As Blu told David Ma way back when: “Since the day I started this shit, I have not looked back once.” Even among the most ardent Below The Heavens fans, though, few appreciate how early he started: this cat was…

Mistakes were made here, but all of them started with choosing that beat. Based solely upon his fashion choices, his clumsy try-hard bar game, and his affinity for uptempo circus music dogshit beats, I’m going to wager that Greesy is…

Daniel Son and Futurewave are two artists who deserve the hype, no questions, no qualifiers. There’s a lot of cats in 2024 getting a pass off sheer social ape politics; they’re constantly releasing new albums, they’re moving units through the…

What in the fuck is this kid even saying? I know it’s cool to be too cool to rap, but this dude is too cool to talk & that’s a bridge too far. I had to immediately run this back…

Some rappers can spend years convincing you not to check out their music, just based off their name alone. Dababy is one of them. Rich Dunk is definitely not. Both of them came out the Charlotte scene, which has always…

We have to start with the fact that LL Cool J is a genre-shaping talent. His acting career and fly casanova demeanor make it hard for hardcore hip hop heads to respect it, but the man had an impact on…

Ian’s goofy prep school image is anything but honest. Trained to lie by Dallas Jesuits, he understands how important visual misdirection can be, especially when your product is carefully studied blackface bullshit. To his dubious credit, his Mid-Southern African-American imitation…

I get mad worried when I see rappers wearing gloves, man. Whether it’s in a video or onstage, gloves are a relentlessly reliable red flag that some nerd bullshit is afoot. Jace!, aka TGE Duwap, aka iayze, is a struggle…

A seven minute music video is stupid excessive, but this was also stupid fun. Mashing a short film into your new single is highly permissible when you’re official as fuck. Signed to Priority in high school, snatched up by Roc-A-Fella…

Having a fanbase that swears you are the greatest rapper alive is more curse than blessing. This is very different from being merely “under-rated,” which applies to nearly anyone. Winning one Grammy instead of five is sufficient proof that the…