Nick Ashford dies at 69 The distinctively soulful singer, and half of the Ashford & Simpson singer-songwriter tandem whose songs and recordings constitute many strands of the DNA of classic R&B, died late Monday at a hospital in New York, of throat cancer. Steve Jones of USA Today reports....

Frances Bean Cobain, in vivo As observances of the 20th anniversary of Nirvana are set for Seattle and elsewhere next month, amid a rush of 90’s revivalism, the scion of grunge icons Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love “has formally arrived as major part of the cultural dialogue,” Rolling Stone’s Colleen...

China’s soft power, on the screen “China is keen on promoting its soft power,” one observer said of the new move by the world’s most populous nation to cultivate its clout in the world of movies. Sino-American film productions are increasing, the better to serve a homegrown market that’s adding...

Taxing nightlife in Seattle Pay to play: A recently imposed tax on any nightclubs with a dance floor could well put some of the city’s more established and popular businesses out of business. Cienna Madrid of The Stranger reports. See MusicPhoto: The Stran...

Pukkelpop: The aftermath BBC News documents the eyewitness reports of people at the Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium, where five people died after a stage collapse caused by a freak storm. Read the reports here; below, a video on the disaster from Guardian UK:  A statement from festival organizers,...

NYC: Pushing up on black style For Travis Gumbs and Joshua Kissi, African American style isn’t what it used to be. The New York bloggers and entrepreneurs are pushing back against the hegemonic impact of hiphop fashion with what Jon Caramanica of The New York Times calls “a return to style as...

L.A.: Eisa Davis’ double life The Pulitzer-finalist playwright, Obie-winning actress and (soon-to-be) fixture on prime-time television brings her life experiences to a range of roles as well as a fascination with communication and language. Jasmine Elist reports for the Los Angeles Times. More...

Boston/Cambridge, Poetry Cities From now until Aug. 13, Beantown and neighboring Cambridge lay claim to being the capitals of the poetry world as the National Poetry Slam begins, back in the area for the first time since 1992. More than 300 poets have arrived for the five-day festival celebrating...

Spike Lee 25 years on She’s Gotta Have It, his brash, unconventional first feature, was released on Aug. 8, 1986, establishing the director as a new and maverick voice in American filmmaking. A quarter century later, Spike Lee still maintains the outsider’s perspective despite being a master of...

Newport: Bright spots in the rain Dreary weather and a less than sold-out crowd set a backdrop for a festival that still had its musical high points (Esperanza Spaulding’s inventive set, Steve Coleman and Five Elements’ dazzling performance, and Wynton Marsalis’ always reliable caliber of play)....

Derring-do of another hue Marvel Comics makes some changes. The imprint will introduce a new Spider-Man in its Ultimate Spider-Man issue #1, due out in September. Miles Morales, a half-black, half-Hispanic teenager, takes the place of Peter Parker in a comic that reflects the changes of a 21st-century...

It was 30 years ago today MTV got off the ground on Aug. 1, 1981. The fledgling network embraced a galaxy of musical talents, from Madonna to Nirvana, U2 to Michael Jackson, transforming the musical delivery system of pop culture — making the audible visible.  Music’s never been the same. Television’s never been the same. And as Steve Spears of the St. Petersburg Times notes, MTV’s...