Another year has come and gone, and what’ve you got to show for it? A pocketful of unused drink tickets and an addiction to Tylenol? Oh, Miami, you party so hard. Look, 2017 will be different. You’ll be all about living that #FitLyfe, going to bed at a decent hour,…
While many Miamians complain they have to leave home to make it in the music business, Steven A. Clark landed a track on Pitbull’s latest album, Climate Change after moving here from North Carolina. “I was seeking culture,” the sensual singer-songwriter says. “I just wanted to live. I just wanted…
For all the awful stuff that happened this year, rest assured of one thing: Miami’s music scene is alive and well. Whether it’s dance, hip-hop, rock, metal, or everything in between, 305’s artists made themselves heard with an amazing body of work that had listeners in awe. If your knowledge of Miami music goes only as far as Pitbull and Rick Ross, now is the time to get to know the acts who actually made the most of 2016.
Imagine coming to Club Space on a Tuesday to catch a live act. The show ends around midnight, and if you’re feeling frisky, you stop at Libertine for a well-crafted nightcap. You get home around 1 a.m. and wake up the next day to find your phone hasn’t been stolen, your jaw doesn’t ache, and you — shockingly — don’t feel the urge to dive headfirst into a bag of McDonald’s breakfast and take a 48-hour nap.
Courtney Love is a feminist icon. Courtney Love is a bitch. She’s a powerful force of raw emotion, or an evil nymph who slept her way to fame. She’s a mournful widow thrust in the harsh spotlight of shame and accusation, a frazzled single mother struggling to raise a girl-child…
Jake Jefferson has always put music first. In the eighth grade, he snuck out to a Cypress Hill concert, made his way backstage, smoked weed with rapper B-Real, and helped DJ Muggs pack his turntables. In college, when he was just 12 credits short of a Florida International University degree,…
It’s a rough climb from the gutters of Carol City to the top of the Billboard charts. You’ve got to take your hatchet and clear the path of snakes and weeds. Good thing Rick Ross is on his fitness tip. “It’s just like hiking for the first time,” the Teflon…
I’m guilty of wishing bad things on good people. When I hear a beautiful album full of frustration and pain, I fall totally in love with the sound of the artist’s struggle. When that artist inevitably finds success and happiness, I feel a little cheated. The music is never quite so…
It’s Halloween season, and while the rest of the country is carving pumpkins and sippin’ spiced lattes, Miami is doing spooky the only way it knows how: really, really weird partying. A lot of scariness and strangeness happens around these parts, so it’s only natural that the oddballs who make…
Day three is always a royal bitch. With blistered feet and damaged ear drums (seriously — where were you earplugs this year, people?), many were on autopilot at the final day of III Points 2016, a year marked by both adversity and triumph. Luckily, there is a cure for such…
While Hurricane Matthew threw an obvious speed bump into Friday night’s festivities, there would be no excuse for not pulling things off on day two. Luckily, that’s exactly what III Points did. With ever stage up and operational — and with only slightly amended set times — Saturday night showcased…
Down its biggest headliner and plagued by last-minute hiccups, III Points limped into day one, badly wounded. The forces of god, nature, and misfortune had seemingly unloaded their entire arsenal on the Wynwood festival this year in the form of wind, mosquitoes, and cancelled flights. Year four would be the…
Miami suffers from a severe lack of live music. That’s not an opinion, that’s a well-known and discussed fact. The 305 leads in electronic music and even benefits from a worldwide reputation in rap, but when a Miamian wants to leave his or her house and hear a full band…
The undeniable king of future bass has officially been crowned. Flume’s latest LP, Skin, broke the top ten in five countries and topped the charts in his native Australia as well as the dance charts in the United States. He also just nabbed his first certified-platinum plaque in the U.S. for…
Fuck the leopards. Jungle Island’s never seen anything as wild as what Rick Ross, Maybach Music Group, and Tidal unleashed on Miami Monday night. The Teflon Don didn’t just take the stage. He stole it, broke it into pieces, and shared the loot with his friends. Rozay, the Bawse —…
Pink Floyd’s The Wall. The Who’s Tommy. Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city. These are some of the greatest concept albums of all time. They draw us in with music and keep us rapt in attention. They tell a story so painfully human, we can’t help but be moved. Any…
When I was 12, I was a proud Moonie. I spent three-quarters of my free time in class drawing scenes from Sailor Moon mangas, and the rest of it writing my own Sailor Moon Fan Fiction. I avidly collected every single episode of the Japanese series on VHS tape. My…
Look outside. The streets are teeming with zombiefied screen watchers. People wander day and night through parks and parking lots. They’re trying to catch ’em all, dammit! These digital pocket monsters aren’t going to catch themselves. Pokémon Go became a worldwide sensation literally overnight earlier this month. The mobile app…
The most talented and big-hearted soul I’ve ever had the privilege of calling a friend has passed away. Kairo Gudino, aka Chalk, was a producer with releases on Nervous Records, Mr. Nice Guy, Loveless, and more. He was a DJ, singer, rapper, artist, designer, and all-around creative human. He was…
Darth Vader. Batman. The Mario Brothers. Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. All these and more are now in my personal collection of cosplayers. I went out to Florida Supercon 2016 to see Saturday’s sold-out event dressed as Pokemon’s Misty on a mission to catch all the superfans, and I think I…
Geeks aren’t known for their sex appeal, but that’s a total misnomer. Ever see that scene in Revenge of the Nerds where the sorority girl accidentally gets with the goofy guy and finds out what she’s been missing? Now imagine you’re that sorority girl and the goofy guy is dressed…
There are approximately 3,418,059,380 women on the planet. They come in all shapes and sizes, colors and ages, styles and manners of speaking. And when Justin Bieber appears in a glowing cube out of the center of an arena stage floor, all the varied women in the audience feel a…
