Tag Archives: rap

The Rutz is like any great pub in Belfast, or anywhere in Ireland for that matter: kind of dingy, people stumbling out of the bathrooms, wiping powder off their faces, traditional Irish music playing loud on the speakers. “It’s one of those places where you never go for one pint …

The double standard is almost as old as hip-hop itself. A decorated filmmaker gets laurels for his or her latest bullet-laden gangster movie. A rock or country star is proclaimed a songwriting genius for violent tales of man’s inhumanity to man. But rappers are held to a different standard, their …

The YSL RICO trial has hit another roadblock. It took 10 months for the jury to be selected for the case, which features the rapper Young Thug as a prominent defendant. Now, less than two weeks in, the trial has been delayed following news from the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office …

R ick Ross was having a moment. The Falstaffian rapper and entrepreneur was a mere two songs into his inaugural performance at Drai’s, a raucous 30,000-foot nightclub inside Las Vegas’ Cromwell hotel, and “halfway drunk” when he ordered the DJ to stop the music. He found himself transfixed by the …

The most notable instance to date of “rap on trial” is finally about to get underway in Atlanta. After a jury selection process whose length broke state records, the YSL RICO trial is set to begin on Nov. 27. Judge Ural Glanville, Fulton County prosecutors, and defense attorneys vetted more …

Fatboi Sharif and his DJ Boogaveli are in the middle of a soundcheck for Sharif’s set at the Brooklyn venue Elsewhere’s 15th-anniversary show. Boogaveli blasts Wayne Wonder and Surpriz’s “Enemies” from his DJ deck — I thought he was playing the song to test the venue’s speakers, but they would …

A memorable scene from Ron Shelton’s 1992 hoops comedy White Men Can’t Jump finds a playground baller (played by former NBA great Marques Johnson) fuming after he falls victim to a hustle. First the big guy pulls out a razor. Then he decides he needs something a little stronger, so …

Between 2019 and 2021, Detroit rapper ZelooperZ released six albums — three in 2020 alone. His fans were satiated with his Get WeT.Radio and Might Not Make It tapes, but nonetheless sought out a full-length followup to the stellar Van Gogh’s Ear. Thankfully, ZeelooperZ appeared out of nowhere last week …

Last year, Maxo took a trip that changed his outlook. It was an ayahuasca ritual, which his mother had recommended as a way of unpacking the intergenerational trauma that forms a backdrop to his music. After drinking the psychoactive and entheogenic brew, Maxo grounded himself in order to begin the …

David Jude Jolicoeur, who passed away on Sunday, Feb. 12 at the age of 54, helped revolutionize hip-hop and change the course of popular music. It’s why he’s being mourned so widely in the rap community today, and far beyond it as well. As one-third of De La Soul, alongside …