Chicago rapper Chancellor Bennett, better known as Chance the Rapper, wears his heart and his influences on his sleeve on his second mixtape “Acid Rap”. His strange, theatrical delivery style recalls recent artists like Danny Brown and Kendrick Lamar, with a fair helping of classic weirdos like Fatlip, Baatin, even a little Pimp C for good […]
Read more
We couldn’t make it to SXSW this year, but plenty of our favorite artists went down to the festival, including Chicago’s Rockie Fresh who hustled hard in Austin, performing at Warner and SPIN showcases during last week’s festival. Rockie is young rapper who’s been hanging around the music industry for a few years now, linking […]
Read more
Everyone needs to get familiar with Kevin Gates right now; happily he’s abandoned the awful ‘KVN’ moniker and has reverted to the bravely-boring ‘Kevin’. The Baton Rouge rapper has been putting out quality, persona driven mixtapes for a couple of years now and this latest, “The Luca Brasi Story“, is his best yet. Apparently there’s a bidding war […]
Read more
Three-Peat is our feature spanning genres and labels to bring you three select releases from the past – whether the past month or the past year – that still deserve your attention. 1. Mike Will Made It – Est. In 1989 Part 2.5 Atlanta’s Mike WiLL Made It, the producer behind “No Lie” and “Turn On The Lights,” […]
Read more
The new tape from Black Migo leader / Freeband member is here and it’s fantastic. Young Scooter manages to establish a compelling persona across almost all of “Street Lottery’s” tracks, skillfully maneuvering between winning drug king and flawed, hurt hustler with an understated musicality. The production, especially that from longtime trap genius Zaytoven is outstanding and an overwhelming testament […]
Read more
Chief Keef is seventeen years old, but that hasn’t stopped him calling his first album “Finally Rich”, or from sounding and acting like a fully grown man. By now everyone who cares knows the RSS feed version of Keef’s sudden rise to rap celebrity: a viral WorldStar video of crazy pre-teen celebrating Keef’s release from […]
Read more
Roc Marciano’s “Wee III” opens with a sample taken from Michael Mann’s first feature film, a Chicago crime drama called Thief. In the film, James Caan plays Frank, an unrepentant thief embedded in the city’s gang life. Without stretching too far, Roc Marciano’s sophomore LP “Reloaded”is an aesthetic kin of Mann’s Thief. Both portray a […]
Read more
Over the last ten years, trap music has been leading a life of its own within rap circles: though the developments in production and rap style have seen a lot of changes over time, the genre is still making headway and remains fortifying, all while rejecting the idea of being bound to just one era […]
Read more
“Ya should be glad I pushed my mixtape back,” is a line from Mykki Blanco’s “Join My Militia” and it’s the truth – we are. Mykki is the feminine alter ego of Michael David Quattlebaum, the New York based poet, lyricist, and rapper. It’s been a hectic year for her full of collaborations and studio […]
Read more
Ty Dolla $ign is a member of the Los Angeles hip-hop production group D.R.U.G.$. along with Iggy Azalea producer Fuego and “ratchet music” pioneer DJ Mustard. He wrote YG’s 2010 regional hit “Toot It & Boot It” and the hook on Wiz Khalifa and Snoop Dogg’s “Young, Wild & Free,” and in 2011 he released […]
Read more
It feels like we’ve been waiting on “Baby Face Killa” since 2010. Maybe not in the form we got, but Freddie Gibbs has been throwing around the title for so long it felt like a dream when it became increasingly more clear it was finally happening. While it’s conception may have been years ago, the long birth […]
Read more
On his promising debut mixtape “Ice Cold Perm,” 19-year-old Bay Area rapper 100s blends the melodic, cloudy sounds of contemporary alternative hip-hop with a classic West Coast player attitude. The cover art references Snoop Dogg’s 1996 album art for “Tha Doggfather,” an appropriate allusion for a charming, skinny kid playing the role of a cold-hearted […]
Read more