Library Rock's Backpages

Carol Cooper

Carol Cooper

Dr. Carol Cooper (snapped in the late '90s with Eddie Palmieri) is a New York-based journalist and cultural critic who has been reviewing music, books, film, and live performance for over twenty years. Her work has appeared in national and international publications including Actuel (Paris), The Face (London), Latin New York, The Village Voice, Essence, Elle, New York Newsday, and The New York Times. Her essays have also been anthologized in following collections: Rock She Wrote, The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock, Brooklyn, Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough: Essays in Honor of Robert Christgau and Rolling Stone Press: The '70s. Her own collection of music, film, book, and nightlife essays Pop Culture Considered as an Uphhill Bicycle Race is available internationally from Amazon.com. Ms. Cooper has also done short tours of executive duty in the music industry, serving as East Coast Director of Black Music Artists and Repertoire for A&M Records in the mid-'80s, and National Director of Black Music Artists and Repertoire for Columbia Records in the early '90s, before serving a year as VP of Bilingual Crossover Music for RMM/Sony Latino in the early 1990s. 

In 2020, Carol completed her doctorate in Jungian and Archetypal Psychology. She is currently an Associate Member of the writers’ advocacy organization PEN America, working at Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, to start an English enrichment program in discursive and expository writing. There she co-founded the MCSM Rampage, the school’s first digital newspaper with a senior high school student. The Rampage has been nominated for five and won four Newsie Awards, in a yearly citywide high school journalism conference sponsored by Baruch College. Since 2016, Carol has taught as an adjunct professor in pop history at NYU's Clive Davis Institute.

Carol Cooper online

98 articles

List of articles in the library

By date | By artist | Most recently added

The Black Music Association Movement Of Jah People

Report by Carol Cooper, SoHo Weekly News, 28 June 1979

DURING A DEFINITIVE rendition of ‘Exodus’ which capped an hour-long show by the Wailers, Stevie Wonder joined Bob Marley on stage and moved 2,000 members ...

Jamaican Sunrise: The Promise, Problems and Ethos of Rasta Reggae

Essay by Carol Cooper, The Black American, 1980

AS A BAROMETER of social pressure, and an indicator of public opinion, reggae music has no peer in the modern world of multi-media. As an ...

Joan Armatrading: Angel of Intrigue

Interview by Carol Cooper, Musician, April 1982

Joan Armatradlng has bartered her acoustic folk roots into a gutsy, punk maelstrom; her new album, Walk Under Ladders, crackles with aggressive electricity and sensual ...

Kid Creole & The Coconuts: August Darnell And The Creole Perplex

Essay by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 27 July 1982

"The dominant feeling of the black poet is one of malaise, better still of intolerance. Intolerance of reality because it is sordid, of the world ...

Marvin Gaye: Midnight Love (CBS)

Review by Carol Cooper, Musician, February 1983

UPON RELOCATING to England in 1981, Marvin Gaye complained to London's New Musical Express that his last Tamla release, In Our Lifetime, was flawed because ...

The Equals, Eddy Grant: Eddy Grant: A Reggae Popster Makes His Own Breaks

Interview by Carol Cooper, Musician, June 1983

REMEMBER D.I.Y.? Remember all those fierce and earnest punk rockers who vowed to bypass the corporate monopoly and conquer the rapidly devolving Western world? It ...

Prince: Someday Your Prince Will Come

Essay by Carol Cooper, The Face, June 1983

THE THING TO BEAR IN MIND is that Prince does not do interviews. He certainly didn't do this one, nor any of a dozen others ...

David Bowie Let's Dance (EMI/America)

Review by Carol Cooper, Record, July 1983

A CONSUMMATE BLEND of everything Chic and David Bowie (in his Negro period) represent, 'Let's Dance' – the title song of the latter's new album ...

Bob Marley & the Wailers: Confronting Marley’s Legacy

Retrospective by Carol Cooper, Record, September 1983

NEW YORK – King Tut was playing Munich when I arrived in January of 1981 to pay my last respects to Bob Marley. I remember ...

Kid Creole & The Coconuts: To The Life Boats

Profile by Carol Cooper, The Face, September 1983

"Strange, how potent cheap music is."– Noel Coward, Private Lives ...

Kurtis Blow: A B-Boy's Progress

Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 6 September 1983

WHEN RAP WAS first struggling out of the youth-center playgrounds and into big-time notoriety, Kurtis Blow was there. ...

Judy Mowatt: I-Three with a Message

Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, Musician, October 1983

WHEN PETER Tosh briefly joined Judy Mowatt on stage towards the end of her New York debut at First City, it felt for a moment ...

Pablo Moses’s Acid Reign

Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 17 January 1984

RASTA IDEOLOGY has always been profoundly Spenglerian. The German philosopher’s contention that our parasitic, capital-based machine age will be defeated by "another power, not by ...

Stevie Wonder Has a Dream

Report and Interview by Carol Cooper, The Face, June 1984

In 1981 Stevie Wonder led the first of three marches in Washington D.C. calling for the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, the black civil ...

Milton Nascimento

Interview by Carol Cooper, Downbeat, September 1984

For over a decade one of the most popular post-bossa Brazilian singer/composers, Nascimento finally arrives in the U.S. to demonstrate his particular brand of politically ...

Run-DMC: Run DMC: Run For It

Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, The Face, November 1984

DESPITE WHAT you may have read, there is no such thing as a monolithic black American style. The attempt to pigeonhole black creativity into narrow ...

Fela Kuti: Army Arrangement (Celluloid)

Review by Carol Cooper, Spin, May 1985

IF YOU haven't yet heard of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, it isn't because he hasn't been trying to get your attention. ...

Morris Day, The Time: Now Is The Time For Morris Day

Interview by Carol Cooper, The Face, December 1985

He played the senior dude in Purple Rain, the one who nearly stole the show from his real-life hometown rival Prince. He calls his autobiographical ...

Salt 'n' Pepa: Cool, Hot & Vicious (Next Plateau)

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 27 January 1987

I DON'T KNOW about you but I've been waiting quite a while for a girl rap group to duplicate the success of platinum playboys like ...

The Noise From Brazil

Overview by Carol Cooper, Elle, August 1989

MARCO AURELIO DA SILVA, known as Mazola, sits hunched over the console in one of Rio’s top recording studios, waiting for a live horn section ...

The House that Rap Built

Overview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 15 May 1990

ON FRIDAY night at the Tunnel, Bronx, Jersey, and Brooklyn posses with high-top fades, or one patch of hair dyed psychedelic orange, bob and weave ...

E.S.G.: Emerald Sapphire & Gold: Alive, Well And Working In The South Bronx

Interview by Carol Cooper, Dance Music Report, 26 September 1990

BEING ONE of the most widely imitated and innovative live bands of the early '80s isn’t necessarily a bed of roses. ...

Soul II Soul, Caron Wheeler: Caron Wheeler: Solo Soul

Interview by Carol Cooper, Spin, October 1990

The voice that textured your most intimate moments last summer on Soul II Soul's 'Keep On Movin'' is back. Caron Wheeler goes solo. ...

Frankie Crocker: Radio Renaissance

Interview by Carol Cooper, Spin, October 1990

A maverick talent in a sea of mediocrity, radio renegade Frankie Crocker has made New York's airwaves listenable again. ...

Lee "Scratch" Perry, Maxi Priest: Lee Perry: From the Secret Laboratory (Mango)/Maxi Priest: Bonafide (Charisma)

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 13 November 1990

THIS YEAR'S New Music Seminar featured a panel called ‘Reggae in the ‘90s: Does Dancehall Rule?’ Both Jamaican and New York’s regional enthusiasm for dancehall ...

House of Pain: House of Pain (Tommy Boy)

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, July 1992

SPUN OFF from the inspired lunacy of Cypress Hill rapper B-Real's 'Gee, Officer Krupke' whine, the semi-Celtic cartoon called House of Pain is a concept ...

Check Yo’self At The Door: Cryptoheterosexuality and the Black Music Underground

Essay by Carol Cooper, Vibe, 1993

I) Time Considered as a Helix of Semilegal Nightclubs ...

Otis Redding: The Definitive Otis Redding

Sleeve notes by Carol Cooper, Rhino Records, 1993

THE HISTORY IN JUNE 1993, Essence magazine published the results of a listener poll conducted by WBGO-FM’s Felix Hernandez, host of the weekly rhythm & ...

Prince: Come (Warner Bros.)/1-800-New-Funk (NPG/Bellmark)

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 30 August 1994

IF YOU HEAR the sound of a gauntlet slapping the floor, it’s only the echo of Come (Warner Bros.) and 1-800-New-Funk (NPG/Bellmark) hitting the racks ...

Anita Baker, Roberta Flack: Anita Baker: Rhythm Of Love, Roberta Flack: Roberta

Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, September 1994

In a long list of thank you’s on her first new album in four years, Anita Baker cites Roberta Flack "for loving me anyway." Now ...

Coolio: The Big Payback

Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, Rolling Stone, 22 September 1994

COOLIO gets a phat return on his dues with 'FANTASTIC VOYAGE' ...

Leadbelly: The Long Goodbye: Huddie Ledbetter’s Living Will

Essay by Carol Cooper, L.A. Weekly, 24 November 1994

According to their most recent videos, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones and Madonna all aspire to the power, wisdom and durability ...

Faith Evans: Faith

Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 1995

TWENTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD Faith Evans was already a successful songwriter before mini-mogul Sean "Puffy" Combs signed her as a solo act to his Bad Boy label. This ...

Freddie Jackson: Private Party/Christopher Williams: Not a Perfect Man

Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 1995

FREDDIE JACKSON and Christopher Williams are mature, polished performers with superb voices. Both were signed to their respective labels at a time when each record ...

Funkmaster Flex

Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 1995

EASTER SUNDAY, 10:30 p.m. The police are manning barricades on West 27th Street to disperse an overflow crowd that has flocked to the Tunnel to ...

Green Day: Nassau Coliseum, Long Island, NY

Live Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 1995

BY MATCHING the cheeky insouciance of the early Beatles with the amphetamine hooks of the Ramones in the late ‘80s, Green Day graduated rock and ...

The Commodores: The Past Of Young America

Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 1995

The Commodores: Best Of The CommodoresVarious Artists: The Music, The Magic, The Memories of Motown: A Tribute to Berry Gordy JUST WHEN we were sure ...

Warren G: Regulate…G Funk Era

Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 1995

IN THE early to mid ‘80s, two of the most successful rap records concerned vigilantism. The Rake’s 'Street Justice' and Kool Moe Dee’s 'Wild Wild ...

Brandy: Early Delivery

Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, Rolling Stone, 6 April 1995

ON 'BABY', THE second single from her platinum-album debut, Brandy, sweet, petite Brandy Norwood latches on to the song's skeletal groove and rides it as ...

Tito Puente Live At SOB’s, New York: At The Top Of His Game

Live Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 14 June 1995

Raising his drumsticks like a doubled scepter over a gleaming set of timbales , Tito Puente announced to Monday night’s capacity crowd at S.O.B.’s, "Tonight ...

Dallas Austin: Manchild In The Promised Land

Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, Fanfare, 2 July 1995

1991 WAS A banner year for Dallas Austin. The Atlanta writer-producer was barely out of his teens when two records he made for Motown with ...

Isaac Hayes: We Like Ike

Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 25 July 1995

As an opinionated teen in the early ‘70s, I hated Barry White for stealing Isaac Hayes’s sound – even though by 1973 Hayes had evolved ...

TLC: Pretty Young Things

Interview by Carol Cooper, Rolling Stone, 24 August 1995

The women of TLC stay cool under fire ...

Pebbles: Straight From The Heart

Review by Carol Cooper, Fanfare, 17 September 1995

PEBBLES IS one of the shrewdest women in show business. In 1987, this Bay area femme fatale exploded on the scene with the hit single ...

Prince: The Gold Experience

Review by Carol Cooper, Rolling Stone, 2 November 1995

With this LP, our former Prince turns in his most effortlessly eclectic set since 1987’s Sign O’ The Times. ...

Bo Diddley: The Bo Diddley Beat Just Keeps Jangling Along

Live Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 19 December 1995

Bo Diddley: Chicago Blues, New York, NY ...

The Braxtons' Right Risks: So Many Ways

Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 1996

THE STORY goes that The Braxtons originally were a quartet. Producers L.A. and Babyface pulled Toni Braxton out of the bunch, because, at the time, ...

The Tony Rich Project: Words (LaFace/Arista)

Review by Carol Cooper, Rolling Stone, 8 February 1996

If ’94 and ’95 were the years that quirky auteurs like Dionne Farris and Des’ree caught the public’s imagination, 1996 may be the year that ...

Maria Muldaur: A Multifaceted Muldaur

Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, Newsday, April 1996

"IF YOU THINK about it," Maria Muldaur remarked during a recent showcase for her new blues album, Fanning the Flames, "a tarantella is really just ...

Iggy Pop: Roseland, New York, NY

Live Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 11 April 1996

In 1967, when The Doors released their first LP, a young ex-drummer named James Osterberg formed the Psychedelic Stooges to voice the primal urges of ...

Chic: Bernard Edwards, 1952-1996

Obituary by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 7 May 1996

Bernard Edwards, Tony Thompson, and Nile Rodgers were in Tokyo for the latest in a recent series of reunion concerts when Rodgers discovered his friend ...

Tori Amos: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

Live Review by Carol Cooper, New York Daily News, 15 May 1996

Performing non-stop for nearly two hours on Monday night, Tori Amos sang and played like a woman possessed by the need for release. ...

Aretha Franklin: Return Of Soul Sister Number One

Comment by Carol Cooper, Pulse!, June 1996

ARETHA – a name so singularly musical that it rolls off the tongue like an incantation. Almost four decades after 1967’s ‘I Never Loved ...

Surf Pop: The New Wave

Retrospective by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 17 September 1996

WAS ANY underground music more quickly and thoroughly mediated by outside forces than surf music? On the cusp of the ‘60s, California’s coastal teen subculture ...

Remembering the Fever

Sleeve notes by Carol Cooper, 'Hip Hop Fever' (Warlock Records), 2000

NOBODY'S TRYING to say that Disco Fever was the only important hip-hop club. But for various reasons, the Fever is still remembered as the most ...

Are We the World? Global Music in the U.S. Faces the 21st Century

Comment by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 8 February 2000

SONY MUSIC'S recent and massive Soundtrack of a Century collection includes a two-CD set called International Music, ostensibly to celebrate the geographically diverse roots of ...

D'Angelo: Radio City Music Hall: New York City

Live Review by Carol Cooper, Spin, June 2000

LIVE PERFORMANCE is where music becomes ceremony, a ritual redefining the performer for his or her audience. Like videos, concerts turn a performer into a ...

Chris Ho: Why Singapore Rocks

Report and Interview by Carol Cooper, Crawdaddy!, September 2000

As an acronym, the term A.S.E.A.N. has become the name of a small regional trade & tourism organization known as the "Association of South East ...

Rachelle Ferrell, Sade, Spooks: Sade: Lovers Rock; Rachelle Ferrell: Individuality (Can I Be Me?); Spooks: S.I.O.S.O.S. Volume One

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 13 December 2000

WHEN IT COMES to commercial black music, "high concept" makes the record industry very nervous. Motown initially told Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye that people ...

Isyss: Nice Girls Finish Fast

Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 26 November 2002

THE $64 MILLION question? Why, in a post-Spice Girl world, are black girl groups still forming (and falling apart) as if the Spice Girls never ...

Scissor Sisters

Profile by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 4 June 2003

NO ONE-SENTENCE summation (no matter how correct or clever) really does justice to the Scissor Sisters. As a girdle-tight, piss-elegant rock unit unafraid to play ...

Brooks & Dunn: The Long Road Home: Brooks & Dunn Risk Backlash With a Great Rock Album

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 1 August 2003

IN THE RURAL east Texas graveyard where my father and his parents are buried, just a stone's throw from a black church built on land ...

Macy Gray, Mya: Macy Gray: The Trouble With Being Myself/Mya
: Moodring


Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 24 October 2003

BOTH WOMEN crouch nearly nude on their album covers, gazing with feral yet somehow fetal reproach at potential consumers, like naughty fairy changelings who've had ...

Macy Gray, Mya: Imps of the Perverse: Mya and Macy Gracy

Comment by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 28 October 2003

BOTH WOMEN crouch nearly nude on their album covers, gazing with feral yet somehow fetal reproach at potential consumers, like naughty fairy changelings who've had ...

Johnny Pacheco: Latin Swing's Last Lion: 
Johnny Pacheco Returns to the New York His Salsa Once Changed

Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 20 January 2004

DAPPER, CHARISMATIC, and 68 years young, Johnny Pacheco is one of New York's cultural lions, a Juilliard alumnus who revolutionized the way Afro-Latin swing, a/k/a ...

Putumayo: The Little Label That Could

Report by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 2 July 2004

WHILE THE REST of the music industry downsizes like mad, an 11-year-old independent label the majors used to snicker at has scored a 15 percent ...

Salomé de Bahia, Solu Music: Solu Music: Affirmation / Salomé de Bahia: Brasil

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 4 October 2004

The "Other" R&B ...

David Byrne Looks Forward...and Back

Interview by Carol Cooper, The L Magazine, Fall 2004

Q: AS A SOLO ARTIST you have worked with horn sections and now with string sections to color and embellish your songs. Aside ...

Electric Eel Shock: Mercury Lounge, New York City

Live Review by Carol Cooper, The L Magazine, November 2005

BEFORE TAKING the Mercury Lounge stage on Easter Sunday, Aki Morimoto – guitar-wielding front man for Tokyo's punk power-trio Electric Eel Shock – toyed with ...

Saffire – The Uppity Blues Women: Deluxe Edition

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 24 March 2006

IF YOU BUY only one acoustic blues album this year, why not a best-of from a self-affirming trio of feisty females? ...

Prince: 3121

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 1 May 2006

IN HIS LONG-AGO heyday Prince complimented Kid Creole's backup girls by admiring how Adriana Kaegi "used every beat of the music in her choreography." Evidence ...

Outward Is Heavenward: Modern Gospel

Report by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 3 July 2006

THERE'S SO MUCH going on in gospel music today that you may have missed when Kirk Franklin paused from promoting Hero, his latest chart-topping CD, ...

Kenny Gonzalez, L'il Louie Vega, Masters at Work: Pure Percussive Pleasure: Kenny Gonzalez and Louie Vega

Report by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 9 October 2006

GOTHAM'S HIPPEST and happiest underground nightlife owes its origins to the ever-streetwise and affable duo of Brooklyn's Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez and Bronx-bred "Little" Louie Vega, ...

The Holmes Brothers, Coco Montoya, Vesta Williams: The Holmes Brothers: State of Grace/Coco Montoya: Dirty Deal/Vesta Williams: Distant Lover

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 29 January 2007

WHEN LED ZEP covered Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie's 'When the Levee Breaks', they thought they were making "rock 'n' roll." When the Pointer Sisters ...

Ozomatli: Don't Mess With the Dragon

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 7 April 2007

IF YOU'RE A giddy optimist like me, you hope to one day hear Ozomatli's cheerfully rebellious politi-pop wafting from every car radio in New York ...

Public Enemy: The Public Enemy Remix Project's 'Bring the Noise' b/w 'Give It Up'

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 26 September 2007

ALTHOUGH TECHNO (and its subsequent sub-genres) is now associated more with its white European exponents than its black American progenitors, Ultra Records' new series of ...

Janet Jackson: Discipline

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 26 February 2008

SURE, MADONNA repeatedly toyed with BDSM in her videos, but she never publicly admitted to breast and genital piercings like Miss Jackson did. So, in ...

GlobalFest: Webster Hall, NYC

Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 13 January 2009

GLOBALFEST SHOWCASES so much high-quality talent that artists accustomed to headlining elsewhere can find themselves opening this three-stage marathon to less-than-capacity crowds. ...

Leonard Cohen, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, Etta James: Rise of the Anachronauts: On Dan Hicks, Leonard Cohen, Etta James, Pokey LaFarge and other fearless time travelers

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 5 May 2009

I CALL THEM anachronauts: performers whose core appeal stems from their ability to transport listeners to another time and place. ...

The Rebirth Brass Band: Rebirth of New Orleans

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 20 April 2011

DURING THE FIRST episode of HBO's Treme, members of the Rebirth Brass Band and the show's trombone-playing character Antoine Batiste end a jazz parade in ...

Concha Buika, Les Nubians: More Than Words: Going Polyglot With Concha Buika and Les Nubians

Retrospective by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 20 June 2011

IN THE '60s and '70s danceable jazz-pop in foreign languages made American radio more exciting: Jorge Ben's 'Mas Que Nada' charted when recorded by Sergio ...

DJ Turmix, Spanglish Fly: Boogaloo! with Spanglish Fly, DJ Turmix:
 Nublu, New York


Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 8 July 2011

IT COULD HAVE been a disaster – subway service to Loisaida was screwed up (again), it was raining, one of the club's turntables was on ...

David Guetta: Nothing But the Beat

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 29 August 2011

David Guetta's Dance Music Melting Pot ...

A Look At Pop Around The Globe — From Operatic Creole Harmonies to Riot-Grrl-Inspired French Rappers

Overview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 5 October 2011

THE END of the year brings a flurry of world music albums with commercial intentions ranging from the archival to the optimistically opportunistic. ...

Me'Shell Ndegeocello: Meshell Ndegeocello: Weather

Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 15 November 2011

'WEATHER' ISN'T the first Meshell Ndegeocello single to fall into the category of "freak folk," but the album of the same name is her first ...

Cesária Évora, 1941–2011

Obituary by Carol Cooper, Rock's Backpages, 3 January 2012

BURIED ON HER home island of São Vicente the Tuesday before Christmas amid nationwide mourning in her native Cape Verde,  singer Cesária Évora enjoyed more ...

Etta James, R.I.P.

Retrospective by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 23 January 2012

ETTA JAMES used to tell a story about meeting Billie Holiday in which Holiday told her — fatherless wild child to fatherless wild child — ...

Yann Tiersen:
 Irving Plaza, New York

Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 30 April 2012

Better than: Most of the Philip Glass and Stephin Merritt music I've heard. ...

Imani Uzuri: Joe's Pub, NYC

Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 4 June 2012

Better Than: Being sad that Alice Coltrane and Cesaria Evora are dead and that Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill don't make albums together. ...

Ljuba Davis Ladino Ensemble: Drom, New York City


Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 18 June 2012

FOR THOSE OF US who grew up hearing a lot of Yiddish, it can come as a nice surprise to discover that Hebrew modified Spanish ...

Kathleen Battle and Cyrus Chestnut: The Blue Note, New York City

Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 20 June 2012

IN 2010, KATHLEEN Battle chose a pianist and a repertoire of classical material to bring to Carnegie Hall for a formal recital. This summer, Battle ...

Madonna: Thoughts On Madonna's MDNA Tour in America

Live Review by Carol Cooper, Rock's Backpages, 9 September 2012

AS I WRITE THIS Thursday night, I can hear Madonna singing from Yankee Stadium through the window of my Harlem apartment. In fact, the sound ...

Gonjasufi: Cameo Gallery, Brooklyn

Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 25 September 2012

Gonjasufi Presses On in the Midst of Technical Chaos ...

James Chance & the Contortions: Downtown icon James Chance cuts loose

Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 16 November 2016

IT WAS WELL after midnight last Thursday by the time James Chance and the Contortions took the stage of the Bowery Electric. Dapper in his ...

Marley Marl, Rakim, Roxanne Shanté: Rakim, Marley Marl, Roxanne Shanté, and Other Rap Pioneers Celebrate Forty Years of Hip-Hop

Retrospective by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 3 May 2017

Old-school B-boys cold-lampin' at Disco Fever, c. 1979 ...

Gladys Pizarro: The Street-Savvy Talent Scout That Shaped New York Dance Music

Retrospective and Interview by Carol Cooper, Red Bull Academy Magazine, 30 August 2017

Going from working in construction to co-founding Strictly Rhythm, Gladys Pizarro's commitment to street culture helped make her one of the most influential dance music ...

Captain Beefheart, Nona Hendryx, Gary Lucas: How Nona Hendryx Captured the World of Captain Beefheart

Interview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 9 November 2017

Drawn together: Gary Lucas and Nona Hendryx channel Captain Beefheart on their new album. ...

Aretha Franklin: Aretha: The Voice of America

Obituary by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 17 August 2018

IT MAY BE difficult for anyone born after 1980 to fully grasp how important Aretha Franklin has been to America. There is simply no longer ...

back to LIBRARY

COPYRIGHT NOTICE