hip-hop
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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10 Reasons Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Buying the Carolina Panthers Needs to Be a Thing
So it turns out that the NFL’s Carolina Panthers franchise is about to be up for sale. The current owner, Jerry Richardson, is going to put the club up for sale after reports of several payouts being made to victims of sexual misconduct came out via Sports Illustrated. 2017 is definitely the year of getting…
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10 Best Christmas Hip-Hop Songs, Ranked
From the Temptations’ “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas” to John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” to Oscar Peterson’s “White Christmas,” black folks have contributed to the sonic landscape of the Christmas holiday in unforgettable fashion. Since Christmas parties are a universal part of the season and because hip-hop is the music of…
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Rapsody on Her Grammy Nominations Being ‘Good for the Culture,’ Her Unconventional Journey and Thoughts on Cardi B
When Marlanna “Rapsody” Evans stepped onstage in Oakland, Calif., for her Wisdom Is Power Tour, the tiny emcee with the commanding voice behind her lyrical wizardry was met with an ovation unlike any other she had ever experienced. “I tried to address the crowd before I started, and I couldn’t even talk because they were…
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An Open Letter to Post Malone
Dear Mr. Malone: First let me say that, as an old-school hip-hop head, I will refrain from criticizing your music. I will not comment on your lyrical genius of rhyming “shottas” with “grrra-ta-ta-ta.” I won’t even mention how your synthesized, Auto-Tuned, Caucasian half-singing on “Rockstar” sounds as if T-Pain fucked a Pinterest page. I am…
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B.o.B.’s Apparent Belief That Slave Ships Never Existed May Be the Most Hotep Conspiracy Theory of All Time
Flat-earther B.o.B constantly proves my belief that a person can be a genius in one field and totally clueless in another. We previously reported that the talented rapper and singer was raising funds to build a satellite that will once and for all settle the debate about whether or not the planet is dinner-plate shaped.…
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When Should Rappers Hang Up the Microphone?
When I was perusing the list of new-release albums from this past Oct. 13, it dawned on me after some time that three of the artists—Wu-Tang, Camp Lo and Krayzie Bone (with his group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony)—all released albums that I absolutely loved exactly 20 years ago. In 1997 I turned 16, obtained my driver’s license…
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The Smithsonian Is Creating a Dope Hip-Hop Anthology
When MC Lyte broke into the hip-hop world as a pioneering solo female rapper, she wasn’t thinking about making history. Like most aspiring artists, she wanted to be on the radio. “I was a lover of hip-hop. I went to the hip-hop clubs. I started rapping in elementary school … at 12, I started keeping…