hip-hop
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Is It Just Me, or Is BuzzFeed’s Headline About Big Lez Mad Disrespectful?
I was perusing the internet streets like I always do looking for what’s good in the hood when I came across an article from BuzzFeed that made me clutch my pearls, then touch my chest and say, “Why, I never!” The headline? “We Found the Girl Who Danced to Living Single’s Theme Song and Sis…
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Even 21 Years Later, the Notorious B.I.G. Is Still the MC Who Impresses Me Most
“The greatest rapper of all time died on March 9th.” —Canibus, “Second Round K.O.” Every year, March 9 rolls around, and we celebrate through music and reflection the life of Christopher Wallace, aka the Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls, aka Biggie, aka the only Christopher we acknowledge, who was gunned down in Los Angeles on…
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Common Has Secured the Bag and Now He Just Makes Dad Rap
Common is killing the game; or, in today’s parlance, Common has secured the bag. I’m almost 40 years old, which means that I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s listening to Common (née Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr.) when he was rapping about watermelons and communism and asking to borrow a dollar. I still own…
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Perfect Music Moments in Black History: The Roots and Common ‘Act Too (The Love of My Life)’
The Roots’ fourth album, 1999’s Things Fall Apart, is largely regarded as the album that put them over the top. While Organix, Do You Want More?!!!??! (personal fave) and Illadelph Halflife were all dope albums with superb hits—“Silent Treatment,” “Clones,” “Proceed” and “What They Do” immediately come to mind—Things Fall Apart is the one where…
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Universal Music’s VP of Urban Catalog Andre Torres Talks New Editorial Platform, Urban Legends
Andre Torres is a vinyl and hip-hop head, who’s also a veteran of music journalism. With over two decades in the trenches, Torres, who founded Wax Poetics magazine and was also executive editor at the lyrics site Genius, is now vice president of the urban catalog at Universal Music Enterprises. And in his new role,…
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How Do You Listen to Hip-Hop?
On Feb. 2, 2018, Brooklyn, N.Y., wordsmith Skyzoo released an album called In Celebration of Us. I don’t know exactly how I decided to listen to it—I can’t call myself a Skyzoo fan—but since I did, it’s been in heavy rotation. Skyzoo, as any hip-hop head will tell you, is a noted lyricist in the…
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Don’t Call It a Comeback: Are We Ready for a Real Cross Colours Revival?
It was, hands down, the most nostalgic moment of the 2018 Grammys: Building on the tremendous success of their In Living Color-inspired video, “Finesse,” Bruno Mars and Cardi B staged a technicolor takeover of the Grammys stage entirely outfitted in ’90s-juggernaut brand Cross Colours. It was a Gen X flashback come to life, filled with…
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Is Today’s Hip-Hop Trash or Are We Just Getting Old? Spoiler Alert: The Answer Is ‘Yes’
I’ll start with a disclaimer: I’m an old hip-hop head. I am 30-*coughs and crumples paper while driving under a bridge* years old and I am set in my taste, similar to how white people describe their racist parents as being “set in their ways.” I know what I fuck wit. If you know me,…
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A Prayer for Post Malone, Who Says It’s a ‘Struggle Being a White Rapper’
Heavenly Savior, Today I come to you, O Lord, and humbly as I know how. In fact, I come to you so humbly that I will admit that I don’t know whether or not to pronounce the “h” in “humble.” I mean, I can see the letter right there at the beginning of the words,…
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Anti-Blackness Goes East; China Just Banned ‘Hip-Hop Culture’
It’s clear that anti-blackness is everywhere. From Africans in India who face virulent discrimination to Whitenicious in Nigeria, it is not only Europeans who dismiss blackness as inferior, less than or other. Sometimes it comes from other folks of color, and China just stepped up to show that it, too, has skin in this losing…