Music

Chris Brown often says Michael Jackson is his biggest inspiration. And it’s easy to see the foundation laid by the King of Pop in Brown’s work. Take his video for “Party,” for example; as the 27-year-old Brown dances, you can imagine Jackson’s moves, so much a part of Brown that…

Outside of country music, no musical genre is as white — or at least believed to be as white — as metal. Blame it on Beavis, Butthead, Bill, or Ted, but if asked to describe a typical metalhead, most Americans would draw a long-haired Caucasian bro making the Devil’s sign…

The transition from child starlet to mainstream pop diva can be rife with awkward and uncomfortable moments, as young stars become adults right in front of the world’s eyes. Every pop star who’s made the leap has put her own stamp on the big change. Christina Aguilera graduated from The…

It finally happened, and it took only five years. Tortuga Music Festival, selling out once again, set a record for attendance this past weekend. More than 100,000 people filed through the gates of the country-music beach party. Held annually on Fort Lauderdale Beach since its inception in 2013, the fest this year featured headliners Luke Bryan, Chris Stapleton, and Kenny Chesney. In short, Tortuga is big.

In the early 2000s, I was dosed with 300 hits of LSD while attending a free Zakir Hussain concert in New York City’s Central Park. A young woman in her late teens with green hair and crooked teeth, wearing an Econochrist shirt, offered me a stick of mint gum. Rubbing the chewing gum’s foil wrapper against my neck, she informed me that the gum had been dipped in liquid acid.

With major arena tours from Ariana Grande, the Chainsmokers, Chris Brown, and Panic! at the Disco hitting South Florida this week, it will be a music-filled month. In club land, electroclash icon Miss Kittin goes B2B with Oxia at Heart, while Duke Dumont, who was surprisingly absent last month during…

It is a bizarre experience for anyone visiting the Hard Rock Live at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood these days. The mammoth entertainment and gaming property is undergoing an equally massive facelift that, at the moment, has left much of the property a desolate landscape. Gone…

On the surface, the city of Miami is the polar opposite of Wasilla, Alaska, hometown of the alternative-rock band Portugal. The Man. The two cities are across a continent from each other, and Wasilla sees as many snowy days as Miami sees sunny ones. Alaska has vast forests and grand…

Cotton-candy skies and technicolor dreams drip through the speakers and melt like gold into your ears, courtesy of Miami composer/producer Bed Scene.Nick Aponte, better known as Bed Scene, is no stranger to the tropics. The Miami native is gearing up for his debut show tonight, April 6, at Bardot. It’s presented by Showskii Records as part of the Artist Series.

Movie and television audiences tend to appreciate subtle, understated work from actors. But music is a different story. Singers who simply let the song carry their voice, without theatrical flair, don’t always get the love and admiration they deserve. If they did, Dionne Warwick would have a fancy nickname like…

“It’s soul music. It touches the soul and the soles of the feet that gets everyone moving to the orchestra in my head.” Zach Deputy’s description of his sound is both inspiring and pun-tastic. The Savannah, Georgia-based Deputy, who will play the Wynwood Yard this Saturday, is a 21st-century version…

Kid Koala is best known as a DJ who plays his turntable like an instrument, both as a solo artist and with acts such as the Gorillaz and Deltron 3030. But he is also a comic-book creator. With Nufonia Must Fall, the man born Eric San has combined his twin…

Shovels & Rope, performing at Culture Room, balanced caring for their newborn and recording their latest album, Little Seeds.

If a Duran Duran show sounds like a throwback to the “Greed Is Good” era, well, you’re half right. The five-person act fronted by singer Simon Le Bon emerged in the early ’80s as part of the New Wave movement that bifurcated from punk rock; in the following decade, Duran…