The moment the jaunty guitar kicks in on John Smyths’ new single, "Now I'm Wiser", you feel a familiar, comfortable warmth. It’s the sound of a good chair in a bar where the floor is sticky with spilled truths. And then the story starts, a classic yarn of a hard-living past yielding to a peaceful present. Smyths, a Dutch ex-metalhead singing country out of...

Surviving three brain surgeries and having to relearn how to walk would permanently stall almost any trajectory, but for Suriname-born, Tampa Bay-based Mr.D.Tunes, it was the exact friction needed to spark his contemplative new single, "Y You." The former junior Olympic swimmer turned youth mentor and Christian Hip-Hop artist channels his grim medical odds into an intensely honest rhythmic testimony. https://open.spotify.com/album/7b4Gn3WBmEYjw3p1bmCTiJ?si=HMBMixI6SvenjdfUJ2nIJA The melody operates on a...