Lil Wayne’s I Am Music II Tour comes to Raleigh Friday, July 15. Rick Ross, Keri Hilson, Far East Movement and Lloyd open the $25–$110 show at 7 p.m. Tha Carter IV, the follow-up to Lil Wayne’s 2008 best-selling album, Tha Carter III, is scheduled to drop on Aug. 22. The second leg of his […]
Brandon Soderberg
Bio: Brandon Soderberg lives in Baltimore, where he writes the No Trivia hip-hop column for Spin.Link: http://no-trivia.tumblr.comTwitter: http://twitter.com/notrivia
Posted inMusic
Wiz Khalifa’s nonchalant rise to the top
Wiz Khalifa plays Raleigh Amphitheater on Friday, April 1, with Mac Miller at 8 p.m. Tickets are $34-$40. Before a performance at East Carolina University last fall, rapper Wiz Khalifa, as is his wont, encouraged prospective attendees of that night’s stop on the Waken Baken Tour to “fall thru wit ur finest plant life.” That […]
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Why you shouldn’t take Future Islands for granted
Future Islands play Kings Thursday, March 3, and Friday, March 4. The 10 p.m. shows cost $10–$12 each. A Future Islands show begins politely enough. The Baltimore-via-Greenville, N.C., triokind of, sort of claimed by the Triangle, toowalks onto the stage and sheepishly waves or nods to the crowd. Sam Herring provides some warm-hearted “thanks for […]
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Girl Talk
As Girl Talk, Pittsburgh producer and laptop toter Gregg Gillis splices the sounds of a hundred hitship-hop, metal, indie rock, mainstream rockinto propulsive dance marathons. His show with Penguin Prison Thursday, Jan. 27, at Raleigh’s Disco Rodeo is sold-out, but his appearance still presents interesting artistic questions about copyright, interpretation and the roles and licenses […]
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David Banner & 9th Wonder’s Death of a Pop Star
“The Light,” the angriest track on the debut collaboration between Mississippi rapper David Banner and Durham producer 9th Wonder, uses this disdain-filled couplet as its hook: “Started livin’ for money, yeah most of us did/ Rappers turned into singers, preachers touching the kids.” For David Banner, there’s no difference between priests abusing the authority of […]
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The Foreign Exchange continues its unmitigated risks on Authenticity
“Y’all motherfuckers trying to get that Grammy again!” That’s Phonte Colemanthe songwriting, singing and sometimes rapping half of the experimental soul group The Foreign Exchange, impersonating the potential detractors of his group’s new, disarmingly serious record, Authenticity. Their last album, 2008’s Leave It All Behind, received a Best Urban/ Alternative Performance Grammy nomination for the […]
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Valient Thorr’s hard rock cosmology comes down to earth
Valient Thorr plays a Hopscotch Music Festival pre-party at Kings Barcade on Wednesday, Sept. 8, at 10 p.m. Junius and Howl join the $5 bill. Read our review of Valient Thorr’s new album, Stranger. In a jean vest with no shirt and bright red wrestling shoes, Valient Himselfthe fearless, bearded and wild-eyed leader of Chapel […]
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With the help of The Foreign Exchange, Durham’s Yahzarah finally delivers a weird, wonderful soul epic
Yahzarah performs Saturday, July 31, with The Foreign Exchange and others at The Soul Picnic at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary. See below for details. The soul singer Yahzarah lounges comfortably near the window of the Beyú Caffé in downtown Durham, her poise protected from the sweltering mid-July afternoon outside. Her head is shaved, and […]
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Rick Ross’ sluggish crawl toward maturity
Rick Ross performs at Lincoln Theatre Saturday, July 24. Tickets for the 10 p.m. show are $30. See Related Events below. “Looking at him [in 1979], one would not have imagined the slender, slightly pop-eyed teenager to be a successor to anything but a hard row to hoe. A sometime thief, sometime student, he was […]