The dynamic San Francisco percussionist Ahkeel Mestayer creates music steeped in The City’s history as a hotbed of musical innovation and political ferment. Inspired by Latin jazz and Latin rock visionaries like Jerry González, Andy González, John Santos and Malo, he’s founded a series of sonically expansive bands that creatively combine various Afro-Caribbean rhythmic idioms. […]
Philippine-born, Bay Area-raised Aireene Espiritu is a veteran singer/songwriter who’s created an extensive book of original songs combining Afro-Caribbean and African rhythms, American folk forms, bluegrass techniques and gospel music fervor. As a young musician she absorbed the sounds of Alan Lomax's field recordings from the South, as well as her uncles' Filipino folk guitar […]
A neo-soul duo with a chill-folk-electronica sound, AstraLogik features the lithe vocals of Charito Soriano accompanied by the deft guitar work of Rowenalyn Conlu. Based in the Bay Area, the queer Pinay partnership has been shaped by their insistence on redefining what “success” and “happiness” mean, particularly through their lens as Filipino-American healers and survivors […]
The currents connecting New Orleans to the Bay Area run deep and MJ’s Brass Boppers embody the enduring ties that have sustained a potent strain of Gulf Coast culture in San Francisco. Led by snare drummer and Crescent City native Michael “MJ” Jones, the 11-piece Brass Boppers is built on a core of New Orleans-reared […]