It’s officially September, and that means there’s only seven months until the next Ultra Music Festival. While it’s obviously excruciating to wait for another three days of unbridled EDM insanity, the UMF camp keeps sprinkling little rave treats out to the PLUR nation. Kandi kids everywhere, set a reminder for…
The future is now – if you’re staying at the Aloft South Beach. The Starwood family hotel has officially opened its trendy doors to the public of Collins Avenue, and in true Aloft fashion, there’s plenty of millennially-driven excitement to be enjoyed. “We can bring high design, style and fashion…
It was a hot Sunday afternoon, and passersby may have wondered at the commotion. The intersection of Biscayne and NE 33 Street was taken over by a parked cop car and a pop-up film set. At five ’o clock, the scene was still. The crew, already tired from a long…
Sixteen years ago, Michelle Leshem flew direct to Miami from Toronto, and she’s never looked back. “I’m a snowbird who turned into a flamingo,” she jokes. In her day job as the leading lady at SuperMarket Creative — the agency behind many of Miami’s wildest nightlife adventures — she helps…
Despite what wandering tourists will tell their friends back home, downtown Miami and South Beach are not the same place. As locals, we understand that, and so does Amtrac. He’s not technically a local, but as far as Miami’s nightlife is concerned, he might as well be. He spends most…
Trap is kind of old hat. The 808-driven, drug-smuggler sound has been a hip-hop staple for 20-plus years. Even its most recent takeover of the EDM world is a phenomenon pushing four years, a lifetime in trend-speak. It seems whatever can happen in trap already has — unless you’re talking…
When Kat Reinhert held the final copy of Spark in her hands, it was surreal. She’d put nothing short of blood, sweat, and tears into her second LP, and its triumphant message of courage and strength was more important than ever given her recent divorce. She’d done all of this…
Great ideas are often so simple; it’s a wonder they haven’t been done. So it goes with SiliDogs, the south Florida startup bringing pet tags into the modern era. SiliDog tags are brighter, more durable, and more customizable than traditional dog tags. Plus, every design supports a different charitable cause…
There’s no better place to pop your cherry than Miami, and Skrillex is about to find out. The dubstep dynamo is set to make his Life in Color debut as one-half of the upcoming festival’s first officially announced headliner; Jack Ü. The dream-team duo pits Skrilly against Florida’s own Diplo…
It’s not easy for American bands to break through to pop success. When the Backstreet Boys got started, they were strategically marketed in Europe first, then brought back to the States after they’d already built a fan base. Imagine, then, the near-insurmountable odds stacked against a French-speaking electro-pop band. You’re…
They say you have your whole life to write your first album and two years to write the next. Luckily for ghetto-tech beatmaster Justin Martin, he never got the memo. “I think I’m more relaxed, like almost a little bit too relaxed,” he says. His 2012 full-length debut, Ghettos &…
Bands get together. Bands break up. From national arena acts to tiny garage bands, no musician is immune. Even when things are going well, you never know when a cymbal might fly across the recording studio, striking a lead singer in the forehead and forever ending your favorite group’s career…
Selena. Gloria Estefan. Jennifer Lopez. The past is full of strong, sensual, and talented Latina superstars who continue to shine in our hearts and on our screens, but look to the budding young faces of the present, and there’s a certain vacancy. That’s what Miami’s Monique hopes to change. Talking…
Bayside is not quite local central, but if you live in the downtown area as I do, you head over to that strange tourist trap for convenient one-stop shopping. Also, tourists get to choose from the best selection of sun-hats, and you really should be donning those daily. Anyway, I’ve…
A week after Fool’s Gold announced the always-awesome Day Off celebration would return to Miami this September a whole two months earlier than usual (and the first time this is happening outside of Art Basel), the hip-hop and dance label dropped the sickest follow-up of all. The lineup is here,…
Children’s programming is about to get a little friendlier. Los Angeles-based and Miami-bred art collaborative Friendswithyou recently announced a partnership with Netflix to produce and air at least two seasons of a characteristically bright, colorful, and smiley-faced kids show. According to an interview with artnet News, True and the Rainbow…
Miami may be a dance music mecca, but just under the city’s tanned hide lurks the gnarled hopeful smile of an emerging sound. Really, it’s just re-emerging, because there’s nothing more classic than good old, garage-era rock ’n’ roll. “If you could put fun in music, I think that would…
Last year during Art Basel, Fool’s Gold Day Off was one of the coolest parties around. It was also one of the hardest to get to. The all-day hip-hop and dance music backyard jam brought Danny Brown, Mike Will Made It, Giraffage, A-Trak and more to the lot at LMNT…
How stupid is work? The stupidest, obviously, but it’s a necessary evil. Like flossing, or Ryan Seacrest. Of course, you can only take so much monkeying around before you throw your hands up in the air and dismiss all your adult responsibilities for a good old-fashioned game of hooky. Days…
Do you believe in soul mates? With seven billion people on Earth, the likelihood that one person exists to love you best is rather unlikely, and it’s even more unlikely you’d find that person, right? The odds must be stacked into infinite impossibility that you’d find that person on a…
In 2012, dance music lover Justin Salit was frustrated. He was sick and tired of scanning email lists, Facebook invites, venue websites, and online calendars. So he took matters into his own hands. “I’m essentially a fan, and there was no way for me to find out what’s going on…
Who’s ready to get wet and sticky? Life in Color’s flagship Miami festival is officially back. Last year, the locally-based international dance music experience brought Kaskade, Diplo, Carnage, Madeon, and 20,000-plus gallons of neon, water-based paint to more than 50,000 screaming fans. This year, It’s back to a one-day format…
