A tireless strutter and multi-tasker (just this month he launched a kitchen collection for Target, appeared on A&E’s “Fix This Kitchen” and took a vacation in Sweden), Marcus Samuelsson is set to open the splashiest restaurant/speakeasy/performance space Harlem has ever seen. Aptly, he named it the Red Rooster, after the cock of the walk himself.

When he isn’t busy making Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Bobby Flay look like unambitious bums, the Top Chefs Master/James Beard-award winning, half-Ethiopian, half-Swedish, 100 percent American Samuelsson mines the streets of Harlem for musical and aesthetic inspiration.

“Food tells a story, just like Kehinde Wiley tells a story with his art or the Talking Heads tell a story with their songs,” he told Papermag. “I want it to taste like I took a bike from the East side of Harlem to the West side of Harlem and told the story of everything I saw.”

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Before we get started, Tanya Morgan is a hip-hop group, not a singer. Now then, moving on. We stumbled upon Tanya Morgan back in 2006 as they released their debut album, Moonlighting. They were all over mtvU that summer, and we ran across them a couple months later at the CMJ Music Marathon. By that point, they’d already spent a few years in the lab.

What began as a connection via The Roots’ online community, okayplayer, Tanya Morgan formed in 2003. Brooklyn MC/producer Von Pea teamed up with Cincinnati-based MC Donwill to create an album, along with fellow Ohioan Ilyas. In subsequent years, the crew released a couple of EPs, the aforementioned LP and a mixtape titled for clarity–Tanya Morgan is a Rap Group.

By 2009, the guys had done quite a bit of urban planning to promote the release of their third full-length, Brooklynati. An imagined hybrid reflecting the origins of the group, the album comes with a map and an accompanying website full of details about the city, including a tattoo parlor, clock shop, banks and a DMV (extra credit for an abundance of train stations).

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The biggest trend to emerge from the CMJ 2010 Music Marathon? It wasn’t necessarily what went down at the festival itself, but what happened on the periphery. From competing non-CMJ shows to unannounced surprise performances, sideline attractions became the main event.

Phoenix set the bar only two nights in with the help of some old friends. The French band, along with The Dirty Projectors and Wavves, performed at Madison Square Garden (the first time the arena has hosted CMJ), and wowed the Twitter-frenzied crowd when Daft Punk came out to perform mega-hits “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” and “Around the World.” (Word on the street is they also sound checked in full futuristic gear).

Then there’s Kanye West, who unexpectedly showed up at Pitchfork’s #Offline fest, running concurrent with CMJ. Mr. West’s star power reportedly blew Daft Punk out of the water as he ran through a set of newer songs at Brooklyn Bowl for the Fool’s Gold party, mostly from his weekly G.O.O.D. Friday releases.

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The Tennessee-based Kings of Leon have gone and grown up on us. Fresh on the heels of their brand new album, Come Around Sundown, the roots of their sound lie in slap-happy, vaguely druggy takes on Southern rock and the blues, but sonically, they’ve blossomed into arena-ready alterna-boys.

Never ones to sit on their royal laurels, the Kings have officially cleared the summit of our post-post-modern, post-ironic, quasi-authentic age: A member of their entourage has appeared, without making a fool of himself, on everyone’s favorite foodie reality TV show–The Iron Chef.

Caleb Followill is often snapped by the stalkerazzi at hot spots like Tao in NYC and Petrossian in LA, so it’s no surprise that his foodie chops are well-seasoned and trim.

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Pixtape is our roundup of the best new downloads from the month of October.

1. Mark Ronson and the Business Intl “Lose It (In the End)” featuring Ghostface and Alex Greenwald
It’s like the soundtrack to a speedy spaghetti Western with Ghostface rapping about love and jealousy, sending him to therapy.
Download track via Pretty Much Amazing

2. Deerhoof “The Merry Barracks”
Give us some distorted guitar and a hip-hip-ish beat, and we’re looking forward to the San Francisco band’s new album Deerhoof vs Evil out on January 25.
Download track via Large Hearted Boy

3. Lykke Li “Get Some”
Reportedly the stuff of heartbreak, this is a thundering, coy track that leaves you wondering which side of the hurdle she’s on.
Download track via The FADER

4. James Blake “Limit to Your Love”
People can’t stop drooling over this British producer (not the tennis player), and this dark Feist cover makes use of silence to increase tension that puts the listener at the edge of their seat.
Download track via Gorilla vs Bear

5. Suuns “Up Past the Nursery”
A steady, restrained song from the Montreal quartet’s debut album, Zeroes QC, now out via Secretly Canadian.
Download track via Chrome Waves

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Plans are always grandiose during the CMJ Music Marathon, but what happens in between usually stays with you. Such was the case for night three of the fest, in which we happily stumbled across LA band Grouplove at Public Assembly. The quintet ran through a set of confident, catchy songs with each member visibly excited to perform. Kinda rare these days, and so welcome.

Perhaps their giddiness is in fact dedication: Grouplove found each other while globetrotting between NYC, Greece, London and LA, and subsequently all relocated to the latter city to record. Catch them on tour with Florence and the Machine, Two Door Cinema Club and The Joy Formidable.

Though no one moved a muscle during Lower Dens‘ set at the Knitting Factory, the audience was quite appreciative of the Baltimore band’s dark, ethereal vibe. Frontwoman Jana Hunter’s vocals were on point while the rest of the band led the procession into their otherworldy sound. Don’t fret if you miss them during the Marathon; they’re touring the U.S. and Europe through December, playing select dates with Frankie Rose & the Outs, Woven Bones, Bear In Heaven and Beach House.

Is Eddie the Britney of the food world?

Between the over-involved, possibly deranged family members, the self-destructive bids for attention, the carefully cultivated, self-contained world of simpering sycophants, the mini-empire, delusions of grandeur, zany blog entries, public drunkenness, binge-eating and the Cinderella story with the David Lynch detour, it, um, seems so.

Every New York-based hipster who refuses (for ethical, palate-respecting and/or cachet-craving reasons) to set foot in any establishment involving a McMenu or a Chihuahua is (was?) as crazy about Eddie Huang as they are (were?) about American Apparel and PDT.

His Tokyo street-style genius blossomed on Rivington Street at Baohaus with Haus Bao steamed buns, those trembling, carby temples, and savory Niman Ranch hanger steak sweetened with relish and red sugar, given a crunch with chopped peanuts and a zing-zang with fresh cilantro sprigs.

His guests loved every bite as much as the irreverently loud hip-hop beats that seemed to invoke the very spirit of their eats. For once, it seemed like a restaurant lived up the to the vertiginous mounds of praise the critics, neighborhoodies, clueless tourists and serious foodies peppered Baohaus with.

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