Tonight, before Los Angeles jazz adventurer Terrace Martin hit The Pour House stage in Raleigh for The Art of Cool Project and 9th Wonder’s monthly soul series Caramel City, Art of Cool president Cicely Mitchell announced the full lineup for next year’s third annual Art of Cool Music Festival, scheduled May 6–8, 2016, in Durham. […]
Eric Tullis
Bio: Eric Tullis lives in Chapel Hill, where he writes about music and basketball.Twitter: http://twitter.com/erictullis
The Foreign Exchange’s tour documentary premieres online tonight, 8 p.m.
Fans of The Foreign Exchange’s Phonte Coleman may have already caught wind of his upcoming television roles, both in the HBO series Brothers in Atlanta and the VH1 movie The Breaks. Though you’ll have to wait just a little bit longer before the former Little Brother emcee makes his small-screen debut, you can catch him […]
Live: At The Ritz, age hasn’t devalued Mint Condition
Mint Condition The Ritz, Raleigh Friday, October 9, 2015 It still surprises me when concertgoers don’t understand encores. Friday night’s nearly sold-out Mint Condition concert inside The Ritz in Raleigh spotlighted a few of those folks. One such woman stood next to me for the entire night as she swayed and sang along to the […]
Record review: Kooley High’s Heights
KOOLEY HIGH HEIGHTS Kooley High plays Kings Friday, Oct. 16, at 10 p.m. Tickets are $13–$15. Iman Omari, Quelle Chris, Green Street and Cavalier open. Since Kooley High leading lady Rapsody began her solo crusade as the ace of 9th Wonder’s Jamla Records, her involvement with her original Raleigh crew has been, at best, spotty. […]
Raleigh’s Rapsody makes late-night TV debut on Fallon
Raleigh rapper Rapsody has been making some serious music-industry rounds lately. A little more than a week ago, the Jamla Records emcee stopped through Dr. Dre’s The Pharmacy radio show on Beats 1, where the Compton titan premiered her Lauryn Hill-inspired “Lost Ones” freestyle. “Rapsody, that’s my new favorite female emcee,” said Dre. “I’m gonna […]
Big Freedia talks Lil Wayne and reality TV
Big Freedia With Queen Plz Friday, Oct. 2, 9 p.m. $20The Ritz, 2820 Industrial Dr., Raleigh 919-424-1400 www.ritzraleigh.com Of course Big Freedia, the “Queen Diva” of New Orleans bounce music, is sleeping on a Monday afternoon. Just two days ago, Freedia premiered the fourth season of her award-winning reality show, Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce. […]
An interview with Rich Medina, headlining Mosaic Music Festival
Rich Medina Friday, Sept. 18, 9 p.m. $10–$15 Mosaic 517 W. Jones St., Raleigh 919-829-5886 www.mosaicwinelounge.com In a perfect world, dance DJs would possess encyclopedic knowledge of every genre at their fingertips, not just the deft touch it takes to translate that knowledge into a transcendental dance experience. That’s impossible, I know, but one prototype […]
Hopscotch 2015: In search of Grandma Sparrow’s Alewishus in downtown Raleigh
Hopscotch Music Festival Downtown Raleigh Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015 The Fayetteville Street aisle that leads to Hopscotch’s City Plaza is lined with white tents. I imagine that, from hundreds of feet above, the tents look like giant paper candle bags, collectively haloing the festival’s commercial and communal interests. As I strutted up the asphalt catwalk, […]
Skipping City Plaza: Eric Tullis’ Hopscotch plan
My once-comfortable Mizuno running sneakers still reek of Hopscotch 2014 mildew from the water and sock sweat they accumulated as I ran back and forth in the rain from the Kennedy Theatre to everywhere else last year. That may very well happen again if it rains on Thursday as I begin this year’s Hopscotch journey […]
Hopscotch 2015: Surprise surprise, choosing bands by name
Like a lot of you, I have not heard of roughly 85 percent of Hopscotch’s 2015 roster. And like some of you, I will choose which bands I see based upon internal monologue fantasies I have about their names and origin stories. After much consideration, these are the five best bands playing Hopscotch 2015. DRIPPY […]

