News across Providence County
Lily Rhodes Electrifies Folk Music: Lily Rhodes’ debut EP is loose and unpredictable electro-folk
Rhode Island-based writer, musician, producer, teacher, and multi-media artist Lily Rhodes released her Debut EP titled I Don’t Need You Now, on August 8. Rhodes’ recent release blends a heavy mix of electronic and folk influences. The song “Lost In The Forest” brings a rugged…
Soundpeople: The Unsung Heroes of the Music Scene
Everyone likes to go out and listen to live music, and they should. There are a multitude of bands that are extraordinary in our local music scene alone. However, as good as these bands are, none of them would be able to do what they do best without a quality soundperson in their…
Follow Thru
Follow Thru have spent the last almost decade building their fanbase and crafting their technical melodic punk sound. 2024 EP Ghosts showed their potential in just under nine minutes. Eat Your Heart Out, their upcoming first full-length, shows that the quintet is ready for the…
A New Sound for Providence: The Swell Folk Festival
Providence is known as the Creative Capital because of the many artists and cultural organizations that call this city home. The state also offers an assortment of events throughout the year that includes PVDfest, the Katxupa Cape Verdean Festival, and the National Black…
Searching for Hope in Rhode Island
People are hurting, and that’s a fact. From the national level where we are led by an orange buffoon who is more concerned with enriching himself and constructing monuments to his dubious glory, to the local level where the two parties continuously fight to see who will lead us…
Opened & Closed: September 2026
Open CoLab Theatre: A new local theatre has officially opened its doors. CoLab Studio Theatre is a brand new nonprofit theatre founded by RI residents David Sackal and Aubrey Dion. Their mission promotes productions that are “uncommon, unconventional, underrepresented, and new.”…
Whatever Floats Your… Dragon?
Witness the upcoming boat race and celebrate Taiwan Day Festival right here in RI! Every September for 25 years, the Pawtucket River has come alive with a jamboree of celebration and unity. Local organization Blackstone Valley Tourism Council (BVTC) honors not only the Asian…
Free Range Rhode Island: A fun map with serious implications
Welcome to Free Range Rhode Island, also known as 2 Feet 2 Bucks Land: a world hiding in plain sight within the world generally known as Rhode Island. It was there all along, just waiting to be discovered and mapped. Rediscovered really, because Free Range Rhode Island largely…
Social Media In Local Politics
The new age of digital media has transformed the political world, changing not only how candidates are communicating with voters, but how political messaging is shaped. Politics have evolved alongside society, moving away from direct messaging and imagery and fitting into social…
Art Focused Forum
On August 12, Motif cohosted a forum on the Arts in Providence featuring Democratic Primary Mayoral candidates Brett Smiley and David Morales. In Providence, the real election typically happens in the primary. The winner will go on to face David Tenet (R) and Allen Waters (I) in…
In Their Own Words: 2026
Every election cycle, Motif brings you the candidates in their own words so you can try to compare apples to apples. It’s our way of contributing to the political process while not having the fact-checking capabilities of larger papers (well, that larger papers used to have, at…
ProJo union calls on USA TODAY CO: End partnership with Palantir
“We will continue pushing back on ill-planned attempts to force A.I. into our newsrooms and onto our readers, who deserve quality, human-led journalism…” – Philip Eil, freelance journalist Why would a newspaper company partner with Palantir, the notorious tech company co-founded…