The first single from Big L’s posthumous Harlem’s Finest: Return of the King album is here. Today, Mass Appeal released “u aint gotta chance,” pairing Big L’s bars from a 1997 freestyle with a fiery verse from Nas. The song, gradually crafted by seven people, is the first glimpse of …
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S ince debuting in 1991 with a feature on Main Source’s “Live at the Barbeque,” Nas has been intent on amplifying New York hip-hop. His first full-length album, Illmatic, was an evolution in hip-hop lyricism, and his top-tier penmanship has powered a catalog of 17 solo albums. He’s always paid …
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“I am British, I am Jamaican, I am American. I am what I am,” says Slick Rick on “I Did That,” a track from Victory, his first album in twenty-six years. Born in Mitcham, London yet long considered a pioneer of ostentatious New York style and panache due to seminal …
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After Kendrick Lamar commanded attention with the surprise release of his sixth album GNX on Nov. 22, revered rapper Nas posted the album cover on his Instagram with a loving note to Lamar. “Always inspired by my brother KL,” he wrote. “Keeping the essence of this shit alive and at …
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Kendrick Lamar dropped surprise album GNX on Friday, where he addresses being chosen for the Super Bowl Halftime show in New Orleans over hometown rapper Lil Wayne. And it appears Lil Wayne has responded. On the song “Wacced Out Murals,” Lamar’s lyrics include: “Used to bumpTha Carter III, I held …
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Kendrick Lamar doesn’t want to be a savior, but he’s certainly a spokesman on his latest track, released guerilla style just days after his Super Bowl LIX announcement. The song, where Kendrick raps that it’s time to “let the party die,” doesn’t find him expressing much joy at being the …
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Thirty years ago, Common looked back ruefully at his favorite genre in “I Used to Love H.E.R.,” his classic riff on hip-hop as a wayward ex-girlfriend. “She was really the realest before she got into showbiz,” he lamented. The couple patched things up after that, and Common grew from a …
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Jay-Z and Nas’ earliest collaboration has finally gotten an official release on the reissue of — seriously — Shaquille O’Neal’s 1996 album, You Can’t Stop the Reign. The song is called “No Love Lost,” and it features Shaq alongside Jay, Nas, and fellow New York City MC Lord Tariq. But …
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The Roots Picnic, held yearly in Philadelphia since 2008, is a special kind of music festival. The lineup this year covered a wide spectrum of hip-hop and R&B, plus country, go-go, and more, with the Roots’ own omnivorous musicality as the guiding force. Daily crowds of 30,000 made the pilgrimage …
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Rap legends Ghostface Killah and Nas collaborated on “Scar Tissue,” a single from the Wu-Tang rapper’s upcoming Set The Tone album. The T The Human-produced track showcases the two New York rap stalwarts rhyming back-to-back over a Far East-flavored sample. “Scar Tissue” is their first collaboration since 1995’s “Verbal Intercourse” …
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