When CSS (“Cansei de Ser Sexy,” Portuguese for “tired of being sexy,” supposedly something Beyoncé once told the press) set out to record Planta, their fourth album, the electro-pop band was at a crossroads.
As part of the mostly Christian Screaming the Prayer heavy metal tour, Dallas’ Fit for a King comes to S.A. as proof that, at the very least, praying doesn’t hurt: the band’s initial output, Creation/Destruction, holds the record for most debut album first-week copies sold in their label’s, Solid State Records, history.
“What’s up with Nina?” I asked Faith Radle, Girl in a Coma’s manager, looking at the band’s lead singer, Nina Díaz. It was pouring rain that afternoon in late May, but we were safely sheltered at the ballroom of the Omni Hotel, minutes after Judge Nelson Wolff gave his State of the County address and seconds before I lamely asked, “Is she going to the gym, or something?”
Kendrick Lamar burst into the national spotlight in 2011, following the release of his debut album Section.80, which included the hits “HiiiPoWeR” and “A.D.H.D.” If that album — lyrically focused on issues of drug addiction, violence, love, lust, and the battle to improve oneself — got people talking about Lamar as if he was next in line for the rap throne, 2012’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City proved they were right.
In a 2004 piece, London’s The Independent was quick to point out that Har Mar Superstar (Sean Tillman, also known from his Sean Na Na project) almost resembles porn star Ron Jeremy, and Wikipedia went as far as to say the two have only “one notable physical dissimilarity.”