by Pico The call Aretha Franklin the Queen of Soul, but those too young to remember her will mostly likely know about the Queen of Neo Soul, Erykah Badu. Today she unleashes the follow-up to her dense and intense New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War (2008), which was oftenRead More

by Pico It’s the middle of January, which can only mean we’re about a month late on those year-end lists. Oooops. This past year, I’ve listened to perhaps a little less of the rock, pop and r&b records than in 2008, but the selections for my favorites were easier toRead More

by S. Victor Aaron There’s a special class of jazz record labels whereby you don’t even have to know the artist to get an idea of the kind of music that’s in store for you when you pop in that CD for the first time. If it’s an ECM, you’reRead More

One tendency I’ve found among musicians is that worldly artists tend to be pretty good at making worldly music. Vocalist and songstress Somi certainly qualifies. Born in middle-American Illinois but to immigrants from the East African nations of Rwanda and Uganda, Somi spent part of her childhood in Zambia. SheRead More

So today we open up a new series “Deep Cuts,” where your friendly music guides here at Something Else pull out and call attention to a more obscure track taken from familiar, sometimes classic, records. If you’re like us, you’re more of an “album” guy than a “singles” guy andRead More

You made out to Al Green. It’s what worked. Only later, did you realize all that had gone on in those records, starting with this — Green’s first charting hit, “Tired of Being Alone.” His is a voice that whips around, like a sparrow, from flat-footed baritone — all silky-smoothRead More

Today is the day Nigerian-British bass player Michael Olatuja unfurls his very first album Speak onto the world, but this isn’t the kind of record you’d might expect from a master bassist his first time out. But Olatuja is not an orthodox musician. If he was, I’d most likely wouldRead More

It’s a classically American record by an American who was an expatriate for half of her young life. Being the daughter of a globe trotting missionary didn’t give Diana Birch a first hand indoctrination to American culture the way most Americans get it, but she was always a quick studyRead More

Only Michael Jackson could have done so much so quickly to obscure the ass-shaking, barrier-breaking brilliance of his own music. He was that famous. It’s always pissed me off, and never more so than today — when Jackson finally succumbed to the swirling demons of his own life. I thinkRead More

A tucked-away treasure, the Meters never found their own fame like Booker T. and the MGs. No matter. Let it be our secret. Our funky, funky secret.