Tag: The Roots

Baba Jahahara takes us down familiar streets, but the trip is never the same through the neighborhood.

With the passing of the irreplaceable guitar gripping musician, singer and songwriter Prince, it is like a giant redwood tree falling in the forest. The vacuum that it creates makes people a little more thirsty for the next generation of artists making timeless music. Martin Luther McCoy, the San Francisco native, is definitely in the running. Catch him performing in Oakland on Thursday, June 9, 8 p.m., at the New Parish, 1743 San Pablo Ave.

The two sisters, Helene and Celia Faussart, who make up the hypnotic neo soul group Les Nubians made a major breakthrough when their song “Makeda,” which is sung in French, hit the American pop charts a little less than a decade ago. Not since the reign of Sade in the ‘80s can I remember international music that attracted so much attention on U.S. soil.

There are many great programs for youth in the San Francisco Bay Area – among them, AileyCamp at Cal Performances, Destiny Arts, Oaktown Jazz Workshop, Dimensions Extensions and Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, founded by Angela Wellman.

We lost the great Lena Horne this month on Mother’s Day, May 9. She was 92, her birthday June 17, 1917 – her funeral Friday, May 14. I found out recently that Ms. Horne was at the March on Washington with sisters Mahalia Jackson and Dorothy Height.