It’s a brisk Saturday afternoon in Durham, and Cocoa Cinnamon owners Leon Grodski de Barrera and Areli Barrera de Grodski are in the last stretches of the soft opening for their new coffee shop on Hillsborough Road in Old West Durham. They’ve done this before: Three years ago, the couple opened its shop’s flagship location […]
Eric Tullis
Bio: Eric Tullis lives in Chapel Hill, where he writes about music and basketball.Twitter: http://twitter.com/erictullis
Posted inMusic
Petey Pablo Talks the Carolina Panthers, Empire, and … Gorillas, Lots of Gorillas!
Carolina Panthers cornerback Josh Norman wore a wrestling mask. Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzbach learned how to dab. Deion Sanders gifted Cam Newton with an even more atrocious-looking pair of Versace pants than the $849 pair the star quarterback arrived in for this weekend’s Super Bowl 50. On Monday alone, all those spectacles took place […]
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Listen to BrassiousMonk’s New “Fun” Before This Weekend’s Youthful Records Party
“Fun” is the new single from Raleigh rapper BrassiousMonk. With enticing calls to let it all hang out, “Fun” only clocks in at a little more than two minutes, yet it’s the cool startup cog for the new Raleigh label Youthful Records (BrassiousMonk, ZenSoFly, Jodi, SpaceMan Stuu, and Supreme Kalif). If Schoolboy Q were to […]
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Anderson .Paak, The Hot at Nights, 9th Wonder and more added to Art of Cool
Art of Cool Music Festival has announced the final additions to its stellar 2016 lineup. The roster now includes the Dr. Dre-cosigned soul slinger Anderson .Paak, new wave R&Bers J*Davey, experimental groove duo Tennyson, instrumental trio The Hot at Nights, and a Jamla Records assortment that includes 9th Wonder, Rapsody, Heather Victoria and Khrysis. In […]
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Boogie with Boulevards’ new single, “Cold Call”
In 1982, writer Val Wilmer proclaimed in New Music Express that Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five’s “The Message” was “the first really big political record since James Brown’s 1970 ‘Say It Loud.’” In many ways, the song also showed hip-hop’s versatility, how it could pivot from urban pop cool to socio-political raps. This crossover […]
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Professor Toon is American Underground’s rapper-in-residence. Will his debut LP, Take Notes, make him more than a corporate spokesperson?
Professor Toon with Made of Oak, Tab-One, Ace Henderson & Ace Apollo Friday, Jan. 22, 8:30 p.m. $12–$15 Motorco 723 Rigsbee Ave., Durham 919-901-0875 It’s a little before noon on a Friday, and Kurrell Rice is slumped over in a chair in the lobby of WUNC-FM, sinking deep into its cushions. In an hour, the […]
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“Right Now,” right now: Watch the new video from Durham’s The Real Laww
Durham rapper The Real Laww released the video for the new single “Right Now,” from his yet-to-be-released debut LP Accidental Masterpiece, late last week. The video is directed by Johnny J. Jones of Zoë Pictures and Roman Gabriel of Moonman Pictures and follows The Real Laww’s black-and-white daydreaming sequence at Durham Central Park as he […]
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Record review: Al Strong’s LoveStrong Vol. 1
During the last two decades, jazz trumpeter Al Strong has graduated from one of N.C. Central University’s big-band all-stars into, in various stages, a session musician, an educator, a jazz-scene curator and, at last, a bona fide recording artist. He funnels all those experiencesplus the friends he made along the wayinto his debut, LoveStrong Vol. […]
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Beats and The Breaks: Talking to Phonte Coleman about his work on VH1’s TV movie
At 688 pages, Dan Charnas’ The Big Payback tome is perhaps the most exhaustively researched book ever written about the near-half-a-century history of the hip-hop music business. On Monday, a piece of Charnas’ page-turner came to life on VH1 as the TV movie, The Breaks. The film is set in 1990 and follows the industry […]
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A master puppeteer and familiar emcee pair to reimagine the story of Pinocchio
5P1N0K10 Wednesday, Dec. 30, 10:30 a.m., free Nasher Museum of Art, 2001 Campus Drive, Durham 919-684-5135, www.nasher.duke.edu When Pierce Freelon first encountered Tarish Pipkins, or the puppeteer known as Jeghetto, he was too taken aback by Pipkins’ contraptions to take notice of their maker. “I saw a little person going in on a child’s cello, […]