For those of you who missed J. Cole at SOBs last night, here’s a clip of him performing his upcoming single, “Who Dat.” Sounds like hybrid fire to me. Not that he was at all lackluster a few months back, but after seeing him perform at NYU and the VH1 Hip Hop Honors pre-party, I think it’s [...]

Even though his album won’t hit US “shelves” until February of next year, Daniel Merriweather’s Love and War has been out overseas for months. He’s signed to Mark Ronson’s Allido label and managed by Roc Nation - pow, pow - so maybe taking three minutes to watch the clip below isn’t a bad idea? If [...]

Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” video needs no introduction, and if you haven’t seen it yet- shame on you.

The video is  b a n a n a s.  After climbing out of a coffin/sleep chamber/cocoon thing, Gaga pursues an extremely unhealthy -perhaps adulterous- relationship, painting a sublime picture for us all to gawk at. The transitions in color [...]

Each year that CMJ hits New York, you can feel the energy in the air… music heads take to the streets to soak up their favorite artists’ music, and in most cases, they also get a taste for some new ones along the way. Last week, I had the privilege of seeing three great shows [...]

I’m sorry, but can we talk about the Roc Boys boys for a moment?
First of all, I’m not really a Taylor Swift fan, so the Kanye VMA incident didn’t leave me shaking with anger and/or yearning for revenge. Instead, I saw it simply as yet another instance of Kanye “accidentally” flexing his culturally-relevant muscle. It [...]

Even though it’s stale news, it would be a waste to not post my “content” from Lollapalooza- especially since I had the most fun consecutive five days in recent memory. I owe that all to Alex’s amazing Chi City hospitality… she really is the best!
Photographing Lykke Li perform is always an event, so I was compelled [...]

The Noisettes performed at Santos a few weeks ago- great show. Here’s their video for “Wild Young Hearts”…

I appreciate her honesty in the song- admitting that we sometimes knowingly make destructive romantic mistakes. However, in defense of our own wild young hearts, we should look at what causes our actions through a more contemporary lens! For example: [...]

Saturday mornings are sacred. Unfortunately, once the weather gets warm, I have to wake up to voices blasting loudly outside my window - via a sermon in Spanish. Yes, Christianity mic’d up, scripture bounces between buildings, echoing from speakers that are jammed into a vehicle’s trunk in the street below my apartment. The man on the [...]

At the end of December, my friend Alex came to town on business from San Francisco.  He had tickets to Matisyahu’s final show (of eight) in New York, so I trekked down to BK’s Music Hall of Williamsburg, and we immediately proceeded to have a blast.

The song that first made me fall in love with Matisyahu’s music [...]

I wanted to do a Best of 2008 list, but the truth is, I hate ranking things. If you know me or you read the blog regularly, you already know what the favorites are. Hopefully you’ve related to a post, been introduced to an artist, or gotten something out of The Labyrinth from time to [...]