Make family dinner great again! (Or at least tolerable until the tryptophan kicks in.) — Leaves are browning. Temperatures are dropping. Mariah is singing. Once again, you find yourself looking up the definition of “yuletide.” That can only mean one thing: the holiday season is once again upon us. …

The clandestine assassin. (94.5/100) — It would be accurate to describe GZA’s dizzying sophomore expedition as the most cerebral of the Wu-Tang Clan’s epic first generation run of solo albums. It would also be wholly insufficient, obscuring the pinpoint potency that makes it, more importantly, the most lethal. The other Clansmen to drop albums in…

Give life back to music: Sunday, December 10, 4PM EST! — 2023’s final Riff Album of the Month selection possessed me in pieces, like fragments of a fading fever dream. Despite featuring vocals on nearly all the tracks, upon cursory listen, it felt like an instrumental excursion. …

GOP campaign platforms translated into plain English — Politics can be a sticky wicket. It’s easy to get lost in the political jargon and lose track of what the myriad candidates are actually saying. When the motley crew of Republicans seeking the party’s 2024 presidential nomination take the stage for their next debate on November 8th, we’ll undoubtedly…

The end of Wenner’s reign of bigotry brings an opportunity for redemption — Congratulations to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 2023 class. This year’s inductees, set for enshrinement on November 3, are all highly deserving. And their induction means nothing. That’s because the Hall itself is meaningless. Beneath its stately veneer, the Cleveland-based popular music museum has been little more than…

Pressure makes diamonds. (85.5/100) — Stress has always gone hand-in-hand with artistic expression. It’s both catalyst for and a product of. In no milieu is the connection more immediate than in hip-hop. The block parties and park jams at which the culture took shape emerged as a free-wheeling escape from the oppressive pressures of inner…

Home, hierarchy, and the precariousness of personhood in Carl Franklin’s ‘Devil in a Blue Dress’ — When my grandfather died in 2012, our family mourned twice. So did his community. Newtown, a once idyllic section of Floyd, VA, was one of the first areas in the state in which Black residents owned homes and land en masse. My grandfather, and his father before him, were largely…

Initial thoughts on Martin Scorsese’s masterful coda — History; Whose Story? Serendipitously, my showing of Killers of the Flower Moon was preceded by a trailer for Alexander Payne’s upcoming film, The Holdovers. In it, Paul Giamatti’s character says something to the effect of “history doesn’t just recount the past, it explains the present.” The line couldn’t have been a better primer…

The dry heat of post-millennium pathos — I vividly remember the moment I fell in love with Amy Winehouse. My love blossomed in the space meant for two “t”s. “Our behavioural pa-erns that stick over the years,” Winehouse lilts to close the second verse of “What Is It About Men,” the gut-punching 9th track on her 2003…