As one-third of the English progressive trance trio Above & Beyond, Tony McGuinness has had a front-row seat to watch the evolving ways the world consumes music. “It used to be the lack of availability of music made it more valued,” McGuinness tells New Times. “You’d go to a club and hear a song, and you’d have to track it down. Then you’d spend weeks getting to know it. An album was valuable because you spent money on it. People’s record collections were a display of their soul.

You’d think curating the festivities for the makeshift roller rink at III Points last weekend would be enough for Otto Von Schirach and Notorious Nastie in their never-ending quest to keep South Florida weird, but according to them, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Next weekend will bring their Project Pat’s Trap Attack, a three-night extravaganza that will mix music, art, a yacht party, Project Pat, and madness.

“There’s enough festivals in the world showcasing bands already well known and successful. We wanted to create a space where people who really love music can come hear new sounds and take those sounds home with them to expand their listening horizons,” Snarky Puppy bassist Michael League says of his original intentions for GroundUp Music Festival. “I wanted this to be a festival that only booked artists that aren’t just wonderful, but wonderful live.”

Miami has an electronic music festival in Ultra, a hip-hop festival in Rolling Loud, and an everything-in-between festival in III Points. But the region’s most popular genre of music — Latin — has remained underserved. That is until now. Fuego Music Festival was just announced. It’s billed as “the first East Coast two-day Latin music festival.”

It all started with a scheduling conflict. “The band Steve Jr. from New York were touring their new album. They hit me up about playing in Miami,” Ricardo Guerrero, who produces a series of shows called Death to the Sun, tells New Times. “I reached out to Churchill’s, and they told me that Gordo [Emmanuel Nanni, who promotes Hardcore for Punx] already had the date reserved for a punk show…”

“My father played trumpet, so we always listened to jazz. I don’t think there was any choice in the matter,” says Dee Dee Bridgewater, the Grammy- and Tony-winning jazz singer. Taking a break from entertaining her family and watching Martha Stewart on TV the morning of Christmas Eve, Bridgewater speaks with New Times…

“Tancred started out as a side project. My big three influences were the Cure, Portishead, and Letters to Cleo. I’d been listening to them since I was 11, and they always get me to want to write music,” explains Jess Abbott, the onetime guitarist for the indie-rock band Now Now. “I named [Tancred] after a character in a children’s book series…

“I like to say hip-hop was born when I was in my mother’s womb,” Black Thought says by phone right before he and his band the Roots take the stage as house band for The Tonight Show. “I was born in October 1971. It was documented that August 1971 was when Kool Herc created the culture of hip-hop.”