Austin, Texas' very own sister trio, Tiarra Girls, debuts their newest single “Can’t Stop The World,'' a cover song by none other than The Go-Go's. Working together as a band for a decade, these sisters have created their own brand of music, taking inspiration from Latin, pop, rock, blues, dance, mariachi — you name it. With gigs including the sought-out SXSW musical festival and Trans-Peco Festival, and now scoring a huge deal singing with Lucky Hound Music with producer Michael Ramos, this band is just...

Mickey Guyton is changing the country music world. On Wednesday, she became the first Black woman to ever perform solo at the Academy of Country Music Awards, which is in its 55th year. Guyton took this opportunity to sing her recently released song, "What Are You Gonna Tell Her?," live from the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.  The song questions the listener about what they will tell their daughters in the face of harassment, abuse, and oppression. In the chorus, Guyton sings, “Will you just shrug...

Danny Denial Fuck Danny Denial (Cruisin)  The first track on Fuck Danny Denial drops you off at “Mercer Summit Block Party/Brand New Skirt,” a place where the stars align and the singer realizes that “everyone I love on Earth is here”—basking in the momentary bliss of feeling like part of a community. That sentiment never lasts forever, of course, as the emerging Seattle artist’s third album also journeys through anxiety, isolation, imposter syndrome, and heartbreak, as seen through the lens of a queer Black Scorpio. “Totally Fucked Up”...

Crescendos cascading in your ears, shrills of keys playing, ensemble of drum beats and eerie vocals rack up in your brain. No, you’re not on acid and listening to your popcorn ceiling telling you that you need to go vegan: you’re listening to Real Clothes’s Precaution. A Black queer musician based in Brooklyn, New York, Nico Fox, also known as Real Clothes (and a Leo) delivers a hauntingly beautiful album in the midst of a world riddled with a global pandemic and surviving extreme police brutality...

Eboni Harrington, a teacher at Lucy Addison Middle School in Roanoke, VA, is winning after recreating Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s hit song “WAP” in a music video for her incoming class. In efforts to ease pandemic anxieties surrounding the school year, Harrington made the music video to get her students excited for some "work and progress" this fall. In an interview with Yahoo Life, Harrington says, “Teaching gives me purpose… I truly enjoy inspiring and encouraging our future leaders of tomorrow. Their ‘aha’ moments are always...

KATIE VON SCHLEICHERConsummation(Ba Da Bing) For her latest album, Von Schleicher was inspired by a viewing of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, where she saw a subtext of an abusive relationship lurking beneath the film’s dominant narrative. Following its source of inspiration, many of the album’s tracks evoke a cinematic sensibility with sweeping chamber pop sounds merged with intimate lyrics that excavate buried trauma. Across the album ’70s and ’60s retro sounds are merged with a modern-day twist and an electronic edge. Some of the songs are shape-shifters that start...

IN HER AUTOBIOGRAPHY The Baddest Bitch in the Room (out September 8), music industry veteran Sophia Chang describes how she first developed the careers of the Wu-Tang Clan and A Tribe Called Quest, before developing her own body and mind through the practice of kung fu. Here, she lets us in on the music she used to get into the write frame of mind.    “I’d Do It All Again” by Corinne Bailey Rae This is the song I listened to non-stop after I lost both my father...

THROWING MUSESSun Racket(Fire Records) Throwing Muses has returned with its 10th studio album, Sun Racket. Kristin Hersh’s vocals and songwriting have always been intense, and nearly 35 years after Throwing Muses’ debut, she and her band aren’t toning things down. From the opener, “Dark Blue,” the band tears into it with its signature melodic, distorted guitar squall. “Bo Diddley Bridge,” “St. Charles,” and “Frosting” rock with the same determination. Hersh’s introspective side is amply displayed on “Bywater,” “Sue’s,” and “Milk At McDonald’s” where she declares, “I don’t...

COREY FLOOD Hanging Garden(Fire Talk) The Philly indie-pop trio Corey Flood, led by Ivy Gray-Klein, tackles its fears with lo-fi ambivalence. The slightly askew “Heaven Or” takes on disassociation with the affirmation, “I know what I saw.” While the cacophonous “Slow Bleeder” uses Gray-Klein’s anemia as a metaphor for her fear of intimacy. (“Takes time/But I’ll be there.”) There’s a nervousness that permeates the band’s debut LP, which leads to new musical discoveries—the pulsing samba grooves; the fuzzy guitars on album closer “Poppies”—and emotional ones, too. As...

When Megan Thee Stallion was shot in the foot in Los Angeles about a month ago, both she and the authorities said little about what happened. However, in an Instagram Live session, she revealed that rapper Tory Lanez was in fact the person who shot her. She says, “Yes, this n**** Tory shot me. You shot me, and you got your publicist and your people to [talk to] to these blogs, lying and shit. Stop lying!” Representatives for Lanez have not responded to any requests for...