Fat Joe. He used to be fat. Never as big as Big Pun. But still, a few hundred pounds. Times have changed, though. Now he’s fit. He’s got a sports talk show on MTV2. And these days, the NYC native lives in Miami, and he’s headlining the Miami Marlins Summer…
Henry Stone first met James Brown in about 1954, when King Records founder Syd Nathan told both him and Ralph Bass to race to Macon, Georgia, to sign the R&B singer to a record deal. Bass got there a day before Stone and inked the contract with James Brown for…
It wasn’t long ago that DJ Drastic X turned his “It’s All Gravy” show on FIU’s WRGP Radiate FM into the vehicle by which artists like Pitbull, Rick Ross, Flo Rida, and DJ Khaled saw some of their first college radio airplay. And today, he continues to break new ground…
Churchill’s the Movie is currently in production, and there’s a Kickstarter campaign raising funds to help complete Little Haiti Rock City. The dude responsible is Franco Parente, a freelance filmmaker born and raised in Miami. He has won numerous film festival awards. He has a French television series development deal…
Bizerk was a 13-year-old kid when he started fetching water for rappers at Circle House, the North Miami studio where artists from Pitbull to Rick Ross have laid down some of their first major verses. At the time, Trick Daddy was smashing the world with hit after hit, iTunes didn’t…
Latimore is an international soul superstar who’s sold millions of records around the world including his biggest hit “Let’s Straighten It Out” on Hialeah’s own TK Records. Starting in the 1960s, he made his home in Miami as a singer, holding a residency for Clyde Killens at the Sir John…
Tel Aviv, Israel, is a tourist-heavy beach and party town on the Mediterranean Sea whose concrete roadways are littered with hooker flyers. It’s a place full of Russian and Armenian gangsters, shadowy clubs, some of the purest MDMA in the world, and more guns than a fleet of U.S. war…
Goblin are out for blood. They’re gonna gut you, and string your entrails from the rafters. Guts will explode, heads will crack, leg bones will snap under the weight of their monstrous sound. They started in Italy in 1975, scored some of the scariest horror movies of all time, and…
Reverend Peyton is a fishin’, huntin’, hootin’, hollerin’ hillbilly from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. He can cut a tree down faster than a forest fire. He can build a cabin in his sleep. He’s got more beard than a black bear. His overalls stay covered in other people’s…
Murder, blood, naked girls, weed, food, and beer … These are the staples of life on the road for Bloodshot Bill. The greasy-haired, foot-stomping, guitar-strangling Canadian wailer has been banned from the United States. He’s rock ‘n’ rolled a naked dance party. He’s even taken a bath in a tub…
If you don’t choose a path in life, the devil chooses for you. Nayra Serrano is a Miami girl who started Idle Hands Productions to promote punk rock, new wave, hardcore, garage, and indie-dance parties all over the county. Over the past three years, she’s brought scores of national acts…
Way back in 1991, the men of Mephiskapheles made a deal with the devil to be the most famous band in the world. But Satan haggled with them, and in the end, they sold their souls just to be famous in the world of ska. “We took it,” says longtime…
Mo’ murder, mo’ murder, come come again. It’s the first of the month. Man, I miss my uncle Charles, y’all. This weekend, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, one of the top-selling hip-hop groups of all time is coming to The Stage in Miami. The group was discovered by Easy E via “Thuggish Ruggish…
When it comes to reckless, speedin’, boozin’, fightin’ Boston hardcore, Gang Green’s Chris Doherty and crew are the kings. Their songs, like “Alcohol” (covered by Metallica), “Skate to Hell,” and “Another Wasted Night,” are fireballs of poetic aggression. And the album cover for their 1984 seven-inch single “Sold Out” features…
Lord Jamar is a Five-Percent Nation hip-hop originator who is not afraid to crack on Kanye for his skirt, rip on Macklemore for his skin, or tell off anybody who he feels is forsaking the sacred science of hip-hop. He’s also got a problem with Rakontur’s Tanning of America, and…
You won’t see much Miami in Rakontur’s four-part docu-series The Tanning of America, which aired on VH1 this week. The national TV viewing audience was once again denied access to the truth of how integral the characters in our city have been to that “tanning” process. And you certainly didn’t…
Young John Waste was a 14-year-old kid when he became a New York City punk rocker. He got into the life after going to a Plasmatics concert and seeing a chick named Wendy O. Williams “blow up a car, shake her pussy, and wear whipped cream on her nipples on…
Sean “Birdman” Gould is a lean, mean, rockin’ machine. He has played in at least five Miami bands at all times for the past 20 years. And right now, he’s rollin’ with Nil Lara, Mixed Culture, Birdman’s Clambake, Night Train, and Blowfly. Music has even put him at the center…
Blood will rain from the sky at Kryptonite Metal Festival VII. And by blood, we mean beer. And by beer, we mean lots of it. Because when 1,900 heads bang, the Earth shakes. And if you’re not careful, you might spill your drink. Forty bands — yeah, count ’em –…
Valentine’s Day is all about sex, bass, and croquetas. Like Tina Turner says, “What’s love got to do with it.” And like Tio Pepe says, “It’s a variety show, pipo, not a gang bang.” We here at Crossfade caught up with Cuban puppet Pepe Billete ahead of the 305PLP ruckus…
Miami’s Melissa Giles was barely 18 when she started Soulfrito. The music festival, launched way back in 2002, was the first of its kind in Miami, presenting all urban styles, from reggaeton to rap, on one bill. For several years, she and Soulfrito were a success. But then the fest…
One of the greatest forces of bass in nature occurs when thunder booms over the flatlands of Miami. And when lightning strikes, sometimes the Earth catches fire. While the Everglades burn, waves of smoke as thick as wet concrete roll all over South Florida. In some places, the fat purple…
