Ed. note – this week's music feature is all about emcee-producer Saafir, the Saucee Nomad. The wheelchair-bound associate of Hobo Junction and Digital Underground (and actor in 'Menace II Society') opened up to Guardian music writer Garrett Caples about his recent health struggles, making music, and what's keeping him in check. Here's the extended interview we couldn't fit in the print edition:

San Francisco Bay Guardian Did you have any idea [Digital Underground leader] Shock-G was going to post about you on Davey-D’s blog?

Saafir Actually I had no idea that he was going to put that out. Shock had came and saw me one time and I didn’t really tell nobody that I was in a wheelchair as far as the DU crew. I wasn’t really in contact with anybody. Nobody really stayed in contact with me. If you ain’t really hollerin’ at me, I’m not just gonna call you and be like, “Hey bruh, what’s up? I’m in a wheelchair.” Read more »

If I hear another journalist ask anyone involved in hip-hop incredulously, reverently, portentously about Frank Ocean and that Tumblr post someone may lose their digital recorder. Frank I love you, I love your ambiguous Internet warblings, your endearingly awful Grammy performances -- and kudos on Willy Carter, damn -- but obvs you're not the first queer person to be involved with your musical genre.

The Bay Area knows this -- in 2007 the PeaceOUT World Homo Hop Festival, already six years old at that point, took over deFremery Park with Oakland's Deep Dickollective and co. And like, Cazwell? Hey.

This list goes on -- but this post is more about future, specifically the Hip-Hop: Beyond Gender event series that kicks off at La Peña Cultural Center on Fri/15 with "Here Me Roar", a lineup of queer and feminist spoken word MCs set to wrecking speed. Read more »

In 2007, then 20-year-old George Watsky and his band at the time, Invisible Inc., rented out Slim’s nightclub in San Francisco and put themselves on stage as the opening act. Sadly, Watsky spent years repaying back the loan that he lost on that show. 

Flash forward five years to the present, and on Sunday, July 29 the now 25-year-old under the stage name “Watsky” will be headlining a show at Slim’s, presented by Slim’s itself. Watsky’s performance in San Francisco is part of a 22-city national tour, which kicked off on July 1 in Tempe, Ariz. and wraps up July 31 in LA (including three shows in London, England after the national tour ends). Read more »