Lifeline: 5 Things to Do in Charlotte This Week

Queen City Nerve’s motto has been the same since our start: If you think nothing is happening in Charlotte, you’re not trying. While we’ve always included a Lifeline in our print issue, here’s our online version to help give you weekly reasons to engage.

Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon w/ Sauteed Grabba, DJ Prawn

Tomorrow, May 19 • 9 p.m. • Snug Harbor • $17

With a rave Pitchfork review and local billboards touting his latest LP As of Now, it seems Charlotte rapper Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon is having a moment — and it’s about time. Whether balancing braggadocio and despair or traipsing the tipping point between complexity and relatability, As of Now is a hilarious and sobering masterwork. Ogbon never loses the ability to laugh at himself, especially when he’s being dead serious.

Electro-jazz combo Sauteed Grabba serves up sounds suitable for a Druidic space ritual. DJ Prawn runs the gamut from Jellowstoned, an intergalactic collaboration with Cosmic Collective and Trey Tarzia, to The Residents-meets-drum ‘n’ bass “INfinite healing.”

MAYDAY: Women in Distress Walk

Wednesday, May 20 • 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. • Bank of America Tower • Free w/ RSVP

Regardless of job title, social position or socioeconomic standing, any woman can be impacted by intimate partner violence. According to the National Organization for Women, 55% of all female homicide victims in America are killed by current or former intimate partners. Too often, women are murdered after reporting abuse. This is the price of inaction.

The MAYDAY: Women in Distress walk and rally honors women murdered by their partners while amplifying the voices of those scared into silence and informing attendees how to support a loved one or community member. The walk culminates in a rally in front of First Ward Park, hosted by author Melody C. Gross and survivor Kristie Puckett.

‘Oedipus el Rey’

May 21-24 • times vary • The Arts Factory • $30-$35

Playwright Luis Alfaro’s Oedipus el Rey relocates Sophocles’ tragedy from the court of ancient Thebes to South Central Los Angeles. In this retelling, Latino prison inmate Oedipus rises to be a gang leader. The pervasive taboo at the story’s core remains — audiences best heed Three Bone Theatre’s warning that the show contains sexual content, partial nudity, and violence — but the original tale’s determinism is supplanted by a rancid system that encourages racial profiling.

Read our review: ‘Oedipus el Rey’ Completes Groundbreaking Three Bone Trilogy

It’s not the gods that decree Oedipus’s fate; it’s a vicious cycle of violence. This is Three Bone’s final installment of Alfaro’s Greek Trilogy, which includes Electricidad (Sophocles’ Electra) and Mojada (Euripides’ Medea), both of which have won Best in the Nest awards for Best Dramatic Production in each of the last two years.

Tayls w/ Horse Island, Kelsey Blackstone

May 21 • times vary • Petra’s • $19
A furious burst of riff-driven vulnerability, Tayls’ raging single “H8 Machine” is relatable because it expresses a universal message we all need to hear at one time or another: “You are not alone.” The Nashville alternative rockers capture the melodic rush of the class of 1977 punk bands but also include swells of surf-rock guitar and a dramatic glam-rock coda.

Charlotte emo-indie-rock four-piece Horse Island craft catchy, rampaging rockers like the clattering yet plaintive “For No One.” With spare reverberating guitar and mellifluous scat singing, Nashville soul-pop enchantress Kelsey Blackstone kicks off “See You Never,” a searing, soaring farewell to an unfaithful friend.

Queen City Fest

May 23 • 11 a.m.-4 p.m. • Levine Avenue of the Arts • Free

Small businesses go big picture in this a full street takeover in the heart of Uptown. Hosted by event planner-shopping service HandCrafted Market CLT, Queen City Fest features a lineup of over 100 local makers, artists, boutiques and businesses with the personal touch drawn from across the Carolinas.

Attendees are encouraged to bring friends, family and plenty of shopping bags to the five-hour long shopapalooza, one of the largest small-business events of the season. Patrons can spend the day exploring booths, discovering new favorite brands and supporting the local businesses that make the Queen City special — all in the middle of a thriving, bustling metropolis.