Posted on 02/12/2009
As people instinctively travel the paths of rhythm, their quest can lead to any number of places. For some of us, however, the journey itself is the destination. So what happens once our favorite trails have become too worn to still wander astray, and our beloved excursions become mundane commutes? I’m a firm believer that the continuous rehashing of a classic record can lead to a deeper appreciation of the...

Posted on 02/06/2009
Neo Soul stars all see the same living room. They see the same intimate cluster of grown folks, parents, aunts, uncles, and family friends, gathered by the turntable drinking cold ones in the evening after work. They see the same haloed stack of records—it includes Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly,” Al Green “Simply Beautiful,” or maybe Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour.” With their own eyes, they witness the same joy, laughter, tears,...

Posted on 01/23/2009
My friends and I have never called John Legend by his name. Seriously. When Kanye West’s College Dropout came out and the four of us were huddled by the university’s sound stage with our teddy bear t-shirts, he was just the “piano guy,” talented as golden ducats but still nameless. Though we didn’t know his name, we acknowledged his comet-like stage presence; he was like a Motown deus ex...

Posted on 12/08/2008
Much like the cast of characters that make up his acclaimed comic strip The Boondocks, Aaron McGruder is a man unafraid to speak his mind. Whether addressing America’s racial stereotypes, the absurdity of its government, or the idiosyncrasies of its culture in general, McGruder’s smart and sardonic commentary earned him a legion of followers. Huey and Riley Freeman, characters that respectively represented a culture’s skeptical worldview and near-deification of hip-hop...