Ill Poetic — the multitasking Hip Hop artist who made his bones in the Cincinnati and Dayton scenes and writes a monthly words-of-wisdom column for CityBeat called Hip Hop (Un) Scene — will be providing some dispatches from the road this month for us as he embarks on the J. Rawls-headlined “#Ohio Takeover Tour.” The tour (featuring a roster of Ohio acts) is an early promotional push for The Hip Hop Affect, the anticipated new release from Rawls, a renowned DJ/producer whose credits range from work on the first Black Star album to working with Madlib and The Beastie Boys. Recently, Rawls leaked the new track “We’re on Top (#ohiotakeover),” a “posse cut” featuring 23 MCs from the Buckeye State.

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The downtown space that once housed Herzog Studios — the facilities used to record legendary songs by the likes of Flatt and Scruggs, The Delmore Brothers and, most famously, Hank Williams (along with many others) — is going into flashback mode at the end of this month, when, for the first time in many decades, it will once again be used as a recording studio.

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In the days after local TV news reported on the death of David Hebert — a longtime drummer better known to everyone as “Bones” — it was clear that the New Orleans-style memorial procession (a nice nod to Hebert’s hometown) and gathering in Northside in the wake of his shooting at the hands of police was going to be the image most (especially those who didn’t know him personally) would remember. The large group of friends who came together amidst the deep hurt and shock showed how much Bones meant to the community and was a testament to his kind spirit. As the police investigation continues and those friends skeptical of the “official report” try to find justice, some local musicians moved by the sudden, violent death of Bones are using their skill set to express their feelings about the situation.

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Cincinnati composer and founding member of MUSE Cincinnati’s Women’s Choir Therese Edell passed away last month after an extended battle with MS. She was 61. Considered a pioneer of “Women’s Music,” Edell was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Cincinnati in 1969 to attend CCM. Edell and longtime collaborator Betsy Lippitt toured the country and were favorites at Women’s Music festivals. Her releases include 1970’s Prophecy’s Child and 1978’s milestone From Women’s Faces, as well as the 1990 For Therese, a compilation of her songs performed by various fans/supporters as a 40th birthday present.

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Multifaceted Hip Hop artist Ill Poetic’s creative mix skills have been on display again recently. Just a week ago, he released the above remix of genre-bending Hip Hop jazzers IsWhat?!'s “Fanta,” the first release from the group’s forthcoming Big Appetite album, which comes out in Europe a little later this year and in the States sometime in 2010. IsWhat?! sent out some “stems” from the song and asked for remixes. Unsurprisingly, Ill Poetic’s is one of the best.

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The long overdue appreciation of Cincinnati-based King Records gets another shot in the arm with the publication of Dayton-native Jon Hartley Fox’s King of the Queen City: The Story of King Records, a detailed look at the various personalities, including kingpin Syd Nathan, that made the studio such a culturally groundbreaking and creatively vital musical force.

For those who can’t wait for Fox’s appearance at the Books by the Banks festival at the Duke Energy Center on Saturday or at Shake It Records on Sunday, the author discussed the book with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air today. The show also included separate interviews with Bootsy Collins and former King staffer/Sire Records founder Seymour Stein, both of whom talk about their memories of King.

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The sixth season of TV One's entertaining and informative Unsung series, showcasing artists who did well but didn't quite reach the heights many expected, kicks off tonight at 10 p.m. with an episode about the late, great Soul star Isaac Hayes. Next week, on Jan. 30, the series focuses on a group that was formed at Kentucky State University and ended up calling Cincinnati its home base — Midnight Star.

The R&B/ElectroFunk nine-piece band was a major success in the ’80s, giving the music world massive hits like "Slow Jam," "No Parking on the Dance Floor" and "Freak-a-Zoid." But the band eventually splintered — due to "arguments over money and management," according to the Unsung synopsis — with Reggie Calloway and brother Vincent leaving and eventually forming Calloway (which had success with the smash "I Wanna Be Rich" in 1989).

Midnight Star carried on and produced a couple more albums that featured R&B chart hits before taking a break. The "hiatus" ended in 2000 and Midnight Star continues to this day, performing most recently at the Macy's Music Festival last summer. Click here to read up on the band circa 2013.

The Unsung series has a loose definition of "unsung" (as the Isaac Hayes episode suggests), but its profiles of various R&B/Soul, Hip Hop, Funk and Gospel artists are always fairly illuminating. The show has dedicated episodes to a wide range of successful artists, from The Ohio Players and Zapp to Kool Mo Dee and Big Daddy Kane to George Clinton, The Spinners and another Cincinnati-affiliated star, Bootsy Collins.


Unsung (Documentary) - Bootsy Collins... by GENERATIONDISCOFUNK

The rest of Unsung's season six includes episodes on EPMD, Lou Rawls, Eddie Kendricks, The Whispers, Mint Condition, Johnny Gill and a special two-hour look at the Disco phenomenon.

TV One is channel 217 for local Time Warner Cable subscribers (1217 for the HD channel).

On this day in 2003, The Rolling Stones were slated to perform in China and, like certain big tech companies, were keen to oblige the nation's government in order to take advantage of the lucrative marketplace. The event came as China seemed ready to fully embrace Western popular music performers; since Wham! broke the barrier in the mid ’80s, the country has allowed performers from Sonic Youth and Linkin Park to Public Enemy, Nine Inch Nails and Ill Divo the chance to come play for their Chinese fans without much fuss. That was until the "Bjork incident," when the Icelandic singer performed in Shanghai in March of 2008 and attempted to lead the crowd in a chant of "Tibet! Tibet!," according to reports in Rolling Stone. That led to even more vetting before artists are allowed to play the country.

But even in the salad years of westerners performing in China, the country had tight restrictions and guidelines. While even Ed Sullivan allowed the Stones to perform "Let's Spend The Night Together" with altered lyrics ("Let's spend some time together"), the Chinese government wasn't so permissive, reportedly demanding set-list approval before the show could go on. The band was told they could not play four of their biggest hits due to apparently salacious lyrical content — "Best of Burden," Brown Sugar," "Honky Tonk Women" and the aforementioned "Spend the Night."

Those shows ultimately ended up canceled due to an issue in China of a bit more importance — the SARS outbreak — but the band did return in 2006 and played by the rules, leaving those classics out of their sets.

So here's a chance to not take your country's freedoms for granted. Watch this old clip of "Let's Send the Night Together" from a 1967 episode of Top of the Pops and sing along as loud as you can.

Click on for Born This Day featuring Liza Minnelli, Al Jarreau, James Taylor and Blur's Graham Coxon.

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In a lot of ways, Cincinnati's Over the Rhine belonged to the world almost as soon as they birthed its spectacular debut album, 1991’s Patience. There wasn't really an evolutionary period involving chops-honing and building an audience with local bar gigs every weekend before becoming a songwriting and performing powerhouse that could stand toe-to-toe with its peer group on the national level. Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler sprang fully formed from Zeus’ forehead as a mature and supremely talented duo with the undeniable ability to mingle heartache and joy with words and music and find an indelible way to invest each emotion with a taste of the other.

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Brian Olive, a founding member of The Greenhornes and later a member of the Soledad Brothers (under the stage-name Oliver Henry), is releasing a self-titled solo album on June 23. The CD will be put out by Alive Records, also home to Cincy's Buffalo Killers.

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