In a city as loud and eccentric as Miami, our musical landscape has become completely enmeshed in our local reality. Between buskers on Lincoln Road, or sound bowl orchestras on South Beach, it’s simpler to bask in the omnipresent sound than escape it. Yet, because of this landscape’s chameleon-like personality, it’s difficult to not take the noise for granted. If we are to look at exactly what Miami has to offer to those sonically inclined, we must divorce the city from the stereotypes. Ask yourself: what does this place sound like? What do locals listen to when we’re off festival season? To the untrained ear, the Magic City might not be considered a birthplace of revolutionary sound, but we know better than tourists, right? Peer behind the tropical curtain and you’ll find that there’s an outpour of inspired musicians, creating art where different genres tangle together to create a musical tapestry unlike any other
Eclipsed by Miami’s reputation as a “party city,” too many original sounds coming out of the 305 go unnoticed, namely “Latin” music. Despite what Billboard Latin Music Week might have you believe, Latin music is used by many as a catch-all just to mean ”music sung in Spanish”. Such throw-away phrasing is a disservice to emerging independent groups. After all, Peso Pluma and Los Babasonicos sound nothing alike. Local listeners can get hit with the punk influence of Venezuelan band Viloria, and enjoy the electronic, bilingual beats of Oro Fresco on the same night. Influences from the Caribbean, Central and South America are unavoidable, but lumping these inspirations together under the broad umbrella of Latin music is to erase them completely. What’s more interesting is how these sounds and the more underground scenes in the city intertwine.
Rolling Loud might usher in thousands of die-hard rap fans, but that’s not to say the genre is nonexistent for the remainder of the year. Roc Chamberlin knows this best. As co-founder of Omni Soundspace, he also knows that hosting highly-stylized events is the best way to shine the spotlight on the swaths of local talent. When planning events, Chamberlin curates an experience starring handpicked rising rap and R&B talent. One of their recent showcases, Pulse at the Sandbox, was an evening designed to infect audiences with intense, high-energy rap performances. But, it goes just beyond sticking to one genre–these events are shared between all kinds of artists.
“We’re just grabbing so many different parts of South Florida and bringing them together. It blows my mind looking at all of them in one room. This just doesn’t happen regularly.”
And it’s not just talk. Beyond Chamberlin’s own rap performances, Omni Soundspace has welcomed DJs and performers like Mr Floyd Larry, an alternative act and singer-songwriter Sasha Camille, who focuses on indie r&b. For Chamberlin, the love is in collaborating with sounds that are, in theory, dissimilar from one another.
Along with the colorful rap and R&B scene, one of Miami’s most explosive scenes also hides behind the curtain. But when you find it, it becomes an unavoidable, unstoppable force. Our local alternative rock scene produces astonishingly diverse bands that simply ooze the classic do-it-yourself sentiment essential for the space. Buko Boys and Cannibal Kids enrapture their audiences into swaying and bobbing their heads with vibrant, hypnotizing indie rock sound. On the heavier side of the spectrum, every song by Roxx Revolt and The Velvets simply bursts at the seams with sheer power, reminding audiences that rock isn’t dead. Palomino Blond and Shivva revolutionized the sounds of the shoegaze revival that trickled down to our section of the swamp. From Gramps in Wynwood, to Kill Your Idol in Coral Gables, the rage and dynamism of alternative talent is hard to miss
Clearly, there’s no shortage of local acts to catch when you’re tired of your algorithmically-produced Spotify daylist. Despite its party city reputation, Miami’s musical space rejects being defined by one genre. Between sounds of indie rock, rap, house, R&B, alternative, in whatever language the music is in,and the malleability of this scene, makes it unlike any other. Whether it’s in a 500-person venue, or a Tuesday night in a dive bar, the ingenuity and unadulterated creativity present in Miami is proof enough that the sounds we take for granted are just waiting for new ears to discover them. It might just be this city’s best-keptsecret.
Overlooked as this scene might be, our musicians aren’t going to let that stop them. Chamberlin said it best:
