Valley folk-rock guitarist extraordinaire Mat Weddle has gotten plenty of worldwide fame in the past 18 months, since the video for his acoustic cover of Outkast’s “Hey Ya” debuted on YouTube in August of 2006, including more than 1.5 million views, kudos from iTunes, and loads of press coverage from the likes of Spin.

And the attention just keeps on coming, as last week, legendary shock jock Howard Stern featured the song on his Sirius Satellite Radio show. Shoehorned in between pointed discussions about ABC reality show Wife Swap and Joey Buttafuoco’s new sex tape during the January 10 edition of the show, the self-proclaimed “King of all Media” heaped plenty of praise upon the bearded Obadiah Parker frontman and the song.

If you’ve looked at the forums at Web site www.arizonabeats.com, you already know that my cover story on Phoenix hip-hop, “Raising Terrazona,” has ignited quite the firestorm of criticism from members of the local scene. For those who haven’t seen the forums yet, there’s a whole section titled “Arizona reacts to the New Times article ‘Raising Terrazona,’ wherein people in the forum level several complaints, including that the story was “racist,” that I tried to create tension that didn’t exist between two scenes, and that since I’m not a hardcore hip-hop fan, I had no business writing about the local hip-hop scene.

This week’s cover story on Phoenix hip-hop, “Raising Terrazona,” contains a scene where 5Fith Coast Records co-owner Roca Dolla and local artist Cinque exchanged words in the VIP room at The Door on Scottsdale Road. Since the story came out, I’ve received phone calls from both Roca Dolla and Cinque, who each want to clarify what really happened that night. The scene in question is below, followed by Roca Dolla and Cinque’s responses.

In conjunction with this week’s cover story on Phoenix’s hip-hop scene, “Raising Terrazona,” we’re putting a media blitzkrieg up here that highlights some of the hottest hip-hop acts in our great desert metropolis. Below, you’ll find photos, links, and embedded videos from some of Terrazona’s best. Consider it proof of an impending Southwest hip-hop explosion.

For basketball star Diana Taurasi, 2007 was a stellar year. The 6-foot guard for the Phoenix Mercury helped lead the franchise (and the city of Phoenix) to its first-ever basketball championship, toppling defending WNBA champion Detroit Shock on its home court in the final game of a best-of-five series. The…

The holidays are a time of family, schmaltzy Christmas commercials that somehow make you cry, and if you are involved in music journalism, list-making. Lots and lots of list-making. Over the past few years, the availability of year-end critics lists has multiplied faster than the worry lines on Ben Bernanke’s…

Jerry Riopelle is an old-school cat, which means that the singer/songwriter’s been making records longer than almost anybody else in the Valley. As a staff writer and producer for Phil Spector’s Philles Records in Los Angeles, Riopelle wrote his first top 20 hit (“Home of the Brave,” recorded by Bonnie…

Normally, I’m not a big fan of Christmas albums. I get stacks of them every year, and less than half of them actually make it into my CD player (really, I don’t need to hear Josh Groban’s take on “Little Drummer Boy” or James Taylor doing the umpteenth-thousandth cover of “Jingle Bells”).

But this year, I received A Taste of Christmas Pudding, an annual holiday compilation that features Phoenix artists doing their renditions of Christmas classics. There are two things that make this album stand apart from the seasonal stacks of wax for me. One is the sheer diversity of musical styles on the compilation. We open with a heavy metal cover of the creepiest Christmas song ever, “Carol of the Bells” by Karnage, before gliding into the soulful acoustic sounds of Haven James doing “Please Come Home for Christmas.” Ultimately, the 12-track CD wraps up with a raucous rendition of “Feliz Navida” by Kraised, with some garage-country (“Blue Christmas” by Juicy Newt), some funk (“Funky Desert Land” by Isle of Essence), and some frat boy rap-rock (“The Night Before Christmas” by Zoom & the Sporty Forties) in-between.

Out of Sync, the new memoir from former ‘N Sync member, failed cosmonaut and gay American Lance Bass, came out on October 23. (It’s surprisingly good.) Over the phone from New York – where he’s living while starring in the Broadway musical Hairspray as Corny Collins — and speaking in a slight Southern twang, he was very congenial. We talked about his critical words for Justin Timberlake in the book (he felt “completely betrayed” when JT broke up the band for a solo career), coming out, and dating the actress who played Topanga in Boy Meets World.

Every obit, blog post, and newscast will not fail to mention his despicable treatment of his ex-wife Tina Turner — so consider it mentioned.

What those voices will not tell you is what you can only hear and feel in the urgency and ambition of his music. From his rock & roll-christening fuzzed guitar on “Rocket 88” to his psychedelic gospel funk; from his unvarnished tremolo on uncountable electric blues singles to the black-power groove of the instrumentals he recorded with another St. Louis master, Oliver Sain; from his transformation of rhythm & blues into rock into soul (and then back again), to his electrification of the wildest stage spectacles that pop music had ever seen, Ike Turner deserves the appellation visionary — and can hold his own with touchstone figures such as Scott Joplin, Chuck Berry and Miles Davis.

Not long ago, a three-CD, 50-track collection of America-themed songs that’s titled, appropriately enough, Song of America, arrived in stores. What’s so special about that? Well, aside from the fact that it features freak folker Devendra Banhart (“Little Boxes”) and Springsteen acolytes Marah (“John Brown’s Body”) alongside the likes of soul diva Bettye LaVette (“Streets of Philadelphia”) and Chevy rocker John Mellencamp (“This Land is Your Land”), the set was executive produced, oddly enough, by Clinton-era Attorney General Janet Reno (no, “Burning Down the House” isn’t on there, but thanks for playing). Apparently, she and her niece’s husband, a record producer, conceived the idea a few years ago, and even made a trip to the 2005 Grammys to get artists to sign on to the project. “I just hope that people will have the opportunity to hear [Song of America] and to see what songs can do to inspire and to motivate and to give people a sense of themselves,” Reno recently told NPR.