Features & Essays

When Misogyny Masquerades as Entertainment: Looking at Today’s Rap & Hip Hop

March 7, 2019 by

What has made it so normalized for rappers, who lead today’s most popular musical genre, to generalize and sexualize women as much as they desire?
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Is Ariana Grande Helping or Hurting the Queer Community?

March 7, 2019 by

Grande and all other straight artists can certainly be allies, but they cannot claim to support their queer following while using same-sex attraction as a music video prop.
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Black Girls Like Guitars Too

February 27, 2019 by

Music belongs to everyone, not only in parts deemed to be fit for certain groups.
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A Word With Careless Cub on ‘Flophouse Palace’

February 7, 2019 by

The release of Flophouse Palace stands out not merely for its musical elements but also for the production and sound quality of the tracks.
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‘Dissect’ Is the Music Podcast We All Needed

January 17, 2019 by

Artsweek interviewed the host of the Spotify Original Podcast, Cole Cuchna, on passion projects, white discourse around black music and his own creative process when writing episodes for the show.
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Artist to Watch: Ravyn Lenae

November 28, 2018 by

The ascension into stardom coupled with the bold outline of her name on a festival lineup is on the horizon in 2019 for the powerhouse that is Ravyn Lenae.
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Dewey Bryan Saunders’ Surreal World of Album Cover Art

April 26, 2018 by

Dewey Bryan Saunders is one of today’s most innovative and established graphic designers who often operates within the niche realm that is album cover art.
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Julia Feldman Wants to Make a Mark

April 18, 2018 by

Through her pursuits of music, feminism and environmentalism, Feldman is trying to save the world.
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SB in Sound: Radio Stations to Look Out For

February 7, 2018 by

If the struggle to rediscover decent radio stations sounds familiar, this article will put you in good hands. Below, you’ll find a short guide to the hottest FM radio sounds broadcasting near UCSB.
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Meet SALES: The Minimalist Pop Duo That Crafts Bedroom Beats

November 29, 2017 by

SALES creates an amalgamation of indie, dream pop, hip hop and rock to produce something that is otherworldly to the ear. Their hip hop-influenced production backs electric guitar to create a sound th...
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The Biko House: Punks, Progressives and Politics

November 9, 2017 by and

Time and time again, the Biko House has opened the doors of its black and brown empire for the community to discuss important racial events in the United States.
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When Icons, Stars and Idols Go

October 12, 2017 by

Perhaps the most comforting thing of all is this thought: An artist never truly dies, as long as there are people who are enabling their art to live on.
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Aoki, Electronica and the Live I.V. Music Scene

August 24, 2017 by and

When Aoki was merely 19, he was throwing roughly 20 shows a month out of his living room, recording tapes of every single one.
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WebsterX and Milwaukee’s Hip Hop Renaissance

June 8, 2017 by and

Injury Reserve and WebsterX share a dynamic of creating spaces to craft seamlessly gravitative rap songs that are entirely divergent from their contemporaries. They are the embodiments of unapologetic...
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Cancer, Grief and Video Games

March 15, 2017 by

Between the two screens sit a box of tissues and a picture frame of Green holding Joel: his son, the video game’s star and a 4-year-old diagnosed with brain cancer.
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