Like a latter-day hip-hop answer to Fishbone, the Roots bring a palpable spirit of gathering and unity to their live shows unmatched by any of their peers. Where the most monumental of hip-hop’s giants — Outkast, a Tribe Called Quest, and Public Enemy — made their reputations by delivering roof-raising,…
Let’s be honest. Aren’t you sick and tired of all those weepy, candy-ass singer/songwriter types who are so annoyingly abundant lately? Do you really need some wussy crooner reminding you just how bad life sucks? Maybe you ought to check out a concert featuring the Hep Cat Boo Daddies, a…
Los Angeles-based vocalist Tierney Sutton is a consummate performer. She offers the casual banter that’s common among modern jazz singers, but she’s spot-on when it comes to her craft. Sutton’s onstage chemistry with the band members she’s played with for more than a decade is obvious during her live performances,…
New Orleans-based singer/producer Allen Toussaint is a walking monument to the Big Easy’s musical history. He’s worked as a session player with most of New Orleans’ major heavyweights (the Meters, LaBelle, the Neville Brothers, and Dr. John) and got his start playing backup to Fats Domino in the 1960s. He’s…
Slick Rick graced our cover just a few weeks ago in our lengthy anatomy of his legal troubles (“Slick Trouble,” Julia Reischel, January 11). But hey, he’s not just fighting deportation — he still performs, and he’s coming our way. The thumbnail: Back in the mid-1980s, the British-born, eye-patch-wearing MC…
Musicologists categorize the “Bo Diddley beat” as a variation on the clavé, a basic three-two (or two-three) pattern of accents that underlies much Afro-Cuban music. And while Diddley is justifiably famous for popularizing the influential rhythm that bears his name, that’s not his only contribution to rock history. His rumbling,…
Though his accessible approach to rhyming and beats might at first sound tailor-made for suburbanite mall dwellers, MC Lars’ subversive spirit is what matters. His hum-along melodies and wise-ass quirks might come off as safe, but dude makes music like a Jesus Jones-meets-Kraftwerk compilation album. A Stanford University student with…
Patti Austin recently dropped a hundred pounds from her famously plump frame and has gone from a size 26 to an almost petite size 6. Can you say gastric bypass surgery? It’s a big change for the singer/songwriter known mostly for her buttery smooth voice on songs like her 1982…
Judging by how often their early work is still, nearly two decades later, being pumped out on the PA systems of Spanish and Latin-American restaurants in this country, it’s pretty plain that Americans generally regard the Gipsy Kings as some kind of gold standard for what passes for Latin music…
It’s a no-brainer that Billy Joel has an obvious appeal to the geriatric crowd. After all, here’s a guy who has penned his fair share of ballads, with songs such as “New York State of Mind” and “Piano Man” providing fodder for many a lounge crooner’s repertoire. But anyone who…
You don’t have to be from the boondocks to savor Yonder Mountain String Band’s down-home sound. In fact, its inspired blend of folk and fusion has less to do with hillbillies and more in common with such genre-defying outfits as Nickel Creek and Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Although it’s…
Celebrated New Orleans trumpeter Irvin Mayfield experienced the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina up close— his city washed away before his eyes, and his father, Irvin Mayfield Sr., died in the aftermath of the storm. It’s a macabre story, but the upside is that the gifted horn player now leads a…
After originating in Japan’s heavily theatrical makeup- and aesthetic-driven “visual-kei” music scene several years ago, Dir en grey comes to Fort Lauderdale to embark upon its first-ever headline tour of the United States. The Osaka-based band eases between death metal, thrash, goth, glam, and straight-ahead hard rock with a fluidity…
Orlando isn’t necessarily known for hip-hop. Though definitely the breakbeat capital of the state, O-Town doesn’t get much credit for anything else. So it’s good to know a hip-hop crew like Sol.illaquists of Sound exists. If you are not familiar with Sol.illa, think De La Soul-style wordplay with the stage…
It’s hard to believe it was only a year ago that beat-maker J Dilla passed away from complications due to lupus. At the time, he’d just released his instrumental project, Donuts, arguably the best album of his career, on his 32nd birthday. He died three days later. Naturally, the album…
There aren’t too many MCs in hip-hop that get as much respect as Rakim. He’s got the stage presence of a legend and rocks a party like its 1987 every time he touches a microphone. Starting off his career as one half of Erik B. & Rakim, he helped change…
James Cotton cut his teeth playing mouth harp with Sonny Boy Williamson at the tender age of 9 in the Mississippi Delta. His blues harmonica has influenced rock legends such as Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. To get a sense of how much mileage Cotton has under his belt,…
What’s left for an ambitious metal band to do after it sets the tale of Dicky Moe to a rousing blend of thrash, prog, stoner metal — then reaches the mountaintop of critical acclaim? Why, set its sights for the top of a blood mountain, of course! On this mountain,…
Sheila Witkin was the type of fly on the wall that never got swatted. Her contributions to South Florida’s music scene in the late 1970s by way of promotion and artist development was a critical component of what gave this region an identity when it came to indie rock. And…
OK, we weren’t sure what a “haggis” was exactly until we were told it has something to do with a Scottish delicacy consisting of boiled sheep innards. Which, for the most part, is pretty fucking disgusting. On the other hand, considering the delectable music made by Toronto’s Enter the Haggis,…
Perpetually clad in flip-flops and baggy shorts, flaunting the kind of deep skin tone and shaggy golden hair only a lifetime on the beach can achieve, Sammy Zuniga doesn’t look like your typical music impresario. But local music fans know the international vagabond sophisticate as the founder of Lake Worth’s…
From the wave of acclaimed DJ/producers blowing outward from Orlando in the ’90s to the nightlong escapades at the infamous Edge, if any place in the country has truly embraced the breakbeat genre, it’s Florida. That said, one of the most promising sounds in Nu Breaks is coming from a…
