Naughty by Nature Plays a Total of 20 Minutes at LIV

When is a “show” merely an appearance? For that matter, what constitutes a “concert?” Does there need to be a definite amount of time on stage or number of songs that a band must perform? Normally, we expect and receive at least a solid hour of music with an encore…

DJ Khaled for Dummies

Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, and Zig Ziglar could have never foreseen that the most well known motivational speaker of the last fifty years hasn’t penned a single self-help book (although don’t rule out the possibility).   In 2016, Snapchat brought to the forefront a man who’s become so popular for…

Macklemore Is the Broccoli of Hip-Hop

Some people really love raw vegetables — no salt, nothing added, brush off the dirt it was grown in and chomp away. Some people won’t touch a salad unless it’s drenched in cheese, dressing, and copious amounts of bacon. One of those meals is genuinely good for us and the…

This Year, Let’s Spend a Little Less Time Hating Macklemore

Acceptance, frugality, unabashed nostalgia, tolerance of others, fighting addiction and drug abuse, and eschewing crass commercialism: Those are not the typical tenets of a global rap superstar. Ben Haggerty, better known as the thrift-shop-loving Macklemore, has built his reputation and career on subject matter usually glossed over by hip-hop and…

The Evolution of the Nerd: From Geek to Cool Kid

The other night I was watching the sometimes painfully bad 1998 horror film, The Faculty. I remember really liking that movie in high school and I’m not sure why. It is basically a modern version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, both plot-wise and if a boring, poorly written alien…

YoungArts Finalists Reimagine Your Favorite Songs Into Classical Music

Initially, the classical music concert held at New World Center on Thursday during YoungArts Week felt a little bit like the most elegant high school recital ever conceived. However, very quickly it became clear that this was no ordinary performance and these were, in fact, extraordinary teenagers. Every year, thousands…

Calvin Harris and the Well-Oiled Party Machine That Is LIV

During the very early portion of New Year’s Eve, the final 24 hours of 2015 were being celebrated in typical Miami party fashion: waiting in an anaconda of a line before entering a club and taking enough selfies to fill a high school yearbook. Perhaps the clamor at LIV was somewhat…

Ten Years Later, Miami Finally Gets to See the Real Matisyahu

Last night, Jews and gentiles alike gathered at the modern musical cathedral that is the Knight Concert Hall at the Adrienne Arsht Center for a special performance by Matisyahu. The reggae loving, Jewish beatboxer was back in South Florida celebrating the ten-year anniversary of his breakthrough album, Live at Stubb’s…

EDM’s Head-in-the-Sand Approach to Drugs Needs to End

With the recent release of the phase one Ultra 2016 lineup, more than a few people in Miami, and indeed around the world, will be beset by visions of lollipops, body glitter, and more neon than downtown Tokyo and Times Square combined. One thing almost none of those potential ravers…

The Weeknd’s Sudden Rise to Pop God Kind of Makes Sense Now

The last time Abel Tesfaye visited Florida, he was adjusting to stardom and attempting to establish his onstage identity. Touring for his second studio LP, Kiss Land, under his drugs and sex obsessed alter ego, The Weeknd, Tesfaye was, at that time, a little stiff. Most of the movement came…

Lil Dicky Was Art Basel’s Most Unlikely Headliner

There’s an old stereotype propagated by film and TV, that old white folks just don’t get young people’s music. Mostly it’s because they literally don’t understand the words, whether it’s Bob Dylan or Kurt Cobain or any number of screamers or mumblers. Of course, the one genre that typically receives…

Sufjan Stevens Makes His First Miami Show a Memorable One

Sufjan Stevens loves themes. Over the years he’s made two albums about states (Michigan and Illinois), two box sets of Christmas music (Songs for Christmas, vol. 1-5 and Silver & Gold, vol. 6-10), an ode to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (The BQE), and two albums centered around the Chinese zodiac and the…