Critic's Notebook

First-generation Cuban-American Yoli Mayor isn’t just a powerful singer. She represents Miami. Her family made the exodus from Cuba in 1980 on the Mariel Boatlift, an initiative launched by the Castro regime as a measure to deal with housing and job shortages on the island. They were among the 125,000 people who packed boat after boat to arrive on the shores of South Florida. Like so many others, Mayor’s family settled in Little Havana, worked hard, and created possibilities for their families.

A new rebirth of ska has begun. “Ska is on its 76th wave, and people are starting to connect with it again,” says Mick Rude, guitarist and vocalist for Spred the Dub. “Look at all the new Corona ads using Desmond Dekker to sell beer, the Specials on a Fidelity Investment commercial. It’s coming back around, and with every show there’s a few more people skankin’ than the last one.”

Nuclear Valdez, one of the heavyweight bands of the late ’80s and ’90s Miami rock scene, is back with a vinyl collection of unreleased demos.

If you were holding off on deciding whether to attend Rolling Loud, start looking for a scalper. Festival organizers announced today that tickets for the third edition of the hip-hop festival, taking place May 5 through 7 at Bayfront Park, have sold out. Perhaps organizers can thank the publicity they received after…

The Latin music industry is booming, and technology may be responsible for this trend. Currently, seven out of the top 20 music videos on the YouTube Billboard Chart are Spanish-language songs or feature a Latin artist. What does that mean? How about for the future of the industry? These are…

Following a tragic 2016, Surfer Blood’s John Paul Pitts is learning to chill out. For many people in the United States, 2016 was a shit year. For John Paul Pitts, frontman and vocalist of Surfer Blood, it was an especially rough 12 months. Last May, founding band member and guitarist…

Ondatrópica recently dropped its sophomore album and will stop by the Floyd to give Miamians a taste of what the duo is all about.

Usually, a fresh-on-the-scene, up-and-coming band has to wait a while for the dream gig. They play locally for a while, build a set full of decent songs, and maybe record them if they can find the funds to lock down studio space. And then, finally, they get to open for a marquee name.

Deez Bands, Johnny Pickles, and Yung Stew, AKA the Doolie Gang, drop off their new single ahead of their debut mixtape, Not The Life We Chose.

It’s that time of the year again. Those of us who suffer from vinyl fever will trek to IKEA for new shelving units to store the dozens of records we plan to lug home this Saturday, April 22. Record Store Day (RSD), a sacred holiday for vinyl enthusiasts, artists, and music fans, marks its tenth anniversary celebrating independently owned record stores.

Every year, Record Store Day invites vinyl fanatics, collectors, and even casual music fans to visit their local independent record store to shop for exclusive releases from acts across all genres and from all over the world. This year, if you can find them, you can nab limited releases by…

Lake Worth’s Everymen is a difficult band to pin down. Their sound is an amalgamation of attitudes and instruments that can best be described as “folk-punk” but that transcends both of those genres. It’s a sound they’ve tirelessly shared on tour with the rest of the nation, and even Europe, for years.

Miami’s Bribery Corporation, a record label and fashion house, takes a creative approach to resistance under Trump.

Fans of the new generation of Dade County rappers, who came up during the booming internet age of Miami’s underground hip-hop scene, have watched artists like N3ll grow up and discover their own claims to fame. But while other Carol City rhymers, like Denzel Curry and Yung Simmie, have gained…

Elastic Bond’s “Honey Bun” explores what it means to connect as humans in the digital age.

This morning, the Bayfront Park Management Trust voted in favor of allowing the third edition of Rolling Loud to move forward. The vote comes after a city commissioner balked at the hip-hop festival over claims it was too close to Ultra and that he hadn’t been properly informed…

Miami’s Bayfront Park Management Trust has called a special meeting for next Tuesday, April 11, at 9 a.m. to decide the fate of the Rolling Loud Festival, which is among the South’s highest-profile hip-hop events this spring.

When singer Rino Cerbone and drummer Andrew Koussevitzky named their rock band Stellar Revival in 2008, they had no idea how apt that name would be almost a decade later. “We were in different bands in Miami,” Cerbone says of their formation. “I was in Copacetic, and Andrew was in…

Some music producers are in the game for the fame. DJ Khaled, Mike Will Made It, Zaytoven, Metro Boomin, and DJ Mustard add a tag — a producer’s signature drop — to the first two to six seconds of their songs, leaving their mark on the track and announcing their…