Hassan Ghanny

Nearly 80 renters and community members turned out last Saturday at the Institute for Contemporary Art/Boston for a one-time matinee. Instead of perusing the museum’s collections, these tenants staged their own gallery exhibit outside with artistic renderings of the shoddy living conditions within the buildings owned by landlord Gerald Fineberg.

The name DijahSB might not be familiar to the Boston scene, but this scene is one that should give them a warm embrace. The Black, queer & non-binary rapper from Toronto has graced at least one stage in Boston before, at a 3rdwavve function back in August 2019. As the Northeast stagnates in quarantine winter, look to DijahSB to warm you up with some low-key party vibes on new single “Throw That Back”.

The renowned nun, artist, and one-time Boston resident Sister Corita opined that art “does not come from thinking, but from responding.” Music exemplifies this notion. 2020 delivered a call to action for Boston-based musicians to persist through resistance — and luckily for us, even grow artistically.

The mechanism at the heart of this ongoing shell game is the notorious “Delaware loophole,” which allows companies to move so-called intangible assets to largely opaque subsidiaries in the Mid-Atlantic haven. In practice, corporations are able to legally avoid paying certain burdensome taxes. It’s all very confusing, to be sure—that’s how these relationships and pass-throughs are apparently designed. But in surveying the larger landscape, some patterns are clear; in particular, the city of Boston as well as the Commonwealth are potentially losing millions of dollars in tax revenue annually.

The fall is officially upon us in Boston, which means the informal time of year called “cuffing season” is beginning to be observed. Whether you’re quarantine single, stir-crazily polyamorous, or just fantasizing about meeting up with that errant Tinder match, here’s some songs by local Boston artists that will carry you through this moment in history.

Tenants of Gerald Fineberg, who owns roughly 30 apartment buildings in Greater Boston, have launched a social media campaign against their landlord and his affiliate company, Fineberg Management. The tenants, under the auspices of Fineberg Tenants’ Organization, allege widespread shoddy living conditions across all of Fineberg’s buildings in Allston, Brighton, Brookline, and Fenway.

Under the banner of Redefined’s 617Sessions , “Sound of Our Town 2020” is available Friday on streaming platforms. The compilation features local stalwarts including Red Shaydez , Ava Sophia , and Mint Green.

Fields Corner renegade art space Dorchester Art Project is officially expanding their space from their second-floor loft at 1486 Dorchester Ave to include a first-floor storefront in the same building. The plan was announced on Dorchester Art Project’s Facebook page earlier last week.

Legendary Chicago dance music DJ Aaron-Carl once opined about house music: "It's not just a groove. House is a feeling." As Boston enters nearly half a year of COVID-19 related closures, the DJs of the Hub stare down the barrel of a year without nightclubs being open. But it's that feeling Aaron-Carl expressed which has kept Boston's DJs booked and busy even through these challenging times. They are finding ways to make the dance floor experience more accessible and intimate than ever.

Around 10:45PM on the closing night of the Democratic National Convention, hopeful candidate Joe Biden began his speech with a quote from an unlikely source: socialist Black feminist activist and educator Ella Baker.

“We have UK Drill, NY Drill, now it’s time for Boston Drill!” So remarks DJ WhySham, Boston’s most beloved community DJ, who is supplying just that with her first single “We Run The City”. Featuring local talent Cakeswagg and Kay Wattz, the track is a hardbody tribute to boogie down Boston, “the trenches” as Cakeswagg so describes.

Puerto Rican writer and poet Martín Espada once quipped: “Everybody takes his or her reality for granted… Sometimes we have to unlearn that truth, learn that there is a different or broader reality.” That broader reality — the one that people of color face in the United States — is one that local musician Genie Santiago is firmly taking to task in her new single, “Revelación”.

We checked in with six of Boston’s unsigned hip-hop artists to dive into what they’ve been up to so far in 2020. Amid adverse political times, a pandemic, and the movement for Black Lives, the city’s hip-hop scene continues to embody its most beloved characteristics: inclusivity, paradigm shifts, and the insolence to be who one authentically is.

The long-awaited debut album by wünderkind duo Optic Bloom is here, and the world is better for it. Creatively drawing from soul, R&B, and trip hop, the album explores themes of mental health and interdependency framed through the lens of QTPOC livelihoods. If you like Portishead, FKA Twigs, Jill Scott, even The Avalanches or Glass Animals, Space Garden has something to offer you.

Descendants of Indian indentured laborers who now live in the independent, racially-diverse nations of the Caribbean, Africa, and Pacific Ocean have seemingly jettisoned caste from their respective diasporas — so goes, too, those from these diasporas who now live in North America, Europe, and other places. But is it as clear cut as that — Indians without caste?

Back when I had a car, late at night, I would often find myself speeding down Circuit Drive in Franklin Park. Entering the drive off Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester, I would test my impulses pushing 35, 40, 45 as the road twisted downhill towards the Shattuck. Never in my life would I have imagined that one day, in a time of great unrest, the entire drive from end to end would be filled with demonstrators, white and Black and all in between.

"It filled a void. She created an anthem, you know?"

Dubbed “the prince” of Boston’s rap scene, 617’s own SeeFour has been making the rounds over the past year doing what he does best. This 18-year-old rapper has already shared the stage with Tyga at the venue Big Night Live, and recently got an interview from our very own Dan Shea about his process during COVID-19. This single, “On God”, is a shot of optimism for our otherwise mess of a spring for 2020.

As part of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the nation was rocked on April 1st by a rent strike as a near third of American renters did not deliver their expected rent. Whether impromptu or planned, an action of this scale, for this generation, is unprecedented — but it’s far from the first of its kind. In Boston, a city heralded for its revolutionary origins, renters’ movements have had their own largely unacknowledged history.