The tag team division of hip-hop has seen quite a resurgence. With everyone from Kanye an Jay-Z to Jake One and Freeway, forming a solid cohesive sound for an album is coming back in style. Being less single driven and more focused on creating a cohesive sound, this has resulted in some great, if not [cont.]

Emcee Sean Boog and producer Khrysis, collectively known as The Away Team, have been making their bones on the underground hip-hop scene for about 10 years. Their 2005 debut album National Anthem and 2007 follow-up Training Day were welcome surprises, with Khrysis on the boards with the heat and Sean Boog on the mic dialing [cont.]

There is much to consider when discussing the curious case of Mac Miller. Having built a buzz all through mixtapes and his forever growing internet fan base, he’s certainly one of the more quickly rising names in Hip-Hop. Which is why his independent debut, Blue Slide Park is one of relevance. Despite it being a [cont.]

Statik Selektah is easily shaping up to be producer of the year, as he has not only shown an incredible work ethic, but also has picked all the right talent to bless his seemingly endless stash of beats. On recent projects, he’s reinvigorated emcees like Freddie Foxxx, while perfecting the emcee/producer relationship with longtime collaborators [cont.]

Mayer Hawthorne follows up his debut, A Strange Arrangement with How Do You Do; almost 45 minutes of tunes that ensure we do very well indeed. Hawthorne shows a range on this project that gives everyone something to get down to. Not abandoning the signature throwback sound that rendered him a standout in the R&B [cont.]

We should all be pissed off at this A$AP Rocky kid. Earlier this year, he smugly rolled up onto the collective forefront of our conscious in something candy-coated while tippin’ on four 4’s when he released “Purple Swag” into the blogosphere. Lest that was not enough to hold the public’s attention, he swiftly chased it [cont.]

The crossover LP has been the death knell for many-a-rapper career’s – i.e. Big Daddy Kane’s Taste of Chocolate, Mic Geronimo’s Vendetta, or Q-Tip’s Amplified (and we liked that last one). Fact of the matter is, when artists choose to go against the sound that their original fanbase was built upon, the core feels betrayed, [cont.]

In an age where hip-hop music is flooded with the glorified hipsters of the internet boom, one could argue that this was no longer an industry for gangsta rappers to thrive in. Freddie Gibbs doesn’t only dispute that, but does so with no apologies on his latest project. The Gary, Indiana native offers you a no holds [cont.]

There are few emcees that consistently put out good music. In the era of disposable product, artists drop projects that are hot (or not) today and forgotten tomorrow. Immortal Technique is one of the few consistent artists and is hardly an emcee that floods the Internets with disposable nonsense. In fact, it’s been quite the [cont.]

As the years go on, the generation of heads that came up before the 2Pac/Biggie era of hip-hop seems to dwindle. The 80′s and 90′s produced some of the most pure hip-hop imaginable, in a time where record sales came second to the art, and the music was presented with a sense of honesty and [cont.]

Statik Selektah has had an incredible year, not only putting in work up at Shade45, but really standing out as one of the best producers the scene has to offer. Over the course of the last year, we’ve seen him release incredible collaborative albums with everyone from Freddie Gibbs to Freddie Foxxx, showing amazing consistency [cont.]

Cormega’s anticipated Raw Forever celebrates the ten-year anniversary of his 2001 opus The Realness – a marriage of the respected old and the refreshing new. Twenty-two tracks of familiar hits with a sprinkling of band-assisted fresh material break the two-years since Cory McKay’s last release. The two-disc album should appease Cormega supporters, but definitely leave [cont.]

9th Wonder is many things to many people. Some recognize him the beatsmith behind one of the more successful hip-hop groups in recent memory, Little Brother. Others see him an underground producer that was able to crossover without changing what made him, him. 9th has crafted beats for everybody from the Cesar Comanche to Mary [cont.]

RJD2 never seems to be satisfied. With each consecutive album, we’ve seen him reinvent himself; never anything terribly drastic, but each record building upon the foundation laid by it’s predecessor. With his latest project, Icebird, RJ teams with vocalist Aaron Livingston – perhaps the missing link in his quest to find the perfect singer to [cont.]

Best known for his excellent work with the group Little Brother and recently heard on a standout guest appearance off The Roots’ How I Got Over album, Phonte’s first solo effort, Charity Starts at Home, is a natural continuation of his previous work. It’s a subgenre you could refer to as reality rap or hip-hop [cont.]

While Exile is just starting to become a household name among underground heads, his history dates back more than a decade, as part of a little known group called Emanon, with some guy named Aloe Blacc. We’ve seen Aloe’s popularity explode in the last year or so, while Exile was responsible for producing one of [cont.]

J-Live has been around seemingly forever. Yet while some consider 2001’s The Best Part to be a classic and this reviewer thinks of “Satisfied” off 2002’s All of the Above to be one of hip-hop’s best songs (and surely the best post-9/11 anthem in any genre), his career has been kind of a mishmash of [cont.]

While Dilated Peoples have been on a bit of a hiatus over the last few years, Evidence ventures forth with his second solo LP, Cats & Dogs, the follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut, The Weatherman. While a skilled producer in his own right, having handled most of the production duties for the Dilated catalog, [cont.]

It seems as though we’ve been talking about Jermaine Cole for years. Impressive guest spots and near classic mixtapes will do wonders for an artist as far as buzz is concerned. In Cole’s case, the hype machine has churned not because of self promotion or an unwarranted co-sign, but rather because of pure talent. Cole [cont.]

“I’m back. I forgot my drum!” exclaims a crotchety old man at the beginning of DJ Shadow’s The Less You Know, The Better. While many cried that Shadow fell off with the release of his last critically-panned LP, The Outsider, the sample suggests that the old DJ Shadow we all know and love has returned, [cont.]