Via Raphael's Facebook

The international music scene has undergone countless transformations over the past five decades. And to keep up with record label trends, artists have been forced to adapt (even compromise their integrity) to simply stay afloat.

But for Spanish singer Raphael, defying the corporate suits has worked best for his career.

"I don't know why, but for the past 20 years, record companies have tried to brainwash newcomers into following the latest fads," the 70-year-old singer told Spain's EFE news agency in 2009, while celebrating his 50th anniversary as a performer.

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Via romeosantosofficial.com

He didn't think it would happen -- a Grammy-winning R&B crooner dipping his toes into bachata. But when former Aventura frontman Romeo Santos asked Miami-based record producer Rico Love if he could set up a Usher collaboration for his debut solo record, a dream became a reality.

"To be honest, I [thought it'd be difficult] at first," Santos recently admitted in an interview with Billboard. "I never visualized Usher singing bachata, only because I didn't think he was going to get it. I didn't think he was going to understand the whole genre thing."

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Hip-hop is 40 and a celebration's in order. So KRS-One is touring the nation, bringing real hip-hop back to where it belongs -- the streets.

"The revolution will not be televised," the MC recently told allhiphop.com. "You keep looking for real hip-hop on these bullshit stations. You're not going to find it! Real hip-hop is meeting in small places. Why? Because it's real culture, it's real street."

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He's one of only a handful of men who can casually ask a woman to "suck a nigga's dick or something" without sounding like much of a chauvinist. "Bad bitches... [give] him head like lice" on a regular basis, and he's "been rich since the '90s."

But Juicy J's success didn't happen overnight.

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Via facebook.com/FonsecaMusic

Latin Grammy-winning songwriter and international advocate of peace Juan Fernando Fonseca, known to fans simply as Fonseca, will be bringing Colombian tropipop to the house Jackie Gleason built.

Named after Ilusión, the singer's fourth record, Fonseca's latest tour will make the second of three Florida stops at the Fillmore Miami Beach on Friday, April 26.

"I wrote the album at a very important time in my life," Fonseca says in a YouTube interview with Las Gringas Blog. "It has a lot to do with my daughter, who was born two-and-a-half years ago."
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Genderqueer rapper Mykki Blanco will bite the head off a harpy, steal that bitch's wings, and work 'em harder than any regular rap dame ever could.

That's because Blanco is no regular rap dame, and she certainly ain't no regular rap dude. She is hip-hop's new in-between, the great white hype, and it really doesn't matter what you call her, as long as you say it with respect.

And next Thursday, Blanco will demand respect as she bangs up Bardot with her dark, surreal opuses and reality-bending energy.

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Photo by Monica Uszerowicz

Teepee's elusive Erix S. Laurent in his natural habitat.

"I only eat fruit," Teepee frontman and songwriter Erix S. Laurent (birth name Eric Lopez-Zareño) declared in an interview with New Times last summer.

"And I love it."

In addition to jazzing up his name and banning most food from his diet, Laurent has spent the past two years employing what appears to be a deliberate, hypermicromanaged strategy.

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Jamaica is one of the world's greatest contributors to DJ culture.

The original mobile sound systems found in the trenches of Kingston in the 1960s packed megawatt speaker stacks in the back of moving trucks, parked them at various party locations, and battled other crews doing the same to see who was loudest and had more new records.

Eventually, this concept was adapted to vinyl and became referred to as dancehall music.

"Johnny Osbourne is like the original dancehall artist," says Jesse Serwer of Miami-based reggae and dancehall website Largeup.com and also an occasional Miami New Times contributor. "He was the first artist to take the idea of the soundclash and make a record that does the same thing."

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Via Facebook.com/davidbisbal

Making panties drop since '02.

There's something about the curly-haired romantico David Bisbal that makes women melt.

Maybe it's his dreamy lyrics, his Spanish accent, or his music's sultry Mediterranean vibe. Whatever it is, he's got it and he's bringing it to the Magic City once again.

Last month, Bisbal put on a passionate performance for Miami at Univision's Premio Lo Nuestro . So we predict that his upcoming local concert is gonna leave each and every Fillmore Miami Beach patron totally panty-less.

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Via Facebook.com/deftones

Don't call it a comeback. Because the Deftones never left. And avoid using the term "rap metal." Because this band detests musical subgenres.

Instead, celebrate the fact that this crew is still tearing the tits off music venues, like the Fillmore Miami Beach, with the same Adrenaline levels as 25 years ago.

"We have always done our own thing," Deftones drummer Abe Cunningham said in an interview with CMJ last month. "Things have changed. Styles have come and gone, and we are still here."

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