Re-doing classic rap songs seldom ends well for anyone, anywhere. It is inherently awkward shit. Don’t get me wrong: flipping lines, stealing hooks, chopping samples, or using those instrumentals for a freestyle, that’s all valid & vital stuff. But even…

ShrapKnel are a good old fashioned American success story about hard work. That story has been a Backwoodz Studioz production for as long as the duo has existed, but the roots of that success trace back to Philadelphia’s Wrecking Crew…

Rome Streetz has been all fire since he showed up. A natural born spitter with a voice that could cut glass, there are no weak links in his catalog. The Noise Kandy series alone would be enough to cement his…

If this stops being fun, we’re fucked. After half a lifetime spent in music, it is still a joy to discover something new, fresh & dope. Case in point: Minneapolis polymath JuneThaKid, a rapper slash producer slash engineer who is…

What the world needs right now is a catchy club song about catching STDs. Just in time for summer, here it is. Back when A Boogie Wit da Hoodie was just getting started, I remember getting some publicist pitch about…

It helps to separate the art from the artist sometimes. Not in the R. Kelly sense, either. All our culture wars over problematic art bore the fuck out of me; I mean actually taking the scalpel to the song and…

Some of these lines are corny as fuck, but listen: Common has always been like that. It’s who he is. He’s still unimpeachably dope. “Wise Up” is not a return to form, because his flow was always loose enough to…

Paradime is a rock solid old school Detroit spitter, which is an assessment of his rep, not his build. Highly esteemed by some of the Motor City’s most highly esteemed, Paradime cashed in some of those chips last year with…

Rapsody makes dope hip hop albums. That process takes time: it’s been five years now since she dropped Eve. That was a monolith from left field, a concept album about black femininity. What could have easily been an art school…

A lot of people can’t see past the mask. “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Mach-Hommy isn’t rapping to celebrate himself, he’s showing us that there’s a way out. We are living…