The past few decades have been quite kind to legendary music executive Steve Rifkind. Since the early days of working with his father Jules Rifkind at Spring Records, Steve has always had a special ear for the best urban music had to offer. Growing-up during...
“I’m feeling fantastic today,” says Inglewood, California native Tiffany Gouché as she prepares for her set at Los Angeles’ Lyric Theater during a sit-down withSoulTrain.com next door inside Voila! Gallery. And emotions should be overwhelmingly positive. It’s been only a day since Gouché released her debut EPFantasy in late July,...
Past midnight, 93-years-old jazz icon Clark Terry lays on a bed as he mumbles (no pun intended) his almost academic doodle tongue technique to twenty something-year-old pianist Justin Kauflin. Nasal cannula assisting with oxygen flow, the man who served as Miles Davis and Quincy Jones’...
Essentially creating a lane for successful hip-hop acts in Pittsburg, PA, Rostrum Records has cultivated the lucrative careers of Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller. Next up to bat is Boaz Bey, or simply Boaz. Describing himself as a “fly brother, all around hustler and extraordinary...
Akil, Zaakir, Marc 7, Chali 2na, DJ Nu-Mark and Cut Chemist are back. Seven years has passed since the release of Jurassic 5’s fourth and “final” album, Feedback,sans Cut Chemist. As this year marks the 20th Anniversary of the group’s first project, the Los Angeles-based collective...
2013 saw the untimely deaths of two very influential people in my life; my biological mother Mary Ann Holmes and legendary film critic Roger Ebert. Both losing their battle with cancer, similar fighting spirits and graceful acceptance of the end showed fearlessness in character. Those...
For a woman brought up in the church, St. Louis born and Chicago raised singer Aida didn’t take her Christian background seriously after traversing down south to Huntsville, Alabama around her sophomore year of high school. “I turned into the Tasmanian Devil because I didn’t...
There wasn’t a sound that represented black music and its crossover marketability more than 1960's Motown. Detroit’s crowned jewel of course gave birth to The Jacksons, Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross & The Supremes among others who went on to break various racial and commercial...
It’s pretty interesting how exactly Freddie Ross, a.k.a. Big Freedia, became the face of New Orleans-based bounce music. Beginning his career as a backup dancer and singer for then mentor Katey Red, the “Queen Diva” is now the star of Fuse TV’s biggest reality show, Big...
Prince, Bob Dylan, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, and Mint Condition all have one central city instrumental to their career beginnings: Minneapolis. “I think Minneapolis is one of the best cities to get started in,” says Blue Note Records jazz hybrid vocalist José James. Growing up...
