Recently Frontman Claudio Sanchez, talking to Denver's Westword.com said, "(He) recalls beginning to write music as a teenager on a four-track cassette player. Now most of his songs come to life on a 
computer. But while the means for creating a song might be different now, the core of his songwriting itself will never change. It's still all about telling a story or conveying emotion through sound."
"Back then he was writing about being a teenager growing up in the ’90s, as well as the emotions and experiences of being the son of a recovering addict. Two decades later, he's writing about being a father himself, even saying that his son is what influences his music the most these days.
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
2005 Lake Robbins Drive
The Woodlands, TX 77380
Directions (Map)
(281) 364-3010
Slick Rick
Rick Walters, a.k.a Slick Rick has come a long way since the 80's. In 2015 he was interviewed by The New York Times.com,"In the 1980s, his ability to spin a tale earned him fame as Slick Rick, the gold-draped rapper, also known as Rick the Ruler, with an 
eye patch and an English accent whose adventures propelled him to stardom. That was followed by prison time for a shooting, immigration problems and — to his relief — a 2008 pardon from Gov. David A. Paterson of New York.
But like a storyteller used to improvising endings, Mr. Walters does not dwell on those rough spots. He still tours and composes songs. He leads a low-key life, living in the same Bronx neighborhood that he settled in with his Jamaican mother and his sister when they moved from England in 1976. For someone who is considered to be among the pivotal figures of hip-hop’s golden age, what better place to be than in the borough that spawned a global culture?"
Cut Creator
Phil Jean-Remy, aka Cut Creator is Well known as the right hand man for Rap's mega star, LL Cool J. A few years ago was interviewed by the PBS blog "Black Culture connection"
"As one of the pioneers of Hip-Hop who helped define a brand new genre of music, who were the musicians, or the DJs in your case, that you drew your inspiration from?
DJ Cut Cre
ator: In my era there were very few. I have to look at guys like DJ Hollywood, Grandmaster Flash, and a guy that was little known but [played] a big part by the name D.J. Divine from a group called Infinity Machine. He worked at a local record store and he had biggest sound systems in New York City. Those would be my influences."
One morning in the summer of 1999, Shukriya Barakzai woke up feeling dizzy and feverish. According to the Taliban’s rules, she needed a Maharram, a male guardian, in order to leave home to visit the 
doctor. Her husband was at work, and she had no sons. So she shaved her 2-year-old daughter’s head, dressed her in boys’ clothing to pass her off as a guardian, and slipped on a burka. Its blue folds hid her fingertips, painted red in violation of the Taliban’s ban on nail polish. She asked her neighbor, another woman, to walk with her to the doctor in central Kabul.
To top it off: rude customers, whose abuses restaurant staff are often obligated to tolerate. And lately, testy diners have only gotten more impatient as they emerge from 
the pandemic shutdowns.
Cornett, off work for a few weeks, realized he received enough money through unemployment benefits to start saving — for the first time. He wondered if the work he loves would ever entail a job that came with health insurance or paid leave.
Nicole Krauss’s Beautiful 
Letter to Van Gogh on How to Break the Loop of Our Destructive Patterns
Early one morning, Linsey Marr tiptoed to her dining room table, slipped on a headset, and fired up Zoom. On her computer screen, dozens of familiar faces began to appear. She 
also saw a few people she didn’t know, including Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead for Covid-19, and other expert advisers to the WHO. It was just past 1 pm Geneva time on April 3, 2020, but in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Marr lives with her husband and two children, dawn was just beginning to break.
Over Zoom, they laid out the case. They ticked through a growing list of superspreading events in restaurants, call centers, cruise ships, and a choir rehearsal, instances where people got sick even when they were across the room from a contagious 
person. The incidents contradicted the WHO’s main safety guidelines of keeping 3 to 6 feet of distance between people and frequent handwashing. If SARS-CoV-2 traveled only in large droplets that immediately fell to the ground, as the WHO was saying, then wouldn’t the distancing and the handwashing have prevented such outbreaks? Infectious air was the more likely culprit, they argued. But the WHO’s experts appeared to be unmoved. If they were going to call Covid-19 airborne, they wanted more direct evidence—proof, which could take months to gather, that the virus was abundant in the air. Meanwhile, thousands of people were falling ill every day.