John Ochoa

For an outsider, Steven A. Clark has a clear perspective of Miami. Born in Arkansas, he caught the music bug during his formative years growing up in North Carolina. But even as a burgeoning artist, he was looking for a way out of the slow life of the South. “North Carolina didn’t have enough going on for me at the time,” Clark says.

With the local rap community still reeling from the recent murder of Broward star XXXTentacion while simultaneously celebrating the induction of four South Florida rappers into XXL's coveted Freshman Class, all eyes are on the Miami hip-hop scene.

The Wu-Tang veteran discusses rap's new era of turbulence.

For almost a decade, Miami-born artist/producer/DJ Mike Diaz has remained at the forefront of the city’s indie music scene. Just don’t remind him of that fact — the milestone has yet to sink into his brain.

In a pivotal scene of the 1978 kung fu classic The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, the protagonist poses an existential question: “Do men have a right to say what they believe in? Or must they always do what the government says?” It’s a simple line that has come to define the film’s overarching theme — the oppressed versus the oppressor — and one that resonates with the multitalented artist RZA 40 years later.