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✔️ = Critic's Pick
✔️ Lupe Fiasco He loves to rant online and IRL, but so what? Lupe Fiasco’s music — especially “Kick, Push” from his 2006 major-label debut or most of its follow up, The Cool, which saw release a year later — is hip-hop food for the soul. It’s a little disheartening that so much of the subject matter from The Cool (race, class warfare and police brutality) is still hyper-relevant today, but at least we’ve got one of modern hip-hop’s most gifted lyricists in town to help us make sense of it all. (The Ritz, Ybor City) INFO
Glass House Point w/Brightside/Babyblu/Faze Wave In July, CL posted an Aaron Marsh-curated playlist featuring some of the best music being made just a few exits away in Lakeland. A highlight on that 41-track behemoth was “Washed Out,” a five-minute track from a Central Florida indie-pop band on the rise, Glass House Point. Marked by melancholy strings and and even mellower electric guitar licks, the song is carried by Dylan Graham’s warm vocal and the song’s sweet, summery melody. The group plays an unplanned hometown summer show before booking it up to South Carolina for a one-off gig at The Royal American in Charleston. (Transitions Art Gallery at the Skatepark of Tampa, Tampa) INFO
LAND OF LAKES
Copeland's Aaron Marsh has curated the ultimate Lakeland local music playlist
Kentucky Headhunters w/Cottondale Swamp If you like Chris Stapleton’s story, then you might want to consider moseying over to Largo, where Kentucky Headhunters (a band Rolling Stone’s country website called the “Chris Stapleton of the 1990 CMAs”) will play a set of out-of-the-box, rock-leaning country music that was both ahead of its time and a welcome alternative to the fodder that was crowding the radio at the time. “We were just taking what we learned growing up and adapting it to country,” guitarist Greg Martin once said. “But a whole lot of people said we weren’t country.” (Largo Central Park Performing Arts Center, Largo) INFO
The Greatest Showman Sing-Along You’re not the only one scratching your head over this pair of long sold-out sing-along screenings for a 2017 Hugh Jackman film where Wolverine plays P.T. Barnum in a musical celebration of the life of one of America’s true original entertainment pioneers, the producer of the most famous touring circus in history, and the spiritual godfather of marketing. (Tampa Theatre, Tampa) INFO
WLCM2KNXVLL DJ Knox's birthday weekend (Obknoxious) kicks off with his St. Petersburg monthly at The Bends, which is pretty much a party and showcase for burgeoning Bay area hip-hop talent. (The Bends, St. Petersburg) INFO
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ALSO PLAYING
Thursgays w/DJ Fugeo (Shuffle, Tampa) INFO
Roxy Roca (Dunedin Brewery, Dunedin) INFO
Kimi & Friends (Ringside Café, St. Petersburg) INFO
Yung Groan w/Top C $curvy (Mermaid Tavern, Tampa) INFO
Thanecha w/Kid Loki & Friends (Red Light Café at The Bunker, Ybor City) INFO
This article appears in Aug 23-30, 2018.