In 2003, Chicago MC Chancellor Bennett, better known as Chance the Rapper, was 10 years old. At that point, it’s unclear whether the “rapper” surname was a predetermined pseudonym for Chance or a product of an the era in hip-hop to come for the 312. But, while rap was being bowled over that year by [...]
Umphrey’s McGee – Get Lucky (Live from UMBowl) Where smart phone usage is usually frowned upon at concerts, it’s rare to walk into a venue where people have theirs plugged in to power strips located plentifully throughout the place. At the annual UMBowl show on Friday; however, this was the case and for good reason. [...]
Brooklyn based band The Doorbells first caught my attention when opening for The Neighbourhood earlier this year at Glasslands. There was something so Bravery-esque about their sound, which as a big Bravery fan I was of course enjoying. So much so that I checked out their 2011 debut EP Want Your Evil and fell in love with the stand [...]
Over the weekend, Nicolas Jaar released a collaborate 12″ for Record Store Day that includes remixes of Grizzly Bear‘s “Sleeping Ute” and Brian Eno‘s “Lux.” While the album sold out, a stream of the Grizzly Bear remix made it’s way online. Jaar extends “Sleeping Ute” into one of his elegantly hypnotic slow-building songs that is ”guaranteed [...]
In 2002, Tony! Toni! Tone! co-founder Raphael Saadiq released his solo debut Instant Vintage to critical acclaim. It was an album that swept me in personally as [then] a novice to R&B, mixing elements of soul, jazz, funk, and gospel into a bowl of Oakland gumbo and coining the subgenre as “Gospeldelic”. The record still [...]
The video accompanying Tyler, the Creator’s lead single, “Domo 23″, from his third full length album, Wolf, features a clear, audible friction that occurs around the four minute and 36-second mark. It’s the threshold from which Tyler, the Reckless Misanthrope, crosses into Tyler, the Neptunian Free Spirit. Neither side is particularly stellar, and both exemplify [...]
The entire Hip-Hop community held their breath in concern and curiosity when gossip superpower TMZ broke the news that Lil Wayne suffered another seizure that led to his “critical condition”. Wayne, 30, was said to be on the heels of extinction until his Young Money militia retorted the statements and tweeted that he was in [...]
Snowball in a nutshell! (Photo Credit: David Rodman) Held a few weekends ago in Winter Park, CO, the third installment of the Snowball Music Festival can only be described as a raging success – heavy emphasis on the “rage.” Like 2011 and 2012 before it, Snowball 2013 remained heavy on the EDM when putting together [...]
As of right now, Sly, Slick and Wicked’s “Sho’ Nuff” is 40 years old. A sleekly performed, densely produced soul/jazz record that caught fire nationwide, culminating in a landmark Soul Train appearance; the Cleveland trio, in less than three minutes, achieved both compositional balance and instrumental complexity. This was no accident. The Godfather himself, James [...]
Trevor Powers doesn’t look like your typical musician, not that there is a particular look to begin with. To the average person, he could visually come off as a slimmer, shaggier Shia Lebouf if he traded in his acting chops for other artistic ventures. The aloof 24-year-old from Boise, Idaho began recording music in his [...]
Andrew and Daniel Aged are agents of atmosphere. The LA R&B duo measure their simplicity in a depth, not created by technical proficiency, but by creating the environment of something smoother than what meets the ear. Formerly Teen Inc., (kudos on dropping the “Teen”) the Aged bros. have taken the derivative, imitable nature of their [...]
When AraabMUZIK’s Electronic Dream was released two years ago, it displayed an amount of range that took many by surprise. Known for producing and making a name off of sporadic Dipset records, Abraham Ornello crafted his skills on the MPC and drums with break-neck precision. The Rhode Island native wasted no time in breaking out [...]
