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  • Philly music with Brandi Carlile, Turnpike Troubadours & Robert Earl Keen, and a surprise bluegrass and country night

    Philly music with Brandi Carlile, Turnpike Troubadours & Robert Earl Keen, and a surprise bluegrass and country night

    This week in Philly music features a Turnpike Troubadours and Robert Earl Keen double bill, two shows with rising Americana star Kashus Culpepper, a Black History Month celebration of Philly house music, Pulitzer Prize-winning drummer Tyshawn Sorey, and Brandi Carlile in South Philly opening her first-ever arena tour.

    Wednesday, Feb. 4.

    Mdou Moctar

    Nigerian guitarist Mdou Moctar has been a regular in the Philadelphia region, fronting an electric band that showcases his Tuareg guitar music blended with hypnotic modern rock. This show is a rare solo set that will showcase his 2024 album Funeral for Justice in an intimate setting. Philly trumpeter and electronic musician Koof Ibi opens. 8 p.m., Johnny Brenda’s, 1021 N. Frankford Ave., johnnybrendas.com

    Thursday, Feb. 5

    Turnpike Troubadours / Robert Earl Keen

    Oklahoma sextet Turnpike Troubadours sounds as road tested as its band name implies on its seventh album, The Price of Admission. The Shooter Jennings-produced band has steadily risen in popularity with a dependable brand of fiddle- and steel guitar-fueled Red Dirt country.

    Robert Earl Keen opens for Turnpike Troubadours at the Met Philly on Thursday.

    And they get big points for taking Robert Earl Keen out on the road with them on this tour. The wry Texas songwriter, best known for outlaw narratives like “The Road Goes on Forever” and the hard-earned optimism of songs like “Feelin’ Good Again,” retired from touring in 2022 but has thankfully reneged on that vow. 8 p.m., Met Philly, 858 N. Broad St., themetphilly.com

    Friday, Feb. 6

    Kashus Culpepper

    Join the Navy, then become a country and Americana star. That was Zach Bryan’s route to success, and Alabama native Kashus Culpepper has a similar origin story. The soulful singer started getting serious about music during the COVID-19 pandemic, and fronted cover bands before starting to write his own songs in 2023. His new album, Act I, features a guest appearance from Sierra Ferrell and Marcus King. He plays Free at Noon, then heads across town for another gig that night. Noon, World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St., xpn.org and 8 p.m., Foundry at the Fillmore, 29 E. Allen St., thefillmorephilly.com

    Takuya Nakamura

    Japanese pianist, trumpeter, and electronic musician Takuya Nakamura has collaborated with artists like Arto Lindsay and Quincy Jones and brings his space ambient mixture of jazz and jungle to Philly this weekend. 9 p.m., Warehouse on Watts, 923 N. Watts St., wowphilly.com

    Tyshawn Sorey pays tribute to Max Roach at the Zellerbach Theatre on Friday.

    Tyshawn Sorey

    Drummer, composer, and Pulitzer Prize-winning Penn professor Tyshawn Sorey won’t have to travel far from the classroom to his Annenberg Center gig on Friday. He’s paying tribute to jazz giant Max Roach and his 1968 album Members, Don’t Git Weary with a band that includes trumpeter Adam O’Farrill. 7:30 p.m., Zellerbach Theatre, 3680 Walnut St., pennlivearts.org

    Lady Alma will perform at the Fallser Club on Saturday as part of the Legacy of Philadelphia House showcase.

    Saturday, Feb. 7

    The Legacy of Philadelphia House Music

    This showcase is part of the Black History Month Celebration of Black Excellence at the Fallser Club. Spoken word poet Ursula Rocker will be joined by dance music diva Lady Alma, singer Carla Gamble, and DJ Sylo. A short film, featuring Sylk 130 creator King Britt, will be screened. 5 p.m., the Fallser Club, 3721 Midvale Ave., thefallserclub.org

    Tom Mindte & Blue Mountain Boys / Midnight Flyer

    A bluegrass double bill spotlighting mandolinist Tom Mindte, a standout of the Washington-Baltimore scene, comes to the Black Squirrel Club, the Fishtown venue that’s also home to a hotly tipped Monday night jazz jam. The night begins with an open-to-all-pickers bluegrass jam. 7 p.m., Black Squirrel Club, 1049 Sarah St., blacksquirrelclub.com.

    Red Tailed Rounders / Ramona and the Holy Smokes

    Saturday is bluegrass and country night, apparently. Philly’s quick-picking ensemble Red Tailed Rounders will be joined by Virginia honky-tonk band Ramona and the Holy Smokes. 8 p.m., MilkBoy Philly, 1100 Chestnut St., milkboyphilly.com

    Antarcigo Vespucci

    The side project of prolific punk rock solo artist and former Bombthe Music Industry! leader Jeff Rosenstock and Chris Warren of Fake Problems hasn’t produced any new music since the 2018 album Love in the Time of E-Mail. But after reuniting last year, the duo is about to tour together this winter. Opener is Philly’s Golden Apples, whose latest is last year’s Shooting Star. 8 p.m., First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St., r5productions.com

    Electric Guest / Snacktime

    Asa Taccone and Matthew Compton of Electric Guest are in fine funky form on 10K, their first album in six years. Philly’s Snacktime opens the show, so here’s hoping they sit in with the headliners and turn the party up a notch. 8 p.m., Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St., utphilly.com

    Denison Witmer

    In 2020, the proud Pennsylvanian put out a single called “Lancaster County” about carrying the region with him as he traveled the world. This weekend, the singer-songwriter will be back in his hometown supporting his delicate and dreamy 2025 album Anything at All, which is produced by his old pal Sufjan Stevens. Witmer will play with a full band on Saturday, and a solo show on Sunday. 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday, West Art, 816 Buchanon Ave., Lancaster, westartlanc.com

    Brandi Carlile’s “The Human Tour” opens at the Xfinity Mobile Arena on Tuesday.

    Tuesday, Feb. 10

    Brandi Carlile

    Brandi Carlile will sing ”America the Beautiful” at Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, Calif., on Sunday, and two days later, she kicks off her “Human Tour” in South Philly. The concert trek is for Returning to Myself, her new album that gets personal after she’s spent much time in recent years working alongside Joni Mitchell and Elton John, the latter of whom she teamed with on last year’s Who Believes in Angels. The Head and the Heart open. 8 p.m., Xfinity Mobile Arena, 3601 S. Broad St., xfinitymobilearena.com

  • Local businessman and ‘Task’ stuntman is appointed to Kennett Square council

    Local businessman and ‘Task’ stuntman is appointed to Kennett Square council

    Michael Bertrando’s first brush with Kennett Square’s council three years ago was to discuss a parking issue at his family’s legacy sandwich spot, Sam’s Sub Shop. He saw his neighbors, listened to them, and started to see how the council worked. Eventually, he became something of a regular.

    When the issue of short-term rentals came up last month, Bertrando had a lot of perspective: As an actor — you might have seen him on HBO’s Task — he has traveled extensively. He has seen the negative effects short-term rentals can have had on communities from New York to Argentina to Brazil. He spoke up.

    And then people started to drop by the sandwich shop, which he runs alongside his parents, suggesting that he put his name in for a vacant seat on the council.

    The council voted last month to appoint Bertrando, 52, from a crowded field of applicants to fill former council member Julie Hamilton’s seat through December 2027. He was sworn in Monday.

    The seat will be on the ballot for a four-year term in the 2027 general election. Hamilton resigned for a job in Texas, the Daily Local reported.

    Long ties to Kennett Square

    Council member is another job title the local businessman and Task stuntman can add to his resumé.

    “I’m volunteering to help the residents of my community; that’s my primary goal,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

    Bertrando — an actor, director, and producer — has worked at his family’s 80-year-old sub shop for decades. It drew him back home a few years ago, so he could help his aging parents run the shop.

    But in the years between, Bertrando left Kennett Square to pursue acting, appearing in commercials for brands like Mercedes, McDonald’s, Nintendo, and Oscar Mayer; traveling the world as a professional clown; and working the improv comedy circuit in New York and Chicago.

    His film career has continued back in Pennsylvania; Bertrando served as Mark Ruffalo’s stand-in and stunt double in Task, the HBO crime drama set in Delco. In his own productions, his hometown has seeped into his work. A short film, Italian Special, is set within Sam’s Sub Shop and Kennett Square.

    Since returning to the borough, Bertrando has been a frequent visitor to council meetings, and advised the borough alongside other business leaders on what was going well, and what wasn’t, in Kennett Square.

    Priorities on council

    His professional career and his family’s long lineage in Kennett Square have shaped his perspectives on the borough, and what he thinks he can add as a council member.

    He is motivated by the possible development of a new theater. Infusing more arts into the community would be beneficial, he said.

    Having worked on Task, he saw how other municipalities the show filmed in benefited from an influx of revenue: from parking to hiring police for traffic control, to renting out locations in town, to ordering food for lunches and snacks, to coffee runs, to overnight stays in hotels.

    “We have all the infrastructure needed for that to happen here in Kennett,” he said.

    Both Task and fellow Pennsylvania-based crime drama Mare of Easttown mention Kennett Square, but neither used the borough for filming.

    “When you have a theater or something arts-driven in the town, I think that’s a signal,” he said. “I think a theater can work as a beacon for revenue from other sources, like film production.”

    Beyond the intersection of his passion for film and the borough, he said the development of the former National Vulcanized Fiber land, a large undeveloped parcel that is being remediated for contamination in soil from the industrial site, has been of concern for residents.

    While the project would be years out even if ultimately approved, Bertrando said he would advocate for environmental transparency and affordable development that respects the existing neighborhoods.

    He would also like to improve communication between the municipality and its residents — the longtime community members, like Bertrando’s family, and those who are choosing to relocate.

    As he began his term on the other side of public comment, he said, he focused in, listening closely to what his neighbors were saying. He feels the burden to pay close attention, since he was appointed to the role, rather than elected.

    “I really have to make the effort to listen to their concerns and really try the best ways to help in their concerns,” he said. “Sitting on the other side was exciting. It was important. It’s serious. It’s my town. I really care about it.”

  • Paul Simon, Tim McGraw, Noah Kahan, and Don Toliver are all headed to Philly this summer

    Paul Simon, Tim McGraw, Noah Kahan, and Don Toliver are all headed to Philly this summer

    The summer concert calendar is already filling up.

    In the middle of what Inquirer weather maven Tony Wood says is Philadelphia’s most snow-covered winter in 16 years, it may seem like it will never be warm enough to go to a concert that’s outside.

    Nevertheless, the summer music season is starting to take shape, with a flurry of big show announcements this week.

    Don Toliver performs on the Rocky Stage during the Made in America 2022 festival on the Ben Franklin Parkway on Sept. 4, 2022. The Houston rapper plays Xfinity Mobile Arena on May 24.

    Here’s a chronological list:

    Don Toliver, May 24, Xfinity Mobile Arena

    This one is actually indoors, so if there’s still snow on the ground in May, fans of the Houston rapper born Caleb Zackery Toliver can warm up inside on this stop on his “Octane” tour.

    The concert trek is named after Toliver’s new album, which was released last week and features guest appearances from Teezo Touchdown and Travis Scott, who is also a featured producer.

    The rally-racing car-culture-themed tour will also include Sahbabii, Sofaygo, and Chase B.

    Tickets are on sale at LiveNation.com.

    Noah Kahan, June 26, Citizens Bank Park

    The Vermont singer-songwriter who vaulted into the pop stratosphere with 2022’s Stick Season is headlining stadiums on his ”Great Divide” tour. The tour takes its name from his new single that’s the title track from his forthcoming album produced by Gabe Simon and Taylor Swift associate Aaron Dessner. New Jersey-born singer Gigi Perez opens.

    Tickets go on sale Thursday, Feb. 12, at noahkahan.com.

    Paul Simon, July 5, Highmark Mann Center

    Last year, Paul Simon was scheduled to play three shows at the Academy of Music on his “A Quiet Celebration” tour, his first set of Philadelphia shows since a 2018 “Farewell Tour” that was hyped as his last and played the Mann Center.

    The first of those 2025 shows, I wrote in The Inquirer, impressively demonstrated “how a devotion to restless forward momentum has resulted in an epic and ongoing pop music career.”

    The next two shows, however, never happened, after Simon’s “severe back pain” required (successful) surgery. An announced plan to play makeup dates never materialized, but now Simon is coming back to Philly with his stellar band for a return visit to the Mann.

    The show entails an opening set performance of his 2024 EP, Seven Psalms, followed by an expansive career-spanning second set of hits and deep cuts.

    Tickets are on sale at PaulSimon.com.

    Tim McGraw is playing the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden and Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey in July.

    Tim McGraw, July 23, Freedom Mortgage Pavilion

    The longtime country star who is the son of Phillies great Tug McGraw and whose name is also the title of Taylor Swift’s first single, is playing Camden on July 23. 49 Winchester is opening on a tour that takes its name from McGraw’s new single, “Pawn Shop Guitar.”

    Take note: In addition to playing amphitheaters, McGraw is doing three stadium shows with a loaded lineup featuring openers the Chicks and Lady A. One of those dates is at Hersheypark Stadium on July 11.

    Tickets are on sale at timmcgraw.com.

  • Chuck Negron, lead singer on ‘Joy to the World’ and other Three Dog Night hits, has died at 83

    Chuck Negron, lead singer on ‘Joy to the World’ and other Three Dog Night hits, has died at 83

    NEW YORK — Chuck Negron, a founding member of the soul-rock sensations Three Dog Night who sang lead on such hits as “One” and “Just an Old Fashioned Love Song“ and hollered the immortal opening line “Jeremiah was a bullfrog!” on the chart-topping “Joy to the World,” died Monday. He was 83.

    He died of complications from heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at his home in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles, according to publicist Zach Farnum.

    Mr. Negron and fellow vocalists Cory Wells and Danny Hutton were Los Angeles-based performers who began working together in the mid-1960s, originally called themselves Redwood and settled on Three Dog Night, Australian slang for frigid outback weather. Between 1969 and 1974, they were among the world’s most successful acts, with 18 top 20 singles and 12 albums certified gold for selling at least 500,000 copies.

    The group contributed little of its own material, but proved uniquely adept at interpreting others, reworking songs by such rising stars of the time as Randy Newman (“Mama Told Me Not to Come”), Paul Williams (“Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song”), and Laura Nyro (“Eli’s Coming”). No matter the originator, the sound was unmistakably Three Dog Night: The trio of stars worked themselves into a raved-up, free-for-all passion, as if each singer were attempting to vault in front of the others. “The Kings of Oversing,” the Village Voice would call them.

    Three Dog Night was so popular, and so in demand, it released four albums within 18 months. In December 1972, the band hosted and performed on the inaugural edition of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.

    “We were really on a roll and very prolific,” Mr. Negron told smashinginterviews.com in 2013. “We were in the zone so to speak and really putting it out there. Back then, I don’t think it hurt us. It started hurting a little after that when there was just too much product. We were going to towns too many times a year. I remember getting off a plane in Dallas and thinking, ‘Wait a second. Weren’t we just here?’ Just thinking, ‘Oh, God, how are we going to sell out?’”

    Well, hello Jeremiah

    Mr. Negron himself stood out for his drooping mustache, in contrast to his clean-shaven peers, and for his multioctave tenor. He helped transform “One,” a Harry Nilsson ballad, from a breakup song to a cry of helpless solitude. And he helped convince Wells and Hutton not to pass on what became their most famous song.

    “Joy to the World,” written by Hoyt Axton, shared the title and little else with the 18th century English hymn. Axton’s novelty anthem was a secular blessing — “Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me” — with carefree asides about women, rainbow-riding, and the friendship of a wine-guzzling bullfrog named Jeremiah. According to Mr. Negron, the other singers had twice turned down “Joy to the World” in his absence before Axton played him a demo.

    “When he started, I liked it immediately. I thought we could have some fun with it,” Mr. Negron told forbes.com in 2022. “We had some free time later, so we started jamming ‘Joy’ for fun. We didn’t have to be so cool all of the time, right? That opening line had to be screamed. Did that guy just say, ‘Jeremiah was a bullfrog’? I got up the scale to D, which is pretty high, and just screamed it out. When the band heard that, they went, ‘Holy crap, that’s great.‘”

    No one seemed to care what “Jeremiah was a bullfrog!” was supposed to mean; it became a catchphrase of the era. “Joy to the World” outsold all other songs in 1971, received two Grammy nominations and lived on through oldies radio stations and movie soundtracks, notably for The Big Chill and Forrest Gump. The song caught on so fast, and for so long, that Three Dog Night performed it at back-to-back Grammy ceremonies.

    Their other hits included “Black and White,” “Celebrate,” “Shambala,” and “Easy to Be Hard.” But by the mid-1970s, the band was burned out, feuding and self-destructing. They broke up in 1976, attempted the occasional reunion and settled in as an oldies act, with Hutton the only remaining original singer. Wells died in 2015, while Mr. Negron had dropped out for good in the mid-1980s, when his drug problems led to his being fired.

    Mr. Negron would call his memoir, published in 1998 and reissued 20 years later, Three Dog Nightmare. Chapter titles included “Making Millions and Stoned All the Time” and “Threw Up My Guts and Loved It.”

    After decades of estrangement between him and Hutton, the two men reconciled last year.

    Mr. Negron was married four times, most recently to his manager, Ami Albea Negron, and he is survived by five children His previous wives include Julie Densmore, former wife of drummer John Densmore of the Doors.

    Surviving a rock star’s life

    Born Charles Negron II in 1942, he was a New York City native who was still a toddler when his parents broke up: For a time, Negron lived in a foster home because his mother couldn’t afford to raise him and his twin sister, Nancy. He initially dreamed of playing basketball, but his life changed in adolescence when his best friend convinced him to try singing. He won a school talent show, and was soon singing professionally, at the Apollo and other venues around New York.

    After graduating from Hancock, a junior college in Santa Maria, Calif., Mr. Negron performed in clubs in Los Angeles and met Wells and Hutton, whose friends included Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. They nearly signed with the Beach Boys’ Brothers Records before Wilson’s band mates, worried that their leader was using up his talents elsewhere, intervened. Mr. Negron, Wells and Hutton ended up at ABC-Dunhill, and recruited a backing band, including Floyd Sneed on drums, Joe Schermie on bass and Jimmy Greenspoon on keyboards.

    In his post-Three Dog Night years, Mr. Negron released several solo albums, including Joy to the World and Long Road Back, a companion to his memoir, and otherwise dedicated himself to helping others struggling with substance abuse. Before cleaning up in the 1990s — Sept. 17, 1991 — he had been so addicted to heroin and other drugs that he nearly died numerous times, lost his family and all of his money and descended from a luxurious villa in Hollywood Hills to sleeping on a mattress in a vacant lot.

    “That’s what drugs do. I don’t care if it gives you a hit song. What does it matter?” he told smashinginterviews.com. “The point is not if it helps you create, the point is it kills you! Are you willing to die because you wanted to try drugs to try a new experience? That’s the question. I’m in a town here where there are many who ain’t the same and never will be.”

  • ‘Sun Ra: Do the Impossible’ is headed to ‘American Masters’ on PBS

    ‘Sun Ra: Do the Impossible’ is headed to ‘American Masters’ on PBS

    Sun Ra, the Afrofuturist bandleader and intergalactic visionary who based his Arkestra in Philadelphia for decades, is heading to PBS.

    Sun Ra: Do the Impossible, the Christine Turner-directed documentary that screened at last year’s Black Star Film Festival in Philadelphia, will air as part of PBS’ American Masters series during Black History Month.

    It will be shown locally on WHYY at 9 p.m. Feb. 20.

    Sun Ra, who was born Herman Poole Blount in Birmingham, Ala., founded Arkestra, now led by 101-year-old saxophone player Marshall Allen after Sun Ra’s death in 1993. He moved with the band to a house in Germantown in the late 1960s, where Allen still lives. The Morton Street house was originally owned by Allen’s father.

    Turner’s film includes how Blount, who was known as “Sonny,” experienced a “transmolecularization” in 1936 in which he claimed to have been teleported to Saturn and returned to Earth with a musical mission to bring peace and understanding to the world.

    Sun Ra’s music encompasses the history of jazz — from its New Orleans beginnings to out-there experimentation with electronic instruments, King Britt, Philadelphia DJ-producer-turned Blacktronika professor at the University of California San Diego, explains in the film.

    Other Philadelphians who offer analysis in the documentary include poet-musician-activist Moor Mother, and critic and WRTI-FM (90.1) editorial director Nate Chinen.

    The film’s title is inspired by a Sun Ra quote that Turner kept on her desk while she worked on the documentary. It read: “The possible has been tried and failed. Now it’s time to try the impossible.”

    From Germantown to Saturn and back: a new Sun Ra documentary lands in Philly

    The American Masters treatment arrives at a time when Sun Ra’s presence is larger than ever.

    Since 2023, the organization has released five Sun Ra tribute albums. Sun Ra’s oeuvre was central to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent “Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt” exhibit, and his image is featured prominently at the Institute of Contemporary Art’s “Entryways: Xenobia Bailey” exhibit currently on view.

    Do the Impossible adds to the growing Sun Ra film library that includes the 1972 movie Space is the Place, and Philly filmmaker Robert Mugge’s 1980 Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise. Another doc, coproduced by Allen along with his son Ronnie Boyd titled Sun Ra: Door to the Cosmos, is in the works.

    Sun Ra Arkestra bandleader Marshall Allen with “Sun Ra: Do the Impossible” director Christine Turner at the Sun Ra house on Morton Street in Germantown. The documentary will be shown on PBS on Feb. 20.

    “As a culture, we’re just catching up with a lot of the ideas and the music that was so ahead of its time,” Turner said of her film’s subject in an interview with The Inquirer in July.

    “He’s become an icon of Afrofuturism, and I think that is resonating with people because we’re deeply in need of new ideas and radically imagining another kind of future. And I think people are really hungering for that.”

  • Disney parks chief Josh D’Amaro will succeed Bob Iger as CEO

    Disney parks chief Josh D’Amaro will succeed Bob Iger as CEO

    Disney has named its parks chief Josh D’Amaro to succeed Bob Iger as the entertainment giant’s top executive.

    D’Amaro will become the ninth CEO in the more than 100-year-old company’s history. He has overseen the company’s theme parks, cruises, and resorts since 2020. The so-called Experiences division has been a substantial moneymaker for Disney, with $36 billion in annual revenue in fiscal 2025 and 185,000 employees worldwide.

    The 54-year-old takes over a time when Disney is flush with box-office hits such as Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire and Ash and its streaming business is strong. At the same time, Disney has seen a decline in foreign visitors to its domestic theme parks. Tourism to the U.S. has fallen overall during an aggressive immigration crack down by the Trump administration, as well as clashes with almost all of country’s trading partners.

    The decision on the next chief executive at Disney comes almost four years after the company’s choice to replace Iger went disastrously, forcing Iger back into the job.

    Only two years after stepping down as CEO, Iger returned to Disney in 2022 after a period of clashes, missteps ,and a weakening financial performance under his hand-picked successor, Bob Chapek.

    Disney meticulously and methodically sought out its next CEO this time. The company created a succession planning committee in 2023, but the search began in earnest in 2024 when Disney enlisted James Gorman, who is currently Disney’s chairman and previously served as Morgan Stanley’s executive chairman, to lead the effort. That still gave it ample opportunity to vet candidates, as Iger agreed to a contract extension.

    Disney said that Iger will continue to serve as a senior adviser and board member until his retirement from the company at the end of the year.

    While external candidates were considered, it was widely expected that Disney would look internally for the next CEO. The advantage would be that Disney executives were already being mentored by Iger, and had extensive contact with the company’s 15 board members, of which Iger is a member.

    Disney is unique in that its top executive must oversee a sprawling entertainment company with branches reaching in every direction, while also serving as an unusually public figure.

    D’Amaro and Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden quickly emerged as the front-runners for the top job.

    D’Amaro, who has been with Disney since 1998, has been leading the charge on Disney’s multiyear $60 billion investment into its cruise ships, resorts, and theme parks. He also oversees Walt Disney Imagineering, which is in charge of the design and development of the company’s theme parks, resorts, cruise ships, and immersive experiences worldwide. In addition, D’Amaro has been leading Disney’s licensing business, which includes its partnership with Epic Games.

    “Throughout this search process, Josh has demonstrated a strong vision for the company’s future and a deep understanding of the creative spirit that makes Disney unique in an ever-changing marketplace,” Gorman said in prepared remarks. “He has an outstanding record of business achievement, collaborating with some of the biggest names in entertainment to bring their stories to life in our parks, showcasing the power of combining Disney storytelling with cutting-edge technology.”

    In her most recent role as co-chair of Disney Entertainment, Walden has helped oversee Disney’s streaming business, along with its entertainment media, news, and content businesses. She joined Disney in 2019. Before that, Walden spent 25 years at 21st Century Fox and was CEO of Fox Television Group.

    Walden will now step into the newly created role of chief creative officer of the Walt Disney Co. She will report to D’Amaro.

    “I think if you think about what is the heart of the Disney company, it’s the creativity. It’s this amazing IP that’s been produced over decades, going back to Walt, and the storytelling that comes from that creativity. And I think Dana, working with Josh and ensuring that the best creativity permeates all of our businesses, is what we wanted,” Gorman said in an interview with CNBC.

    There had been speculation that Disney might go the route of naming co-CEOs, a move that has started to become more popular with companies. Oracle and Spotify are among those who named co-CEOs in 2025.

    D’Amaro and Walden’s appointments are effective on March 18.

  • Woodie King Jr., founder of powerhouse off-Broadway New Federal Theatre, has died at 88

    Woodie King Jr., founder of powerhouse off-Broadway New Federal Theatre, has died at 88

    NEW YORK — Woodie King Jr., an actor, director, and producer who founded the New Federal Theatre to give voice and employment to Black playwrights, actors, directors, designers, and young people entering the American theater, has died. He was 88.

    His off-Broadway theater company said Mr. King died Thursday at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City of complications from emergency heart surgery.

    Mr. King was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2012 and received the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre in 2020.

    “We have lost a giant,” said Emmy Award-winning actor and educator Erin Cherry on Instagram. “I am here because of Woodie King Jr. My very first introduction to the Black theater scene was the play ‘Knock Me a Kiss’ produced by New Federal Theatre. It changed my life. I’m forever grateful.”

    The New Federal Theatre produced such key works as Black Girl by J.E. Franklin, The Taking of Miss Janie by Ed Bullins — which jumped to Lincoln Center and won the Drama Critics Circle Award — and For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange, which landed on Broadway in 1976 and was nominated for the best new play Tony Award.

    The New Federal Theatre was a springboard for many playwrights, including Charles Fuller — later to win the Pulitzer Prize for A Soldier’s Play — who premiered two plays — In My Many Names and Days and The Candidate. David Henry Hwang premiered The Dance and the Railroad at the New Federal and would later win the Tony for M. Butterfly.

    Some performers who got early career boosts thanks to the company include Chadwick Boseman, Debbie Allen, Morgan Freeman, Phylicia Rashad, Denzel Washington, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, and Issa Rae.

    Mr. King was born in Alabama, raised in Detroit, and earned his bachelor’s degree from Lehman College and later his master’s from Brooklyn College. He served as the cultural director of Mobilization for Youth for five years, before founding New Federal Theatre in 1970.

    Mr. King is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Van Dyke, and his three children, Geoffrey King, Michael King, and Michelle King Huger, whom he shared with ex-wife Willie Mae Washington, as well as five grandchildren.

    Tyler Fauntleroy, an actor who has toured in Hamilton, took to Instagram to recall working at the New Federal in 2019 on a show called Looking for Leroy that would change his career. “His belief in me came at a time when my own was at an all-time low. What a champion he was for Black artists. It was an honor to witness. Thank you, sir and rest easy.”

  • Philadelphia Grammy winners this year are Will Yip, Christian McBride, and Andre Harris

    Philadelphia Grammy winners this year are Will Yip, Christian McBride, and Andre Harris

    Philadelphia artists won big at the Grammy Awards on Sunday. Bassist Christian McBride, rock producer Will Yip, and songwriter Andre “Dre” Harris took home trophies in the ceremony that preceded the prime-time telecast from the crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

    The four major awards were won by four different artists. A week ahead of his Super Bowl half-time performance, Bad Bunny won album of the year for Debí tirar más fotos, the first Spanish-language album to ever win the award.

    Kendrick Lamar and SZA won record of the year for their Luther Vandross-inspired smash hit “Luther,” and Lamar also won best rap album for GNX, and three other Grammys.

    Billie Eilish and her songwriting partner Finneas O’Connell won song of year — a writer’s award — for “Widlflower” from her album Hit Me Hard and Soft. British pop-soul singer Olivia Dean beat out nine competitors for best new artist including worthy rivals, such as Leon Thomas and Lola Young, who won best pop vocal performance for “Messy.”

    Jazzman McBride won in two of the three categories he was nominated in. The Southwest Philly native won for best jazz performance for Windows (Live), his collaboration with Brian Blade and the late pianist Chick Corea. He also won the best jazz ensemble album Grammy for Without Further Ado, Vol. 1, credited to Christian McBride Big Band.

    Here are our Grammy predictions and a little rant in defense of country music stars

    “It is such an honor to have been in Chick Corea’s orbit for over 25 years,” McBride said in accepting the award for Windows (Live). “I was very honored to witness his legacy of excellence and greatness, watching this man play the piano like no one else did, night after night.”

    Sunday’s two wins bring McBride’s Grammy total to 11.

    Will Yip in Studio 5 in his newly constructed Memory Music Studios, South Philadelphia, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026.

    Yip won his first Grammy for his production work on Never Enough, the 2025 album by Baltimore band Turnstile, which won best rock album. Onstage at the Peacock Theater in the ceremony that was streamed on grammy.com, Turnstile frontman Brendan Yates said: “The community we found through punk and hardcore music has given us a safe place to swing in the dark and land somewhere beautiful.”

    The Grammy-nominated music producer and engineer who thinks Philly is ‘indie music capital of the world’

    “It’s surreal. Rock album of the year!!! We all came up from … literally out of basements. To this?! It’s just a testament to what our community can do. Amazing, man,” Yip said in a text message to The Inquirer, after his Grammy win. He had been nominated twice before, in 2014, and recently opened his new Memory Music Studios in South Philly.

    Turnstile also won for best metal performance for the Never Enough song “Birds.”

    Songwriter and producer Harris won as one of seven writers who teamed to write Kehlani’s smash hit “Folded,” which won for best R&B song. The song also won a best R&B performance Grammy.

    Kehlani shouted out Harris in accepting that award. She was one of several winners who spoke in support of immigrants’ protest of the Trump administration’s policies. She, however, was the only one to do so by directing an expletive at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency of the Department of Homeland Security.

    Christian McBride accepting his best jazz performance Grammy award for “Windows (Live),” his collaboration with Chick Corea and Brian Blade.

    Jazz singer Samara Joy, who grew up in New York but is part of a Philly gospel music family, is once again a Grammy winner. The 26-year-old vocalist won her sixth trophy for Portrait, 2025’s best jazz vocal album.

    Camden gospel bandleader Tye Tribbett, the Philadelphia Orchestra and its leader Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Sun Ra Arkestra, the Crossing choir, UPenn grad John Legend, and jazz trumpeter Immanuel Wilkins were all up for awards in the early Grammy ceremony but went home empty-handed.

    Sabrina Carpenter performs “Manchild” during the 68th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

    Bucks County pop singer Sabrina Carpenter was the Philly region’s big hitter with six nominations. She pulled nods in three of the four major categories, with Man’s Best Friend up for best album and “Manchild” nominated for both record and song of the year.

    Amy Allen won the best songwriter, nonclassical award for the second year in a row for her cowriting credits with several artists, including two by Carpenter in “Manchild” and “Tears.”

    Carpenter, however, was shut out in all of the categories she was nominated in, though she still came away as a winner for her prominent performance slot, with an early in the show airline and baggage claim themed “Manchild” production number in which she pulled a live dove out of her cap and flew away on the friendly skies.

    Both Philly soul singer Bilal and John Legend were part of the star-studded in memoriam segment tribute to D’Angelo and Roberta Flack that was led by Ms. Lauryn Hill.

  • Opera Philadelphia’s ‘strange little roller-coaster ride’ is rolling into town

    Opera Philadelphia’s ‘strange little roller-coaster ride’ is rolling into town

    When Opera Philadelphia announced a new multiauthored work titled Complications in Sue, one was right to ask, “What, exactly, is it?” The piece was written in less than a year and is still in progress, so answers to that question might not be specific until the Academy of Music dress rehearsal.

    “Dress rehearsal if we’re lucky! Try opening night,” said general director and president Anthony Roth Costanzo. “Opera is in a constant state of emergency.”

    Created to commemorate the company’s 50th anniversary, Complications in Sue opens Wednesday with 10 composers commissioned to write eight-minute scenes. These collectively encompass the century-long life of a mythical everywoman named Sue.

    (From left) Director Zack Winokur, producer Anthony Roth Costanzo, and director Raja Feather Kelly pose for a portrait before the first dress rehearsal at the Academy of Music in Center City Philadelphia on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. The venue will be showing the new opera “Complication in Sue” from Feb. 4-8.

    She saves Santa Claus from an existential crisis in a nonbelieving world, fends off aggressive shopping algorithms that tell her who she is, and deals with more typical stuff like a lonely ex-husband. Forget any typical narrative. It’s what librettist Michael R. Jackson calls “a fantasia … with some real people but some abstractions.”

    That last part is a Jackson specialty — as seen in his much-awarded fantasy-prone Broadway hit A Strange Loop. What it all means, will be in the mind of the beholder. “The audience isn’t going to be told what to think or how to feel on this strange little roller-coaster ride,” he said.

    Nicky Spence performs in “Complications in Sue” during the first dress rehearsal at the Academy of Music in Center City Philadelphia on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. The performance tells the story of one woman’s existence across 10 decades, each chapter scored by a different composer.

    At the center of it all — sort of, at times — is the high-personality cabaret star Justin Vivian Bond, best known as part of the comedy duo Kiki and Herb, but she has enjoyed new respect having been named a 2024 MacArthur Fellow. Bond suggested the title and rough framework of Complications in Sue but has become an unintentionally mysterious factor.

    Kiera Duffy (left) and Justin Vivian Bond perform in “Complications in Sue” during the first dress rehearsal at the Academy of Music in Center City Philadelphia on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. The original libretto is based on an idea by Bond, and is playwright Michael R. Jackson’s operatic debut. 

    She plays Sue, speaking and singing at times, functioning within the whole as “a leitmotif … an energy force that tracks through the whole piece,” said Jackson.

    But not a typically operatic force.

    “Vivian has an operatic-scale charisma … She is very funny, very surreal, and very herself,” said Costanzo.

    It all sounds abstract and ambiguous to those who don’t know Bond’s work. But here is what is known: She will look fabulous in a wardrobe designed by JW Anderson (creative director of Christian Dior), not surprising since Bond, who is trans, has described her brand of social commentary as “glamour resistance.”

    Justin Vivian Bond performs in “Complications in Sue” during the first dress rehearsal at the Academy of Music in Center City Philadelphia on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. The original libretto is based on an idea by Bond, and is playwright Michael R. Jackson’s operatic debut. 

    Bond has been vague about what she would do within the piece. She has also been strangely absent.

    At a Jan. 16 workshop presentation by Works & Process in New York, Bond was reportedly present but didn’t participate. Rather than being in Philadelphia during down-to-the-wire rehearsal weeks, she was in Paris during Fashion Week Haute Couture Spring (Jan. 26-29). Reportedly, she has stayed in close touch with Costanzo — as he continues to find a midpoint between the majestic tradition of creating opera for the ages and the speedy topicality of the highly collaborative “devised theater.”

    Justin Vivian Bond (left) and Nicky Spence perform in “Complications in Sue” during the first dress rehearsal at the Academy of Music in Center City Philadelphia on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. The opera was directed by Zack Winokur and Raja Feather Kelly.

    Opera Philadelphia has previously worked with the drag cabaret group the Bearded Ladies but not on the scale of an Academy of Music production. Multiauthored satirical works have occupied a small but notorious niche on the larger cultural landscape, such as the Jean Cocteau-conceived 1920s ballet The Wedding Party on the Eiffel Tower and, in theater, the Manhattan Theatre Club’s 1988 Urban Blight.

    But the 10-composer count of Complications in Sue may be a record of sorts and one that was engineered in a singular way.

    The lineup could be called “who’s cool in (the broadest definition of) classical music,” including the Opera Philadelphia’s composer in residence Nathalie Joachim, Errollyn Wallen from London, Cécile McLorin Salvant from the jazz world, Metropolitan Opera vet Nico Muhly, and everything vet Missy Mazzoli.

    The cast of “Complications in Sue” performs during the first dress rehearsal at the Academy of Music in Center City Philadelphia on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. The performance tells the story of one woman’s existence across 10 decades, each chapter scored by a different composer.

    Had Costanzo asked any one of them for a full-length opera, they’d have probably said “no” to the four- to five-year commitment. But with eight minutes — and a chance to work with a richly talented creative team — “how could they say no?,” he wondered.

    When assigned to their individual scenes, the composers didn’t know what the others were doing — which meant more freedom for those already writing grand operas (such as Mazzoli) and attractive to those newer to the field such as Salvant (“Cécile is really curious about opera,” said Costanzo).

    Rehanna Thelwell (left) and Justin Vivian Bond perform in “Complications in Sue” during the first dress rehearsal at the Academy of Music in Center City Philadelphia on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026.

    Up-and-coming, Philadelphia-raised Dan Schlosberg, 38, who grew up in the Academy of Music nosebleed seats and now works with the radically revisionist, New York-based Heartbeat Opera, had already written a few student operas but ran with the grander resources available at Opera Philadelphia.

    His segment about Sue’s ex-husband going off the rails is a bit of a mad scene. “I wanted to follow his mental journey … the music goes from contemporary to big-band jazz to Broadway-like torch songs and everything in between,” Schlosberg said. “I wanted to harness the full orchestra, tons of brass … percussion … sirens … as many colors as I could.”

    The cast of “Complications in Sue” performs during the first dress rehearsal at the Academy of Music in Center City Philadelphia on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026.

    Other composers include Andy Akiho, Alistair Coleman, Rene Orth, and Kamala Sankaram.

    The onstage team includes soprano Kiera Duffy, who has fearlessly starred in new works such as Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves, as well as the edgy, in-demand U.K.-based tenor Nicky Spence. His reason for coming on board was simple: Anthony Roth Costanzo.

    “I took the call because it was him,” Spence said.

    Costanzo feels that he has hit the lottery with the composers, though one wonders if local audiences are ready for a presence as fierce as Bond.

    “Philadelphia is a fierce town,” Costanzo assured.

    Justin Vivian Bond (left) and Nicholas Newton perform in “Complications in Sue” during the first dress rehearsal at the Academy of Music in Center City Philadelphia on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. The venue will be showing the new opera “Complication in Sue” from Feb. 4-8.

    Certainly, he has brought much diversity to mainstream Philadelphia opera venues, especially on the LGBTQ+ front. Amid the shifting political climate, might there be pushback? That’s likely, he admits.

    “But Opera Philadelphia is for everyone.”

    “Complications in Sue” plays 7 p.m. Feb. 4, 7 p.m. Feb. 5, 8 p.m. Feb. 6, and 2 p.m. Feb. 8. Academy of Music, 240 S. Broad St., Philadelphia. All tickets are Pick Your Price, starting at $11. operaphila.org, 215-732-8400

  • The Grammy-nominated music producer and engineer who thinks Philly is ‘indie music capital of the world’

    The Grammy-nominated music producer and engineer who thinks Philly is ‘indie music capital of the world’

    When Will Yip was 12 years old, his future flashed before his eyes.

    “The second I walked into the studio I knew that this is what I wanted,” said the Grammy-nominated music producer and engineer, sitting in the control room at Memory Music Studios, the new recording studio he’s built in the Whitman section of South Philadelphia.

    “I remember the smell,” he said, recalling a visit to Ground Control Recording in Northeast Philly, where he and a friend paid $20 an hour to record two songs in 1999. “I always loved playing drums. But I was like: ‘This is cool!’ I still remember that feeling.”

    That enthusiasm has guided Yip, beginning with the days when he was convincing bands like Philly hardcore quartet Blacklisted to record (for free) in his mother’s basement while still a student at Central High.

    It’s stayed with him through two decades as one of the busiest producer-engineers in the music business at Studio 4 in Conshohocken, where he went to work at 19. He has co-owned the studio with mentor Phil Nicolo since 2012.

    And Yip’s nonstop work ethic and command of his craft — “Will has a gift,” said Nicolo — has made him a go-to collaborator for acclaimed bands like Philly’s Mannequin Pussy and Baltimore’s Turnstile.

    Yip recorded Turnstile’s breakthrough Never Enough at uber-producer Rick Rubin’s Los Angeles mansion in 2024.

    Citing this recent work with Turnstile as well as rock and shoegaze bands Scowl, Die Spitz, and Doylestown’s Superheaven, music and pop culture site Uproxx named Yip 2025’s “indie producer of the year.”

    Yip’s teaming with Turnstile has resulted in five Grammy nominations for the Brendan Yates-fronted hardcore-adjacent band.

    If Turnstile triumphs in the rock album category, Yip — who was nominated for his work on Pittsburgh band Code Orange’s Underneath in 2021 — will come home from California with his first golden gramophone. (The other four nods are technical nominations for Yip. “If they win those,” he said, “They’ll give me a plaque.”)

    But even if Yip returns empty-handed from the Grammys — which will be broadcast on CBS and streamed on Paramount+ at 8 p.m. Sunday from the Crypto.com Arena in LA — he’ll be coming back to his already up-and-running state of the art studio, where he’s turned a longtime dream into reality.

    “Everyone is like, ‘Bro, why are you building a million-dollar studio? Aren’t studios dying?’” said the producer, who turns 39 this month.

    “They are. But my brand of music, that I’m lucky enough to work with, is flourishing. Rock is back. I’ve waited my entire life for this, for people to want electric guitars. I’ve felt it bubbling for the last 10 years. And now it’s happening.”

    Will Yip, owner of Memory Music Studios, speaks with music producer Steph Marziano.

    At Studio 4 — which was headquarters to 1990s hip-hop label Ruffhouse Records, home to the Fugees, Cypress Hill, and Lauryn Hill — Yip has stayed busy.

    How busy? A 2019 profile on the Grammy website was headlined: “Philly Producer/Engineer Will Yip Works Harder than You.” Muso, the music industry website that tracks creator credits, ranks Yip as the 88th most active producer, alive or dead, with 37,116 credits.

    “I opened a studio because bands need to come to Philadelphia, and I was running out of space,” said Yip, who also co-owns Doom, the metal bar and restaurant around the corner from Franklin Music Hall.

    “It was my dream to build a studio. But I wasn’t going to do one until it made sense. We were very calculated with what we were doing. I’m booked through 2027.”

    Taking visitors on an early morning tour of the 7,500-square-foot facility before Southern California rock band Movements arrived for a session, he showed off Memory Music’s four rooms to record and mix music.

    Storage rooms are hung with scores of electric guitars, neatly shelved snare drums, and stacks of Marshall amps. Lounges are equipped with an impressive bourbon-centric whiskey bar, pool table, comfy couches, and Street Fighter II and NFL Blitz video games.

    Yip, who is living with his wife, Christina, and toddler son, Milo, in Center City while they house shop, is a passionate Philly sports fan who owns the world’s largest collection of game-worn Phillies jerseys.

    “I collect things. I have eight Scott Kingery rookie jerseys,” he said, laughing at himself.

    On a recent visit, while Yip worked with Movements in Memory Music’s main room, producer Steph Marziano, who grew up in Philly and lives in London, was next door with Brooklyn indie songwriter Kevin Devine. Atlanta rapper Kenny Mason was due in later in the week.

    “I needed a place in Philly to work out of,” said Marziano, who teamed with Hayley Williams on “Parachute” on Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party.

    Will Yip in guitar room of his new studio, Memory Music Studios, south Philadelphia, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026.

    That LP is nominated for best alternative music album this year. The award will most likely be given away in the pre-telecast ceremony, which will stream from the Peacock Theater in LA starting at 3:30 p.m. on grammys.com and the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel.

    “This is my new spot,” Marziano said of Memory Music. “Honestly, I love this place. I’m never even working in New York again.”

    Yip was born in New York and moved to Philadelphia at age 1. His parents had escaped Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution by swimming from China to Hong Kong before immigrating to the United States.

    His father co-owned Ocean City Restaurant in Chinatown, but never wanted Yip or his older brother to work there.

    His parents hoped Yip would go to Penn, but enraptured by The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, recorded by Nicolo and his sibling Joe — known as the Butcher Bros. — Yip had a higher aspiration: to work at Studio 4.

    So he went to Temple to study recording with Phil Nicolo. When he inquired about helping out at the studio, he got valuable advice he now often shares: “Just show up.”

    Assortment of snare drums in the newly constructed music studio built by Will Yip, Memory Music Studios, south Philadelphia, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026.

    “I drove to Conshohocken that day. I was so nervous. There was a Brazilian band there. I felt like I was in Disneyland.”

    “He showed up, and he started doing stuff,” said Nicolo, who still co-owns Studio 4 and Studio 4 Vinyl, an LP pressing plant based in Coatesville.

    “And then he started saying, ‘Hey, if I clean out this room can I use it on the weekend?’ He started bringing bands in there, and on Monday morning, he’d hand me a roll of twenties. And it was like, ‘Dude, you can come in whenever you want!’”

    Nicolo said Yip’s productions, on which he is frequently also credited as a cowriter and drummer, are marked by “an aggressive rock sound, but with a style and an emotion and a musicality that you don’t often hear in quote unquote modern music, that seems kind of AI. That first time I heard that Turnstile record on WXPN, I was like ‘I bet this is Will.’ And it was.”

    Will Yip in Studio 5 in his newly constructed studio, Memory Music Studios, south Philadelphia, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026.

    In 2021, when six women of Asian descent were killed at spas in the Atlanta area, Yip raised $100,000 through a memorabilia raffle, donating the money to the Asian American and Pacific Islanders Community Fund.

    “I’m around great people all the time that support me, but I’ve always felt alone in being Asian in this genre, in this field, that from top to bottom is white male-dominated,” he told The Inquirer at the time. “But my friends and brothers, they came immediately and said, ‘We want to stand with you.’ And that meant the world to me.”

    Now, he says, “I’m so proud of how much our little sector of the rock community has strived to improve inclusivity, especially this past decade. Twenty-five years ago, you would never find an Asian-fronted rock band, but today, you’re starting to see legit Asian rock stars like Mitski, Japanese Breakfast, and Turnstile. I’m confident it’ll only continue to grow.”

    Yip’s collaborations tend to be long running. Scranton’s Tigers Jaw, whose new Lost on You is due in March, has worked with Yip on all of their albums since 2014’s Charmer. New Yip-produced music by Scranton pop-punk band the Menzingers is also due later this year.

    Scranton band Tigers Jaw, with Ban Walsh on the left) have recorded four albums with producer Will Yip, including Lost On You, which is due in March.

    “Will is such a detail guy,” said Tigers Jaw’s Ben Walsh. “Every detail in the new studio is meticulously planned out. And the stuff he suggests come from a place of understanding. He’s just very good at what feels natural and creatively fulfilling for the people he’s working with.”

    “I’m a song guy,” Yip said. “I don’t look at myself as a sound nerd,” he added, gesturing to the staggering amount of gear he’s assembled. “But I want all the tools I can possibly have to be great at building songs.”

    Jesse Ito, the acclaimed Philly chef who co-owns Royal Sushi & Izakaya, where Yip is a regular and often brings bands, calls his friend “the ultimate hype man.”

    “Will just makes everybody around him feel so good about themselves. Even though we do different things, we understand each other about the grind and the growth and what it takes at this level.

    “He doesn’t drink coffee,” Ito said. “If he drank coffee I think he would explode. He’s just so naturally hyped.”

    And nothing comes more natural to Yip than hyping the city where he’s built his new musical home.

    “Philly is the indie music capital of the world,” Yip said. “I’ll stand by that. And I want people to see how awesome and investable and easy it is to live in Philly and make music, and enjoy life in Philly. I want to build the culture. To give people a reason to come to Philly. And to stay in Philly.”