A few Great Lakes didn’t stop Low Budget Collective affiliate Hassaan Mackey and Mello Music Group’s Apollo Brown from connecting to bake Daily Bread. The New York MC and Michigan bred producer offered fifteen strong, emotion evoking tracks this summer; give or take a few interludes. Their integration is seamless – Brown provides a musical [cont.]

It’s pretty simple. You either get Das Racist, or you don’t. Whether or not you like their music is a whole other topic entirely, but songs like “Combination Pizza Hut & Taco Bell”, or more recently, “Michael Jackson”, either grow on your hypnotically, or grate on your nerves endlessly. Truth is, they’re meant to do [cont.]

Coming from Black Thought’s Money Making Jam Boys crew, which also shares membership with Dice Raw, Truck North, and P.O.R.N., is STS. Standing for Sugar Tongue Slim, STS was arguably the breakout star of the MMJB’s mixtape, The Prestige. With The Illustrious, he continues his underground solo career with a concise street album of all [cont.]

Swollen Members, the duo of Madchild and Prevail, along with beatsmith Rob The Viking, have killing it on the underground scene since the mid 90s. Their 1999 debut Balance, was widely acclaimed and is one of those albums that fans still bump, even 10 years later. Repping a little place known as Vancouver, S&M have [cont.]

One of the problems with the “long-awaited, highly anticipated” album is the dry spell leading up to it. This period usually builds so much hype on said project, that by the time it drops, it inevitably disappoints. While we’re yet to see the verdict on Dr. Dre’s Detox, we’ve seen a strong buzz hurt the [cont.]

The indie hip-hop 12″ movement of the early 2000′s was responsible not only for the creation of this site, but also a slew of new blood coming up from the underground. We saw our share of one-hit wonders, while other cats released albums, but threw the towel in once retail was a wrap. All in [cont.]

If you listened to songs like “Good Girls Go Bad” (featuring Drake) and “Ricky” off The R.E.D. Album, you might have thought Game was back. That maybe he’d regained some of the form he displayed on the quasi-classic The Documentary. But aside from those two hard-driving, dramatic tracks with Game delivering provocative lyrics and sounding [cont.]

This year, OFWGKTA’s dynamic duo, MellowHype, reissued their sophomore album BlackenedWhite on Mississippi’s Fat Possum Records. Remixed, re-mastered and streamlined to eleven tracks for maximum efficiency; Hodgy Beats and Left Brain are quickly perfecting a formula that speaks to the younger generation. It is chord heavy mood music laced with the spirit of rebellion, but [cont.]

At his most vulnerable moment, Royce Da 5’9 released the greatest album of his career, Death Is Certain. After a falling out with former friend and collaborator, Eminem, Royce was a broken man, watching his chance to blow up slip right through his fingers. These events compelled him to write some of his most honest, [cont.]

When Jay-Z released The Dynasty LP in 2000, his team consisted of Memphis Bleek, Beanie Sigel, and Amil. At the time, the LP seemed like it would be an automatic disappointment, as not only did Jay have to share the mic with his crew, but he also didn’t spend any money on production. Who were [cont.]

Blu released an independent classic with Exile on Below The Heavens a few years back, and since then has struggled to match the acclaim of that release. Or, perhaps he is indifferent to it, as many of his consecutive releases have been solid, but not quite as game-changing. Jesus is his latest, another self-released LP, [cont.]

The West Coast has fallen on hard times in recent years, with very few names holding up the scene. Sure, we could count on legends like Ice Cube, Snoop, and Too $hort to hold it down, but let’s face it, the lack of a genre-defining Dr. Dre album over the last decade has left little [cont.]

Among the many releases emblazoned with the Wu-Tang phoenix logo, the consumer never really knows what they are going to get. Each member has carved out their own niche, not to mention the abundance of affiliate member releases from the Clan’s alleged 300+ member roster. Then there are the compilations, and then there’s releases like [cont.]

At this point in his career, Skyzoo is well known to hip-hop fans. The Brooklyn emcee has dropped solid release after solid release, working with some of the best beatsmiths in the process. 2006′s Cloud 9: The 3 Day High found Skyzoo collaborating with 9th Wonder, while 2010′s masterpiece Live from the Tape Deck teamed [cont.]

Former No Limit Solider and current Jet Life head, Curren$y, has quickly shed most of the connotations that come with being signed to Master P’s label – the Pen and Pixel album cover, terrible beat selection, and unique, colorful hard-plastic CD cases. One thing he did take away from the label however was his work [cont.]

Sir Michael Rocks (formerly Mikey Rocks) and Chuck Inglish, better known as The Cool Kids have been on the scene since 2007. The duo met in 2005 through Myspace and through the release of various mixtapes and singles forged their own sound. In gaining fans and building their buzz, the group even made it into [cont.]

Uber-producer DJ Danger Mouse has come a long way since his early days as a foward-thinking mixtape DJ. Since his explosion in popularity that began with The Grey Album, DM has made a name for himself by producing for a multitude of A-List talent, including Cee-Lo Green, The Black Keys, Gorillaz, MF Doom, Beck, and [cont.]

Repping Flint, Michigan, Jon Connor seemingly appeared out of nowhere, building a name for himself from his Vinnie Chase mixtape series. Setting beats on fire with a crisp, super-lyrical delivery comparable to the likes of Royce Da 5’9, Canibus, or Big Pun, Connor instantly gained a fan following via the rap blogosphere. With Salvation, he [cont.]

When it comes to Tech N9ne, hip-hop fans either love or hate him, there really is no middle ground. He can best be described as the Dennis Rodman of beats and rhymes. Haters see him as weird, while fans see him as a misunderstood genius. For years, Tech has been on the outskirts, placed in [cont.]

Compton emcee, Kendrick Lamar, had been fighting the good fight on the mixtape scene for a while, but it wasn’t until he got an unofficial endorsement from Dr. Dre on Big Boy’s radio show in L.A., that the rest of the industry began to take notice. From there, Lamar’s career would be built upon more [cont.]