Along with Run DMC, the Beastie Boys were the first rap artists I ever listened to obsessively. I never thought of them as a trio of individual MCs; they always sounded to me like a group package so I can’t say MCA was “my favoriteR... more info

It may not be obvious but I’m a big Rufus Wainwright fan. Mostly. I add that qualifier only because after obsessively listening to his first three albums in the early ’00s, I more or less lost tabs on him for the remainder of the decad... more info

Dusty Springfield: Crumbs Off the Table Girls Can’t Do What Guys Can Do From See All Her Faces (Philips, 1972). Also on Dusty In London. I have an inexplicable habit of constantly under-regarding Dusty’s catalog…it’s as if... more info

(Editor’s note: Over the next few weeks, you’ll see some new voices joining us here at Soul Sides. Today is the debut of Dave Ma, who runs his own outstanding music blog, Nerdtorious, and he’s offering his take on the new 2-CD an... more info

RJ Smith’s The One This is written by a good friend of mine in L.A. who researched it for years. The reviews have been superlative and I’m very much looking forward to finally reading this myself after having heard about the ongoing ... more info

Whether it’s deliberate or not, this totally reminds me of something Dionne Farris or Adriana Evans might have recorded about 15 years ago. And therefore, I lurv it. more info

I don’t post enough new music on here, I know but I really dig this. Don’t sleep. more info

Exile feat. Blu: When Nothing’s Left From 4TRK Mind (Soulspazm, 2011) This Exile/Blu collabo has been in steady rotation for a minute and it got me thinking about how signature and powerful Otis Redding’s voice is. Obviously, Ye and J... more info

It’s been a minute since the last Sidebar podcast but I figured I could make things up to y’all by busting out an interview with Syl Johnson, the legendary R&B/funk musician/singer out of Chicago. Syl’s going to be playing in Los... more info

Etta James was a singer who I always enjoyed on the periphery…in other words, I never made a concerted effort to really get that deep into her catalog but I understand, on a very basic level, that this was a Very Important Artist and not jus... more info