There are certain musicians who are completely committed to the art form. They don't just play music, they study it, they teach it, and they relish every opportunity to share music with others.    As a bandleader, educator, and percussionist, Juan Megna has been sharing his love of music around the world for years now.  […]

In Ronnie Spector's 1990 book Be My Baby, there's an interesting chapter about her singing voice among the jaw-dropping allegations of brutal torture. She claims she was intimidated by the other female vocalists in Phil Spector's stable: she didn't have Darlene Love's or Fanita James's huge, gospel-trained voices. The producer, on the other hand, had […]

My mother used to have a vacation home on the Mornington Peninsula with her brothers and sisters. My cousin, sister, and I were so anxious to save the home when they informed us they wanted to sell it one year that we came up with a plan: we'd start organizing tiny festival parties in the […]

Courtney Barnett was in Los Angeles at the start of 2020, when her native nation was burning and the rest of the world was waking up to a worldwide epidemic. She'd recently finished a tour in the United States, and her intention was to locate an apartment and stay in town a bit longer to […]

Surya Sen, who spearheaded uprisings against British authority in India during the 1930s, was a crucial role in the country's independence fight. After a century, his namesake – a north London-based musician who prefers anonymity – feels like a radical presence in UK music: a British-Bengali producer/rapper whose bumping and pristinely constructed club music finds […]

The stars who have inscribed Jamire Williams in their Rolodexes are more than remarkable, including Solange Knowles, Moses Sumney, Blood Orange, Herbie Hancock, and Robert Glasper. These musicians are united by their desire to push boundaries, to tip the balance between popular and avant-garde, and they often enlist Houston-born multi-instrumentalist Williams to perform on and […]