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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The group's new album — its first in 18 years — was recorded before the death of founding member Phife Dawg last March and was just released this month.
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Singer Dan Klein died of ALS earlier this summer, but at least his rocksteady band was able to see its collective vision through on this one sublime album.
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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.
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With a production team consisting of two seasoned retro-soul veterans, Nicole Wray's solo act shepherds '60s and '70s R&B styles into the present.
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Betty Davis was already gaining attention as Betty Mabry in the late 1960s when she met Miles Davis. He produced legendary sessions for her that have never been released — until now.
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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.
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Maybe this is all part of some performance-art piece we've been unwittingly sucked into. But either way, it seems to be working.
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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.
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Ghostface Killah's new 36 Seasons is a concept album with a big cast. It stars his Tony Starks alter ego in dense action scenes.
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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.