Coming from the Outdoorsmen camp, which also includes Action Bronson, Meyhem Lauren builds upon an already solid underground fanbase with his latest release, Silk Pyramids, produced by legendary DITC beatsmith, Buckwild. The state of New York street-hop has been in flux, as of late, as many artists from the city have chosen to ride with [cont.]

Hot of the heels of his collaborative album with Madlib, Pinata, Freddie Gibbs teams with Oakland producer DJ Fresh, aka The World’s Freshest for The Tonite Show. A concise ten tracks – three of them skits – Gibbs delivers an equally solid follow-up, with a slightly different flavor. Spending time in L.A. has definitely influenced [cont.]

The worst Roots album is still better than roughly 90% of whatever other modern hip-hop records you are listening to. …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin, their highly experimental, conceptual, and exceptional eleventh album is far from their worst record, however many may initially see it that way. The information age – or, scratch that [cont.]

Thes One and Double K, better known to most as People Under The Stairs, have been putting it down for years, with their own brand of honest, crate-dug, neighborhood rap. Now on their eighth full-length album, and eleventh project overall, the duo return with another incredibly solid release, with no sign of letting up anytime [cont.]

Asher Roth fought long and hard to shed the frat boy image created by his debut single, “I Love College”. At the core of this artist is a backpack rap, lyrically driven hip-hop head, but you’d never know that from the way he was initially marketed. He did truly redeem himself on his 2012 Pabst [cont.]

Southsiders is Atmosphere’s follow-up to their lush, highly musical 2011 album, The Family Sign. The veteran Minneapolis hip-hop group’s last album was a culmination of their evolving sound. Their newest offering, though, is a bit more rugged, with traditional hip hop beats and distorted samples from producer Ant taking the place of live guitar and [cont.]

You have to hand it to Jedi Mind Tricks’ frontman, Vinnie Paz, that even in the post-indie hip-hop apocalypse aftermath, he is still able to organize the various members of Army Of The Pharaohs every year or so to bang out a full-length album. And that is pretty much what they do, as In Death [cont.]

Talib Kweli sits down with Arsenio and the two dig into education, Jay Z, the current state of hip hop, the music industry, and more. He also performs “State Of Grace” and “What’s Real”.

When major labels stopped investing in acts that were built around sampling, those artists went the do-it-yourself route, resulting in the great indie hip-hop boom of roughly 1996-2006. This movement saw smaller artists pressing up their own vinyl and CD’s, and gave birth to this site as well. J-Live was a part of this school, [cont.]

Future’s unmistakable voice and “old man” drawl has rewritten the rules for contemporary urban club music, even in the wake of the post-T-Pain / “Death Of Autotune” landscape. Upon first listen to any one of his tracks, our usual response is something like, “This is awful!”, however, in the end, Future’s hypnotic vocals eventually draw [cont.]

One can only imagine what its like to be recognized as one of the top performers of your craft, name-dropped by the biggest rapper in the world, yet still a face of anonymity to most. What must it be like, when success has been awarded to you via a hit single called “Simon Says”, only [cont.]

On the 15th anniversary of MF Doom’s seminal debut album, Operation Doomsday, we present our original review of the album, published on HipHopSite on April 20th, 1999. Our original rating was 4 out of 5, but today we recognize this as a 5 @ classic that it is. MF Doom – Operation: Doomsday – @@@@@ [cont.]

In 1994, just as in 1988 for hip hop, an incredible musical wave gave birth to some classic albums, trend-setting artists and dynamic songs that we’ve noticed throughout its history so far. Amongst this batch of history, the elite roster of artists who were born before, but didn’t really show signs of teeth until 1994, [cont.]

The Bay Area’s HBK Gang has been slowly infiltrating the club scene, led by IamSu’s multiple appearances on hits like E-40′s “Function” and Jonn Hart’s “Who Booty”. But most recently, HBK made a name for themselves through Sage The Gemini’s twin hits “Gas Pedal” and “Red Nose”. This pair of mellow, grooving hits defied the [cont.]

Nobody really knows what went on behind the scenes between Havoc and Prodigy that culminated in a very public beef that took place a few years back on the Twitter stage. However with P’s incarceration and the group’s falling out, it’s been eight years since the group’s last album together, 2006’s Blood Money. With all [cont.]

Kid Cudi has always been a bit of an enigma. Do mainstream music fans, the ones that throw their hands in the air, and wave them carefree-like every time that “Pursuit of Happiness” or one of its million remixes comes on in the club, really get Cudi the way that Sidney Deane got Jimi? If [cont.]

YG broke through in 2010 with a 50 Cent remixed hit single, “Toot It & Boot It”. The song is quite easily one of the most detrimental-to-society rap songs in existence, as YG rapped so famously: “I asked her name and then I said I wanna fuck / and I’m YG and you know I [cont.]

Ten years ago today, we reviewed and rated MF Doom and Madlib’s Madvillainy LP a perfect score of 5 @’s. At the time, we were one of the only rap “publications” to do so. Read on, true believers. Read: http://www.hiphopsite.com/2004/03/23/madvillain-madvillainy/

On Place in the Sun, the eighth album from LA Latino funk collective Ozomatli, the band eschews its grittier, politically charged earlier ethos in favor of a more pop sound. While this critic has missed most of the last few Ozomatli albums, so it’s unclear if this is a completely new development, but it’s really [cont.]

Gary, Indiana’s Freddie Gibbs has built up a solid buzz for himself over the last couple of years, being recognized as one of XXL’s Freshmen cover stars and landing a short-lived deal with Young Jeezy’s CTE imprint. With a long list of pending projects, perhaps the most anticipated of these was what was once called [cont.]