These Gen Z kids don't really appreciate what hip hop is supposed to be. Says the white-guy Gen Xer. But, seriously, there's an art to it that seems to be lost in this...
Danny Brown is like 2010’s version of Funkdoobiest mixed with like Ol' Dirty Bastard on acid. I was enamored with him when I first heard his insane “Stoned is the way of the...
I have so little reference when it comes to stuff like IGOR. It isn't really hip hop. Though maybe it is? It sounds more like DJ Shadow's Entroducing.... than it does...
Aesop Rock is a thing you kind of either like or you don’t. His rapping feels like a mashup of the darkest corners of a satanic cult and a Saturday morning cartoon...
It’s been some time since I reviewed a hip-hop album. I feel like the genre has mostly passed me by. Or maybe I’ve passed it by. I don’t know. I just don’t connect...
It's been right about 20 years since I first heard Kool Keith's Dr. Octagon persona on his debut album under that banner, Dr. Octagonecologyst. There was appare...
Testarossa is a very specific reference for males of a certain age. So is Countach. I had posters of both on my wall as an adolescent. The Testarossa was on a p...
Oh Kanye. You silly, silly, self-important man. Kanye is one of the few musicians I had the opportunity to interact with on a deeper level when working at Islan...
I am a sucker for a certain era of rap. It's mostly early nineties into the mid-nineties. The rappers back then decided that because they're music was based on ...
A better name than Childish Gambino, Open Mike Eagle didn't actually use a Wu-Tang Name Generator to create his stage name. His name is actually Mike Eagle and ...
Even as I started this album I couldn't remember if I was firing up an MF Doom or a Kool Keith joint. The first couple tracks did very little to remind me, as D...
There wasn't an underground rapper hotter than Chance the Rapper in the past couple of years. I mean, besides all these Drakes and Kendricks and whatnots that y...
More spoken word than rap, this so-called doctor sounds like a sleepy Def Poetry Jam participant doing his thing over MF Doom flourishes. His flow is very samey...
The humble brag isn't a good look for a rapper. That's how Murs starts off this album with an odd God-centric track that basically talks about his comfy life, h...
Earl, the reform school, bipolar rap prodigy from the hot-for-a-minute Odd Future, surprisingly seems to be the one that really broke out from under the yoke of...
The man is like the Chris Farley of rap. On second thought he's more like the John Belushi of rap. And it's not just because the man loves Italian sandwiches (l...
Ah, De La's much maligned fourth album. For some reason, people and writers have said that De La went "hardcore" on this album. Uh, okay, if hardcore includes s...
I wore out the cassette version of this album and actually "borrowed" the CD from some son-of-a-Danish-shipping-magnate in college and have been enjoyed seeing ...
