Way to go-go: Grammy-winning, roof-shaking, innovating rapper WALE grew up in Northwest Washington, D.C., in the 1980s, in the heart of the go-go music scene. WALE says go-go “made me the man that I am today, and I will never let it go.” You can hear it in his platinum-selling records, like 2011’s Lotus Flower Bomb, on which WALE honors old-school style, but doesn’t hesitate to add something new to the hip-hop tradition. Thirteen years after his debut, his single “On Chill” is climbing the hip-hop charts.
Related stories
Page numbers
Landscape photographer Karen Duncan Pape turns her lens to the page in “De-Circulated,” an exhibition of reconstructed covers of banned books on display at McGuffey Art Center through January 28. “Growing up in Southwest Virginia, books were extremely important to me, as they exposed me to other worlds and broadened my perspective,” says Pape. “I […]
Black Fiddlers
Take a deep dive into the culture and legacy of African American violinists in director Eduardo Montes-Bradley’s Black Fiddlers. The 60-minute documentary shares the stories and sounds of Black men and women throughout American history, like the late old-time fiddler Joe Thompson (pictured) and 18th-century Richmond virtuoso Sy Gilliat, an enslaved man whose opera melodies […]
Maura Shawn Scanlin
Boston-based fiddler Maura Shawn Scanlin is putting her own inventive twist on traditional Celtic tunes. An award-winning musician, Scanlin incorporates classical chamber music and traditional sounds from the American South, along with Irish and Scottish fiddle playing into her fluid compositions. Scanlin is touring her new self-titled record with Conor Hearn on guitar, Adam Hendey […]
