Los Tigres del Norte

The average unsuspecting gringo has no idea: Across Latin America, Los Tigres del Norte are huge, regularly selling out stadiums of more than 80,000 seats, registering global sales of more than 32 million records — that kind of huge. Detalles y Emociones is something like the group’s 56th album (really),…

Dungen

Creatively speaking, Sweden’s Gustav Ejstes, the man behind Dungen, refuses to remain earthbound. On Tio Bitar, he takes listeners on a trip to the Fab Nebula, where almost everything within earshot sounds literally out of this world. Ejstes’s ingredients will be familiar to fans of psychedelia, prog, and musical weirdness…

Sage Francis

There’s no denying Sage Francis’s passion — for hip-hop, for speaking truth, for expression itself. Nothing changes with Human the Death Dance, but where 2005’s A Healthy Distrust dealt chiefly with today’s dire sociopolitical landscape, here Sage looks inside to tackle all things personal. As always, he’s most effective when…

Osunlade

Osunlade is, quite literally, the priest of deep, soulful house music — a talented producer who left a promising mainstream career and shed the trappings of the American recording industry in favor of becoming a spiritual guide in the African religion of Ifa. And despite the reputation for excess levied…

Jordan Knight

When former Eighties and Nineties superstars are in search of a sixteenth minute of fame, VH1 offers a slightly less desperate alternative to leaking sex tapes and adopting children. Jordan Knight, a former New Kid on the Block, took a stab at reality-TV redemption on VH1 shows The Surreal Life…

Diam’s

Tumult is nothing new to the French, but their recent political events intrigue partly because of the battle-of-the-sexes element involved. Just take France’s recent presidential election, which resulted in the rejection of popular candidate Ségolène Royal in her bid to become France’s first female president. Enter Diam’s. This female rapper…

Maroon 5

Though he seems annoyingly aware of this fact, Maroon 5’s lithe frontman, Adam Levine, is one of the prettiest pop-rockers to come along in eons. (Oh, how Jared Leto must covet Levine’s milky complexion.) But with his brassy sass and brave forays into the upper registers of his voice on…

Samba School

A jeep bumps along a desolate dirt road in the arid countryside of Pernambuco, Brazil. The dry landscape, part of the nation’s poorest region, is a far cry from the romantic image that Americans have of the country. This is, after all, not the mountains, sea, and Ipanema of Antonio…

Louie’s Lair

“Over 22,000 songs in 20 languages,” beckons the Website for Studio, the self-proclaimed “world’s largest karaoke club,” located below the Shelborne Hotel in Miami Beach. “Giant dance floor with lasers, strobe lights, and smoke! 2 VIP rooms! Chance to jam with the band LIVE! Make a professional CD of your…

Minimal Mixes from Two Miami DJs

Surprise! There is other dance music in Miami besides big-room 7:00 a.m. house. Regulars at small underground spots like Laundry Bar and Blue know this already. Here, a couple mixes from two of Miami’s techno warriors, devoted to that sound birthed in Detroit warehouses and huge everywhere else in the…

Angry Akon Throws Young Fan Offstage

Akon already caused an international media stir recently when he told MTV UK he didn’t believe in blood diamonds. (He was defending his own purchase of a mine in South Africa). Then, there was the onstage debacle involving a teenage girl in Trinidad that caused him to lose his Verizon…

The Jazzified Seeds of Techno

So I came across this video while cruising the internet and couldn’t believe how much electronic music has grown since these days. Picture Herbie Hancock teaching Quincy Jones how to make techno beats. Yeah, that’s what I thought, ridiculous right… until I saw this. The year was 1983 and all…

More Good News for Miami Hip-Hop Heads

It’s official: The Rock the Bells tour is coming! What started as a couple of shows in NYC and California featuring possibly the best quality hip-hop lineup ever has been expanded into a national tour. Prepare yourself: It hits Miami’s Bayfront Park on August 4. Tickets go on sale June…

Someone Tell T-Pain to Slow Down

Is it just me or is T-Pain dominating the airwaves these days? Everytime I turn on the radio, I keep hearing a T-Pain song, or some remix with brand new T-Pain vocals on the hook. Dude is everywhere. Flirting at the club with R. Kelly on “I’m a Flirt,” buying…

Fergie does Boca

Cotton candy? Check. Tiaras? Check. Oversexed pop music? Check. With all of this involved, last night’s Fergie show in Boca Raton was a 10-year-old girl’s wet dream. The Dutchess sauntered in dripping with glitz, in a tiara and a sparkle-lined, bubblegum pink robe. In between belting lines of “Here I…

What is Emo?

Recently, acts such as My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy have brought the world of eyeliner, girls’ jeans, and angsty lyrics to the mainstream. The success of these bands has prompted the most perplexing, and annoying, question: What is emo? Everybody wants to know. It is the most frequently…

The Real Hip-Hop Is Over… Here?

If you missed last month’s KRS-One show at Studio A, you missed out. (When and where else would you get to catch Fat Joe as a hype man?). Still, even though the teacher born Kris Parker seems to make it down here at least once a year, this time local…

Joyful Noise

“Someone once told me that in order for a woman to be successful, she needs three things: health, talent, and luck,” says legendary Argentine folk singer Mercedes Sosa during a phone interview from her home in Buenos Aires. “If you’re missing one of the three, it could be a disaster.”…

Release the Bats

Festering in some dark abyss for the past ten years, The Lost Tracks of Danzig (evilive) has risen like an army of demons liberated from the depths of Hell. “Lost Tracks was a big undertaking, that’s for sure,” Glenn Danzig says by phone from his home in Los Angeles. “I’m…

Dirty Gruv Presents Submerge 101

With summer coming and tourist dollars drying up, Igor Bogatov is on the offense, looking for fresh local faces on the dance floor. (Well, fresh local feet, actually; if you find your face is often on the floor, maybe you need to skip it this week.) In this spirit, Bogatov,…

Tool

To borrow from Chuck Klosterman: Metal bands come in two forms — those that model Led Zeppelin, and those that model Black Sabbath. (He recently proposed this thesis in the exhaustive, four-hour VH1 documentary Heavy: A History of Metal.) Tool, who plays Friday at the BankAtlantic Center, falls into the…

David Koller and Band

Let’s face it: The two countries that formerly composed Czechoslovakia barely register a blip on the South Florida radar. Asked to name a modern cultural export of the Czech Republic or Slovakia, the average educated adult might come up with author Milan Kundera and … exactly. No matter. Though their…