Music N' Other Drugs

Cultural Criticism With a Conscience

Elevating the standard for music journalism one word at a time

Writing Pillars

Catching up with bands/artists whose cultural contributions carry more weight than their public profile.

The aim is to resurrect long-form discussions that allow the subject to expound upon topics without fear of reprisal.

Click Bait need not apply.

Let’s make America read again.

Breaking down shows from Buffalo and Beyond

Anyone can give a synopsis or regurgitate a press release.

My approach to reviewing a show is to make the reader feel how I felt in the moment and put the performance into a deeper context.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

Taking a deep dive on new releases and old favorites that deserve a second look.

Future Imagined is where possibility takes form.

It invites writers and thinkers to explore alternative worlds, reinterpret the present through speculative lenses, and consider futures shaped by justice, creativity, and cultural continuity.

Grounded in Afrofuturist philosophy, this pillar embraces non-linear time, visionary design, and re-enchantment — opening pathways to futures that expand, rather than constrain, human potential.

For power, ethics, and the structures we build.

Human Systems looks at the frameworks — political, technological, social, and economic — that influence daily life and collective futures.

It examines how new technologies challenge old assumptions, how governance adapts to rapid change, and how communities resist or reshape structures that no longer serve them.

This pillar encourages a critical yet imaginative view of progress: not as inevitable, but as a system humans actively design.

For cities, movement, and the geographies of belonging.

Urban Cosmos views cities as dynamic ecosystems shaped by culture, migration, infrastructure, and aspiration.

It explores how urban spaces carry memory, how diasporic communities create belonging across distance, and how Afrofuturist ideas can inspire new forms of architecture, mobility, and communal life.

This pillar treats the city as both a physical place and an imaginative realm — where new futures are continuously rehearsed.

For short reflections, emerging ideas, and cultural pulses.

Signals captures the quick movements of the world — brief insights, news fragments, experiments, innovations, and cultural shifts.

It functions as Sankofa’s “early-warning system,” gathering the small sparks that often precede larger transformations.

This pillar is agile, observational, and continuously updating, offering a living snapshot of the ideas shaping life on Earth and beyond.