Features
Friday, May 9 2008
Out of Africa: Barack Obama in Pan-African Music
While Barack Obama's candidacy has sparked new political interest within the United States, perhaps the best indication of his foreign policy advantage may be found in the music praising Obama coming from other countries around the world.
Wednesday, April 2 2008
Soulja Boy: In Loco Parentis
As the genre collects some long-term history, hip-hop is starting to suffer from an age-confusion issue, embodied nowhere better than in the self-made teen sensation Soulja Boy.
Wednesday, November 14 2007
Deadly Packaging: The Cover Art of No Limit Records
If any one visual movement did justice to the absurd, untenable profitability of that dot-com windfall, it was the striking art of No Limit Records, the apex and nadir of commercial hip-hop thuggery.
Reviews
Thursday, July 3 2008
Various Artists: 10 Years of Bling
Somewhere in the world of Platonic Ideals, there's a fantastic Cash Money retrospective -- this just isn't it.
Friday, June 20 2008
Lil' Wayne: Tha Carter III
Taken as conceptually provocative, anti-rational art, this is a monumental album full of powerful, self-defeating statements that obliterate rap's internal logic without offering too much more than indifferent bong logic in return.
Monday, May 19 2008
Kingston Trio: Once Upon a Time
Sun-bleached Californians who didn't have an Appalachian thought banging around their cube-shaped heads, they made good on the Hollywood Appropriation Myth, and rode Other People's Music up the escalator, towards the bank.
Tuesday, May 13 2008
Various Artists: The Rough Guide to Klezmer Revival
Fun, fast, seemingly flippant. What could it mean?
Tuesday, April 8 2008
The Dream: Love/Hate
Somewhere in the runaway life cycle of capitalism, empathy becomes the great need of the hour, and with that in mind, The-Dream has something few hitmakers can claim: a wide-angle lens.
