Krystal Rodriguez is a Los Angeles-based journalist whose work has appeared in Billboard, Vice’s Thump, Resident Advisor, Majestic Casual, Crack Magazine and more. She enjoys using various forms of media to tell stories spotlighting dance music history, emerging artists and music's intersection with culture and social issues. When she is not writing, she's making playlists or Shazam-ing tracks in DJ mixes.
When teen popstars like Britney Spears, *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys broke through in the late '90s, one producer/songwriter made it all possible: Max Martin. The Swedish hitmaker, responsible for era-defining songs like "Oops!... I Did It Again," "It's Gonna Be Me" and "I Want It That Way," built on his country's tradition of melody-rich dance-pop to usher in a…
When Rebecca Black approaches the decks on the Boiler Room: DC livestream, she doesn’t start her DJ set so much as cannonball into it with a pounding techno edit of Hannah Montana’s "Everybody Makes Mistakes." The crowd is packed shoulder-to-shoulder for Black's first performance at the legendary event series, and she keeps the pace fast and sweaty. She’s far from…
"I'm a little hungover, but I'm hanging in there," John Summit admits with a chuckle. The DJ/producer had stayed out late the night before (as DJs typically do) but for once, it wasn’t for work. Instead, he and his friends went bar- and club-hopping — "normal people stuff," Summit calls it. When asked how often he gets to do that…
The album cover photo for Mount Kimbie’s fourth LP, The Sunset Violent, captures a mundane yet curious slice of life: A car nearly tipped over and abandoned on the side of a road lined with towering cornfields. According to members Kai Campos and Dom Maker, it was taken by photographer T-Bone Fletcher as part of a project documenting his travels…
Omar Apollo’s career began with a stolen guitar. It almost ended with one, too. The self-taught musician, then 14, had been playing for two or three years when robbers took his beloved instrument from the family car after a gig. With no money to replace it, Apollo took up dancing and worked various jobs while in high school. He had…
Rina Sawayama shares a birthday with Madonna. It’s "quite a vibe," she tells GRAMMY.com over Zoom from London, noting their shared "Leo energy." Like the icon, Sawayama is vibrant, artistically fearless, a pop chameleon pre-destined for stardom. But whereas Madge celebrates her birthdays with lavish bashes in international locales, Sawayama’s ideal day is a little more low-key: an intimate gathering…
To better understand British duo Eli & Fur's debut album, Found In The Wild, it might help to watch Into the Wild. The film adaptation of Jon Krakauer's 1996 non-fiction book tells the story of Christopher McCandless, a then-recent college graduate who rejected modern society by adventuring solo across North America into the Alaskan wilderness, supposedly in search of enlightenment.…
Nora En Pure dreams of whales. The majestic creatures have been a frequent fixture in the Swiss-South African musician’s nighttime visions since she was a young girl. “I have no idea what they mean,” she tells GRAMMY.com, “but it always feels good.” Dreams are widely open to interpretation, of which the Dream Dictionary has many regarding whales. They supposedly symbolize…
Earlier this month, on Music’s Biggest Night, Dua Lipa teleported us from our living rooms and yearlong quarantine to Studio 2054, her homage to New York City’s legendary Studio 54 nightclub where disco thrived from 1977–1980. In a stunning visual display entailing costume changes and dramatic dance interludes, Lipa performed two songs (“Levitating,” “Don’t Start Now”) from her GRAMMY-winning album,…
