YGB, our local family and community celebrating everything that is creative, beautiful and black, is back with another live showcase takeover. In about an hour, YGB is assembling at Doug Fir for sets from some of the town's best in hip hop, r&b and soul. Headlining tonight is the spiritual, intergalactic jazziness of duo Brown Calculus, so we had to share a track to elevate the mood before the show.

A term that seems to mean more and more lately, "Self Care" is the type of track that you just can't help but vibe to. The combination of the smooth-like-butter voice and flow of vocalist Brown Alice with the chill instrumental production created by Brown Calvin make it an ideal song for a warm, summer evening.

Expect some rhymes from Karma Rivera, the soulful sounds of Soot Uros and DJ Lemar LeRoy spinning as well. 

For the longest time, hip hop and r&b in Portland were backburner genres to the city's most popular categories of indie, rock and garage. Things started to change recently, where more artists took to the soulful sounds of rhythm and blues or incorporating the type of woke sensibilities often dropped in bars of hip hop tracks. The results for this round of our poll provide proof of who's been doing it the best in the last year, so keep scrolling to check them out.

Our top winners, Lola Buzzkill, are a supergroup of sorts dazzling audiences with their soulful croons and rhythmic tendencies. Their live performances integrate incredible makeup and costumes on top of their throwbacks to funky and sultry r&b and disco . They've got one of the best interactive live performances in town right now and if you haven't gotten a chance to see them yet, you're definitely missing out. Congrats on being our top dogs, Lola Buzzkill!

*video by blueheronvideo

Next is the Fur Coats, who swept the readers' poll without a hitch. The Fur Coats have been around for a little while now but have nonetheless been one of more dynamic iterations of modern psychedelic soul and mild jazz, using sax and organs in the most savvy of ways. They'll be heading off for a long tour of Europe and we couldn't be more excited for them.

Rounding out our winners are Chanti Darling and Karma Rivera, occupying two different sides of the same coin. Chanti Darling basically ran the last year, coming into it named Willamette Week's Best New Band. Taking over festival stages and running their own dance nights led by powerful vocalist Chanticleer, Chanti Darling mixeds soul, disco and r&b with electronic elements to produce some of the most danciest tunes in town right now. Karma Rivera is the only actual hip hop artist to place, and she one of the best to represent the genre. Her beats are banging as are her rhymes, and her femme power is much needed in music world typically dominated by men.

A much needed celebration of female power, Girl Fest is back with a showcase of some of Portland's best female musicians of the moment. Hosted by the soulful Blossom, this year's installation of GF touches on a few different genres, including jazz, folk and hip hop, to me enjoyed by all ages.

Coco Columbia has been a local love we've grow to appreciate more and more, with her refreshingly modern and eclectic take on jazz. Her voice, along with her production, have become indicative of the variety of other music scenes the city provides.

Other upbeat offerings come from some of the only female rap artists in Portland's market right now, including Karma Rivera. Taking a beat and fully making it her own, Karma's rhymes give the best of relatable expression and fun quips. Building off of that, duo Neka & Kahlo mix angelic bedroom pop with hip hop that results in a trappy type R&B that we need much more of.

Courtney Noe could easily dominate the pop charts with her retro ballads and after the Fish Eye EP, we've been dying for more of Haley Heynderickx's acoustic folk.

Thankfully Girl Fest 2017 is still happening tonight at the Crystal Ballroom. It's an all ages show, including some performances from young artists involved with local youth music nonprofit My Voice Music, so bring all your loved ones out for a night of true female empowerment.