Australian soul singer Allysha Joy shares the inspirations behind her latest album, The Making of Silk, before her performance at the BRIC Jazz Festival in Brooklyn.

Listen here to an exclusive DJ mix by Rob Luis

Record label Tru Thoughts was formed in 1999 in Brighton, on the south coast of England, by Robert Luis and Paul Jonas. 

The minds behind BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn!, Saidah Blount and Viviana Benitez, give us a glimpse into their creative vision and the thoughtful curation process that brings the festival to life.

Patta's co-founder Edson Sabajo talks hip-hop with Danny Veekens.

Hip-Hop’s Influence on Creative Culture Across Europe

Wax Poetics partnered with Brooklyn Brewery for two nights of events. One a live discussion with producer Easy Mo Bee at the brewery, the other a concert at BRIC with MIKE and Masta Ace.

Ten albums that shaped him as a producer.

Contributor John Kruth presents a chapter of his book Lunacy: The Curious Phenomenon of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, 50 Years On about electronic bands before Pink Floyd.

Gilles Peterson keeps on building projects that reflect the musical landscape he'd prefer to see. And the world is a better place when he does.

An essay exploring the relationship between the album art and the shifting identity of a country.

McIntosh discusses the early days of the group, the British R&B invasion, and his legacy.

The Zamrock band gets a second life through reissues and its new album Zango.

El Michels Affair channels the Wu-Tang Clan’s ruckus

Blue-eyed-soul brother Bobby Caldwell took over the pop and R&B airways with his massive hit “What You Won’t Do for Love” in the late ’70s. With a smooth, soulful...

An industry town with an historic record-store culture bred a major beat scene.

Winston Hazel and Richard Barratt pioneered Sheffield’s DIY dance scene.

Island Records owner Chris Blackwell offered American Danny Holloway the job opportunity of a lifetime, helping to introduce reggae and Bob Marley to the States.

The conflicted journey and spiritual trials of Marvin Gaye.

The Mackrosoft’s Aja West and Cheeba impart synth science.

Abdullah Ibrahim and the Zen of African piano

In 1983, veteran journalist Carol Cooper was unable to score an interview with Prince. So she imagined one...

Brazilian singer-songwriter Sessa shares ten influential albums.

Producer Creed Taylor cast strong jazz talent for his personal masterpieces.

Italian DJ Beppe Loda picks records that influenced his Afro sound sets.

Average White Band left working-class, soul-friendly Scotland to pursue R&B domination in rock-crazed London. 

Record Rundown: Björn Wagner of Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band

Makaya McCraven and Joe Armon-Jones’s intimate London gig.

Raised on original rock-and-rollers Chuck Berry and Little Richard, the Beatles and Wings legend Paul McCartney gave everything he had back to the genre that made him.

Mexico City’s tropical scene sets a path to the future through classic mambo, danzón, and cumbia.

Hip-hop feminist Joan Morgan on hip-hop’s misogyny.

Writer Andrew Scott talks with Phil Upchurch, Cornell Dupree, and producer Arif Mardin to help demythologize Donny Hathaway’s 1974 live masterpiece.

Hip-hop is the perfect art form for cover versions,” says producer/keyboardist Soul Supreme.

Rhettmatic doesn’t do much press, but what he lacks in publicity, the Beat Junkie and Visionaries producer/DJ more than makes up for with a fervent devotion to turntablist/vinyl culture.

Vincent Montana Jr., the Italian Stallion on the vibes, is a true Philly heavyweight.

John Morales set his sights on learning how to re-edit songs by slicing and splicing tape on his reel-to-reel, graduating to extended medley mixes.

Detroit hip-hop icon Waajeed runs down his list of influential albums.

“There was no specific intention that we were going for. The songs evolved and took on their own personas.”

“I made my money off of crooked people in this business, made my money off of thieves,” says the one and only Syl Johnson. 

The unsung rhythmic soul behind Miles’s improvisational funk.

Moscow’s Diasonics choose nine tracks that have influenced their cinematic, psychedelic sound.

Here’s a selection of seven that don’t clash—just a few of the many songs inspired by the life, work, and words of Marcus Garvey. 

Merging expressions of diaspora provoke young artists to return to their roots to find clarity of artistic expression in today’s London.

South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba’s Exile Years.

Chris Blackwell, one of the creative world’s best-known entrepreneurs, founded Island Records in Jamaica in 1959.

Let us argue about jazz fusion!

Nightmares On Wax has produced numerous sample-based instrumental classics.

Billy Cox gigged with Jimi Hendrix in the Army, worked the chitlin circuit in the South, played bass as an R&B session man in Nashville, and backed countless stars on television.

Singers Izora Rhodes Armstead and Martha Wash, dubbed Two Tons o’ Fun, branched out from Sylvester and recorded their own albums, starting with 1980’s eponymous debut on Fantasy.

Vibraphonist Joel Ross makes music to serve a higher purpose.

Philly native Todd Rundgren came up in the city’s rich R&B scene but first made an impression on popular music with his garage rock band Nazz. 

Composer, arranger, and producer Thom Bell has quietly made his mark on the sound of popular music for the last half century.

Ryo Kawasaki reflects about his life of music, from jazz fusion to worldly vibes to ’80s electronic dance.

Aphex Twin and Squarepusher ushered in a new direction of U.K. dance music.

Ned Doheny befriended Jackson Browne, the two hanging out and writing songs in Laurel Canyon with David Geffen and the L.A. folk scene. After an album on Geffen’s Asylum Records...

As a disciple of kung fu flicks and hip-hop, the RZA began his journey as a teenage rapper learning the ropes. Over time, he has followed a sacred path of music, spirituality, and philosophy.

Where’s João Donato? It’s a frequently asked question, referring simultaneously to the physical location and the musical moment he inhabits. 

Equipped with determination, a Fender Rhodes, and a mental-health message of personal reflection, self-taught East London composer Alfa Mist creates profound space jazz.

Beat conductor and Dallas native Norvis Jr. exploded onto the global electro scene in 2013.

Kokoroko’s unique sound and take on Afrobeat expanded naturally by embedding an even wider array of sounds and ideas in their music.

With his revolutionary variety show Soul!, Ellis Haizlip unapologetically put down a marker that said, “This is the Black Experience.”

U-Roy was known as the Originator because he transformed the deejay, making incidental figures attached to sound systems into actual stars.

An interview with writer Heather Augustyn.

Randy Muller kicked off a trend in disco arrangements that would sweep the globe and help make New York City the epicenter of dance music.

Sly and the Family Stone cofounding guitarist Freddie Stone talks about the making of one of their biggest albums ever, Stand! 

Beginning 1971, Stevie Wonder utilized the synth wizardry of Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff to create three of his most iconic albums. 

Producer Joseph Patel breaks down the unique challenges he faced giving life to Questlove’s vision of Summer of Soul.

Wax Poetics founder Andre Torres sits down with the singer-songwriter Eugene McDaniels, whose revolutionary melding of jazz and soul got the attention of the FBI. 

The U.K. jazz-funk movement, often misunderstood and underestimated, was hugely influential and continues to echo in today’s sounds.

It was 1960’s Giant Steps that thoroughly and inexorably changed the saxophonist’s game going forward. 

Syd tha Kyd and Matt Martians have emerged from production, engineering, and DJing roles within the Odd Future crew to claim their own stake in the movement of Black musical expression. 

A tale of two pandemics and a therapist whose unique approach to the unwell and to music-making gives us an undiscovered and heartening tale. 

The U.K. jazz-funk movement, often misunderstood, was hugely influential and continues to echo in today’s sounds. Part 2 of our story...

From sneaking listens to off-limits records in his older brother's room to eventually ruling the dance floor himself, a North London dancer looks back at the U.K. jazz-funk scene.

Lani Hall soared to great heights as the lead singer for Brasil ’66 and as a musical muse for bandleader Sergio Mendes.

In the late 1970s through mid-’80s, a Japanese DIY scene flush with post-punk attitude and electronic ambience offered a darker vision of the country’s boom years.

Producer Kip Hanrahan pulls an all-star cast of jazz and blues musicians together to bring novelist/poet Ishmael Reed’s words to life.

Through live jam sessions and studio recontextualization, drummer and producer Makaya McCraven cultivates a conduit between the jazz roots of improv and the expansive branches of modern music.

Look Around the Corner, the newest project from Alice Russell and multi-instrumentalist producer Will “Quantic” Holland, is an effort that exudes comfort.

It was 1987, and a nervous teenager, palms sweaty, made his way to the grimy old Times Square, hoping to score.  

The first of a four-part interview that gets to the heart of the talent and charm of the late, lamented Gregory Jacobs, aka Shock G.

The third of a four-part interview that gets to the heart of the talent and charm of the late, lamented Gregory Jacobs, aka Shock G.

Ramsey Lewis always operated in the popular realm, successfully crossing over from jazz to the pop-R&B world but always doing it with soul.

Guitarist Junior Marvin had a choice: join the Wailers or Stevie Wonder...

Amongst the hundreds of artists who recorded at Stax Studios in the 1960s, Linda Lyndell was a minor figure. But her song “What a Man” has had a surprising longevity...

At just eighteen years of age, Prince self-produced his debut album, 1978’s For You, writing all the music and playing every instrument himself.

Pete Rock keeps active nowadays by doing what he perfected as a teenager: putting sounds into his sampler and banging out beats.

Sharon Jones is the real deal. She’s an atomic bomb of funk that may come in a small package, but when it’s unleashed, no one is left standing. They’d rather dance.

In 1970s New York, photography student Chris Stein found his muse in singer Deborah Harry. Together they formed Blondie, merging cutting edge downtown visual style with a pop sensibilty.

Tenor sax player and arranger Gene Barge left his job teaching social studies, music, and English in Virginia, to work at Chicago’s famed Chess Records in 1964.

Jazz drummer and hip-hop producer Karriem Riggins recently moved from L.A. back to his hometown Detroit, the city where his heart beats.

What’s the future of dance music? Godfathers of the new EDM movement Daft Punk have proposed an answer in the form of a question.

Isaac Hayes, William Bell, Al Bell, Bettye Berger, Deanie Parker, and Calvin Newborn share stories of Memphis during Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. 

Yusef Lateef discusses his colorful musical experiences that influenced his sonic persona and the influential producer Joel Dorn adds his unique perspective.

Back in the good old days of 1977 when gas lines were long and unemployment was high, there were two schools of DJs competing for Black and Latino audiences in New York City....

Ask music lovers what Detroit means to them, and you’ll probably hear mention of Berry Gordy or Norman Whitfield, perhaps George Clinton. That said, techno's roots can't be ignored.

The true story of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

I’d finally done it. Somehow I managed to scrape together the loot, eighty-some bucks to buy the Ornette Coleman box set Beauty Is a Rare Thing and was on my way home...

It was an overlooked song by one of the more underrated rappers of his generation, and it was a masterpiece.

Meeting Tom Moulton is a bit like meeting Henry Ford. Whether you know it or not, if you’ve driven a car, you owe something to Ford. And if you’ve danced in a club....

Slick Rick set the standard in rap’s glory years

DJ Shadow discusses transformations in record-buying culture, how his interest in 45s began, his first digging experience, and pinpoints the record that “changed his life.” 

David Holmes grew up as the youngest of ten in Belfast, Northern Ireland. With so many older siblings, he was surrounded by music from a very early age. 

It starts with a check for $3.19. Without that check, there is no Motown. Without Motown, there is no Smokey Robinson. Without them, say good-bye to Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin....

After a rather combative interview with Teddy Pendergrass for Wax Poetics 33, I was often asked, “What was up with Teddy that day?” 

Tim Maia was never satisfied. Brazil’s number one soul brother had a voracious appetite for both carnal and philosophical indulgences.

Gamble and Huff were master chefs in the Philly soul kitchen.

After I interviewed DJ Rhettmatic for the Record Rundown in Wax Poetics Issue 22, he mentioned being clowned by fellow World Famous Beat Junkie J.Rocc for exceeding the normal...

When greats like Pete Rock and DJ Premier acknowledge people of influence, they often mention Large Professor.

It’s hard to imagine an era when an industry giant like Capitol Records would have to choose between signing Brief Encounter or Maze. 

It could be argued that the real architect of Chicago house music was in fact a wild and pioneering DJ by the name of Ron Hardy.

“As some folks say, I helped create the disco music, the house music, and a lot of other different things,” says Bohannon.

There are a few things to know about Erykah Badu. First, she lives on a different plane. One that only true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool artists inhabit. 

It was winter of 1994, and I had just scored a sweet assignment to interview the king of “champagne soul,” Barry White, in Europe. 

Ishmael Butler effortlessly made his mark on hip-hop in 1993 with his unique voice and delivery, and then flipped the script with Shabazz Palaces.

When Nasir Jones released his 1994 debut Illmatic, his use of several superstar producers on the same album set a hip-hop precendent that forever changed the game.

On a sunny October morning in 2015, a historic marker was placed in front of Sigma Sound Studios, the Philadelphia landmark recording hot spot.

Growing up with a roller-disco mom and drummer dad, Kon has been chasing the perfect beat his entire life.

Getting his first shot with Marley Marl’s Juice Crew—and the posse cut “The Symphony”—Kool G Rap was a real hip-hop OG.

The Roots first hit the national spotlight as a live hip-hop act with their 1993 indie debut, Organix...

“Rain is wet, and sugar is sweet…” a voice calls, to the delight of the crowd. These are the words of Ingrid Chavez, in her guise as the Spirit Child....