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…

As far as my one & only life is concerned, the summer of 2002 was one long lost weekend, all of it soundtracked by that debut Demigodz EP. Those were tumultuous days in the cracker rap ecosystem. For those of…

I first heard G Perico come up in a conversation about Action Bronson. Years later, I still say they’re both innocent: Bam Bam didn’t bite Ghostface any more than G Perico is doing an Eazy-E impression. Both comparisons are inevitable,…

Whenever Copywrite pops back up, it’s always interesting. Pete Nelson has been having one wild-ass ride through adulthood over the past…well, it’s been a long time. As we lurch into the flames & bloodshed of Summer 2024, he’s out running…

Los Angeles is a weird fucking country. When Roman Polanski was making Chinatown, he spent his weekends filming orgies at his house, entertaining a steady stream of seekers, dreamers, dealers, fixers, hustlers & pimps. Worst of all, of course, were…

Pretty Toney is a wizard of pure chaos. He’s given the game some of the finest LPs we will ever study, but even them classics were full of curveballs. It’s hard to make a case that his catalog is all…