Critic's Notebook

From Vine to YouTube to Universal Music Group, Lele Pons continues to spread her brand to the world

If you’re thinking of staying in for this year’s long Labor Day weekend, are you even from Miami, bro? This town is the best place to party all day or night — or both becuse you’ll have plenty of club, concert, and general debauchery options at pretty much any time of day. Check out this guide to help plan your weekend.

Miami’s music scene continues to grow and expand, with new venues opening and big-name artists making their South Florida debuts relatively regularly. But plenty of times through the years, local longtime music lovers’ hearts have been broken when their favorite stages have shuttered for good…

Coral Gables isn’t known for its underground electronic music scene, but now the City Beautiful is home to Night Young, one of the newest electronic record labels in South Florida.

In 1972, a man known as D.B. Cooper hijacked an airplane, stole the 2018 equivalent of $1.2 million, and parachuted out midflight. In present-day Miami, DB Cooper is a Miami booty bass- and Florida breaks-influenced DJ. What they have in common, today’s Cooper explains, is their notoriety can be experienced…

Camila Cabello and DJ Khaled won three Moon Person statuettes at the 2018 Video Music Awards, but Drake’s “God’s Plan” got the shaft.

Nicole Martinez is a musician and owner of the Bridge, a venue and studio hive located on Allapattah’s growing NW Seventh Avenue near Wynwood. To celebrate winning a two-year 2016 Knight Arts Challenge Grant, Martinez is hosting Wet, a summer-survival party and fundraiser with water slides, floatie costume contests, live music, and other fun Sunday, September 2, at the Bridge.

Miami’s music scene is a conglomerate of genres. Past the late-night dance clubs and dive bars lives a genre of music that was born in the ’60s. South Florida seems to be a destination for jam bands, and many have even set their roots here. The scene continues to thrive with events such as Jam Cruise, GroundUp Fest, and Wanee Festival and venues like the Funky Biscuit and the Fillmore. Here are some bands working hard to keep it alive.

Latina artists such as Jahzel Dotel, Vikina, and MoMo are advancing music careers in their hometown of Miami by putting out new singles and trusting the process. These powerhouse women have known from an early age that music runs in their veins. Each artist has forged her own unique genre…

Miami singer/songwriter Gabriela Sotomayor has music in her DNA. This daughter of a Nicaraguan vocalist and a deep-house DJ has been singing and writing for as long as she can remember. With the release this year of her debut EP, Daytime Odyssey (produced by her friend E Ric), Gabriela has…

After 13 years of selling vinyl and shaping Miami’s music scene, Lolo Reskin and Sweat Records have decided to record and release that music themselves. Reskin speaks to New Times about how Sweat Records Records was born.

The Best Life Festival announced this morning that R&B up-and-comer H.E.R. will headline the inaugural Best Life Festival on September 15. H.E.R. joins a previously announced lineup of rising R&B talent including singer Ella Mai — whose song “Boo’d Up” has recently made a slow but steady climb up the pop charts — along with Florida-raised singer R.LUM.R, New Times‘ Best R&B Singer of 2018 Savannah Cristina, and others.

After almost ten years of inspired dance floor madness, the Electric Pickle will be closing next year, June 2019.

The local R&B singer is emerging as a deeply thoughtful voice for the underrepresented, predominantly black community.

After months of being asked the same question over and over again, Christina Michelle and her bandmates are finally able to give a concise answer: September 28. This past Monday, Gouge Away, the posthardcore group that hails from South Florida, dropped a bunch of new content and information, including an album-release date, within the span of a few hours.

For the last five years, the effervescent music, art, and technology festival, III Points, has showcased both homegrown and internationally acclaimed acts. This past May, the festival announced it would skip 2018 and return in February 2019. And this year, the festival is doing things a little bit differently. For the…

For the past six years, Miami native Tiffany Miranda’s local nonprofit organization, Girls Makes Beats (GMB), has worked with young girls ages 8-17 to train them in music production, DJing, and audio engineering. The organization, which recently expanded and established another chapter in Los Angeles, is cultivating the next generation of women in music with the help of Miami chapter leader Christine Miranda and Los Angeles chapter leader Whitney Taber, with Tiffany Miranda at the helm.

The last time Maya Arulpragasam performed in Miami, it was fresh off the heels of her comeback album of sorts, Matangi, at Ultra Music Festival 2014. She released her fifth studio album, AIM, in 2016, and is about to release her long-delayed documentary, MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A, September 28. The British rapper…

In the depths of West Kendall, just past the chain restaurants your parents love, lies a layer of pride buried beneath the surface of its residents. What’s cooking up behind its suburban corners isn’t just a really great happy hour at Bahama Breeze. There’s an untapped wealth of major talent on the rise.

Have you been dancing to the new Enrique Iglesias song featuring Pitbull, “Move to Miami”? Of course you have. It’s everywhere. And Nitti Gritti, the man who started the song, has come up with a new remix of it.

Miami New Times has immediate openings for writers covering the world of Miami music. If you have a passion for local bands, attend every major tour that comes to town, know your techno from your trance, or keep a mental map of the best underground parties — or all of the above — New Times might be looking for you.

At age 19, singer and performer Layla Bessito, also known as JuJu Pie, was totally broke and living in North Carolina. The Miami native’s mother had passed away the year before, and, she says, “I was faced with all of these emotions that I had repressed my whole life because she…