A Mellotron M400S

Tape Heads

The Mellotron, an electronic keyboard of recorded samples, heralded the digital age, and its use in “Strawberry Fields Forever” changed pop music history.
Martha Graham

Martha Graham’s Night Journey

Reinterpreting the Greek tragedy, Graham built a choreography of dramatic, angular movements to embody the female experience, past and present.
A cartoon of a woman's hand holding a microphone

Honey Cocaine’s Unexpected Cambodian Canadian Life Story

The Toronto rapper embraces a patois-inflected “bad gal” image to tell a deeply personal story about historical violence.
Tina Turner

Why I Fell for Tina Turner

Empowerment, individual strength, and the many facets of love.
Young adults dance the Bossa Nova and the Twist during a dance contest with Ray Milan and the Quartet in Los Angeles,California, 1964

The Bossa Nova Craze

In the early 1960s, bossa nova was hugely popular in the US thanks to its reinvention as a social dance and its connections with upper-class culture.
Connie Converse

Connie Converse Wasn’t Just a Folk Singer. She Was a Scholar, Too.

The disappeared—but recently rediscovered—folk musician edited and published in academic journals under the name Elizabeth Converse.
An illustration of an audience pelting the cast with cats, eggs, onions, turnips, and other vegetables and fruits

Riot! At the Theater

One audience demanded more censorship, another less. Both challenged the reach of anti-obscenity laws in the early twentieth century.
Mae West c. 1930

Mae West and Camp

A camp diva, a queer icon, and a model of feminism—the memorable Mae West left behind a complicated legacy, on and off the stage.
Geraint Lewis by kind permission of the Egypt Exploration Society

Pieces and Bits

What does it take to stage Cresphontes, a lost Euripides tragedy, when all that remains of it are a few fragments of papyrus?
Vincent Mason aka P.A. Pasemaster Mase aka Maseo aka Plug Three, David Jude Jolicoeur aka Trugoy the Dove aka Dave aka Plug Two and Kevin Mercer aka Posdnuos aka Mercenary aka Plug Wonder Why aka Plug One of the hip hop trio De La Soul

Musicians Fought the Law, and the Law Won—Sometimes

De La Soul are known for the effect their use of samples had on their music sales and availability on streaming sites. They’re finally streaming. Why now?