Kiana Fitzgerald
Kiana Fitzgerald is a freelance music journalist, cultural critic, and DJ. She writes for the world from deep in the heart of Texas.
-
Andre Harrell, a record executive who shepherded the careers of Mary J. Blige and Sean "Diddy" Combs and combined the sounds of R&B and hip-hop with his label, Uptown Records, has died. -
This year's AfroPunk Festival in Brooklyn features artists who are expanding the universe of punk and ideas about who belongs there. -
The Chicago rapper's new mixtape, Coloring Book, walks a line between the secular and the religious, bringing gospel sounds to listeners who may not have darkened the doors of a church in a while. -
The Brooklyn rapper-producer's latest instrumental album is evenly weighted from front to back. There's never an off moment — or even a precarious one.
-
The R&B stalwart has long vibrated on a different wavelength than do his contemporaries; in a turbulent, bruising world, he's stayed rock-steady.
-
Out of nowhere, Kendrick Lamar dropped a new record this week, called untitled unmastered. Reviewer Kiana Fitzgerald says that listening to these demos "feels like we're playing catch-up." -
Smith has a steady, well-trained swell of a voice and a knack for whipping in and out of his falsetto in a hairsbreadth. He doesn't feel the need to hide — certainly not by stifling his vocal skills. -
Teeming with stream-of-consciousness scatting, ethereal exploration and frenetic features, the beauty of the producer-composer's debut lies in its carefully orchestrated ebb and flow. -
The new album from R&B's resident provocateur is the embodiment of what she has always contended as an artist: that she can't be molded to fit inside one genre.
