Feb 27th 2 Comments
Young Thug has probably the most generic rap name imaginable; it's like a character that Finesse Mitchell would've played on a halfassed SNL skit in 2005. When you see a name like that, you imagine… Read Story »
Feb 20th 9 Comments
Real talk: There have been more good mixtapes than good albums in 2013. I don't know that there's been a single out-and-out classic, but every week I have to make a seriously difficult decision when… Read Story »
Feb 13th 4 Comments
Pusha T's new Wrath Of Caine mixtape is a cold, impressively clinical thing. Its straight-faced drug raps might be a few qualitative steps up from everything else Pusha's done in the last couple of… Read Story »
Feb 6th 7 Comments
Over the last couple of years, New York's resurgent rap underground has hit upon a couple of winning strategies to find relevance: Be a weirdo, and pretend the '90s never ended. Those two principles… Read Story »
Jan 30th 6 Comments
The New York rapper Le1f delivers all of his lines in a quasi-mumbly back-of-the-throat snarlpurr, to the point where it can be tough to tell what he's saying. But on first listen to his new tape Fly… Read Story »
Jan 23rd 14 Comments
If you grew up in the '90s, loving Wu-Tang or Cypress Hill or the Beatnuts or the Fugees, you probably had a "wait, what?" moment with Master P. I remember mine vividly: One night in 1997, at the… Read Story »
Jan 16th 6 Comments
Future sneaks up on you. Way back in April, when he released his debut album Pluto, I enjoyed it, all its beeps and croaks and Auto-Tuned wails. But I never seriously considered naming it Album Of… Read Story »
Jan 9th 9 Comments
In Baltimore, my beautiful burned-out wasteland of a hometown, things don't change too quickly. The last time I filled up my minivan in town, a couple of weeks ago, the car next to mine was blasting… Read Story »
Jan 2nd 5 Comments
The NBA's relationship with hip hop comes with enviable scenarios. The camaraderie between players and rappers is replete with sparkler-adorned bottles of Ace of Spades, red carpets at the ESPYs and… Read Story »
Dec 19th, 2012 1 Comment
It's an old story: The cult-beloved pioneer whose work helps found an aesthetic and paves the way for a young phenom to come along, take shit over, and seize the popular imagination. The 26-year-old… Read Story »
