Sam Ribakoff

The first thing you hear on Crimewave 5150’s debut album is the sound of an open hand slap across the face stopping someone from singing more than the first couple words of the Star Spangled Banner. Then the eerie detuned piano line comes in the mix, and before you know it, you’re off into the […]

As anyone with a knowledge our Orange County and Long Beach knows, this region was once the epicenter of ska music, the precursor to Jamaican reggae music, or at least a Southern California, suburban, version of it in the country in the 1990s. Bands like Reel Big Fish from Huntington Beach, No Doubt from Anaheim, […]

Hip-hop producer Ahwlee’s music is the sonic personification of that unique Long Beach feeling of strolling through your neighborhood with headphones on, the sun on your shoulders and a cool breeze hitting your back. His sound was born from the coastal side of city where beach culture meets and urban, downtown vibe, an ideal breeding […]

The picture attached to one of Ugly God’s most popular songs on Soundcloud is a tranquil scene of a large, pristine, white mansion with a relaxing tangerine colored stucco roof, surrounded by palm trees, and a deep ocean blue sky. It could be a photograph taken on film, archived and found after the color is […]

If you are what old people insist we call people 35 years old and younger, a millennial [shudders], then you likely can remember the reign of B.o.B. [pronounced Bob, for the uninitiated]. From 2010’s “Nothin on You,” to, arguably, his guest verse on Ty Dolla Sign’s “Paranoid” in 2013, B.o.B. was a ubiquitous presence on […]

It’s going to be a big summer for music in Long Beach. Two music festivals, Summer and Music, which unfolds over multiple events in the city throughout the summer starting on June 25th and going until September, and the recently announced Music Tastes Good Festival starting in late September, offer up an impressive list of […]

Graham Lovelis is a man who loves his city. “I was talking to Jay Buchanan, the lead singer of Rivals Sons,” Lovelis says during a recent phone conversation. “He just moved out to Nashville recently, and I could hear it in his voice that he had this deep longing for Long Beach after seeing the […]

Vijay Iyer is what your mom wishes you could be; a MacArthur ‘genius’ Fellowship grant awardee for his work as a pianist, composer, bandleader, and electronic musician. He’s a writer of considerable quality, whether he’s writing a review of a Flying Lotus album or the music of jazz saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, he’s also a professor […]

Tha Dogg Pound and Mobb Deep The Observatory 3/24/2016 Hip-hop, like rock music, and doo wop before that, is entering into a “Classics” or “Golden Oldies” phase. Kids who grew up listening to hip hop in what’s often considered “the golden age” of hip-hop in the late ’80s and early ’90s, are now grown ass […]

Though he’ll always be Snoop Dogg to the rest of the world, Duke Givens sometimes still calls the rapper Cordozar, the original alias of Long Beach’s favorite son, Calvin Broadus. Givens reminisces while pointing to a picture of Snoop as a young kid in a Poly High School football uniform. “Between me and him I […]

Snapback LBC is the kind of club night where everybody knows your jam. From Snoop Dogg’s “Ain’t No Fun” to Roxanne Shante’s “Go On Girl” to Jay Z’s “Big Pimpin”, you can be sure that the attendees at Snapback LBC can recite every line word for word. Every Friday night below the Federal Bar in […]

Young Thug The Observatory Jan. 7, 2015 As good as Young Thug was last night at The Observatory, his crowd was even better. To the right of me, a  wealthy-looking, middle-aged, white man was freak dancing with a Persian girl at least 30 years his junior. Behind me, a group of African-American dudes would periodically […]