Rone Shavers

Originally published in 1974 and the only novel written by Fran Ross before her untimely death in 1985, Oreo walks the line between so many different worlds (highbrow/lowbrow culture, literary/genre fiction, black/white racial dynamics, and feminist/womanist gender politics), that it can only be described as postmodern.

“A lot of things are a mix of high and low, but people just don’t say it. This high and low thing shifts. Maybe Shakespeare was the Spielberg of his day.”

Nilo Cruz’s simple and effective play recounts the plight of two sisters who hope to obtain freedom from the oppressive Castro regime.

Singer Macy Gray’s smoky, scratchy, full-bodied voice is paradoxical. Let it be said that she can belt it like Aretha, growl it like Tina, and is as unmistakable as Dinah, Eartha, or Nina in her range, tone, and delivery.

Sometimes it is simply the inspiration behind a fiction that’s enough to cause a stir.

Amistad, an opera commissioned by Philadelphia and Chicago, is not merely a musical remake of the film but a complex and conundrum-filled version of a tragic event.

Michael Jensen brings a naturalist’s touch to a modernist’s aesthetic. The key lies in Jensen’s materials and the manner in which he combines them

If influence alone is an artist’s measure of true worth, then with the reexamination and subsequent recombination of Jamaican reggae music into British electronica and drum ‘n’ bass, it seems as if one of reggae’s original pioneers, Lee “Scratch” Perry, is finally about to be given his due.