About a decade ago, a young Todd Smith spoke candidly to “Yo! MTV Raps” about his disgust with “pop rap.” Fast forward to 2006 and LL Cool J embodies the very “pop rap” that he so viciously dismissed on television. Apparently muscles and girly hooks are far superior to needing a beat, a radio [cont.]

   Okay, so let’s get the obvious out of the way before we start with this review – Dudley Perkins is not a singer of the American Idol winners circle calibur. Dudley Perkins probably knows this just like we do, and because of this we should never, ever, ever judge a Dudley Perkins album on [cont.]

    Emcees who are about the revolution and bucking the system are pretty scarce nowadays (with the exception of dead prez, Immortal Technique and others). Gone are the days where X-Clan and Public Enemy ruled the airwaves and required every man, woman and child to rock a leather medallion and a Malcolm X hat. Today’s [cont.]

    Stones Throw is known for having some of the most unconventional sounds around in of hip-hop, funk, and soul. Everything they put out carries a distinct style, and most of the time is critically acclaimed. So in waltzes a female by the name of Georgia Anne Muldrow, with her debut album on Stones Throw, entitled Worthnothings. Judging by [cont.]

     When someone tells you that you should check out an album by Tanya Morgan, most hip hop heads would respond “I don’t wanna hear no R&B music! I want Hip-Hop!” Well fortunately Tanya Morgan isn’t an R&B singer, but an actual group comprised of three emcees. Their back story can be rather confusing, but in [cont.]

What in the hell made you two hook up for this Boss Hog Barbarians album? Explain how you two cooked up the concept for this album. Celph: J-Zone and I have known each other since around ’99 and we’ve always been homeboys. We’ve been working on songs with each other for years now, some of [cont.]

    Sometimes you wake up and feel the need to hear something positive, something proactive, something progressive. And some days you wake up and just want to slap a bitch! Well, maybe not literally, but there’s a couple of guys that will lyrically project that for you. J-Zone and Celph Titled have been known for [cont.]

   Chino XL may be the most gifted enigma to grace hip hop. He hasn’t dropped a plethora of material, yet everyone who has some kind of knowledge about hip hop over the past decade knows exactly who he is. To many, he is Eminem before he was Eminem, he was the most gifted and [cont.]

Mixtape album, no rating given.      After Rasassination we had to wait 7 years (yes, seven years) to get an album out of the self proclaimed “King of the West Coast.” Now we get 2 albums (or mixtapes if you will) in less than 6 months! Ras Kass came back hard with Institutionalized but apparently [cont.]

   Five Deez is a crew that delivers hip hop from a different angle. While retaining the crew concept, Five Deez is powered by Fat Jon’s hybrid of deep house meets jazzy hip hop vibes. With two releases under their belt (the voracious debut KoolMotor and the solid follow up Kinkynasti) Five Deez hit you [cont.]

    There are some days when you wake up in the morning and just feel the need to hear rhymes and beats. No belligerent hooks, no complicated string arrangements, no girls singing hooks. Just beats and rhymes. In comes Jihad and D-Styles (also known as Third Sight) with the interestingly titled album Symbionese Liberation Album. [cont.]

    The windy city has been responsible for birthing several respectable hip hop acts in recent years. With Chi-town’s different flavors of emcees, picking one to suit your musical needs is almost like selecting ice cream from Baskin Robbins. Enter Vakill, who first made a name for himself with the surprising debut album The Darkest [cont.]

    Chicago has become a haven for finding talented hip hop artists. From Kanye and Common to Da Brat and Twista down to Lupe Fiasco, Chi town is really holding it down in terms of producing quality artists from the mainstream to the underground. Enter emcee Racecar and producer/DJ K-Kruz – together known as Modill. [cont.]

   When Biggie passed away almost a decade ago, the hip hop world lost a truly captivating lyricist. What was unfortunate was that Biggie didn’t leave a ton of material behind for us to gush over like his counterpart, Tupac, who has so much material some think he still roams the earth. Enter B.I.G.’s good buddy, [cont.]

   Sure as the sunrise, you know that Rasco will drop an album. It’s like clockwork. So as Rasco continues his foray into the hip hop game one has to wonder “will things be different this time around?” For most Rasco fans, they already rely on Rasco to give them consistency. But sometimes consistency just [cont.]

     Just who in the hell is Dave Ghetto? Well, he was the artist formally known as Az-Iz who dropped a single on Fondle Em with his group the Nuthouse titled “A Luv Supream.” Their debut album on Goodvibe titled Deez Nutz managed to make enough noise for Dave to begin working with artists Slum [cont.]

     It’s been awhile since J Rawls and J Sands dropped an album together. The much heralded Lone Catalysts have been virtually invisible – sans a few J Rawls releases – since they dropped the critically acclaimed Hip-Hop back in 2001. So, while we have sat and been drilled with crappy release after crappy release, [cont.]

    Being a Canibus fan, it has become tougher and tougher to acknowledge the fact that the rhyme animal has grown out of fierce punchlines and ridiculous wordplay and has matured in a completely different way many of us had hoped initially. It is unfair for us as fans to think that an artist can’t [cont.]

    With the world in an abysmal state (War in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, Genocide in Sudan, rioting in France, etc) it is refreshing to see 11 emcees take it upon themselves to make a statement. Enter The Reavers (Revolutionary Emcees Advocating their Views on Everyday Reality Struggles), consisting of Vordul (Cannibal Ox), Akir (XXL Unsigned [cont.]

    Talib Kweli has been on the verge of stardom for quite some time now. After establishing himself as an elite lyricist on Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star, he proved his brilliance and ability to make a complete album with Reflection Eternal. He was an underground darling that’s star glowed so flawlessly [cont.]