Music

“What chu know about the Dirty South?” Aside from being a track and infectious refrain on Goodie Mob’s 1995 debut "Soul Food," the term has devolved in spelling (Durty Souf?) and evolved wildly in connotation.

When the Athens-birthed B-52's rang in the new year on stage at Harrah's Cherokee Casino this week in North Carolina, one of the group's founding members was noticeably absent. After 35 years, guitarist Keith Strickland has opted to get off the long and winding road with his bandmates for a quieter life at home in Key West pursuing his passion for photography. The band and Strickland posted his announcement to fans on the band's website and on his Facebook page.

The album cover consisted of a sticky spider web entangling two dazed women and their confused man. The salacious image told listeners everything they needed to know about Caught Up, R&B singer Millie Jackson’s epic 1974 “soul opera.” The only thing more shocking than dropping the needle on Side One to hear a collection of songs from the perspective of the "other woman": Flipping the 12-inch piece of vinyl to discover Side Two and songs from "the wife."

Describing her tumultuous two-year marriage to former Atlanta Braves outfielder Otis Nixon, Candi Staton doesn’t sugarcoat a thing: “It was hell on earth. My God, it was the most terrifying and devastating time in my whole life. I was going through the fires of hell trying to figure out how to live with him and then how to find a way out of that crazy marriage.”

As the band flies into Buenos Aires for a tour stop this week, B-52s fans across the globe are absorbing the news that the Athens-birthed band is bringing its 36-year bounds-impaired party to an end. Over the weekend, frontman Fred Schneider announced on Facebook that he will no longer tour with the act after the band’s Nov. 13 show in Westbury, NY.

Winning song of the year. Earning a Video Music Award for best art direction. Collaborating with Prince. It has been quite a year for Janelle Monáe.

When Ashanti Floyd, twenty-six, was a fifth grader in Tallahassee, his classmates laughed at him for playing the violin. With Tupac Shakur cranking out multiplatinum records, there were few young African American violinists, let alone ones traveling to Europe for classical music competitions. But by high school, Floyd’s gym performances inspired such bedlam that the principal had to shut down student assemblies.

 Eight-year-old Matthew Morris confesses to having a fear of coyotes and a loathing of spinach, and he answers questions with a focused, “Yes, sir.” But give him a beat and put him in shades and a leather jacket, and he becomes MattyB—a “chyeah”-saying emcee who agilely chirps that he’s hotter than gumbo.

After years grinding out a living on Georgia’s music circuit, Cumming native Zac Brown has enjoyed seemingly overnight success. Since 2009’s chart-topping “Chicken Fried,” there have been two Grammys, two major-label albums, sold-out shows, and a number one duet with Jimmy Buffett. And like the sailor from Margaritaville, thirty-three-year-old Brown is parlaying the spoils into an empire: Southern Ground.