Oliver Wang
Oliver Wang is an culture writer, scholar, and DJ based in Los Angeles. He's the author of Legions of Boom: Filipino American Mobile DJ Crews of the San Francisco Bay Area and a professor of sociology at CSU-Long Beach. He's the creator of the audioblog and co-host of the album appreciation podcast, Heat Rocks.
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If To Pimp a Butterfly, Lamar's ornate jazz-funk experiment, played like billiard balls scattering after the break, then DAMN. wraps its focus inward: tight and layered, like a bundle of rubber bands. -
Frankie Reyes is a Los Angeles-based artist who remakes classic Mexican and other Spanish-language ballads and waltzes using a vintage synthesizer. His new album is called Boleros Valses y Mas. -
Betty Davis was already gaining attention as Betty Mabry in the late 1960s when she met Miles Davis. He produced legendary sessions for her that have never been released — until now. -
The 1972 concerts at The Apollo were recorded but, inexplicably, never released — until now. They show a side of Brown content to turn the show over to his collaborators. -
Maybe this is all part of some performance-art piece we've been unwittingly sucked into. But either way, it seems to be working. -
Kendrick Lamar's long-awaited new album dropped late Sunday night, nine days early. On it, the rapper wades into our current moment of peril around race, inequality and brutality. -
Ghostface Killah's new 36 Seasons is a concept album with a big cast. It stars his Tony Starks alter ego in dense action scenes. -
Steven Ellison has built an impressive reputation among critics and fans in the know for mixing hip hop, jazz and electronica into something original. But even for the aforementioned followers, the new album from Ellison — better-known as Flying Lotus — is a surprise. It's all about death, not as something to be mourned but as a journey to be anticipated.
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On an unlikely tribute album, singer Dionne Farris and guitarist Charlie Hunter tackle Warwick classics with revealing subtlety — and nods to the musicians' own origins in early-'90s rap. -
What began as little more than a glorified metronome has worked its way into bedroom studios and state-of-the-art recording facilities alike. A new book chronicles the history and influence of the drum machine in all its wood- and plastic-paneled glory.
