Crosstalk: Miss Manners Retires From Hip Hop Hooray After 15 Years, and More Music News

Leah Manners (l) with DJ Chicken George and MexStep (Courtesy of Leah Manners)

Hip Hop Hooray host Leah Manners – aka Miss Manners – announced retirement from the KOOP 91.7FM radio show on social media last Sunday. After 15 years spent highlighting diverse voices in the local hip-hop scene on the volunteer-run community station, Manners shared her decision to "make room for great new voices on air" and "pursue other hobbies and activism." Formerly the station's development director, Manners also started and hosted the five-year run of Austin Mic Exchange alongside local rapper Adam Protextor. The weekly hip-hop open mic event beginning in 2012 also grew into Weird City Hip-Hop Festival in 2014 and 2016. Jonathan "Chaka" Mahone of local hip-hop duo Riders Against the Storm saluted the deejay in a Facebook post: "You made a REAL difference from that corner KOOP studio, and you did it without sticking your chest out, and dividing lines. You did it with authenticity and sincerity that is so often missing when people claim to LOVE anything." Hip Hop Hooray continues to air on Sundays at 2pm, now co-hosted by KOOP's Ryan Blake and Jerell Tongson.  – Wayne Lim

DAWA (Diversity Awareness & Wellness in Action) reopens applications for community funding on Monday, May 15, at dawaheals.org. The program is described as "direct financial assistance for living, learning, sickness, stress, mental health, anything." The organization will distribute $300 grants to 300 recipients, with apps open until the full $90,000 is distributed. Mahone founded DAWA to provide emergency financial assistance to people of color working as artists, musicians, social workers, health care providers, and service industry workers. In the past two years, DAWA has distributed $153,000 in direct financial assistance to over 600 Austinites. According to an informational video, the application will ask for a proof of ID, the reason for financial need and amount needed ("I need help with …"), and proof of profession, which can be provided through a website, job ID, or event flier.  – Rachel Rascoe

Lizzy McAlpine's name rang out in chants from a sold-out ACL Live crowd when lights promptly dimmed at 9pm. Earth-tone furniture, movie posters, and windows made the stage a home. The Philadelphia-born artist's 71-minute Monday set marked her return to Austin since canceling her September 2022 concert due to laryngitis. The 23-year-old kept her commitment despite feeling slightly under the weather: "We're gonna do the show, it's gonna be great – I may have to blow my nose in the middle of it, but that's okay." Weaving 16 accounts of heartbreak, wistfulness, and nostalgia, the folk-pop poet melted the air with a candlelit timbre, unafraid to improvise mountainous melodies that surmounted her studio versions ("erase me"). Shifting between acoustic guitars and the piano, McAlpine's amplified renditions flowed as a screenplay that the crowd recited word for word. Like a film, the show emphasized scene-setting, from the unsettling, throbbing percussion in "doomsday" to the rainy ambience leading up to viral hit "ceilings." Prismatic hues and an upbeat tempo set the theater aglow for "orange show speedway," a cinematic resolution that had audiences belting until the credits rolled.  – Angela Lim

ACL Fest announced the 2023 lineup, with Kendrick Lamar, Foo Fighters, Alanis Morissette, Mumford & Sons, the Lumineers, Hozier, and ODESZA booked to headline. Shania Twain will play Weekend One (October 6-8) only, and the 1975 will play Weekend Two (October 13-15) only. Three-day passes start at $335 at aclfestival.com. Locals Ben Kweller, Jimmie Vaughan, Asleep at the Wheel, Penny & Sparrow, Katy Kirby, Calder Allen, Kathryn Legendre, Arya, Grace Sorensen, Blakchyl, We Don't Ride Llamas, Jane Leo, Ellis Bullard, Rattlesnake Milk, Shooks, Quin NFN, Caramelo Haze, Die Spitz, Nemegata, Huston-Tillotson Jazz Collective, the Moriah Sisters, and the Disciples of Joy will all appear at the fest.  – Rachel Rascoe