A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie is in the middle of being lightly reprimanded. One of the lounges located in Atlantic Records’ Manhattan office is shrouded in pungent weed smoke and filled with the laughter of the Highbridge rapper, and the light clacking of his jewelry. “You got HR calling me,” …
Read More »Post Malone Extends Runaway Tour Into 2020
Post Malone has announced a second North American leg for his Runaway Tour in support of his most recent album, Hollywood’s Bleeding. The run will kick off February 4th at the CHI Health Center in Omaha, Nebraska, and wrap March 21st at the Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake …
Read More »The Baby of the Year
If you listen to the second bar of the second verse on the third song from DaBaby’s second album of 2019, he asks what should be a simple question: “Aye, when you gon’ switch the flow?” He says it in a mocking tone, impersonating the thousands of people who have …
Read More »Logic Asks '1-800, Then I Kill The Pussy, Who Can Relate?' The Answer, No One
On a macro-level, the existence of French Montana’s “Twisted” featuring Juicy J, A$AP Rocky, and Logic makes sense. French, Juicy, Rocky, and Logic are stylistically distinct rappers covering demographics that span different ages, geographical boundaries, incomes, and discerning tastes. In the current landscape, why wouldn’t the four rappers try to expand their …
Read More »Beastie Boys' Ad-Rock Remembers Rap Pioneer Jimmy Spicer: 'It Just Hit Me as a Kid'
Jimmy Spicer, a hip-hop pioneer with a flare for storytelling and the endurance to rap over one side of a 12-inch record, died last Friday of lung and brain cancer in a Brooklyn hospital at the age of 61. His 14-minute debut single, “The Adventures of Super Rhyme (Rap),” came …
Read More »Rapsody's 'Eve' is a Masterpiece of Hip-Hop Feminism
For most of her career,North Carolina rapper Rapsody has been in quarantine. Neither individual virtuosity, nor cosigns from Jay-Z, Black Thought, and Kendrick Lamar, have ever brought her the reverence awarded to other avowed lyricists of her ilk. Signed to Roc Nationand 9th Wonder’s Jamla Records,Rapsody is not an underground …
Read More »Young Thug Has a Good Time Without Taking Any Risks on 'So Much Fun'
Young Thug’s often-imitated, never-duplicated mush-mouthed warble has become one of the most innovative and influential instrument to grace rap music in the last half-decade. Though Thug’s music has a track record of severe commercial underperformance, his stature in popular music has grown considerably in the last two years, as he’s …
Read More »'Now It's Just 3. Now It's Just 2. Now It's Just Me.'
It helps, sometimes, to think of the average rap verse as a commercial: Built to sell a rapper’s technical skills or life story or artistic vision in between hooks. Every now and then, though, a rapper’s verse contains a bar, phrase, or ad-lib that either renders the hook useless — …
Read More »Lil Uzi Vert Releases Two New Songs About Racks
The line between an official Lil Uzi Vert song, an unofficial Uzi song and a leaked Uzi song are, right now, blurred to the point of no longer mattering much at all. In late March, the Philadelphia rapper released “Free Uzi.” Atlantic Records, his label, called it a “leak.” A …
Read More »Billboard May Revisit Decision to Remove 'Old Town Road' From Country Chart
Lil Nas X‘s “Old Town Road” is a sensation. The genre-bending “country trap” song has jumped from TikTok-aided hit to a cultural phenomenon (see: Ellen DeGeneres dancing in a wig and cowboy hat), and its success may put it back on the Country charts after its initial removal. The song …
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