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 soul-sides.com 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.
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The Los Angeles band's distinct sound includes touches of Rio de Janeiro's tropicalia, Lima's cumbia, and American soul and funk.
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Most of Fields' songs have been about love won, fought over and lost; it's a testament to his talent that each new one can feel like he's singing his heart out for the first time.
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Singer Dan Klein died of ALS earlier this summer, but at least his rocksteady band was able to see its collective vision through on this one sublime album.
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With a production team consisting of two seasoned retro-soul veterans, Nicole Wray's solo act shepherds '60s and '70s R&B styles into the present.
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The steel drum tradition is unfairly maligned. The mysterious Hamburg group takes Cat Stevens' pioneering electro jam and replaces synths with steel.
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#TBT to a 2001 track that surprised fans not with its title or message, but with the ferocity of Jay Dee's production.
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#TBT to a Bay Area garage studio in 1987 and an outsider boogie funk new wave disco fusion that was downright prescient.
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Daptone's "Screaming Eagle of Soul" returns with a restrained groove that could make even low-rider O.G.s go a little weak in the knees.
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After an eight year absence, the release of a new Mobb Deep album would be notable enough, but it's the bonus disc of previously unheard sessions for The Infamous that send this package over the top.