It’s hard to find a more home-grown Detroit artist than Beth. You can tell the second she lays her silky-sultry vocals on the track that the singer-songwriter is a direct descendent of the Motown sound.

From touring around the world as a backup vocalist for legendary artists KEM and Anita Baker, to her time in the music competition show The Voice, it’s clear that Beth’s sound is widely sought after. 

Today, Beth joined The Metro and shed light on her experiences navigating the entertainment industry.  

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Tariq Gardner grew up in Detroit surrounded by music. His mother is renowned bassist Marion Hayden. Jazz was in the house and his hands from an early age.

He studied jazz and contemporary improvisation at the University of Michigan. Gardner has played everything from straight-ahead jazz to neo-soul, hip-hop, gospel, and Afro-Cuban. He’s performed at the Detroit Jazz Festival, the Cape May Jazz Festival, and with artists across the country.

He leads Evening Star, a band of longtime collaborators who blend Detroit’s jazz tradition with global rhythms and modern grooves.

The band is a featured artist in WDET’s 2025 Sounds Like Detroit Music Showcase.

Tariq Gardner joined the show to discuss his musical journey.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

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This week’s events range from relaxing sound baths and poetry readings to high-energy concerts and festivals. Plus, a celebration for a unique Detroit landmark. Read on to learn more.

Upcoming events

Rooftop Rendezvous

  Arab American National Museum in Dearborn

  Friday, Aug. 8

  Free with RSVP

An outdoor poetry performance at the museum’s Heritage Garden in partnership with Field Trip, a Hamtramck-based poetry group. Performers include Eleni Sikelianos, Aditi Machado and Jamaal May. The event goes from 6–8 p.m.

Concert: Hail Your Highness with special guests Riot Course, Headless Mary and Normal Park

  Ziggy’s in Ypsilanti

  Friday, Aug. 8

  $10

An alternative-indie-rock concert featuring bands from across Michigan. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to public radio. Doors open at 7 p.m.

Milford Memories Summer Festival

  Downtown Milford, various locations

  Friday, Aug. 8 through Sunday, Aug. 10

  Free

A weekend-long outdoor festival featuring an art show, live entertainment, carnival food and family-friendly activities. The festival is open from 8 a.m. to midnight on Friday and Saturday, and from 6:45 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Detroit’s Annual Ribs and R&B Music Festival

  Hart Plaza in Detroit

  Friday, Aug. 8 through Sunday, Aug. 10

  Free, $15

A celebration of National Barbecue Weekend featuring grilled meats and live performances by R&B and soul singers. The festival is open from 11:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. all weekend. Admission is free until 4 p.m. on Friday and until 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. After that, admission is $15. Kids under 12 get in free all weekend.

The Marshalls Good Stuff Social Club: Detroit

  BasBlue in Detroit

  Saturday, Aug. 9

  Free with RSVP

A women’s empowerment conference featuring expert-led conversations, guided networking activities and locally-sourced goodies. Themes include financial freedom, finding confidence and building community. The event goes from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and space is limited.

Luminosity Sound Baths

  The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit

  Sunday, Aug. 10

  $15 for museum members, $25 for non-members

An immersive sound bath experience coinciding with the museum’s exhibition, “Luminosity: A Detroit Arts Gathering.” There are two one-hour sessions at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Participants are asked to bring their own mat for seating.

Log Cabin Day Festival & Ice Cream Social

  Palmer Park in Detroit

  Sunday, Aug. 10

  Free

A family-friendly festival celebrating the history surrounding Palmer Park’s Log Cabin. There will be Civil War-era activities, live musical performances, storytelling, reenactments and free ice cream for the first 500 visitors. Festivities go from 1–4 p.m.

Sounds Like Detroit

  Batch Brewing Company in Detroit

  Thursday, Aug. 14

  $25

A musical showcase featuring Detroit’s top Tiny Desk Contest performers of 2025. The lineup includes powerhouse soul vocalist BETH, folk singer-songwriter Corazon Szell, innovative multi-instrumentalist Samuel Nalangira, and jazz fusion group Tariq Gardner & the Evening Star. Gates open at 6 p.m. and music starts at 7 p.m.

Charivari Detroit Everywhere

  Detroit, various locations

  Thursday, Aug. 14 through Sunday, Aug. 17

  $12–$92

A spin-off of the Charivari Detroit Festival featuring over 50 artists and dozens of events across the city in celebration of electronic music culture. Featured artists include Delano Smith, Rimarkable, Jon Dixon, Problematic Black Hottie, Rebecca Goldberg and more. Individual events range from $12–$35, and all-access passes are available for $92.

WDET’s annual Sounds Like Detroit musical showcase is coming up next Thursday, Aug. 14, at Batch Brewing Co. Sponsored by Henry Ford Health, the concert celebrates top-notch talent comprising the local music scene, as sourced by this year’s local entries to NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest. If you’ve been eager to show your support for WDET, Detroit’s public radio station, then getting a ticket to Sounds Like Detroit could be quite an effective (and frankly entertaining) means of doing so! Tickets are available now at wdet.org/events. 

This week on MI Local, I welcomed in-studio guest Corazon Szell, an Ann Arbor-based singer-songwriter who is set to be one of the featured performers at this year’s Sounds Like Detroit concert. The lineup also includes R&B singer BETH, world music maestro Samuel Nalangira, and the fan-voted jazz dynamos Tariq Gardner and the Evening Star.

Szell is a versatile singer, songwriter and guitarist who recently graduated from the University of Michigan after studying jazz and composition. The intrepid and energizing artist has been passionately pursuing and building a life in music from a young age, and has spent much of the last year flourishing her rather large indie-folk, brass-inflected ensemble known as North Ingalls.

While hanging out in the studio, we talked about Szell’s most enduring influences, and her approach to songwriting both as a solo artist and as a bandleader. Afterward, we not only listened to her single, “Island Paradise,” but we were also treated to a live performance of a beautiful song titled “Departures.”

Meanwhile, we dug into so much new music from Detroit- and Michigan-based artists, including premieres from the prog-punk/space-jazz duo known as MRKT, Detroit-based hard-rock/post-emo quintet Former Critics (soon to be in-studio guests), and two very brand-new electro tracks from distinctive producers, including James Linck and the electro-punk known as Carjack!

We also heard the dreamy-dark electronica ballad, “Becoming Artificial,” from Gwendolyn Dot (who we’ll also be hearing in-studio on MI Local Aug. 19) ahead of her album release party at City Club. And finally, we checked in with Port Huron’s own Ally Evenson with “The Line.” Evenson recently relocated to L.A. but flew back to Detroit to film a music video for the new single.

See the playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.

MI Local Playlist for Aug. 5, 2025

• “Black Hole” – Former Critics
• “Ring Round with the Yellow Page” – MRKT
• “Becoming Artificial” – Gwendolyn Dot
• “Touch Me” – Bluhm
• “By the Skin of My Teeth” – Riot Course
• “The Line” – Ally Evenson
• “slip ‘n’ slide” – sunbather
• “Same” – Dani Darling
• “The Middle” – Na Bonsai
• “Robin’s Egg” – James Linck
• “Belle Isle Haze” – Carjack
• “Canopy Static” – Saltbreaker
• “Island Paradise” – Corazon Szell
• “Departures” – Corazon Szell *performed live on WDET*

WDET’s Sounds Like Detroit Live is a celebration of Detroit’s rich music legacy while uplifting local talent. Tiny Desk Contest contestants from metro Detroit were all handpicked by WDET music hosts. One of those is the multi-talented Corazon Szell.

Corazon was selected by Jeff Milo, the host of MI Local on WDET. She will perform alongside three other artists at Sounds Like Detroit LIVE at Batch Brewing on August 14, 2025. Tickets are $25 and support WDET.

She joined Metro’s Tia Graham to talk more about her songwriting and career.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR or wherever you get your podcasts.

Being an artist can mean many things . There are many different art forms and you can specialize in one or be an artist with many different skills up your sleeve . We call them multi-hyphenates, multi-disciplinaries, a jack of all trades, a renaissance man. 

Samuel Nalangira is an artist who has honed his artistic craft and expresses it through whatever form he chooses. Samuel is a singer, a musician, a dancer and choreographer from Uganda. He happens to be one of the four musicians selected for the Sounds Like Detroit showcase in just a couple of weeks. WDET is hosting a showcase for their Detroit version of NPR’s Tiny Desk.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

More stories from The Metro

That dazzling photo above features local folk/world musician, dancer and choreographer, Samuel Nalangira. Deep into this week’s MI Local, you’ll hear a live recording of one of his transcendent songs, “Zagyenda.” While Nalangira’s track doesn’t kick off the show, I’m mentioning it first and foremost because he’s performing in WDET’s Sounds Like Detroit showcase on Aug. 14 at Batch Brewing Company!

Nalangira will be one of four featured performers at that event, along with R&B artist Beth, indie-folk-pop singer/songwriter Corazon Szell, and neo-soul group Tariq Gardner & Evening Star. You can find more information about Sounds Like Detroit and get your tickets at wdet.org/events. 

Grabbing a ticket for Sounds Like Detroit is just one way to show your support for WDET. Some local musicians are showing their support in other ways too, like Hamtramck-based singer/songwriter John Salvage, who is donating all proceeds from purchased downloads of his new single to NPR! Here on MI Local, we premiered Salvage’s brand new single, “Break The Wall.” You can see Salvage perform live on Sunday, Aug. 3, at the Polka Dot Bar. 

As a solo artist, Salvage’s music resides within the folk and indie-Americana genres, which is also the stylistic domain of Ypsilanti-based post-folk five-piece outfit Little Traps, who have a new album out this week titled Regular Love. We heard the title track from that record, which has its release party on Friday, Aug. 1 in Dexter. 

Meanwhile, we kicked off the show with some potent psychedelic-witchy rock from WICCANS, which transitioned nicely into a spooky and groovily-sludgy track from Ypsilanti-based rock group The Velvet Snakes. Both have just recently released new albums, the latter of which has a release party this Thursday night at Ziggy’s.

See the playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.

MI Local Playlist for July 22, 2025

• “Possessed” – WICCANS
• “Shake Your Bones” – The Velvet Snakes
• “Regular Love” – Little Traps
• “Tiny Galaxies” – Tanager
• “Temptation Rag” – Aaron Jonah Lewis
• “Break The Wall” – John Salvage
• “Loving Strangers” – Mike Leslie
• “What Was The Question?” – Eddie Logix
• “Hastings Street (live)” – Allen Dennard
• “Zagyenda” – Samuel Nalangira
• “Too Fast (feat. The Accidentals)” – Mark Jewett
• “I Need A Ghost” – Tom Alter
• “Left Behind” – Conor Lynch
• “I Can’t Let Go” – The Blueflowers

Listeners voted and now we have a lineup for our Sounds Like Detroit Musical Showcase happening on Aug. 14 at Batch Brewing!

Four metro Detroit-based artists will take the stage: three were pre-selected by WDET music hosts, including myself, along with Liz Warner (Alternate Take) and Chris Campbell (The Progressive Underground). WDET listeners selected the fourth artist in a recent poll; so without further ado, here’s our full lineup!

• Tariq Gardner & the Evening Star (Listener Selection)
  
• Corazon Szell & the North Ingalls Band (MI Local Selection)
  
• Beth (Progressive Underground Selection)
  
• Samuel Nalangira (Alternate Take Selection)

Thank you to everyone who voted! Now it’s time to get your tickets! Mark your calendars, tell your friends, and secure your spot for this impressive lineup!

• “The Beginning” – Marawana
• “It Takes 2” – Motorcity Era & Maraj Virtuoso
• “Garden Dweller” – Tariq Gardner & Evening Star
• “Island Paradise” – Corazon Szell
• “weatherman” – bonnie hook
• “Heavy Weight” – Carbon Decoy
• “109°” – Blasty’s Backroad
• “Panopticon” – Mac Kish
• “Me Gusta” – CHECKER
• “Persona” – Maryiam Kiani
• “Misbehaving” – Ethan Marc Band
• “California” – Ethan Marc Band, live in WDET Studios
• “Short Fuse” – Ethan Marc Band