Category: Slander

This was pitched to me as the hot new shit, an urgent slice of cutting edge underground rap. That was a fair assessment. Yet it’s also oddly depressing, a reminder that “underground rap” has been treading circles around the same resonance-filtered turf for well over a decade straight now. Yet what need is there to…

I have watched Style Wars well over 500 times. Every moment that Kase 2 was on camera, he laid down a dozen timeless turns of phrase, easy. However, “if I really get into it and start camouflaging it, I don’t think you would even be able to read it” is the passage we turn to…

Like so many albums of this past, fleeting decade, this shit was way too short. That’s only really a complaint when the roster is this good. Most of you muppets should be making the shortest possible albums. Songs, too. Crimeapple and Evidence both exist at a different altitude, world-class grandmasters of the artform who have…

The beat is electric, the video is low rent, and the backstory is hella interesting: this right here is a mixed bag. Heartbreak JC is a rapper from Memphis with some understated charisma and a rock solid flow. His bar game is nothing special but it also doesn’t have to be when he’s so on…

Comedy that doesn’t work as entertainment is a failure, right? The first and last defense of every boring poser in the Meme Rap game: “You just don’t get it.” They’re always right, too. The fact that every aspect of this is both terrible and terribly done is the whole & only point, a career-length shaggy…

In 1997, I would have checked this out just off the cover art alone. Back then, that meant buying CDs and tapes at stores full of them. I was always copping compilations and mixtapes because I wanted to be able to hear everybody. That was a daunting task in those days, but only a matter…

I had no idea who this cat was, and in most ways I still don’t. I assumed this was a producer’s V/A LP type deal, just farming features with a guest list that included Sadat X, Project Pat and Nature, which definitely caught my attention. Shane Dollar, clearly, is a discerning head, so this was…

Seeing a brand new music video from NYC crew Natural Elements in 2026 was some extremely unexpected shit. Far less surprising: they’re all still top tier spitters. “They’ve still got it!” is some damn faint praise, though, ain’t it? This is rap, after all. What makes this joint interesting for an old head like me…

Hip Hop’s Extremely Official 50th Anniversary was a crude, awkward scene, yet it also brought us a ton of welcome comebacks. There has been a whole wildfire worth of old school legends re-appearing with some serious heat, far hungrier than they have to be. For my crisply folded money, Redman’s 2024 joint Muddy Waters Too…

Homeboy Sandman is one of one. That’s hella redundant because he already knows this, and has referenced it many hundreds of times throughout his sprawling, breezy and often genius-grade catalog. Like too many basic bitch hip hop heads online, I had doubts about this cat at first, back where the Blog Era overlapped with the…