DCist » Music
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DCist » Music
5M ago
BUFFALO NICHOLS: “I want more Black people to hear themselves in this music that is truly theirs,” blues musician Buffalo Nichols says on his website. The Houston-born, Milwaukee-raised musician uses little more than his guitar and his unforgettable voice to craft stripped-down blues numbers about love, loss, and the perils and triumphs that accompany being Black in America. (Kennedy Center; Friday, Jan. 6; FREE)
MERIDIAN BROTHERS: Eblis Álvarez’s influences include psychedelic Argentine rock, Frank Zappa, modern alternative electronic music, and Latin American folk traditions. What exactly do ..read more
DCist » Music
5M ago
Suki Waterhouse Thomson202019 / Flickr
Taylor Swift may have forgotten about us, but a long list of phenomenal acts — including Ari Lennox, Paramore and SZA — are paying the D.C. area a visit in 2023. Reader, it’s never too early to secure your concert tickets. And Taylor, it’s never too late to make things right. In the meanwhile, here are the concerts that are on DCist’s calendar for the new year — presented in chronological order so you know how soon you need to act. (Planning to check out more local acts in 2023? Check out our guide to D.C.-area musicians to watch in the coming year.)
SUKI ..read more
DCist » Music
5M ago
Louisa Hall, left, and Annie Nardolilli make up Griefcat. Kir Tuben / Griefcat
Annie Nardolilli and Louisa Hall show up to meet me in identical green velvet dresses. The two are always matching — from their earrings all the way down to their shoes — and most of the time that attire includes sequins. But their lovable theatricality doesn’t just manifest in what they wear: it’s also evident in their music.
Nardolilli and Hall are the brains behind Griefcat, a D.C.-based singer-songwriter duo with a flair for musical comedy. (The band’s releases include “Egg Roll” and “I Just Want To Get Inside ..read more
DCist » Music
5M ago
Over the past year, the Kennedy Center has beefed up its hip-hop programming with conversations, concerts, and special guests including luminary lyricists, trendsetting DJs, and scholars who have impacted the culture in some way over the past 50 years. Now, the center is rolling out a new offering: the Hip Hop & Jazz Festival, part of a new Hip Hop & …. series that will pair hip-hop with an intersecting genre or musical discipline each year.
For this inaugural festival, the Kennedy Center will celebrate the “dynamic relationship between hip-hop and jazz” with listening sessions, perfor ..read more
DCist » Music
5M ago
On a recent Friday evening outside of D.C., musicians, videographers, managers, and invited guests mill around a brick house on a wooded lane in an otherwise quiet residential neighborhood. Drinks are flowing and blunts exchange hands.
Without an introduction, Noochie opens his front door in basketball shorts and a T-shirt, giving the impression that he just rolled out of bed but somehow managed to throw on glistening necklaces and dream up the perfect lyrics in time for his four-minute spot.
He proceeds to record a video with The Thunderboyz, a Maryland group that plays just about every genre ..read more
DCist » Music
5M ago
It’s been more than 20 years since Isaías Guerrero and his family left Colombia. Like many others, the armed conflict and economic turmoil there prompted them to make their way to the United States.
Guerrero moved to Indiana on a tourist visa when he was young, and it eventually expired. So for many years, he was undocumented and unable to visit his home country. “The physical distance has made me long for a lot,” says Guerrero, who’s lived in Washington, D.C. for the last six years.
While Guerrero is now a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – known as DACA – he says it’s stil ..read more
DCist » Music
5M ago
Maryland native rapper Foggieraw just dropped what’s likely to be his most popular single to date, an interpolation of Alicia Keys’ Grammy Award winning song “You Don’t Know My Name,” thanks to the impossible — or at least improbable — happening: Keys herself signing off on the track.
“Psalms 62,” released on streaming services June 16 as part of a two-song EP, could have stalled out on Instagram. After Foggieraw released the video there, in which he raps the poem of the same name over the instrumental of Keys’ song, his team spent months trying to get permission to sample her music so the son ..read more
DCist » Music
5M ago
Many in the D.C.-area music scene let out a collective wail when news broke in 2021 that Inner Ear Studio, the Arlington recording studio that helped launch many of the region’s top punk, post-punk, and hardcore bands, would close its doors.
The unassuming studio — at first located in owner Don Zientara’s basement and later in a commercial space near Shirlington — recorded the likes of Bad Brains, Fugazi, Minor Threat, and so many more for the better part of 40 years. Now, that history is at the center of a new coffee table book, full of photographs from recording sessions, and firsthand ..read more
DCist » Music
5M ago
By all appearances, people are very interested in the initial rollout of shows at The Atlantis, I.M.P.’s replica of the original 9:30 Club opening in May smack dab behind the current location on 9th and V streets NW.
How can we tell? Well, there are a few signs. This biggest is that there were more than 520,000 ticket requests through Ticketmaster Request in the four days the lottery was open, according to an emailed statement from I.M.P., the venue’s owner. The intimate venue will have a capacity of 450, meaning that the total number of tickets available for all 44 shows is just 19,800 ..read more
DCist » Music
5M ago
D.C.-area native Alex Vaughn has all the makings of becoming R&B’s next star. Earlier this year, Spotify named her to its “R&B Rising’s Artists To Watch” list; she’s signed to arguably the hottest label in hip-hop and R&B; she’s working with some of the best and brightest artists and producers; and this weekend, she’s coming home for some of the last few dates of her first nationwide tour.
Vaughn is the marquee opening act on Ari Lennox’s Age/Sex/Location tour. The two singers from the D.C. region have two shows at The Fillmore Silver Spring this Saturday and Sunday and two at the ..read more