New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani was once a rapper named Mr. Cardamom — and his rap career is still past tense. On Oct. 4, attorney Jim Walden, who recently backed out of his own independent mayoral campaign weeks before the November election, made an X post featuring an Apple …
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Cardi B’s “Pretty & Petty” is one of the most talked about tracks on her new album Am I The Drama? On the three-minute track, Cardi claps back at Boston rapper BIA, whom she traded shots with last year. This morning, Cardi B explained on The Breakfast Club why she …
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From the time he first met Chuck D at a Public Enemy concert nearly 40 years ago, director Janol Ture was on his way to befriending and working with the members of the groundbreaking hip-hop collective, including a stint as president of Chuck D’s SLAMJamz label. But when he saw …
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Music, more than a product or anything else, is a sacred act. That’s the prevailing premise of director Contessa Gayles’ award-winning Songs From The Hole, a 90-minute documentary on Netflix that highlights Long Beach native, artist and activist James “JJ’88” Jacobs’ evolution from a wayward 15-year-old who committed a murder …
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The roots of hip-hop run deep, and among the deepest branches remains Linton Kwesi Johnson, the Jamaican-born, British-raised poet, writer, and performer often hailed as the father of dub poetry. On his groundbreaking dub records of the Seventies and Eighties, Johnson, talk-singing in Jamaican patois, channeled the racism he encountered …
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Management firm 11AM NYC’s midtown Manhattan offices are abuzz on a Wednesday afternoon. Plaques for hit releases by A$AP Ferg and Lil TJay adorn the walls, and employees are moving about, hoping to help Queens rapper Bay Swag earn one of his own for his upcoming debut album, Damaged Thoughts …
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On “Ditto,” the last track on My Face Hurts From Smiling, a surprising rap mixtape from a certain four-time Grammy winner, the star in question declares, “It’s a Lizzo summerrrrrrr.” The tape — which Lizzo finalized a mere 10 minutes before we meet on Zoom — does make a strong …
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After teasing her sophomore album nearly every year since her groundbreaking 2018 debut, Invasion of Privacy, Cardi B finally announced that it will drop on Sept. 19. This week, she revealed the cover art for her next body of work, aptly titled Am I the Drama?, after serving as high-profile …
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The Clipse are taking us back to the blog era of the aughts during the rollout for their Let God Sort Em Out project. Today, the Virginia duo dropped the video for “So Be It,” the second single from their upcoming album, dropping July 11. The black-and-white, Hannan Hussain-directed video …
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Tyler, the Creator reflected on his career and offered creative advice to a room full of artists for Instagram’s Ask It Anyway, a new series of conversations with prominent artists. Designer and The Cutting Room Floor podcaster Recho Omondi moderated the inaugural edition with Tyler, who was characteristically irreverent during …
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