Top Milwaukee concerts this week: OSHUN, Joan Jett, PnB Rock, Rostam and more
OSHUN
Style: Socially conscious R&B and hip-hop that also draws inspiration from African heritage and black pride.
Backstory: Niambi Sala and Thandiwe met at New York University in 2013 and started making music together behind the moniker OSHUN, after the Yoruba deity. The pair released a debut mixtape, "ASASE YAA," in 2015, and started touring and picking up national press as full-time college students.
Why you should go?: As timing would have it, OSHUN's Milwaukee show happens to fall on the same night that "Black Panther" has its first public screenings. The latest Marvel movie is poised make a major pop culture impact and create greater interest in Afrofuturism, an aesthetic that also plays a central part in OSHUN's work. Here's a chance to see a cutting-edge act early in its ascent ahead of a likely surge of awareness and appreciation.
Opener:SistaStrings, a real sister pairing of local cello and violin players Chauntee and Monique Ross.
Time and place:8 p.m. Thursday, Cactus Club, 2496 S. Wentworth Ave.
Price:$15 at the door and cactusclubmilwaukee.com.
— Piet Levy, plevy@journalsentinel.com
JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS
Style: Rock ’n’ roll, simple yet not plain.
Backstory: Born Joan Larkin, Jett later legally grabbed her mother’s maiden name, and a family move to the Los Angeles area gave the teenager a shot at guitar-related fame. She was a founding member of the Runaways in the 1970s; her next group, the Blackhearts, put her in the main spotlight.
Why you should go: If Jett never became a superstar, songs like “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll,” “Do You Wanna Touch Me” and “I Hate Myself for Loving You” gave the 1980s punk-feminist grit, and Jett has been cited by Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna and the E Street Band’s Steven Van Zandt as an important force in the last five decades. She rocks. Period.
Time and place: After 7:30 p.m. Milwaukee Admirals vs. San Antonio Rampage game, Saturday, UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, 400 W. Kilbourn Ave.
Price: Concert free with game ticket ($18 to $45 at the box office, (800) 745-3000 and ticketmaster.com.)
— Jon M. Gilbertson,
Special to the Journal Sentinel
PNB ROCK
Style: An echo of Philly soul in contemporary hip-hop.
Backstory: Raised in a Philadelphia neighborhood called Germantown by a mother widowed when her son was 3, Rakim Allen landed in youth detention at 13 and was in prison at 19 for crimes including drug possession. Adopting the name PnB Rock (after the intersection of Pastorius and Bayton in his home city), he turned legit via music.
Why you should go: Now 26, Rock has issued several mixtapes, collaborative singles on the soundtrack for “The Fate of the Furious,” and his first official album, 2017’s “Catch These Vibes.” That latter issue is the focus of his current tour, on which he’ll display his not uncommon, but also not unappealing, mix of rap rhythms and electronically gimmicked R&B crooning.
Opener:Lil Baby, a rising rapper in Atlanta.
Time and place:8 p.m. Sunday, the Rave, 2401 W. Wisconsin Ave.
Price: $27 to $100 at the box office, (414) 342-7283 and therave.com.
— Jon M. Gilbertson
ROSTAM
Style: College-educated pop with lightly laughing exoticism.
Backstory: The son of a publisher and a cookbook author (Iranians who came to Washington, D.C., in the 1980s), Rostam Batmanglij eventually majored in music at Columbia University and fell in with the band Vampire Weekend, which in the late 2000s epitomized the multiculturalism that indie pop was then embracing, and Batmanglij was an essential band contributor.
Why you should go: After three albums, Batmanglij departed Vampire Weekend in 2016 but didn’t rule out future collaborations with the band. His debut album under his first name, “Half-Light,” came out last year and contains recognizable Vampire Weekend touches — global instrumentation, spices of tempo and tune — but is overall the result of Rostam’s loving sonic assertion of cultural identity.
Opener: Joy Again, a Philadelphia quintet specializing in obtuse-angled guitar pop.
Time and place: 8 p.m. Monday, Turner Hall Ballroom, 1040 N. 4th St.
Price:$15 at the door, the Pabst Theater box office (144 E. Wells St.), the Riverside Theater box office (116 W. Wisconsin Ave.), (414) 286-3663, and pabsttheater.org.
— Jon M. GIlbertson
LOLA PISTOLA
Style: Alternative rock with a Puerto Rican heart and a Brooklyn brain.
Backstory: Arvelisse Ruby Bonilla-Ramos, a.k.a. LolaPistola, started in the dynamic punk-rock scene of San Juan, Puerto Rico. She worked with AJ Dávila of Davila 666 when he kicked off his solo career. She joined his backing band, moved to NYC, toured the country, got a hostess job and started thinking more about doing her own musical thing.
Why you should go: “Curfew,” her first Lola Pistola solo LP, came in 2017 after about a year of writing songs and about a week of recording them. Its 10 songs call upon rock ’n’ roll cool from the Velvet Underground to Mazzy Star, and Pistola’s vocals can be as icily alluring as Nico’s or as heatedly confrontational as Carrie Brownstein’s. She’ll be ready to aim and fire onstage.
Time and place:9 p.m. Wednesday, Cactus Club, 2496 S. Wentworth Ave.
Price: To be determined.
— Jon M. Gilbertson
LOCAL SHOW SPOTLIGHT
"Guthrie Uncovered": 8 p.m. Friday, Turner Hall Ballroom, 1040 N. 4th St. $22.50. Johanna Rose curates Alverno College's latest "Uncovered" concert, with local artists reimagining the music of Woody Guthrie. — Piet Levy