<![CDATA[With her latest record, recording artist and worship leader Nikki Lerner is aiming to get some things off her chest. Not in the I’m-angry-and-I-just-need-to-vent sense, but in the these-are-the-things-I-think-about-all-the-time-but-now-I’m-actually-going-to-say-them-out-loud sense … hence the album’s title, The Things We Never Say. And my sense, after both listening to the record and talking to her directly (FULL DISCLOSURE: she…

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<![CDATA[ (Editor’s Note: Yes, the title is a bit clickbaitey, but hang with me. I’ll back it up.)   Yesterday, Andraé Crouch slipped into eternity, present in full with the Lord, in perfect peace. I’ve been half suspecting, half dreading that this day would come for a while now, and yet now that it has, I…

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<![CDATA[So in the last five to ten years, as hip-hop culture has continued the march from being simply popular from becoming a downright universal lingua franca — and if you think I'm overstating that at all, consider that right now, at this second, The Roots are now the house band on The Tonight Show —…

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<![CDATA[ Right now my jam of the moment is from Korean-American emcee HeeSun Lee featuring vocalist Shanelle Gabriel, entitled “Open Your Eyes.” There are two great attributes about this tune, essential for any song to reach Jam Of The Moment status: how it sounds, and what it says. First, how it sounds. When it comes…

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