Author: Justin Boland

As cultural critic Eric Andre once observed, “what is this Mickey Mouse bullshit I see before my very eyes?” Noga Erez is the hot new thing, a widely acclaimed IDF music corps wunderkind who can ape any style. For “I LOVE YOU,” she has wisely opted to culturally appropriate a White Girl Mob era Lil…

Domo Genesis, like many great rappers, took some time to grow into himself. He spent his early career learning face-first in public, alongside one of the most over-hyped young crews of that entire decade. He got a lot of great looks early on, and spent years dropping underwhelming features alongside cultural giants. To the extent…

This beat is fucking terrible. That assessment is not performative obscenity, but a necessary adjective. Whoever DJ Profluent is, they have serious connections and questionable taste. Getting a lineup like this over such a corny, distracting piano fragment is perhaps the most baffling move I have seen this year. This is the sound of a…

Big Dese has to be one of the single funniest motherfuckers that Boston has ever given the world. I have very seldom made it through anything from him without at least one genuine laugh. On “Meteor,” that pudgy bastard got me in the first five bars. Of course, pudgy is unfair: he is simply Sicilian,…

This joint unites a trio of Boston’s finest, and one of them is Chow Films, aka Chairman Chow. A multi-talented freak of nature, they’ve been behind most of the best music videos out of The 617 for a long damn time now. This joint is no exception, a cinematic, carefully composed, expertly color-graded final print.…

I first heard Flee Lord in 2019, opening up for the full Griselda lineup when The Almighty Tour came through the Middle East. Opening is a tough gig anywhere, but especially in Boston. It’s just an inherently antagonistic crowd. Plus, the older heads are still angry about decades of drug dealers and rich kids, almost…

We must pause to acknowledge that Ill Clinton is a great name, and has been for a long time. In two senses, in fact. It is both inherently funny and associated with a certain level of clientele & quality control. Cheers. The tracklist for his latest project, Grimeball Crimelord, reflects his access and his taste:…

Nacky Chan has been a reliable co-sign over the years, generous with his resources and always on point with his taste. Chyna Baejing is another Lynn local who made her mark in ’23 with FORTY INCHEZ AND A MULE, a scrappy debut that established her as a fully-formed rap persona. No budget is big enough…

Mobb Deep or Outkast? These are the kind of retard questions that dominate The Discourse over this past & painful decade. Any real head is building out brackets in the opposite direction, exploring, not re-ranking the same hundred names, again. It’s a mighty big world and there are always new artists to check out. That…

As rap names go, “MARQUISE! F.K.A OG SWAGGERDICK” is an entire feature film. There is a lot of backstory communicated in one single stroke there. As song titles go, “BAOW!” is highly accurate labeling. As Grubby Pawz beats go, this was a surprisingly MF DOOM throwback, some choice broken soul. This video was objectively terrible…