Music

As America burns and the revolution-within-a-pandemic rages on, many entertainers have spoke out about their  support for social justice reform. Run the Jewels dropped its fourth album early, with critics heralding it as the “soundtrack of the George Floyd protests.” Doja Cat donated $100,000 to the Breonna Taylor fund to…

Big Sammy found her voice through rap music. Now, the 20-year-old is organizing protests to help others find theirs. Also known as Sammy Cooper, the artist has lived in Arlington most of her life. She was practically a toddler when she began singing, she says, but took a break for…

During quarantine, many people have tons more time on their hands to turn inward. To help combat coronavirus-induced anxiety, some are picking up meditation, learning yoga or spicing up their reading with self-help books. Dallas songwriter Ward Richmond’s way ahead of the self-improvement curve. The former partyer-turned-yogi broaches personal growth…

Music venues have not been spared by the recent curfews enacted around North Texas in response to recent protests against police brutality. Finally beginning to recover from the COVID-19 closures, the curfews are a second financial blow. Opening Bell Coffee Shop sits right across the street from Dallas police headquarters…

The music industry came together on Tuesday to support the Black Lives Matter movement. There were, of course, critics. The Rolling Stones, Rhianna, Drake, Quincy Jones and other artists joined organizations like United Talent and major labels including Warner and Def Jam Records in sharing the hashtag #theshowmustbepaused, a call to…

2020 went from being a year of clamor stemming from COVID-19 to being a year of clamor stemming from social unrest. Social unrest, of course, has been a constant in American history since before America’s founding. In that spirit, we thought it would be opportune to reflect on 10 protest…

Punk and metal are commonly perceived as two separate genres, but between the two is an important nexus that remains largely overlooked. For as long as metal and punk have existed, they have built on each other, opening new worlds with new possibilities that are still being explored to this…

While most bands are struggling to stay afloat amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Dallas’ Big Story is finding success at SiriusXM satellite radio. The band’s new single, “Rabbit,” released in March, has been receiving regular airplay on Octane SiriusXM radio, boosting the four-piece project into the national air waves. Singer Randall…

The history of racism in America may be vastly complex, but the crux of it is so simple that it evades a lot of adults. Kids, however, always know how to simplify the straightforward truths lying at the bottom of prejudice. “Please respect all races because this racism is not…

Heavy metal has gone through two unequivocal golden ages — in the 1980s and once again in the 2000s — and some of the most cutting-edge artists contributing to the genre’s expansion in each era were based in North Texas. DFW has rightfully earned its reputation as a metal breeding ground, and…

Denton’s Carley Bearden is keeping her head up. She knows she can always be vulnerable with her fans, whom she considers family, and she and her fans have been checking in with each other and lifting each other’s spirits through the COVID-19 crisis. Bearden started playing guitar at age 12, although she…

Let us backtrack a few years so that you, along with everyone else who has followed the saga of the Vaughan Brothers statue, can properly panic and then calm down. It all started when locals came to realize that despite the fact that guitar legends Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan were…

Dallas’ Spanish-singing synth-punk band seres (“beings” en Español, and intentionally lowercase) hasn’t always been so angular, robotic and extraterrestrial. The times are just right for it. “When I was living in North Carolina, it was more of a blues-rock sound,” vocalist and synth player Alfonso Callejas says of the band’s…

Virgin Hotels Dallas helped ring in 2020 with its Avant Eden New Year’s Eve party. In The Pool Club, the hotel’s fourth-floor rooftop bar and pool deck, people sipped cocktails and listened to a set by DJ Sam Blacky. It was a wildly successful night, said Tim Denker, vice president…

The storm had only begun to gather when South by Southwest made the painful but necessary decision to cancel the entirety of its 2020 conference, sending shockwaves through the creative community in Texas and around the world. As everyone processed the enormity of such an unprecedented step, Fort Worth singer-songwriter…

When the pandemic silenced the sounds of nightlife, local musicians found resourceful ways to get by, like online busking — performing to internet traffic for virtual tips — and giving remote music lessons. Some started playing curbside delivery concerts in front of homes on residential streets. In the last month, Texas…

Dallas pop-folk musician Ryan Berg woke up one morning in this new world we call “Dallas-under-COVID” and saw that one of his favorite songs was playing, a tune called “Best Part” by pop dynamo Daniel Caesar and H.E.R. As Berg stood, donning his quarantine bandanna — which acts as a functional face…