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 Areaand a professor of sociology at CSU-Long Beach. He's the creator of the audioblog and co-host of the album appreciation podcast, Heat Rocks.
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These songs take on some of the ugliest stories in our history and reflect the commitment of Black musicians to telling the truth of how Black people have been wronged, and survived, and fought back. -
Featuring Shannon Wise's mesmerizing wisp of a voice, The Shacks' debut album mixes R&B, dreamy indie-pop and '60s British rock in woozy sheets of reverb. -
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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In 1979, a pair of teenage brothers recorded an album on their family's farm in rural Washington. This week, Donnie and Joe Emerson's Dreamin' Wild has been reissued. -
In 1971, Motown founder Berry Gordy created MoWest, a California label that would last only two years before being dismantled. A new anthology documents this odd and little-known chapter in Motown's history. -
Salsa is most commonly linked to New York and Miami, but a neighborhood in northwest Chicago boasted a vibrant salsa scene in the 1970s. A new compilation explores this hidden era in the city's music history. -
Soul singer Lee Fields may be a rhythm-and-blues veteran, but don't call him a relic. Since the 1970s, the North Carolina native has amassed a prolific catalog of albums, and part of the secret to his success has been flexibility. To younger fans, Fields is retro-soul royalty. For his older fans, Fields has been a stalwart of Southern soul music.
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Listening to Theron Gafford and Darrell Buckner push their falsettos on the sweet soul ballad "I Was Made To Love Her," it feels almost too forced, too shrill. But that's the magic of the falsetto: The way it takes the human voice to unnatural limits is also what imbues it with its power.
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Inspired by The Jackson 5, the '70s and late '60s saw a panoply of very young R&B bands emerge across the country. Though many groups released but one single before fading into obscurity, a new compilation CD documents the best of "kiddie soul."
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Her creations invoke polyglot rhythms and revolutionary rhetoric from around the world. But singer, producer and rapper M.I.A. communicates them through agitated, propulsive dance music. Two years after her debut, her new album finds her more adventurous than ever.
