Denzel Curry: The Metamorphosis of a Rapper
How Miami emcee Denzel Curry spent the better part of 2015 working on himself. SF Weekly For most of 2015, mum was the word for Miami rapper Denzel Curry. The 21-year-old emcee kept a low profile, only emerging once in June to release the double EP, 32 Zel/Planet...
Marielle V. Jakobson: Getting Trippy
Marielle V. Jakobson’s new album, Star Core, will make you feel like you're on drugs. SF Weekly Last Saturday night at The Lab, roughly 50 people tripped — on music. Around 10:30 p.m., after a number of failed attempts at setting up the projector, a petite,...
Cover Story: The Yogi and the DJ
Two brothers' separate paths to music stardom. SF Weekly (Cover Story) On a Sunday evening in April, MC Yogi, a 37-year-old rapper and yoga teacher, bounded across the stage of The Independent, wearing a short-brimmed fedora and his trademark rectangular eyeglasses....
Fantastic Negrito: After Years of Busking and Touring, Fantastic Negrito Releases His First Full-Length Album
SF Weekly "It's a bit far because we've got to go all the way to the basement," says Xavier Dphrepaulezz, as he heads down a carpeted flight of stairs into a downtown Oakland gallery and recording studio. As the 48-year-old, better known as the black-roots musician...
Salt Room Therapy On Shifty Ground
The Los Angeles TimesClick for PDF of print article Halotherapy is an alternative therapy for chronic respiratory and skin problems that is modeled after the salt caves and spas that originated more than 200 years ago. LOS ANGELES — Heidi Kling is reading...
ABRA: Meet ABRA, The Darkwave Duchess
SF Weekly Success has its caveats. Once an artist makes it big, there's a certain visceral quality to the music that gets lost. The do-it-yourself, succeed-or-perish ethos that helped make the artist becomes irrelevant once they're signed. The hunger vanishes. The...
SHURA: The UK’s Latest Avant Pop Singer
SF Weekly Shura is a 24-year-old experimental pop singer from Manchester who makes dance music — but hates dancing. She’s a vocalist who doesn’t like the sound of her own voice. A musician who has anxiety performing in front of others. And an artist who’s about to go...
NOISEY: Get Dark With Raider Klan’s Amber London
Noisey Amber London is in a moment of transition. Like many 23-year-olds, the Houston-bred rapper is contemplating moving out of her family’s home, what she wants from her career, and where her identity fits with that vision. “I’m figuring out who I am,”...
Skeme Stays True to his Inglewood Roots — Except When He’s Ghostwriting Other People’s Hits
LA Weekly At Time for a Cut Barber Shop in Inglewood, Lonnie Kimble, known to rap fans as Skeme, sits slouched in a faux leather chair, his dreads pulled back in a ponytail and his knees peeking out of holes in his distressed Yves St. Laurent jeans. A bootlegged...
NOISEY: This Writer Made a Book Ranking The Best Rap Song Every Year From 1979 to 2014
Noisey/VICE Oh, Shea Serrano. It seems like just yesterday the beloved music writer was an 8th grade science teacher, moonlighting some of his first writing gigs for Noisey and dropping sage hip-hop knowledge and witticisms in pieces like his review of a middle school...
COMPLEX: Gangsta Boo’s Guide to Soul Food in Los Angeles
The Memphis-bred Three 6 Mafia MC's got you covered when it comes to turkey chops, butter cake, and a taste of southern living. Complex It’s a Friday afternoon when rapper Gangsta Boo pulls into the parking lot of a soul food restaurant in Inglewood. The...
Lil Debbie’s New EP, Home Grown, Is An Ode To Weed
LA Weekly It’s Friday night, a little after 10:30, and I’m hoofing it through Hollywood to a spot called Las Palmas where Lil Debbie is premiering her new EP, Home Grown. There are stragglers hanging out front and they’re all young, definitely not over the age...