Dec 29
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The need to stay the hell apart from humans this year resulted in a sweeping halt on the production of movies,…
Jan 2 2020
1
There’s quite a bit of hip-hop cooking in the kitchen for 2020, in terms of scheduled and rumored releases.…
Nov 7 2019
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Aug 28 2019
3
Hip-hop celebrated its 46th birthday on August 11. The anniversary of the genre’s unofficial yet widely accepted…
Apr 22 2019
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Illmatic, my all-time favorite debut album and one of my top-five favorite hip-hop albums of all time, celebrated…
Mar 22 2019
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My relationship with therapy is, to say the least, old and complicated.
Jan 17 2019
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Shortly after I entered the world via Detroit’s now-shuttered Grace Hospital one summer day in 1981, I set upon what…
Dec 26 2018
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Just about every hip-hop critic and cognoscenti has had the same response about the amount of new music released in…
Mar 14 2018
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Eleven years ago this month, I made the decision to get my first tattoo below my elbow—a piece covering my entire…
Jan 11 2018
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HBO’s The Wire signed off a decade ago this coming March. Eclipsed in popularity by mainstream shows Sex and the City…
Jan 8 2018
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Over the holiday break, I finally got around to watching Netflix’s Mudbound, last year’s period drama by director…
Dec 20 2017
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When Joe Budden didn’t report for his duties as co-host of Complex’s Everyday Struggle webcast this week, folks…
Nov 17 2017
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Seven years ago this month, we were all giddy with the hype and secrecy behind Kanye West’s upcoming fifth studio…
Nov 9 2017
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This week at VSB, we’re running a series called Albums That Changed My Life in which different writers let you in on…
Nov 7 2017
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Confession: I was absolutely thinking about pulling out of my first silent party an hour before I was to leave for…
Nov 1 2017
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When I was perusing the list of new-release albums from this past Oct. 13, it dawned on me after some time that…
Oct 19 2017
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In 2009 a family friend I hadn’t seen since I was a kid came into Chicago for a work conference and took me out for…
Oct 5 2017
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North Carolina rapper Rapsody dropped her second full-length album, Laila’s Wisdom, on Sept. 22. It’s her first…
Sep 11 2017
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When I broke up with my college sweetheart in 2005, I was living and working as a newspaper reporter in God’s…
Aug 31 2017
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I’m calling it right now: “Bodak Yellow” will make Cardi B a one-hit wonder (Editor’s Note: I disagree with this…