever gold record.

 “It was a true labor of love, and we were fortunate to be able to spend so much time on it,” says Bonfiglio. “It became kind of a meditation on the passage of time and how life unfolds. The making-of-an-album part was the bones of it, but what’s more interesting is the people and their lives and how they interact, and how that relates to all of us.”

 The filmmakers had total access, to the point that the only thing they weren’t allowed to film was a private conversation about band finances. The result is an intimate portrait that captures many unguarded moments. The usually reserved Seth Avett is shown talking with surprising openness about his divorce (the subject of the True Sadness song “Divorce Separation Blues”). And in a remarkable sequence toward the end, Scott Avett grows almost angry while agonizing about the dark side of the creativity-versus-commerce dilemma.

 “Ever since Seth and I started recording, there always comes a moment when I’m completely fatigued, and I’ve just had it,” Scott Avett says. “At those moments, I am extremely vulnerable about anything that feels like a jab at my creative integrity. On a balanced, healthy day, I embrace the need for both art and commerce. But there are other moments that just peel everything down to where I’m completely vulnerable and all is revealed. At first, I had hoped that scene would not be in there. And when I saw it the first time, I kind of wanted to apologize because I looked so grumpy and taken down and defeated. But at the end, I get it. That had to be in there.”

 Both Apatow and Bonfiglio point to the rapport between Scott and Seth Avett—blood brothers and artistic partners who actually get along, in contrast to the rock-band cliché of warring-sibling bandmates—as the center of May It Last. From outside, the dynamic seems almost too good to be true. But it’s sincere, and as real as the friendships that The Big Sick and other Apatow projects seem to grow out of.

 “I feel like the world is a very cynical place filled with snark, so I appreciate the Avetts’ sincerity and humanity,” Apatow says. “They write about a lot of ideas I care about—people attempting to get through this complicated life and make connections, find love, make love work. They’re about being human, and everything that entails. They have some funny songs, too, but I generally appreciate their directness. A lot of my work is about using humor to find a side way into expressing something. So I like how clear and open they can be.”

In a 1978 poster for an Austin Opry House show by the acclaimed Danny Garrett, rising star Warren Zevon glares at passersby in an ostentatious mix of art, music, imagination and fear. Though a werewolf and a headless gunner lurk at Zevon’s back, a sinister pair of eyeballs, hovering in the gloomy clouds above, chills even closer to the bone.

 Across town, around the same time, a gnarly black-and-white image captures Chris Wing, lead singer for punk raconteurs Sharon Tate’s Baby, wailing to the world against a dot matrix background, proclaiming just another Monday night at Raul’s.

 These were signs of the times. In fact, a walk through downtown Austin during the 1970s and ’80s often revealed dozens of signs of the times. A rock & roll lineage created in posters and flyers—by everyone from acclaimed artists like Jim Franklin and Michael Priest to bandmates publicizing their first gig—lined telephone poles, streetlights and virtually any other mid-town public façade.

 Into this realm fell Jagmo, aka Nels Jacobson, a master of Austin’s second generation in poster art, whose career has traversed an idiosyncratic path: from smack-dab in the middle of Austin’s vibrant music/poster scene, to imagistic MVP for SXSW in its early days, and then on to lawyer, historian and co-founder of the American Poster Institute.

 A native Chicagoan intrigued by music and image, Jacobson found himself employed as promotions manager at Club Foot, one of Austin’s liveliest venues, in 1982. Soon enough, he was providing poster imagery, catering to local post-punk, up-and-coming and down-and-out rock stars, and everything in between.

 “My approach was pretty minimal most of the time,” explains Jacobson, marking his delineation from the psychedelic styles of Austin’s hippie days. “I didn’t have the skills yet. I was essentially self-taught, and I would just look to all the other posters done by these really talented guys [Garrett among them], and use that for inspiration.”

 Steve Forbert’s Labor Day 1982 concert poster is exemplary. Leading with a sharp, black image of the artist contrasting with a blank music bar, it had lots of off-white space and spare lettering: “In the early stages, I liked stuff that was simple and bold because I thought it worked. Philosophically, I liked it as a design approach.”

 Jacobson’s eye-catching juxtapositions—light/dark, colors/angles, image/information—spoke eloquently of the times, often evoking a stark feel that matched the moods of stripped-down music. His David Johansen poster, among dozens featured at his jagmo.com website, is an image/absence-of-image collision representing a sharp break in the way rock posters might be crafted.

 “The ultimate style of a particular poster, or the imagery used, may echo the kind of music played by the band, the visual look of the group or the era it’s most associated with,” Jacobson explains. “Or it may take its cue from the type of venue … or from the prevailing mood of the day.”

 By the mid-1980s, Jacobson was integrating new elements (he would later incorporate psychedelia as well), including atypical imagery and a cogent style of surrealism that complemented the music in often-provocative ways.

 A Dead Kennedys poster, circa 1984 Liberty Lunch, remains a poignant, unforgettable work. A representation not of the band’s raucous, provocateur brand of punk rock, Jacobson instead played off their choice of name. His spooky, shadowy photo in the lower-right corner, echoing the colors in the lettering, is unsettling to this day.

 “The photo always struck me as these two elderly ladies, and they’re holding flowers, and one of them is my [actual] grandmother,” Jacobson reveals. “Often you just want kind of an arresting or haunting image. You want something that when people look at it, it’s intriguing, moves them a little bit. Sometimes, just a simple image can do that. And in the case of the Dead Kennedys, I was thinking of death.”

 Jacobson’s career path then began to swerve in hardly predictable ways. “In late 1986, I think it was Roland [Swenson] who asked me to come up with a design for the new music festival he …[was] planning called the ‘South by Southwest Music and Media Conference.’ At the time, I favored simple and bold imagery and made the centerpiece of the design a blocky arrow pointing southwest. To reflect the ‘Music and Media’ portion of the name, I added a microphone trailing a mic cord.”

 An eloquent writer, poster scholar and collector, Jacobson soon took a step rarely contemplated by his peers: “I went away to law school in ’92. At one point I started to think, ‘well, jeez, how do I protect my stuff, copyright-wise, how does that work?’ And I asked some of the other artists I looked up to …[Guy] Juke, Priest, Garrett. Nobody seemed to have a clear idea about the legal aspects.”

 In that spirit, Jacobson helped launch the CLE (Continuing Legal Education) program at SXSW in 1998, designed for attorneys, among others, to discuss legal perspectives on industry trends. By 2003, everything Jagmo—art, history, legal, music, copyright, networking, collecting, selling—seemed to intersect when he sponsored the SXSW debut of Flatstock, a mind-blowing exhibition of poster art.

 “Flatstock just became a monster,” he enthuses, relishing the event’s capacity to both champion poster-art history and latch onto the here-and-now. “Now, I think there is still a wealth of really brilliant and inspired work being created. The difference is that there are so many more poster artists, graphic artists and designers, who are getting their work out in front of the public, and which can be seen around the world instantaneously.”

Flatstock 53 and the CLE program both begin today (Thursday, March 16) and continue through Saturday (March 18). More details at flatstock and cle.

Puerto Rican rapper Residente, Mexico City’s ska outfit Panteón Rococó, and veteran SXSW faves, Ozomatli.

 The show is presented by Voto Latino, a civic media organization seeking to empower Latinos and build a more inclusive democracy and whose board of directors includes Rosario Dawson and Wilmer Valderrama. “The idea behind this concert,” says Voto Latino COO Jessica Reeves, “is to bring attention to the multitude of issues faced by our community, especially our immigrant brothers and sisters. As immigrants and allies, we are challenged each day to stand strong in our ideals of compassion and unity. Voto Latino believes that music and culture are powerful avenues to do so.”

 Residente (René Pérez Joglar) spent more than a decade as the voice of Calle 13, a duo whose music combined elements from reggaeton, hip-hop, salsa, rock, klezmer and Native American chants, with lyrics that offered sociopolitical commentary and solidarity with the underclass. After having his DNA tested, Residente decided to make music guided by the results, traveling the world to record collaborations with Tuareg guitarist Bombino, Chinese opera musicians, a Serbian brass band and Dagomba tribal singers in Ghana. Residente’s soon-to-be-released first solo album will open with Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton, rapping in Spanish and English. It turns out, as Residente discovered, that Miranda and he are third cousins. A documentary of his journey, called Residente, world premiered at SXSW earlier this week.

 Formed in 1995, with the Zapatista uprising as a backdrop that inspired members to take a political stand, Panteón Rococó is Mexico’s most emblematic ska-fusion group. The nine-piece band is known for an energetic sound that combines ska, punk, rock, reggae, mariachi and salsa, and famously raucous live performances. “Art is a limitless medium for expression,” says sax player Missael Oseguera. “For us, it is important to reflect our mood, experiences and opinion in our music, we need to be responsible because many people listen to us, so we can amplify our point of view and ideas that we share with the audience.”

 According to Oseguera, the band is excited to participate “because every stage that we can step on is important. Each show brings different people, some possibly for their first Panteón performance and others who are returning as fans. This is why we started performing, to step on as many stages as possible and leave our footprints.”

The “All Latino Resist Concert” presented by Voto Latino, is today (Thursday, March 16) at the SXSW Outdoor Stage at Lady Bird Lake (Riverside Dr & S 1st St). Residente will screen today at 11am at ZACH Theatre (1510 Toomey Rd). The “Contrabanned: #MUSICUNITES @ SXSW” show featuring artists from the seven countries affected by the January travel ban, is tomorrow night at the Palm Door on Sixth Patio (508 E 6th St). See schedule for all details.

Politically-charged lyrics and social statements are nothing new in the music world. Protest songs have been part of the artistic landscape for generations, with notable examples ranging from Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, The Clash and Rage Against the Machine.

 In Latin America, the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement spawned Inti-Illimani, a group that used traditional South American rhythms in anthem-like songs that helped lift Salvador Allende and his left-leaning Unidad Popular party to the head of Chile’s government in 1970. Allende’s government fell on September 11, 1973, during a CIA-backed coup that led to Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year military dictatorship and the deaths and disappearances of thousands, including activist and folk singer Victor Jara. Inti-Illimani’s most notable composition, “El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido (The People United Will Never Be Defeated)—played for the first time in November 1973 during a show in Florence, Italy—has become a crowd-rising chant the world over.

 In the political climate of today, and specifically in reaction to Donald Trump’s election, musicians are again raising their voices, using art as a platform to express discontent. 30 Days 30 Songs, an independent website showcasing anti-Trump songs from artists across the country, has promised to assemble a playlist of 1,000 songs “to combat apathy, entertain the citizenry, and provide a soundtrack to resistance, over the next four years.”

 In October, during a three-day stand in Mexico City, including a free show at the Zócalo that attracted 300,000 fans, Roger Waters criticized president Enrique Peña Nieto, condemned the still-unresolved disappearance of 43 college students from Guerrero state, and projected images of Trump as a backdrop to a performance of Pink Floyd’s “Pigs.” Waters subsequently posted the video of the performance on Inauguration Day in January.

 SXSW has often welcomed artists who voice their political and social discontent, many of them with Latino roots. Las Cafeteras, a Los Angeles-based multicultural ensemble, wowed audiences at SXSW 2013 with its mishmash of son jarocho, Afro-Mexican rhythms and other Latin sounds with punk and hip-hop. “All of the group’s members come from immigrant and/or native families,” says band member Denise Carlos. “And our family stories are not that different from migrant families throughout the world. Our art and poetry have always been about sharing the hidden narratives of Los Angeles; stories of survival and celebration.”

 Tomorrow, a few Latin bands will share their resistance during a free showcase at the SXSW Outdoor Stage at Lady Bird Lake. SXAméricas has assembled an all-star lineup that includes

coalition Our Music My Body, a joint initiative formed by domestic violence nonprofits Between Friends and Rape Victims Advocates. “We want people to just be thinking about what does consent mean, what does taking up space mean,” says Between Friends’ Matt Walsh. “For myself, as a man, recognizing my experiences at concerts … and I think trying to engage with men to think about this stuff is really important.” In addition to offering educational information at Chicago concerts, Our Music My Body has tabled at Pitchfork Music Festival and Riot Fest—during the latter festival, Our Music My Body hosted a panel on harassment in music, which included Sleater-Kinney singer-guitarist Corin Tucker and Bandcamp managing editor Jes Skolnik.

 Skolnik, who uses they/them pronouns, has confronted issues of safety in DIY music for decades. “I’ve been part of these kinds of conversations since the early to mid ’90s, and they’ve been happening in spaces for longer than that, too,” Skolnik says, explaining that what has changed is where the discussions are taking place: “Social media in particular allows you to see that people are having the same discussions in different places around the country, and makes that easier to access—you just get to see that there’s sort of a critical mass of people out there who are actually talking about it, and it doesn’t seem like it’s your isolated DIY scene anymore.”

 Implementing safety measures remains a challenge. Skolnik is part of a team that has been trying to open an all-ages, handicap accessible venue in Chicago called Pure Joy. Skolnik knows the challenges owners of established venues face when it comes to providing an inclusive space. “There are so many financial limitations to talking about designing a physical space,” Skolnik says. “Obviously if you are any kind of independent promoter, whether it’s an established club or not, there’s not a lot of money in it.”

 Beyond the physical and monetary limitations of clubs, there are viable ways to combat harassment. With CASS, Raven helps helm Safe Bars, a program that trains staff at bars and venues on how to stop harassment. “Fifty percent of sexual assaults involve the use of alcohol, according to a study by NIH,” she says. She’s seen a spike in training requests since the presidential election due to a rise in hate-based harassment: A Southern Poverty Law Center report in early February collected information on more than 1,300 reports of bias incidents. Safety remains a national concern, and at least in the music scene there are people working collectively to stop abuse.

The “Safe Space to Rock: Combating Harassment in Music” session will be held on Friday, March 17 at 2pm, part of the SXSW Music Conference’s Touring & Live Experience programming track. See schedule for more details.

In November 2015, New York pop-punk duo PWR BTTM introduced a request in their tour rider—an initiative about restrooms. In February 2016, the band posted a screenshot of the new stipulation on their Facebook page: “In an effort to ensure the safety and comfort of patrons of all gender identities, PWR BTTM asks that restrooms at the venue be made gender neutral for the evening.”

 The band addresses queerness and gender fluidity in song, and this rider section is a natural extension of its music. Fans responded positively, but the move may have helped make the group more of a target: In November, anti-gay protesters gathered outside a PWR BTTM show at Big Sleepy’s in Jackson, Mississippi.

 PWR BTTM has used its rising profile to help bring issues concerning safety and inclusivity in music venues to the fore of the national scene. Bands are far from the only people involved in the music ecosystem confronting issues that make women, people of color, LGBTQ and gender-fluid individuals feel unsafe watching live music. Femchord, a radio program and music site focused on women and non-binary people involved in music, is bringing the conversation to SXSW this year with a panel called “Safe Space to Rock: Combating Harassment in Music.”

 Femchord founders Kate Ida and Julia Wejchert started working on the panel last spring. By the summer, their message had an increased urgency, and Ida cites the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida, and reports of nearly 50 sexual assaults at two Swedish music festivals as affecting on her view of safety in music. “It felt like music, which had in many ways been a haven for people who didn’t necessarily feel like they fit in other places of society—it didn’t feel safe anymore,” she says. “It didn’t feel like it was necessarily a place that welcomed everyone.”

 Not that music festivals and venues have always been welcoming. Jessica Raven, executive director of the grassroots organization Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS) in Washington, D.C., frames it this way: “There’s no real entirely safe space—you can never guarantee that an incident isn’t going to occur because of the larger rape culture.”

 Raven will join Ida on the SXSW panel along with Sadie Dupuis, who fronts indie rockers Speedy Ortiz and performs solo material under the name Sad13. Dupuis has been keen to put her weight behind venues that work to fight physical violence or sexual harassment. “Certainly, that’s a necessary base level,” she says. “But what kind of active measures does the venue have in place when someone does experience this kind of harassment?”

 Dupuis also mentions shows that have included volunteers tabling with information about how to confront harassment—in particular Chicago

Octavia Spencer

Small Town Crime World Premiered at SXSW 2017