House music never went out of style, but not everybody knows about its culture, its history, or even its existence—and a legion of those newbies fell for house this year, thanks to new dance-oriented albums from superstars Drake and Beyoncé. The latter recruited figures from across house history for Renaissance, including Chicago native Honey Redmond, […]
Tag: Drake
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Archive dive: On house music
Between Drake’s sleepy Honestly, Nevermind and Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul,” a lot of people have something to say about house music lately. (And while I can’t say I have thoroughly read every discourse posting, I’ve seen almost no instances of anyone mentioning the fact that several music sites reported rumors of Beyoncé working with house […]
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Gabriel Garzón-Montano concocts a soulful pop melange with Spanglish flair
The first time I saw Gabriel Garzón-Montano in concert was at South by Southwest in 2017. His appearance had generated a lot of buzz; a song from his 2014 EP, Bishoune: Alma del Huila, had been sampled for Drake’s 2015 track “Jungle,” and the multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter had recently released his debut full-length, Jardin. Partway […]
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Chicago rapper KC Ortiz brings buckle-your-seat-belts fun to The Campground
Rapper KC Ortiz grew up in Mobile, Alabama, and fell in love with Chicago after her drag mother showed her a video of local female-impersonation pageant Miss Continental. As she told Windy City Times last year, “I hadn’t transitioned at that time and didn’t know that world existed. When I saw that video, I wanted […]
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Chicago footwork master DJ Taye invokes the rapid pace of our changing times on Pyrot3k
Pop music moves fast: new instructional-dance songs, new Drake songs, and new instructional-dance songs by Drake can bombard the zeitgeist one week and all but evaporate the next. Footwork, the lightning-fast Chicago-born house subgenre, is well suited to capture that frenetic pace. Young footwork master and Teklife member DJ Taye instinctively understands how to combine […]
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Lil Wayne tries to revisit his era of greatness with mixed results on Funeral
Remember the Lil Wayne of 2008 and 2009? He constantly boasted that he was the “greatest rapper alive,” and you know what? He actually was. The 2008 album Tha Carter III, released about ten years into his career, was a full-blown landmark. It gave the world a string of smash singles, including “Lollipop” and “Got […]
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Paloma Mami is reggaeton’s newest and youngest star
Paloma Rocío Castillo Astorga, better known as Paloma Mami, was only 18 when she released her debut single, 2018’s “Not Steady.” Lugubrious and resoundingly confident, the song made clear she wasn’t callow: “I don’t change for no dick,” she declares over a soft-edged dancehall beat whose nocturnal aura sets the tone for a night spent […]
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Drugged-up and bummed-out, Toronto rapper Nav hits his stride
The world was introduced to Nav by his featured verse on “Biebs in the Trap,” off Travis Scott’s landmark 2016 Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight. In its alarmingly candid tale of drug abuse and the party life, Nav proved a good complement to Scott while leaning into the disaffected, robotic rap-singing that the psychedelic […]
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Queen Key at Summer Smash and more of the best things to do in Chicago this weekend
Crazy Rich Asians and more goings on 8/17-8/19.
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There’s a good reason everyone loves Drake’s hyperpersonal rap-sing bangers
The jury’s still out on whether Kiki loves Drake or not, but it’s pretty clear that the rest of the world does, and with good reason. On his fifth official full-length release, this summer’s Scorpion, the Toronto child star turned rapper proves that he’s one of the most consistent artists out there right now; though […]
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Gamer Ninja on playing Fortnite with Drake: ‘That was absolutely incredible’
Suburban video-game streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, who earns almost $900K a month, has gotten national media exposure after playing with Drake.
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The nation’s hottest entertainer right now is a suburban Chicago video-game streamer named Ninja
Rapper Drake and NCAA darlings UMBC are among the millions of fans of Tyler Blevins, who’s earning hundreds of thousands of dollars per month playing Fortnite.
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Groundbreaking Chicago drill rapper Fredo Santana died this weekend
Six years ago Fredo Santana helped make Chicago the epicenter of the rap world, and on Friday he passed away at age 27.
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Millennials are tickled by ‘millennial pink,’ says millennial
The latest object of millennial appropriation: the color pink
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Drake’s diaspora, Discogs drama, DJ ‘controllerism,’ and more of the week’s best music writing
Plus: pieces about the queer experience in contemporary dance and the intimacy of abrasive noise