Three weeks ago, Long Beach rapper Vince Staples announced his debut full-length album, “Summertime ‘06,” via an Instagram post. The caption began with the phrase “Love will tear us apart” and ended with “Love tore us all apart,” framing a narrative of petty crimes the rapper and his comrades were involved in as middle schoolers during summer 2006. Read more...
Photo: (Def Jam Recordings)
The music industry died once and may be dying again, with the power shifting from music industry executives to the hands of artists. The emerging trend of artists dropping surprise albums without promotion is switching the attention from the music industry to the artists themselves. Read more...
Photo: Former Bruin Bash performer and rapper Tyga dropped his album “The Gold Album: 18th Dynasty” on June 23 without promotion. The release only sold 2,200 copies its first week. (Daily Bruin file photo)
First, Alex Ritchie’s mother lost her job. Then Ritchie and her family lost their house and health insurance. At the same time, she experienced her first heartbreak. Read more...
Photo: UCLA alumna Alex Ritchie will release her debut EP “Heart Weight” on Tuesday. Written, produced and recorded by Ritchie, the EP was inspired by the hardships she experienced such as heartbreak and getting conned out of $13,000 by a former work partner. (Keila Mayberry/Daily Bruin)
The start of summer is usually a signal for new albums to be released just in time for music festivals. Highly anticipated releases such as Frank Ocean’s long-awaited “Boys Don’t Cry” are set to drop in the sunny interlude between spring quarter finals and zero week of fall quarter, a time when many students take a break from studying to jam out. Read more...
Photo: (Universal, Odd Future, Interscope Records, Tumblr, 4AD)
Julia Ramos’ beatboxing career began when she was 13 years old. During a routine YouTube visit, Ramos stumbled upon a video of beatboxer Joel Turner from the 2003 season of “Australian Idol” and, having never heard beatboxing before, was intrigued by his unfamiliar sounds. Read more...
Photo: Graduating fourth-year Design | Media Arts student and Random Voices beatboxer Julia Ramos was featured on a “Pitch Perfect 2” CoverGirl commercial and placed in the top 16 twice in the American Beatbox Championship. (Lisa O’Brien/Daily Bruin)
Wearing a flowing red dress, India Carney performed Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song” onstage for NBC’s “The Voice” in front of dramatic projected backdrops of scenery ranging from shores to meadows. Read more...
Photo: India Carney, a fourth-year music performance student, made it to the eighth season’s semifinal of NBC’s reality singing competition “The Voice” until she was eliminated. The singer has a postgraduate job lined up at the A Cappella Academy but is still planning on pursuing her dreams of becoming a professional singer. (Owen Emerson/Daily Bruin)
A spruce top can do more than make classical guitars sound clearer and crisper. It can capture the essence of the musician by morphing its resonance to the style of the player. Read more...
Photo: Coming to UCLA, fifth-year music performance student Tung Vu had no music theory background, causing him to fall behind in his classical guitar studies and lose motivation. However, he said he purchased a custom-made guitar to revive his passion for music and went from wanting to drop out of school to graduating. (Max Himmelrich/Daily Bruin)
