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 »

A few minutes into the new mixtape Mandatory Brunch Meetings, the Queens rap bruiser Meyhem Lauren joins a very small circle: The tiny club of rappers whose between-verses shit-talk is as much fun to…   Read Story »

First up: If anyone released a worthy rap mixtape in the past seven days, I haven't been able to find it. The closest thing would be Trina's Back 2 Business, which French Montana "executive…   Read Story »

About five years ago, I flew down to Orlando to spend some time with the then-rising Baton Rouge rapper Lil Boosie, for a profile that King magazine never got around to publishing before it went out…   Read Story »

Some weeks, I have to dig deep into the internet's weirder recesses to find anything remotely worth writing about in this column. And some weeks, the deluge comes: A wave of mixtapes so good, and so…   Read Story »

I've spent some ungodly chunk of my adult life attempting to write critically about rap music, and one of the hardest things about the genre to approach is one of its simplest elemental building…   Read Story »

Over the past few years, Curren$y has become a model of online cult-rap consistency, a guy who reliably cranks out three or four eminently listenable mixtapes per year. And at a certain point, that…   Read Story »

Knee-jerk Gucci Mane haters, I am no longer talking to you. Three-plus years after Gucci's still-staggering 2009 breakout, if you're still unwilling to concede the mere possibility that Radric Davis…   Read Story »

Earlier this week, Queens rapper Homeboy Sandman penned a thoughtful essay for The Huffington Post about the perpetuation of negativity in rap music by the rap-music industry. Sandman argues for…   Read Story »

Huntsville, Alabama's G-Side were one of our great active rap groups -- a hard-rapping throwback duo who pushed each other and came with their own hard-earned aesthetic. They cranked out dizzily…   Read Story »