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NCDOT announces plans to elevate I-77 express lanes through uptown. Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper is mentioned in several emails to and from late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Prisma Health hospitals now requires masks for all visitors and patients to help slow the spread of measles in S.C. The Hornets make a pair of trades before the NBA trade deadline.

On this "Charlotte Talks," we listen to the candidate forum WFAE hosted Tuesday evening with two of the men running for sheriff in Mecklenburg County. Both are Democrats — no Republican is running. Incumbent Garry McFadden and challenger Antwain Nance were unavailable, so we hear from retired Chief Deputy Sheriff Rodney Collins and retired CMPD Sgt. Ricky Robbins.

Gov. Josh Stein signs an executive order to boost N.C.'s mental health system. The city of Charlotte considers new rules for street vendors and taxi services. WFAE and Primal Brewery announce the release of a new collaboration brew called Ale Things Considered. Our First Friday Arts panel looks ahead to February events.

Mecklenburg County leaders are expected to be questioned today by Republican lawmakers in Raleigh on issues like crime and ICE cooperation. West Charlotte residents are furious over NCDOT's plans to elevate I-77 express lanes through uptown. The Carolinas set a new recording last week for energy usage.

We discuss a precious time capsule we have here in North Carolina — our state archives. We'll discuss with the state archivist what it takes to maintain history and how someone can find pieces of themselves reflected in archives. We also find out what you won’t discover in the state's archives, and why that is.

"The music is serious, but I never take it seriously. I believe that you can make deeply personal music without sacrificing a sense of humor or self-awareness. It’s equal parts therapy and irony. Don’t tell my therapist”The coronavirus outbreak has spurred a number of musicians to “press pause” on their plans, whether it was for concerts or travel. But COVID-19 hasn’t stopped musicians from being creative, finding inspiration and recording new songs from the comfort of home. That includes North Carolina piano pop band Tennis Elbow, which released a new full-length album inspired by and recorded entirely during the pandemic.

Since 1994, tens of thousands of musicians have trekked to the “music oasis” that is The Playroom, the 22,000 square foot facility that is Charlotte’s oldest and largest music production space. On any given day, you can find more than 100 musicians working out of the facility, with talent ranging from up-and-coming Charlotte acts to Grammy Award winners like Usher and Fantasia. At the heart of The Playroom is facility owner and music producer Eddie Z and his goal to create a comfortable “home-away-from-home” for musicians near and far.

While Christopher James Lees is not a film composer, he is helping bring classical music to the big screen as resident conductor of the Charlotte Symphony. As Lees puts it, the Charlotte Symphony's “film in concert” performances of “Star Wars,” “Harry Potter” and “Back to the Future” show that classical music is much more than its reputation of being from “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Rather, classical music is as timely and transformative as ever before.

Alfred Sergel IV has three decades of experience as a professional jazz musician — not as a jazz singer or jazz pianist, but as a jazz drummer. Between performing with Grammy honorees and recording with Billboard-charting artists, Alfred (or, as his friends called him, Al) still finds time to create original music that merges new-age pop sensibilities with old-school jazz melodies.

Since their first recorded steps as a band in November 2017, four-piece Americana outfit Elonzo Wesley have lulled Charlotte audiences into a beautifully poignant dance of Appalachian strings and soul.

The hills are alive with the sound of music: not just from Perry Fowler's mountain music band Sinners & Saints, but also from Fowler's locally-owned and operated venue Petra's.

Charlotte has a rich history of funk music. Back in 1965, the "Grandmaster of Funk" himself Mr. James Brown recorded his single “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” right here in the Queen City. As one of Charlotte’s longest-running jazz-funk collectives, Groove 8 has its own Charlotte soul story to share.

The past few years have shown that nerd culture is the new cool, with "Black Panther" becoming the first comic book film to score a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars, "Game of Thrones" becoming a cultural phenomenon and even Walt Disney World opening up its first official Star Wars-themed hotel in Florida. Which makes it the perfect time to be GameBreax, a North Carolina “nerdcore” duo who stand proudly at the intersection of geek culture and hip-hop.

If you lived in Charlotte in the early 2000’s, you lived through the golden age of Rock En Español in the Queen City. Latin reggae band Bakalao Stars (led by Christian Anzola) took root during this fertile musical period, a time of locally-produced and supported Latin music which was heralded as “the soundtrack of Charlotte’s racial and cultural evolution.”So what happened to those bands in this city? And what is happening now with Bakalao Stars, one of the remaining Rock En Español acts from that generation?

Some may recognize jazz as being the lifeblood of New Orleans, but what of Charlotte? President and CEO of the Jazz Arts Initiative Lonnie Davis shares what it takes to sustain (and evolve) "America's Classical Music" in the Queen City.

"You'd be really hard-pressed to listen to something today and not be able to at least find four bars of it that's completely derivative of something else." So says super music producer Mark Ronson, and so agrees Charlotte electronic act Dirty Art Club, who samples thousands of songs, sounds and pop culture snippets in his music.

This week on SouthBound, we talk to Kentucky poet Ada Limón about poetry in the pandemic, radical hope, and watching fellow poet Amanda Gorman become a star on Inauguration Day.

Tony Arreaza had every intention of becoming the Freddie Mercury of North Carolina. But after emigrating from Venezuela to Charlotte in 1994, his plans changed. Nearly 30 years later, Arreaza has helped create a flourishing Latin music community organizing concerts through Carlotan Talents, performing guitar with his long-standing Latin band UltimaNota and even having the opportunity to channel his '80s rock icon on MTV Latino.

At a time when bicycling is on the rise because of the pandemic, find out the history and future of lanes, routes and cycling infrastructure in the Queen City.

This SouthBound is a replay of a conversation Tommy Tomlinson had with musician Rhiannon Giddens back in October of 2019, on the morning of a concert she’d perform that night in Charlotte. Remember live music?