After decades of sociopolitical rhetoric, conscious rappers like Chuck D and Talib Kweli still spit about the injustices crippling our country. From police brutality to capitalism and miseducation, these old-school dudes hold no punches and confront the system head on. But there’s a new breed of rapper repackaging conscious hip-hop…
Despite his inconsistent output of songs (OK!), despite his repetitive shouts and interruptions (Yeah!), despite even his rhetorical questions and exclamations (What?!), Lil Jon has remained a relevant figure in music for 15 years. Indeed, the King of Crunk was the producer of the early ’00s. Ever since his partnership…
With his debut album, Brown Sugar, a 21-year-old D’Angelo helped invent a genre. Five years later, the sexually and spiritually explicit Voodoo revealed the maturation of a young man and perpetuated the artist’s spectacular rise. After a 14-year hiatus full of personal ups and downs, the founder of neo soul…
Rey Pila is of a different era. It seems the group hitched a ride with Doc and Marty in 1989 but forgot to hop back into the DeLorean. The nostalgic synth-rock band’s music, mood, and even name owe credit to the ’80s — to one artist in particular. The name…
Carol City’s Gunplay released his debut studio album, Living Legend, today alongside a fantastical video for the track “White Bitch.” In the video, we see Gunplay team up with the last standing Cocaine Cowboy, Mickey Munday, to move weight from the jungles of Colombia to somewhere in South Florida. In…
Music and mental health have a complicated, reciprocal relationship. Songs can simultaneously settle and exaggerate moods, augment intellect, numb pain, recall thoughts good and bad. Many of music’s most magnificent figures have grappled with various degrees of mental instability, experiencing the revelatory peaks and troughs of the human condition. Counting…
ISIS-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced the creation of a caliphate in June 2014. Since then the jihadist group has attracted militants from around the world to uptake its apocalyptic goal. Scholars debate the group’s sudden and insidious appeal. Popular theories point to the marginalization and alienation of Muslim minorities. Others…
Rick Ross was released on a hefty bond yesterday after spending a week in a Lafayette County jail. Though the judge previously denied the rapper bail, by the end of his bond hearing yesterday, Ross was allowed to leave on a $2 million bond. He’s required to wear a GPS…
In the 2002 song “Without Me,” Eminem told Moby: “You’re too old, let go, it’s over/Nobody listens to techno!” He was wrong, of course. And in a cruel twist of fate, techno ended up outlasting Slim Shady himself. The Detroit native wasn’t oblivious to techno (a genre his hometown played…
Her wardrobe may malfunction from time to time, but Janet Jackson is an unbreakable act. Her 1989 album Rhythm Nation 1814 helped popularize socially conscious music while her sexual provocation sparked controversy with conservatives. Despite her brother’s towering status, the youngest Jackson child was never overshadowed by her family name…
