In 2012, I was contacted by a graduate student who was looking for stories about single fathers. I think she found me from an old blog I used to have. It’s so interesting to listen to this recording eight years later. Very little has changed with my relationship to my kids as well as my…
Read moreA Soul Food Musical
I have a new Broadway musical idea. I’m calling it, “Cornbread, Fish and Collard Greens – The Musical.” It will be a new smash hit show featuring the soulful sounds of Anthony Hamilton. I don’t know what the show will be about yet, but the music better sound like what we see in the video…
Read moreThree Tips On How To Get Paid What You Are Worth For Gigs
I often hear musicians talk about the amount of money certain gigs pay. People chat about the tip jar having to be passed around because club owners pay so little. They might get paid a few dollars here and there for the gig, but hey, at least they get a meal out of it. They…
Read moreSingle Fatherhood in New York City
Back in 2012, I completed an interview for a Columbia University graduate student of journalism named Acacia Squires. She found me through a post I made on a website about single parenthood and thought I would be a good person to talk with about my experiences being a single father in New York City. I…
Read moreHard Living In The Big Easy: Housing Costs Push Musicians Out Of New Orleans
“Jazz vocalist John Boutté feels he can no longer afford to live in his hometown of New Orleans. He’s not alone. Rising housing costs are pushing many musicians and service workers — the backbone of New Orleans’ tourism economy — further and further outside the city limits. This suburbanization of the working class poses more…
Read moreThe Foreign Exchange
I found this group while searching for new music this week. I often use platforms like Spotify to discover new sounds. I LOVE Spotify. I really do. It’s almost like going into a record store with hundreds of thousands of albums ready to be listened to at a moments notice. When we actually had record…
Read moreWhen can we leave our kids alone?
‘My Name Is Jamaal … I’m White’
Read the entire pice HERE: http://www.npr.org/2015/05/06/404432206/six-words-my-name-is-jamaal-im-white The question of someone’s name, particularly if it has ethnic overtones, can have real consequence. One study found that after responding to 1,300 classified ads, applicants with black-sounding names were 50 percent less likely to get a callback than white-sounding names with comparable resumes. But the opposite was at work in Allan’s…
Read moreHow Santería Seeped Into Latin Music
Santería ceremonies traditionally make use of hourglass-shaped batá drums. Eric Pancer/Flickr Creative Commons Note: This piece is better heard than read. For examples of the music and a drumming demonstration, listen at the audio link. If you wanted to put it in extremely simple terms, you could call Santería a mashup of mythology from west…
Read moreWith Downloads In Decline, Can iTunes Adapt?
Anyone who witnessed the transition from the older version of iTunes to the post-Steve Jobs version knows ITunes sucks. It is confusing, cumbersome and frustrating. I think I have purchased about 8 songs from iTunes in my life so my opionion is quite biased. I have way too much music on vinyl, CD and MP3s…
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