Abraham Orellana, the hip-hop producer known as AraabMUZIK, has been shot and is hospitalized. Orellana’s publicist said in a statement late Thursday that he is “currently alive and well” after being shot Wednesday night, noting he was in the wrong place at the wrong time while hanging out with friends. Police are investigating. The statement [...]
Talib Kweli on Mainstream Hip-Hop and Honoring Old School
April 29, 2013 | Posted by
Talib Kweli has been writing and performing for almost 20 years now — as a solo act and as half of well-received duos that reached a broad audience — and for much of that time he’s been pinned with a label that’s a relic of a 1990s understanding of hip-hop: “conscious rap.” The albums he [...]
Nicki Minaj: Lil Wayne ‘So Respectful’ in Video Shoot
April 4, 2013 | Posted by
By this time, Nicki Minaj’s Barbz have probably watched her steamy new video for “High School” countless times and have no doubt dissected every seductive moment between Minaj and Lil Wayne in the piece. Minaj takes on the role of a drug lord’s girlfriend who plots to steal Weezy’s character’s jewels in the cinematic video. [...]
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is Richest of Hip-Hop’s Rich
April 2, 2013 | Posted by
Sean “Diddy” Combs rose to mainstream fame in the late 1990s rapping about his desire for Benjamins, otherwise known as $100 bills. A decade and a half later, he might need to consider some larger denominations — McKinleys, Clevelands and Madisons, perhaps—to express his wealth. Diddy ranks No. 1 on this year’s Forbes Five, our list of [...]
Big K.R.I.T., Small Town MCs Putting Mississippi on Hip-Hop Map
March 27, 2013 | Posted by
About 40 miles south of Jackson, Mississippi’s state capital, just off Interstate 55, lies the town of Crystal Springs. Unless you need to fill up your car or your stomach, you almost certainly won’t leave the freeway to visit it. Around 6,000 people live in there. Last year, the town briefly made headlines when members [...]
Artist Jay Shells Connects Lyrics to Locations with ‘Rap Quotes’
March 26, 2013 | Posted by
Every now and then someone has a brilliant flash of inspiration that results in an expression of pure and simple genius. Kool Herc had it when he grabbed the “breaks” from records and repeated those frenetic parts over and over. Simple concept, but no one had done it before. And now, artist Jay Shells has [...]
Fred P. Dropping His Newest LP, ‘Codes and Metaphors’
March 21, 2013 | Posted by
“Electric Ladyland? Jimi Hendrix? You know how he does that whole solo backwards? I just like that sound, and I like to try it on different things and see what it does,” says Fred Peterkin. The DJ and producer, better known as Fred P. and Black Jazz Consortium is attempting to explain the recurring theme [...]
Rap Artists Highlighting More Mature Themes, Curbing Violent Lyrics
February 17, 2013 | Posted by
Among the most important rap albums released over the last year or so, one contains a song about Nas’ complicated relationship with his teenage daughter. Another has a track in which Killer Mike outlines President Reagan’s contribution to the prison-industrial complex. A third disc finds Drake pondering the impossibility of real-life romantic connection in the [...]
Freddie Gibbs And The Next Wave of Chicago Rap Artists
February 13, 2013 | Posted by
Two years ago, during a Freddie Gibbs show at Bottom Lounge, Atlanta rapper Young Jeezy made an onstage appearance to announce that he was signing the Gary, Indiana, artist to his CTE label. At the time, it seemed as though this type of high-profile endorsement was the only avenue of legitimation for Chicago rap. Gibbs [...]
ASAP Yams: ASAP Rocky’s Collaborator and Human Hip-Hop Encyclopedia
January 26, 2013 | Posted by
The story of New York hip-hop’s 1990s championship years is in many ways the story of rapper-executive dream teams, pairings that shaped the sound of the city and, after that, the world. The Notorious B.I.G. and Puff Daddy, Jay-Z and Damon Dash, Ja Rule and Irv Gotti — all of these partnerships made the behind-the-scenes [...]
