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The Seshen Return Feeling Kind of 'Cyan'
San Francisco alt-R&B/electropop group, the Seshen tie musical and emotional threads together beautifully on Cyan.
02 Mar 2020
Music
Marks X the Spot: Rapper Giovanni Marks Challenges the Hip-Hop Paradigm
Giovanni Marks, the William S. Burroughs of hip-hop, offers up his thoughts on the trials and tribulations of an indie hip-hop artist.
31 Jan 2020
Music
Danny Brown's 'uknowhatimsayin¿' Is a Classic Hip-Hop Record Without the Experimental Edge
Detroit rapper Danny Brown's uknowhatimsayin¿ is a spare, principled record that's mostly about hard beats and harder bars.
10 Oct 2019
Music
JPEGMAFIA's 'All My Heroes Are Cornballs' Humanizes His Visceral Online Image
On All My Heroes Are Cornballs, experimental rapper and producer JPEGMAFIA broadens his visceral online image and sounds into a more vulnerable, humanizing, and melodic project.
23 Sep 2019
Music
Dirty Heads Update Their Sound, But Not Enough, with the Charming 'Super Moon'
With Nashville producer Dave Cobb in tow, California quintet Dirty Heads beef up their chill party vibe with some unique sounds on Super Moon.
08 Aug 2019
Music
By Style and Error: M. Sayyid Takes Hip-hop to the Exosphere
Few rappers have been brave enough to try what Sayyid has been doing for years; his hip-hop suffers brutal and fantastic experiments of Asimov-proportions.
26 Feb 2019
Music
Mister and Curt Cataract Release Conceptual Rap Album 11 Years in the Making (premiere)
After a decade-long gestation, a collaboration between Detroit rapper Mister and UK producer Curt Cataract is bearing fruit. Hear their latest track "Holding It Up".
15 Feb 2019
Music
Twenty One Pilots Get Sensitive on 'Trench'
On Trench, arena-pop duo Twenty One Pilots shift to a more tasteful, sensitive approach to mixed but mostly positive results.
12 Oct 2018
Music
Sailing the River Styx with Hip-Hop Shaman milo
milo is an art-house MC who savors the magic of the middle-class, refraining from helipads and bottle service in favor of video games and stewed tomatoes.
09 Oct 2018
Music
Sami Baha Displays How Deep the Roots of Hip-Hop Run
The debut album from producer Sami Baha reveals an undeniable grasp of hip-hop fundamentals and trap aesthetics, while propelling these concepts forward.
20 Jun 2018
Music
Young Fathers Do It Their Way on Best Album Yet, 'Cocoa Sugar'
Cocoa Sugar is an album that retains an enigmatic quality. Provocative when it needs to be, it steers well clear of addressing current world issues explicitly. This album will resonate for years to come.
08 Mar 2018
Music
Young Fathers Create a Powerful Ballad and Dance Track with "In My View" (Singles Going Steady)
With "In My View", trio Young Fathers performs a masterful balancing act, turning a powerful ballad into a lightly banging dance track and back again.
05 Feb 2018
Music
Shabazz Palaces - "Since C.A.Y.A." (Singles Going Steady)
Aggressively experimental, "Since C.A.Y.A." is dissonant and schizophrenic with beats going all over the place and plenty of tasty sonic treats weaving in and out of the track.
28 Nov 2017
Music
Mr. Lif and Brass Menažeri - 'Resilient' (album stream) (premiere)
Rapper Mr. Lif teams up with Balkan brass band Brass Menažeri for a thrilling new genre mash on their new album Resilient.
03 Nov 2017
Music
Brockhampton: Saturation II
Brockhampton has created a new offering that is equally refreshing and enjoyable by pretty much following their original formula to the letter.
30 Aug 2017
Music
Black Milk Gives 'Em 'Hell'
Much of If There's a Hell Below's themes relay anxieties buried deep, manifested as sound when they are unearthed.
08 Jun 2017
Music
U.G.: Portals
Delivered through a mastery of dark spell, Portals finds rapper U.G. ensuring that his telesthetic rhymes are grounded in the loping swings of granite-heavy beats.
13 Nov 2016
Music
Counterbalance: Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2
One of 2014's most acclaimed albums is a dense, challenging effort from two wily veterans. Profanities and profundities abound in this week's Counterbalance.
08 May 2015
Music
Counterbalance: The Streets - Original Pirate Material
Geezers need excitement. If their lives don't provide them this they incite violence. Common sense. Simple common sense. So here's the very exciting UK hip-hop debut of the Streets. An early aughts phenomenon is this week's Counterbalance.
20 Mar 2015
Music
Son Lux: Lanterns
Lanterns is full of impressive and admirable post-rock concoctions, but the parts are ultimately greater than the sum.
03 Nov 2013
Music
Doseone: G Is For Deep
On G Is For Deep, Doseone goes for a take on synth-pop that veers between being worringly eccentric and, er, crazily audacious. Then again, Doseone has always been a wild-card, and this might be his wildest album yet.
17 Jul 2012
Music
Brotherhood of the Traveling Parachute Pants
Like lattés, Baby Bjørns, and bicycles, we bookish white boys love hip-hop. What one nerdy white boy from Wyoming learned from hip-hop.
Chris Kjorness
01 Apr 2012
Music
'Like Water for Chocolate': Common's Recipe for Progressive Hip-Hop
In many regards, Common is still caught up in the hyper-masculine universe that has historically pervaded much of hip-hop. But in Like Water for Chocolate, he finds fluidity over stasis.
Mark Anthony Neal
04 May 2000
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