Fans longing for an Outkast reunion should imagine how Big Boi feels. The rapper has made no secret of his desire to see his pioneering Atlanta hip-hop duo end its indefinite hiatus, but his estranged collaborator André

 The McCrary Sisters come to gospel music through heredity as well as conviction. As daughters of a founding member of the seminal Fairfield Four, the quartet were reared in the ecstatic singing of the African-American church

 Congas, shakers, marimbas, udu drums, something called a karkabou, something else called a bendir—all populate the world music, Afrobeat and spacey postmodern grooves of Mop Mop. But any disc that even moderately features

 Bandleader Fela Kuti was a political activist in Nigeria, and his views were popular throughout Africa, but he would have found few hearers without his music. The two-disc Black President collection culls from some of his best

“I wanted to put a name on the forward thrust of what we're doing,” Paul Cebar says of his decision to change band names a few years ago. Except for the group he once shared with John Sieger, the R&B Cadets, he had performed under the handle of Paul Cebar...

...Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings will be performing at the Pabst on Saturday, May 22 at 8pm...

The Wherehouse, a 5,000-square-foot, beautifully renovated old cooperage with bars, dance floors and party rooms, and the adjacent Hot Water, are hot. Last week, the first of Scott Robbe’s summer music and party series called “Sound and Vision” was launched with FUNK, spotlighting Chicago’s...

At her saddest, the voice of Edith Piaf was sorrow itself, intimating that love is a state of unsatisfiable yearning and life is melancholy without end. When she was ebullient, however, Piaf was a bolt of electricity. She was France’s analog to Billie Holiday and like the American jazz singer, led a troubled life and died too young. One of 2007’s great films, La Vie en Rose, has been...

We last heard this conversation a couple years ago, when !!!-styled dance-punk was in vogue, but with the rise of worldly, tribal-leaning indie bands like Yeasayer and Gang Gang Dance, both of which come through Milwaukee in the next week, it's time once again to take a quick moment to recognize what an underrated band Pigbag was. Odious band name aside, this early '80s British group was an ano...