Kimberly Reyes

I was a 16-year-old student at the Bronx High School of Science, scribbling Concrete Blonde lyrics at my desk...

Duran Duran are back!

A few weeks back, when New York City announced the minuscule number of black students admitted to its elite specialized high schools, the report generated the usual dialogues around how the system is broken and what, if anything, can be done to fix it. There is no doubt that the numbers are abysmal: Only 12 black students scored high enough on the citywide test to win a seat at my alma mater, Bronx Science, and just seven to Stuyvesant. While I’m concerned for the black students continually l...

While most of my friends chose to head-bang to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Guns N’ Roses on the hour-long train ride to high school, my yellow Sports Walkman usually played something a little slower and more somber. From the Geto Boys to The Sisters of Mercy...

We saw this cute quiz in Buzzfeed and couldn't resist the urge to share. Teen-queen Taylor Swift has been compared to many other lovelorn writers, but this may be the first time acclaimed poet Pablo Neruda has entered the conversation. With lines like:
"Oh, losing him was blue like I'd never known. Missing him was dark grey all along."
attribution can certainly get tricky. Color imagery, mixed metaphors ... what?! Is it the Chilean wordsmith or the crafty chanteuse? Knowing Swift's affinity f...

I think best while moving, walking the manicured streets of my neighborhood—the Inner Richmond—as the fog settles, taking in the pastel-colored Queen Anne houses and neatly groomed gardens of protea flowers.
Last week, I ended up at an art studio near my house. I didn’t want to, but I found myself thinking about the time I went to a friend’s opening there this past summer, and the doorman, who’d been easily welcoming in non-Black people immediately before and after me, hesitated to let me in ...

Sun | West Sound A & E

Billy Idol lived hard, but he didn't die young, and that means there still are more records to make and shows to play. AP photo by Jim Cooper

NEW YORK — Few musicians can boast the level of success that Billy Idol attained in the '80s and early '90s. Unfortunately, the "live hard and die young" punk rock ethos doesn't come with a middle-age survival guide.

"When you're young you never think you'll be a 50-year-old rocking out with the young bands," Idol said.

That's exa...

Yet Do I Marvel: A Tribute to Countee Cullen [by Ki...

In the 2015 New York Times article “Please Stop Making That Noise,” Barron H. Lerner calls misophonia, literally hatred of sound, a “selective sound sensitivity syndrome.” It can be triggered by anything from gum chewing to loud, sudden noises. Per WebMD, a trigger can make a person feel anxious, uncomfortable, and/or give them the urge to flee. A more severe reaction can inspire rage, hatred, panic, fear, emotional distress, a desire to kill or stop whatever is making the noise, skin crawlin...

'Finding a Window' by Kimberly Reyes

Many music careers are over in four years — but that’s how long Jill Scott waited to release her second album.

Not that Scott took a break. She released a live album in 2001, wrote a forthcoming book of poetry called “The Minutes, The Moments, The Hours,” appeared on the UPN sitcom “Girlfriends,” started the Blues Babe foundation (named after her grandmother) for aspiring college students and worked on a Showtime movie called “Cave Dwellers,” which should be out later this year.

Still, with s...

NY real estate

The 10 darkest moments of ''Making the Band'' Anyone who's been watching MTV's ''Making the Band 2'' knows how quickly the show went from being…

The idea of charismatic Blur frontman Damon Albarn hiding behind a fictional cartoon band to make an experimental fusion of hip-hop and garage rock probably seemed crazy at the time. But the Gorillaz's 2001 debut album sold more than 6 million records worldwide and spawned Clint Eastwood, one of the most despondent, yet strangely mesmerizing, hit singles in recent memory. Now comes Demon Days, the Gorillaz' highly anticipated follow-up, which debuted at No. 6 on the album charts with 107,000 ...