“Being a black kid that skateboarded, I was breaking serious ground in a lot of people’s family traditions,” says Paul “Gnu” Jennings. “I’d show up at my friend’s house, and there’s never been black people in that house. The whole family is like, ‘Holy shit, there’s a fuckin’ nigger here,’…
Ever wondered about the ethnographic background of the rapper known to the world as Bubba Sparxxx, née Warren Anderson Mathis? Those without cable might think he’s black, since they were rocking him hard on 99 Jamz right up until the Big Lip Bandit exclaimed, “This dude is white!” Since his…
Given our sun-splashed, beachy landscape and huge population of Caribbean expats, you’d think Broward would be crawling with jamtastic live reggae bands. As you probably noticed, it ain’t. Aside from the dancehall DJs sequestered away in clubs west of 95 and a few cover acts at cheesy tourist bars, Fourth…
Every once in a while, the good stuff (i.e., the real thing) actually makes the charts and even gets to stick around for a spell. Take Alan Jackson, one of the photogenic “hat hunks” following the wake of Garth Brooks’ ascendance. The more cynical might pigeonhole Jackson that way, but…
Last we heard from Urban Mystic, the rising R&B star was pulling away from Cooper City’s 2005 MLK Day celebration in a white stretch limo. A year, a new album, and countless performances later and some things have changed. Some things have not. “We still traveling in the white stretch,”…
2005 was a banner year for John Ralston. It started off humming when the Lake Worth-based singer-songwriter finished and released Needle Bed, a brilliantly sullen album of upbeat Americana strumming, shuffling rhythms, and sugar-sweet hooks that qualified as one of the best local releases of the year. Soon thereafter, the…
It’s not that he’s a glass-half-empty kind of guy, but Charlie Solana isn’t afraid to admit that South Florida’s dance scene is hurting. “It is dying,” the 39-year-old DJ/producer says with a slight, knowing chuckle. “You can tell just by the clubs. Crobar went from 100 percent dance to open…
Nominated for Best Riff of ’06 (So Far): “Conventional Wisdom” by Built to Spill. Oh, it’s so, so good. Air-guitar-in-your-underwear good. In that one giddy, irresistible guitar figure, Built to Spill frontman Doug Martsch both refutes and affirms everything his outsider Idaho project has ever been. A quintessential pop-rock hook,…
Drive-by Truckers’ songwriting trio — Mike Cooley, Jason Isbell, and Patterson Hood — have already established themselves as one of the best rock acts of the past half decade. Picking a favorite from their last three albums — 2001’s Southern Rock Opera, 2003’s Decoration Day, and 2004’s Dirty South —…
Here’s an MC boast so frank, it’s hilarious: “In this corner, the undisputed champs of hip-hop — RJD2 on the beats, Blueprint on the rhymes—versus everything that sucks about music in the opposite corner.” But it’s no joke: Soul Position’s second LP is a stone classic. It’s not just that…
It would be too easy to call out Nothing Rhymes With Orange for its lack of originality, for its lowest-common-denominator amalgam of a decade’s worth of Brit-pop — from Blur to James to U2 to Coldplay — for its self-seriousness that borders on self-parody. So let’s not go there. Instead,…
In case you had any doubts, dancehall-pop quartet T.O.K. is the living, singing proof that boy bands are an international phenomenon. Hailing from Kingston, Jamaica, longtime homies Bay-C, Alex, Craig T., and Flexx came together a couple of years ago as a doo-wop and a cappella group but quickly took…
Age, they say, brings wisdom. It also brings Social Security checks, which Delbert McClinton will qualify for when he turns 65 next month. Hell, the Texas-born singer is so unapologetic about growing older that he’s adorned the sleeve of his latest CD, The Cost of Living, with past driver’s licenses…
Standing somewhere between the root pop of Poi Dog Pondering and a Louisiana zydeco outing, Donna the Buffalo serves up a simmering blend of Cajun, folk, rock, and even country-tinged fare. The road-tested group has woven these influences together for nearly two decades at festivals and dance halls across the…
Since its inception in 1993, Tooth & Nail Records has gained a reputation of support and dependability for its bands. The label’s a proud indie tradition that often has run afoul of confused meatheads who’ve pegged the label as some quasi-Christian outfit. Seriously, though, who really gives a damn? Its…
Zeitgeist: German, from Zeit (time) + Geist (spirit): the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era. Yeah, it’s a loaded word, one that knots sober Teutonic gravity around dramatic academic loft. But Merriam-Webster’s definition couldn’t be more on-point in describing the music of U.K. quartet Bloc Party. When…
Trained in jazz trumpet since he was 14, Hugh Masekela was one of the first African musicians to make an impression on American ears. Masekela was born in South Africa in 1939 and came to the States in 1961 to escape apartheid, landing in New York and absorbing as much…
Listening to Band of Horses’ stunning debut, Everything All the Time, it’s almost impossible not to hear echoes of the Shins and My Morning Jacket. They’re no mere copycats; it’s just that they forge their sound from the same familiar elements — the pitch-perfect pop songcraft of their Sub Pop…
“It’s goin’ down, y’all, like the wall of Berlin,” Prince says during 3121’s opening title track, a slice of funk more wobbly and bizarre than anything he has released this side of that wall tumbling. It’s comforting to know that, like Kate Bush, he still lets the weirdness in. And…
The only conceivable way this seven-song EP from Ambulance LTD — released as an appetite-whetter for the quartet’s second full-length, due later this year — could come across more British is if there were a scratch-‘n’-sniff circle on the booklet cover that smelled like fish and chips. Not that the…
