The multi-instrumentalist opens up on influences that shaped his The Griot Swings the Classics.

My Mind Set Me Free: The House Guests Meet the Complete Strangers (Shake It Records). Review by Scott Adams.

Undertow (Indivisible Music). Review by Bob Pomeroy.

There’s more than black music influencing the evolution of Rock and Roll. Native American rhymes and ideas are every bit as significant, once you know to look for them.

The White Man Made Me Do It (Alive Records). Review by James Mann.

Highceratops (). Review by Michelle Wilson.

The Duke & the King (So Recordings). Review by James Mann.

I’m Back! Family & Friends (Cleopatra Records). Review by James Mann.

Chris Catania files a report from the Chicago stop of the hip-hoptastic Bounce Tour, featuring N.W.A. alumni and pop culture junkies-turned-rappers- like Madlib- alike. And of course, tour headliner and organizer, dj Peanut Butter Wolf.

Panic in Babylon (Narnack). Review by Aaron Shaul.

But you’d better believe that the ODB is having a blast as the ODG! J. Noise tries to see a silver lining in the first (of many) post-mortem cash-in albums.

A star-studded festival lineup. Halloween Eve. New Orleans. All the ingredients for mighty powerful voodoo. Justin Schneider reports on the effectiveness of the spell.

Time Crunch (Magna Carta). Review by George Jegadesh.

The Return of the Regulator (Universal). Review by Vanessa Bormann.

First Born Second (Interscope). Review by David Lee Beowulf.