Danny Dominguez loves to talk. As we have drinks at the Tides Hotel, the man behind Counterflow Recordings is chatting freely about his latest project, Plant Life. Since the L.A.-based group released its debut twelve-inch single “The Last Song,” it has created a huge buzz in Europe and begun to…

Among South Beach’s heavyweight, brand-name hip-hop jocks, Tom Laroc is probably the most underrated. His cutting skills are as nimble as LS One’s, and, like DJ Khaled, he brings a formidable collection of white labels to each set. At least celebrities recognize: Laroc is known for spinning at private and…

Tuesdays, Churchill’s Pub; Fridays and Saturdays, Soho Lounge The 22-year-old DJ Lolo has been rocking parties since high school, bringing her mix of indie rock and electro-pop to parties such as Poplife and Revolver (where she was one of its first residents). These days, in addition to a day job…

Freestyle, that much-maligned stepchild of Latin pop, has always generated polarized reactions in people. At one end of the spectrum is the Cover Girls, whose kinetic “Inside Outside” still garners spins at local bass and electro nights. Then there’s K7, whose “Come Baby Come” is one of the more obnoxious…

On French duo M83’s debut album, Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts, twelve sharply defined, high-energy instrumentals are in full bloom, and absolutely euphoric. “Run Into Flowers” rushes over you and freezes your brain with synthesizer arpeggios and orchestral string samples coordinated into a reach toward the heavens. Meanwhile…

“Why did Bush knock down the towers?” asks Jadakiss on “Why?” Currently at number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100, it’s probably the first Top 40 song in history to directly accuse the President of the United States of launching a terrorist attack on his own country. Perhaps Chuck D.’s…

If there is one sound that unites young South Floridians, it is Eighties dance music. Indeed, if you talk to a native twentysomething about music, you will likely hear zealous preaching about the great legacies freestyle, Miami bass, and electro have bestowed upon youth culture. Robert Guertin, who produces electro…

Every week I get several phone calls from publicists eager to promote some hot new artist or band in the hopes that I’ll write about them. They usually try to pitch me by trumpeting the client’s achievements — an appearance on Mun2’s The Roof, perhaps, or a couple of spins…

Interviews with overexposed, platinum-certified stars such as D12 can sound a bit scripted. Check out this chestnut posed to group member Swift: What makes you stand out from Kuniva, Bizarre, Kon Artis, Proof, and Eminem? “I’m a hardcore MC. I’m a lyrical assassin,” says Ondre “Swift” Moore during a phone…

Hip-hop producer Jazze Pha is supposed to be working hard on his solo album. For the past hour or so, he’s been ensconced in a vocal booth at one of Circle House’s three recording studios, rhyming the same verse over and over again. “Accounts with no amounts/No, that can’t happen,”…

We want to say fuck Bush and fuck Kerry!” Stic.man, one-half of dead prez, cried out to scattered applause. It was Saturday afternoon, June 19, the fourth and final day of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention (NHHPC), and most of the delegates — mainly college-age students from around the nation…

You’ve heard it before: a huge, airy, electronic beat that crashes against your ears while massaging them with plaintive, heartbreakingly soft melodies. It seemingly raises and lowers with every song, taking you on a journey of peaks and valleys, and speaking to you truths and reconciliations. It is a sound…

Induce Thursdays, the District; Saturdays I/O; Sundays, Purdy Lounge When promoters need a DJ to hold down their side rooms with cool chillout music, they turn to this producer who, in addition to his weekly residencies, frequently pops up at Revolver and other Miami hot spots. Best known for his…

Modernage Sure, when you hear the name Modernage, you may think of pricey white leather sofas with matching ottomans and not necessarily rock and roll. But that’s where you’re dead wrong. The band that bears the same name will have you bopping and swaying in that La-Z-Boy. Modernage plays semidark,…

When former President Ronald Reagan passed away on early Saturday afternoon, June 5, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, his death meant more than the demise of one of America’s staunchest cold warriors, a conservative who polarized the country with his views even as he won many liberal-thinking citizens…

Sheldon Prince Fridays, Opium Garden By day, London-born Sheldon Prince works as promotion director and product manager for the Fort Lauderdale company Soulfuric, South Florida’s fastest-growing distribution outlet for quality dance music. At night, he builds his reputation as a DJ who keeps the house flame burning in a town…

Four years after her last album, PJ Harvey has abandoned the elegant, Mercury Prize-winning slickness that made Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea such an anomaly in her edgy and provocative oeuvre and frightened long-time fans who remembered the raw, poisonous wit of her striking 1992 debut, Dry…

Detroit musician Amp Fiddler’s Waltz of a Ghetto Fly sounds like a homage to Sly and the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On without the drowsy cocaine-induced lows, or D’Angelo’s Voodoo without the love affair as blood-soaked ritual motif. In other words, it’s all about impassioned extemporizing, R&B as…

An eerie silence crept down Washington Avenue this past Saturday on Memorial Day weekend, even though the street was lined with young blacks (and, to a lesser extent, Latinos and whites) streaming in and out of clubs such as crobar, Mansion, and Krave; sitting against storefronts and in front of…

The New Year makes the kind of indie-rock that was supposed to go out of style once indietronica and electroclash took over — that is, depressive, ironic, poetic, introverted, and overtly influenced by the Velvet Underground. Clocking in at nine songs and 33 minutes, The End Is Near weaves its…

It’s not easy keeping up with Lil’ Jon. On a warm spring evening inside Jonathan Smith’s mansion on the exclusive South Beach community Sunset Island Number One, a temporary residence his label TVT Records has rented for him while he cranks out a new album and sundry remixes for everyone…

The early word on RJD2’s Since We Last Spoke is that it’s something of a disappointment, especially coming on the heels of the robust, near-heroic Dead Ringer. True, it is willfully introspective and less frenetic than that auspicious debut; there are no headline-grabbing raps by his old crew, MHz, or…