hip-hop
-
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…
-
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,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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,…
-
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,…
-
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…
-
Watch: The BEST Responses To That "I'm Not Racist" Video
According to Joyner Lucas, there are two sides to every story. In his breakout song, “I’m Not Racist,” the rapper attempts to start a discussion on how we approach racial differences, assisted by actors who portray the white and black characters who each own half of this two-verse track.But the black character in his viral…
-
Why Black Thought Doesn’t Rank As High on Rap GOAT Lists as He Should
Last week, Tariq Trotter, aka Black Thought, frontman for the Roots, tried to break the rapper-nets with a 10-minute freestyle with Funkmaster Flex over the Mobb Deep “Burn” instrumental that even had people who think Kevin Gates is the best rapper of all time impressed. Even calling his performance impressive undersells it. For my money,…
-
Full Circle and Forward: The Renaissance of Dapper Dan
Gazing down from a billboard overlooking 125th Street (aka Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) in Harlem, “Dapper Dan”—born Daniel Day—appears every bit what his longtime moniker suggests. Adjusting the lapel of his impeccably tailored suit, he looks like a man who has arrived—though he never left the New York City neighborhood he called home. His…