I caught up with Elliott fresh out of the studio where he’s been working on his next EP with producer Jason Wozniak—release date still being determined. Despite just releasing a single, he was buzzing with excitement about being back in the studio. After a month or two of low creative steam while adjusting to life in a pandemic, he’s hard at work with a renewed sense of appreciation for being able to create. Songwriting especially keeps him going, because it allows him to process his emotions and thoughts, which later translate to the self-expression he loves about music.

After two years of knowing OddCouple, we finally had a real and honest conversation–which was long overdue. The first time I met him was via a group text message with musician Jack Red. Jack had reached out to me to virtually style a music video shoot for him and OddCouple. Never meeting him in real life, I pulled pieces for the shoot and never heard from him again, until about a year later.

Randomly on the rooftop of the Virgin Hotel, I finally met him. That night was a blur, but the mention of the video shoot came up and I wouldn’t see him again until a year and half later. This time, It was in the middle of a global pandemic and at a wine shop.

After exchanging pleasantries, I reminded him that I was the one who virtually styled the video–which has never seen the light of day. We chatted a bit about the work he’s currently doing and a bit about the future of music. As it was time for us to depart, he suggested that we do this again, so we did. After an hour portrait session in my Humboldt Park studio, we chatted for nearly two hours.

When you’re able to go out [into nature]...you have yourself, your thoughts, your feelings, and a bunch of open land. It provides a lot of clarity and allows you to reach within yourself a little bit to a greater degree than when you’re in the city and you’re always connected to something else.

The music that New York musician Ryan Zuli Jr. makes, under the moniker Zuli Jr., stays with you. It is deeply emotive, drawing from personal reflection and patient songwriting. Not only that, but the songs are total earworms—deeply inspired by the current magnates of R&B and pop music, but maintaining a tether to the foundation of classic rock.

Part 1 of “All That Has Come Apart/Once Did Not Exist,” Sonny Falls’ new album, is an exploration into how adversity can be a catalyst for positive growth and change. The rock album pulls you along an undefined narrative into Sonny Falls’ life, where the focus rests on the storms that follow the calm. Although the songs can be heavy, Ensley punctures the compounded tension with a throbbing guitar chord or a humorous chorus.

“I grew up hearing a pretty simple story,” Daniel said. “There's this grandfather that talks to his grandson and the grandfather says he had two enemies, that two wolves live within anyone: jealousy, malice, envy, greed, hatred, bigotry. The second is love, peace, mercy, kindness, hope, justice. And the grandson responded with ‘Which one of these will win?’ His grandfather responded with, ‘The one that you feed.’”

In her 1988 essay titled “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” Judith Butler argues that gender is a performance of societal conceptions regadring what’s understood as masculine and feminine. Her core idea lies in the notion that gender is an expression of what one does, not what one is. When one considers the definition of ‘to perform’ as being “to carry out an action or pattern of behavior,” it makes sense that Butler’s argument serves as the foundation for which many sociologists consider gender as a practice.

If there’s anyone who knew how to make an entrance, it was Little Richard. On the Dick Cavett Show in December 1970, Little Richard sauntered out, dressed in a majestic brocade ensemble: tunic, cape, matching bell bottoms, and a golden Lurex choker with taupe platform boots peeking out from underneath. His jet-black hair, styled in his distinctive fluffy bouffant, was accessorized with a headband reminiscent of his protégé, Jimi Hendrix, and his ferocious eyes were lined to perfection.

On Friday nights, I walk down the bayou to a concert. There's a global pandemic still going on, so I'm not headed to a club or an arena. Instead, I'm walking, iced coffee in hand, to a porch concert. I sit on Miss Mary's tangerine-colored steps and greet her pet corgi, Mo-mo, as I settle in for the show. Neighbors gather in the street on plastic lawn-chairs, and cars attempt to swerve around them.

Three Filipino American rappers have been taking stages and dropping mics worldwide with sick beats and woke rap. Ruby Ibarra, Klassy, and Rocky Rivera have been creating anthems of Filipina empowerment through their music, chronicling the multidimensional and ever-evolving psyche of the modern-day Pinay. Not only do they have the flow and the rhythm, they vocalize the stories of Filipino American women that have long been untold.

There’s a sense of calmness that settles over me in my existential dread about the state of my life as I listen to “Jeopardy,” the newest LP from Chicago-based psych-rock band Dogs At Large. While my personal life is pretty much in shambles and I’m overwrought with the pressure of meeting expectations for everyone, including myself, this album is a sweet soundscape that promises an emotional journey, featuring happiness, contentment, depression, anxiety, excitement, and placidity.

This is what rebirth sounds like, a cinematic revelation into the beauty of self, the elegance of proprium, the sexy grace of peace in the mind and soul. While this may have been the journey of acquiescence, she is no longer a castaway object to be violated and used by the rough hands of life. Rather, she has let go of the notions that she must be changed to fit within a stranger’s standard for subsistence.

In Solange’s Houston, daughters speak through the words of their mothers while Black cowboys gallop through downtown skyscrapers at high noon. DJ Screw hangs like summer heat; Scarface rises like fog. The voices of poets and activists climb in through the window. In Solange’s Houston, places become patterns, sounds spiral into themselves, and above all is her voice: repeating and repeating.

Music has been a consistent line of passion for Gray as a man finding a place in the world . As a child, Gray was heavily influenced by his father’s independence and love for the classic RnB of the ‘80s and ‘90s. At the age of eleven, Gray fell in love with music, specifically the sound emitted from the trumpet. As he grew, the music he created fell back in love with him—a voice that demanded others to listen.

D-Composed is revolutionary. Led by two Black women, the chamber music collective builds experiences that immerse audience members into a world of Black composers, Black musicians, and Black culture. In an industry where—once again, dead white guys dominate—D-Composed’s Founder and Experience Curator, Kori Coleman, and Artistic Director, Danielle Taylor, create space for Black voices to be heard.

The Chicago-based musician has spent much of her career drifting between the city’s various music scenes, floating through their cosmos and absorbing what she can before moving on. She describes herself as a wanderer. The effects of this wanderlust can be heard in her music: shapeless, genreless, somewhere in the gravity between jazz and post-punk and gospel and trip-hop. drea, though, uses simpler terms: “It’s like blue-purple. The sound Chicago usually makes is orangey-red, and I appreciate orangey-red, but that’s just not what I do.”