Oliver Wang
Oliver Wang is an culture writer, scholar, and DJ based in Los Angeles. He's the author of Legions of Boom: Filipino American Mobile DJ Crews of the San Francisco Bay Area and a professor of sociology at CSU-Long Beach. He's the creator of the audioblog soul-sides.com and co-host of the album appreciation podcast, Heat Rocks.
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Most of Fields' songs have been about love won, fought over and lost; it's a testament to his talent that each new one can feel like he's singing his heart out for the first time. -
The fiery singer, whose work with The Dap-Kings helped inspire a soul revival, died Nov. 18 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. -
Frankie Reyes is a Los Angeles-based artist who remakes classic Mexican and other Spanish-language ballads and waltzes using a vintage synthesizer. His new album is called Boleros Valses y Mas. -
The steel drum tradition is unfairly maligned. The mysterious Hamburg group takes Cat Stevens' pioneering electro jam and replaces synths with steel.
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The 1972 concerts at The Apollo were recorded but, inexplicably, never released — until now. They show a side of Brown content to turn the show over to his collaborators. -
Maybe this is all part of some performance-art piece we've been unwittingly sucked into. But either way, it seems to be working. -
Kendrick Lamar's long-awaited new album dropped late Sunday night, nine days early. On it, the rapper wades into our current moment of peril around race, inequality and brutality. -
Steven Ellison has built an impressive reputation among critics and fans in the know for mixing hip hop, jazz and electronica into something original. But even for the aforementioned followers, the new album from Ellison — better-known as Flying Lotus — is a surprise. It's all about death, not as something to be mourned but as a journey to be anticipated.
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What began as little more than a glorified metronome has worked its way into bedroom studios and state-of-the-art recording facilities alike. A new book chronicles the history and influence of the drum machine in all its wood- and plastic-paneled glory. -
The musician born Marcos Garcia was known for years as a member of the Afrobeat ensemble Antibalas — but one day, he began tinkering with his daughter's Casio keyboard.
