I had been wondering something about Jack Stratton, the founder and leader of the band Vulfpeck, for the past twenty-one years. I remember him occasionally rapping in his sleep back in 2003, when I was Jack’s camp counselor on the shores of Lower Baker Pond in Wentworth, New Hampshire. “Unh. / Just like Sprewell,” he’d say, a midnight non sequitur. Or had I really heard that? It can be hard to tell what’s persona and what’s genuine in the world of Vulfpeck. Even their origin story has a factual version and a fictional narrative: they either met as undergraduates at the University of Michigan, or they were the rhythm section for an imagined German recording engineer. When we spoke, Jack confirmed that the sleep-rapping was real.

You’ve heard Vulfpeck: they’re a popular choice for bumper music between NPR segments. They have a particular sound (a raspy callback that arises from the primordial ooze of Motown) and shtick (lo-fi videos of a band of straight-men that recall VHS tapes shot with a shoulder-braced camcorder). Vulfpeck has a carefully curated affect, but as casually as they present themselves, they’re also popular: Vulfpeck sold out Madison Square Garden in 2019, and they’re a marquee name on the festival circuit: Montreux. Bonnaroo. Levitate. Newport Jazz.