If there’s any rapper that has been appointed the New South’s thug poet, it’s David Banner, a finance graduate from Southern University who used his major- label debut Mississippi: The Album to expound on everything from strip club politics to the plight of black people in one of the most…
Revolver is Josh Menendez. Anyone who has partied, passed through, or passed out at the long-running Design District event has felt his presence. Sometimes you’ll see him standing at the doorway to the Soho Lounge, talking with the club’s staff. Other times he’s cueing up songs in the DJ booth…
You see the person standing in the corner of the club. The music is too loud to have a conversation, blah blah blah, fast forward to the fucking part. At 4:00 a.m. in a messy apartment, you enjoy the debauchery, depravity, and even danger of taking home a lay from…
It seems that elves are causing mayhem. Or perhaps it is just human folly. Whatever the reason, when some of the biggest names in the Latin music industry — seventeen stars in all, from Cristian Castro to Alexandre Pires, Gloria Estefan to Bacilos — begin arriving shortly before 7:00 p.m…
In the heady, right-on Seventies, an article in the magazine ¡P’Alante! (Forward!), published by radical Nuyorican political outfit the Young Lords, once called U.S. prisons “concentration camps” for young black and boricua men. Deep. At that time the stars of the new Nuyorican musical movement known as salsa used to…
Wayne Marshall is known in Jamaica as a singjay. The term comes from his ability to croon and DJ on a single track. Dressed in jeans, a T-shirt with Miami mob boss Tony “Scarface” Montana silk-screened across the front, and Bob Marley-brand boots, as well as wearing one of his…
The next time some bore at the coffee shop starts expounding on the contributions of Andy Warhol and Keith Haring to postmodernism, you can probably derail the rant by bringing up King Tubby. Osbourne Ruddock was a revolutionary artist whose audience wasn’t elitist in the least. Anyone who lived in…
Varick “Smitty” Smith doesn’t look like a ghostwriter. The baby-faced rapper has a smooth countenance that belies his 23 years; he could be your typical high school senior. Instead he’s writing verses for Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, filling the Bad Boy mogul’s mouth with outrageous playboy fantasies like “Your man…
Heather Duby’s 1999 debut, Post to Wire, is still a splendid listening experience. On it the Seattle songstress used her remarkable voice to deliver intimate, haunting, and uncontrived ruminations on love and loss over layered, autumnal trip-pop arrangements co-written and produced by Pacific Northwest über-knob twiddler Steve Fisk. There was,…
Few bands warrant as much scrutiny as Yo La Tengo, which has been making artful, inventive, and adventurous music since 1984. It’s because the Hoboken, New Jersey trio have consistently released beautiful and sophisticated offerings, from noisy guitar rock and sunny melodic pop to avant-garde instrumentals. And along the way,…
Who would have thought that an ensemble featuring some of today’s leading pop practitioners would come up with an album that’s so … well … old school? On Circles, the second effort by the Autumn Defense — a loosely configured combo led by singer/guitarist John Stirratt (Wilco, Uncle Tupelo), singer/guitarist/keyboardist…
What would happen if the Neptunes carjacked Michael J. Fox’s DeLorean and traveled back in time to collaborate with Phil Collins? Well … Kenna, that’s what. On his Eighties pop-influenced debut, New Sacred Cow, Chad Hugo, half of the Neptunes, provides him with some of the year’s most infectious production…
Paris Hilton was supposed to show up for the Ocean Drive magazine party at the five-star Mandarin Oriental Hotel last Thursday, which celebrated her appearance on the cover of the December issue. But Paris never appeared, even though she’s in town. A little bird in a white fur coat said…
The World of Lady A — British-born chanteuse Anjali Bathia — is a deliciously decadent dimension where Russ Meyer directs James Bond flicks on the streets of Calcutta, and orbiting spacecraft are equipped with fur-lined cocktail nooks, hot tubs, and Martin Denny LPs to facilitate swanky zero-gravity copulation. Sprawling strings,…
Chan Marshall, who goes by the name of Cat Power, is mostly known as a media star, part of a dazzling but frequently maligned universe that includes Rufus Wainwright, Meshell Ndegeocello, and too many others to mention. It’s a category usually reserved for staunch individualists who confound audiences and critics…
There’s no easy formula for building a music career. Except for the fortunate few, it’s a bumpy ride fraught with twists and turns, peaks and valleys. And then there’s that little thing called “life” that doesn’t always cooperate with one’s aspirations. For Steven Franz, life’s wandering path led to a…
There are few embellishments on the cover of Here I Am: Isley Meets Bacharach. There are no gold lamé suits nor tuxedoes; no silk sheets and no flashy stage shots. Burt Bacharach and Ron Isley are merely wearing sweaters and smiling behind a chessboard, a testament to their status as…
The line for crossing over from ragga star to rap market millionaire crawls along in a single file. But it’s picking up speed. It took Sean Paul a couple of years to follow Beenie Man through the velvet ropes at the front, but within a year the security dude is…
Last November 22, Ben “Wrekonize” Miller stood triumphant inside a ring, the survivor and winner of MTV’s second MC Battle. As Roc-A-Fella CEO Dame Dash and rappers Freeway and Memphis Bleek ostensibly congratulated him on his new recording contract with Roc-A-Fella Records, a scantily clad hostess gave him a large…
As the year of crunk draws to a close, it’s amazing to consider how a music that sounds so provincial and Southern has penetrated popular consciousness. Lil’ Jon and the Eastside Boys are now certifiable pop stars, and David Banner’s Mississippi: The Album has made him a critic’s darling of…
This album deserves to be granted an extended shelf life, not just because of its unique qualities, but for the travails the band endured to get it out there. Deep Water Slang is tagged v.2.0 since the original version nearly disappeared with the demise of Zion I’s former label, Ground…
Singer/producer Dwele’s debut album, Subject, is an exploration of the many idiosyncrasies that exist between lovers, set to a lush backdrop that is neither annoyingly contrived nor forcefully retro. His subtle, smooth numbers utilize an array of sounds and instruments. Sometimes his creativity catches you off guard, like the surprisingly…
