Soul Sonix Studios (say that three times fast) sits in the rear of an extended shotgun in the Gert Town area of the city. An annex just past the kitchen follows a long hallway of white walls and hardwood flooring where you discover a quiet, yet buzzing room of sounds…

New Orleans native Jasmine “Demplz” Olivier wears many hats: rapper, singer-songwriter, sewer of Black Masking Indian suits, and mother. She grew up between the city’s 7th and 8th Ward neighborhoods, in addition to stints in both California and Dallas, before firmly re-planting her feet on Crescent City soil. Like several…

Playing in the high school marching band has been a natural stepping stone for many New Orleans musicians. In addition to learning the fundamentals of an instrument, the preparation and performances during weekly football games, combined with the cacophony of sounds and bright lights of Mardi Gras parades, create the…

Austin Levy (A. Levy) is a modern day Jack Of All Trades: touring hip-hop emcee, event curator, audio engineer, recording studio owner, and all around go-getter. …

As the saying goes, no two journeys are the same. Everyone has a story to tell, with its fair share of peaks and valleys along the way. In this day and age, some would argue it’s never been easier to pursue a career as a creative. With the freedom to…

A little over a year ago, New Orleans-based musician Joshua Starkman decided to position his iPhone a couple of feet away, pick up his guitar, and through a squinty-eyed stare, utter the phrase, “Have a great day” into the camera lens after playing a couple of chords. 200+ videos and…

On a muggy Saturday morning in September, before temperatures reached 95º, a line of customers stretched from the entryway of Humidity Skate Shop more than halfway down Dumaine Street to the next corner. …

Just about everyone has a moment when they fell in love with Hip-Hop: this poignant instance that you can’t help but recall in vivid detail years later like it was yesterday. You laugh or get excited just thinking about it. It’s a hypnotizing, aural-based epiphany — a sensory overload where…

Across the country, May 5 is circled on many calendars and noted as a national holiday in the U.S., despite Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric. Cinco de Mayo highlights the defeat of French military forces at the city of Puebla de Los Angeles in 1862. In the 1960s, activists used the annual…