When I walked up to the grand opening of the new Appt. Only showroom on the outskirts of Wynwood last Friday, I imagined the host of the event, 2 Chainz, would be the prime center of attention. Store owner Philip Cardona collaborated with the rapper and the Neala Group to…
Critics may have their fare share of things to say about Miami’s hip-hop scene, but it’s hard to argue that, lately, business is booming. Within the last year alone, trending rappers like We The Best’s Kent Jones, Freebandz/Epic signee Zoey Dollaz, and Pompano Beach’s rising star Kodak Black have added…
New York-based Miami natives, the Goodnight Darlings, embraced vampirism back in October with their elaborate “Empire Vampire” music video off the All I Ever Wanted EP. Now the duo, made up of vocalist Kat Auster and instrumentalist Wilson Jaramillo, is hoping their hometown can help them produce a new project…
Maybe you’ve seen Virgo perform live before, an otherworldly figure dressed in white or silver. Sometimes she looks like she’s just floating up there onstage, as if gravity doesn’t affect her. Elizabeth Ann Clark, the mastermind behind Virgo’s multimedia persona, is originally from California. After moving to Miami a couple years…
These days, you can forget commercial FM radio if you’re looking to feed your ears anything other than Top 40 fodder. You certainly won’t find much by way of indie or underground music on the local dial. And you most definitely won’t be hearing from the tragically untapped wealth of…
Catherine, Christina, Jodi, and Janelle Pyfrom want to become pop’s next big thing. But that’s not what makes them stand out. The four Miami sisters — who were born in Miami and raised in the Bahamas — are identical quadruplets. “At first, it was more for fun, but then Christina got the…
It might be a stretch to call Bruce Hornsby one of our homeboys. And yet, the fact that he graduated from the University of Miami School of Music in 1977, which in many ways provided his pathway to success, gives us something we can brag about, as well as further…
As hundreds of hip-hop heads turnt up with Robb Bank$ and crew last Friday at Rolling Loud’s Dab Stage, a more subdued affair was unfolding only a few yards away at the festival’s Citrus Stage. The Citrus Stage, touted as a showcase for up-and-coming indie acts and unsigned artists, offered…
“It’s all my fault,” Peter Stebbins, founder and president of the nonprofit local radio station Shake 108 (107.9 FM), tells New Times. He launched his humble radio station just less than two years ago, but now the beloved frequency faces a government-mandated obstacle. “The FCC recently did an inspection of…
Though John Lennon once co-wrote a song about a Magical Mystery Tour, The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus only goes halfway with that philosophy. While it does hope to create magic, it also seeks to take the mystery out of the artistic process. Started by Yoko Ono Lennon 19 years…
On April 1, 2016, a single-seat plane circled over Miami Beach with an unusual banner in tow: “CLUB SPACE — PLEASE PAY YOUR BANNER BILL!” The not-so-subtle message was no April Fools joke, but rather the boiling point of a conflict that, according to the company Aerial Banners, Inc., had…
In less than ten years, Armando Christian Pérez went from Mr. 305 to Mr. Worldwide, not just in name and on record, but in real life. As the most famous Cuban-American musician since Gloria Estefan, the man better known as Pitbull has escaped the trappings of his Miami upbringing and…
For centuries, mankind has attempted to tame nature with a heavy hand. Floridian developers have drained huge swathes of Everglades swampland, building so-called “McMansions” behind useless gates and endless arrays of one-story shopping centers where iguanas and alligators once reigned. And yet, that very development pollutes the water and air,…
Few local bands have been as prolific as SunGhosts this last year. After being voted Miami’s best band in our 2015 Best Of Reader’s Poll, the group released a new EP, Parhelion, and toured heavily to promote it. Now, SunGhosts just released a music video for its newest single, “Til…
The lively new animated video for the Spam Allstars song “Around the Track” had a long and winding origin. “Years ago the Spam Allstars management reached out to me to do some artwork for them,” explains the video’s director, a man who goes by the name MarcPaperScissor. The artist, who…
Eric Hernandez spends his days packing auto parts in a Miami warehouse, but since the summer of 2014, his nights and weekends have been spent singing and playing guitar for noise-rock quartet Wrong. “I was in another band, Capsule, with [guitarist] Ryan Haft. That fell apart, but we still felt…
Before the internet, if you had some sort of wild wish you wanted to make a reality, it helped to be terminally ill. But now anyone with wifi and a dream can give it a shot. Example: the Facebook event page “Lets Get Smashmouth 2 Perform at City Inn Hotel,”…
Beyoncé is still the reigning queen of musical female empowerment, but a new all-girl group is spreading a similar message to a younger demographic. L2M (Listening 2 Music), a five-member ensemble made up of trained young performers Mariangeli, McKenzie, Lexi, Tati, and Jenna. The mostly preteen pop group was signed…
Prince stories tend to sound like fairytales. Encounters with the music legend are recalled like unicorn sightings. One minute, you’re just going about your day, and then you turn a corner and, boom, there he is: glistening and surrounded by birds. Eddie Murphy’s older brother Charlie Murphy told perhaps the…
Last night, at the A+E District’s monthly Rooftop Unplugged concert series in Wynwood, Raquel Sofía finished her final song. “This is normally where we’d stop,” she told the small crowd on the roof of the Filling Station Lofts. “But music lost a very special person today.” The Latin Grammy nominee then launched…
At a broken down building that looks possibly foreclosed or abandoned, a dude in his mid-forties opens the door. He looks tired and has bags under his eyes the size of grapes. Inside his apartment, there’s a poster that describes a variety mushrooms, both of the nutritious and recreational variety…
Drummer Nic Collins is 14 going on 15, and his rock band, What You Know, has already played on national television in Switzerland, jammed at the Fillmore Miami Beach, and performed at the American Airlines Arena during a Miami Heat game. But despite all of that experience under his belt,…
