Biography
Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Marisa Brown decided at the age of two that her musical gifts were extraordinary after she adjusted her mother’s intonation mid-lullaby. A sharper youngster might have recognized that fate was steering her toward commentary rather than stage lights. When her performing dreams failed to materialize, she refused to abandon music altogether and instead devoted countless hours to practicing an assortment of instruments, eventually earning recognition as an expert in the nearly forgotten technique of playing the left-handed triangle. She soon discovered that her skill at composing text in the third person opened more doors than her instrumental talents, so she signed on with allmusic.com. There she passed most of her working hours contributing definitions to urbandictionary and championing the presence of a third, fourth, or even fifth hypeman during hip-hop performances.
Her earliest vinyl purchase was the children’s album Free to Be...You and Me; the first cassette she acquired was Billy Joel’s KOHUEPT, and her first compact disc was Matthew Sweet’s 100% Fun. The initial live show she attended featured Raffi. Among films centered on music she favors Purple Rain, while her preferred volume on the subject remains Michael Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter, regardless of whether it qualifies strictly as a music book. She lists Black Milk, Chief Xcel, and RZA among her most admired producers and names Wax Poetics, Bon Appétit, and The New Yorker as her go-to periodicals. Performers whose voices consistently affect her include Prince, John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke, and Rachel Nagy. The sound she finds most compelling is that of shattering glass, particularly when heard beneath an underpass. She will always stand by Ace of Base’s The Sign, owns a copy of Alexi Lalas’s Ginger that appears to be unique in her circle, and admits she is expected to admire De La Soul yet does not. She believes U2 ought to disband, whereas Nirvana, the Beatles, and the Von Trapp Family Singers—or perhaps an entirely reconfigured U2—deserve to regroup. A performance by Nina Simone is the concert she most regrets missing. Grandmaster Flash’s “Beat Street” offers the clearest example of the “throw your hands in the air” motif done right, although OutKast’s “Atliens” runs a close second. For songs built around the alphabet she recommends either “C” Is for Cookie or “Alphabet Aerobics,” and she considers 2Pac’s “Starin’ Through My Rearview” the finest track to sample Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight.”
Her earliest vinyl purchase was the children’s album Free to Be...You and Me; the first cassette she acquired was Billy Joel’s KOHUEPT, and her first compact disc was Matthew Sweet’s 100% Fun. The initial live show she attended featured Raffi. Among films centered on music she favors Purple Rain, while her preferred volume on the subject remains Michael Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter, regardless of whether it qualifies strictly as a music book. She lists Black Milk, Chief Xcel, and RZA among her most admired producers and names Wax Poetics, Bon Appétit, and The New Yorker as her go-to periodicals. Performers whose voices consistently affect her include Prince, John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke, and Rachel Nagy. The sound she finds most compelling is that of shattering glass, particularly when heard beneath an underpass. She will always stand by Ace of Base’s The Sign, owns a copy of Alexi Lalas’s Ginger that appears to be unique in her circle, and admits she is expected to admire De La Soul yet does not. She believes U2 ought to disband, whereas Nirvana, the Beatles, and the Von Trapp Family Singers—or perhaps an entirely reconfigured U2—deserve to regroup. A performance by Nina Simone is the concert she most regrets missing. Grandmaster Flash’s “Beat Street” offers the clearest example of the “throw your hands in the air” motif done right, although OutKast’s “Atliens” runs a close second. For songs built around the alphabet she recommends either “C” Is for Cookie or “Alphabet Aerobics,” and she considers 2Pac’s “Starin’ Through My Rearview” the finest track to sample Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight.”
Albums