Top Stories
Stories in Beat that you’ll love, handpicked by our team.
Talking Drums to 21st-Century Parties: The History Behind Owanbe
Parties Colorful, loud, and joyous. His music and the irreplaceably catchy slang made the term Owanbe a national one, being used to describe any large gathering, from weddings to birthdays to corporate events and literally everything in between. Over time, it evolved from being a specific reference to waist beads to a term that covered a whole party vibe, one teeming with life, color, and, of course, music.
By Rohitha Lanka11 months ago in Beat
Roberta Flack 1937 - 2025
✨ Roberta Flack (February 10, 1937 – February 24, 2024) ✨ I remember the first time I heard Roberta Flack’s voice—or at least, the first time I truly noticed it. I was a 13-year-old boy in 1973, just at the beginning of my lifelong obsession with music. I played my little pocket-sized transistor radio day and night.
By Rick Henry Christopher 11 months ago in Beat
Playlist: Singing in the new
Pit Pony – Cut Open One of the most exciting releases scheduled for early 2025 is Pit Pony’s second album, Dead Stars, is set to be one of the most exciting releases scheduled for early 2025. Their debut, World to Me, emerged from the wreckage of lockdown back in 2022 with a noisy blast of indie rock. But the new stuff shows signs of greater breadth.
By Andy Potts11 months ago in Beat
Lady Blackbird in Concert
Going to see Lady Blackbird I realised that, maybe, I don’t have the vocabulary to describe music. I understand genre, tone and the way a bass note can hit in the chest, or a sustained high note takes you floating. But music, it seems, is a language of its own that gets lost in translation. Something gets misshapen when words do their clunky business.
By Rachel Robbins11 months ago in Beat
Review of David Browne's "Talkin' Greenwich Village"
If ever there was a time-travel ticket to a past and a place that you knew so well you could still see the sun glinting through the tree leaves, hear the din of the eateries as you walked by, and, most important, still hear the music that actually defied any given time or place, it would be David Browne's book, Talkin' Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America's Bohemian Music Capital. That's because Browne has a way of writing, an eye for detail, a penchant for commentary, that draws you in to fill the background you in one way or another actually experienced, or, what Marshall McLuhan called "cool".
By Paul Levinson12 months ago in Beat
Ethel Cain's New Album 'Perverts' is Cinematic, Skin Crawling Excellence
When I first wrote about Ethel Cain in July 2023, her debut album Preacher's Daughter was reaching its crest of viral fame, garnering millions upon millions of streams on Spotify and, in turn, a newly expanded fan base that seemed to be slowly turning her dark, twisty, pioneering concept album into meme fodder.
By Erin Latham Sheaabout a year ago in Beat
Standing up . Runner-Up in The Soundtrack of Your Year Challenge.
Lemonade never tasted so good- photo by M. Dion The hotel lobby is busy. I slip through the bustling throng of guests to the bar. Raising my voice above the din, I ask my friend Pam for a simple lemonade. I've dreamt of this moment all year. I quickly add one additional request and hand her a glass I produce from my bag.
By Meagan Dionabout a year ago in Beat
Song for a New Year
A BRIEF POINT OF NOTE: I must say from the outset of this that the following is NOT an entry to either the "Soundtrack of the Year" challenge, nor the brand new "New Year, New Projects" challenge! I most unfortunately have not had time to work up a submission for the former, and have only just moments ago learned about the latter. I certainly intend to write something for the new challenge, which I find SO cool - perhaps even pertaining to the subject of this piece!
By Gabriel Huizengaabout a year ago in Beat
Sounds of the Cottage. Runner-Up in The Soundtrack of Your Year Challenge.
The evening that my best friend Julia texted, I was having a glass of wine with my husband. The dogs were sprawled all over us like live rugs, the windows and sliding door were open to let in the spring breeze and we were having one of those ‘intellectual masturbation’ sessions where you randomly discuss nothing and everything about life, including its meaning.
By Marlena Guzowskiabout a year ago in Beat
The Splashback
A Sandwich Short of a Picnic My ears ring. Alarm in perpetuity. The hammer and pluck of too many questions. A fighting chime of chords made from clashing notes of doom and discombobulation. They flow along staves of shady tidal waves, scouring open wounds with salt as they bite down to chew on the rot of my grey matter. Above and below, the moon swims limp and flat, leached of purpose and offering no destination. I howl into its mirror as my gilt- edged tears slosh down my cheeks in rivers of orange. Ironclad life rusting out of me in heavy metal groans—a tinman of brittle bones and weight. My mouth is dumb, filled with a pink marshmallow tongue that has spent too long licking saccharine walls, ceilings, and floors. Searching for doors. My teeth have melted in the constancy of the candyfloss storm clouds that spin, unending, in my lipstick-stained walk of shame sky. Once, I was one note in the dark beating a solitary and expectant rhythm—an incubated womb dweller dreaming of life—reverberating with diastolic and systolic ebb and flow. Harmony, my primal beat, my yin and yang. Then, the orchestra of joy and fear began. As the conductor tapped the baton, I screamed. Will humanity ever fill its void? The auditorium has grown so big, globalised and homogenised. It hums with white noise and hankers for syncopated beats. I cannot find my feet. The light fantastic has tripped out, and I keep falling over in the dark. It has a lot to do with this beige straight jacket of civility. It isn't me. I may drown in the sweat that pours as I try to wriggle free. It's either that, or I will throttle myself trying. Choke holds where blood should flow. Pedal to the metal. A hyperventilated state. Hope has anarchised into a four-letter word. I have tattooed it on my head because no matter how much I pack it with ice into my heart, it thaws its way out of me. A dose of salts seeping from my pores, leaking from my eyes, crusting on my lips. Bittersweet and antiseptic. My heartstrings are soggy. They play loopy tunes that nobody can sing along to, and my picnics are always one sandwich short. I used to know how to make a meal of it. One day, I will have a gathering where everyone laughs at themselves. I shall attend, and I shall arrive naked.
By Caroline Janeabout a year ago in Beat
