While not the groundbreaking classic that Endtroducing was, DJ Shadow’s official sophomore release (with all due respect to the compiled efforts of Pre-Emptive Strike, and his collaborative Unkle full-length with James LaVelle), is a bold reinvention of the artist who first made a name for himself cutting & pasting rare grooves for the Solesides crew.  The [cont.]

 Brooklyn’s Non-Phixion has been putting it down on the 12-inch vinyl set for a minute now, over the last few years teasing us with a number of classic underground singles, such as “5 Boros”, “I Shot Reagan”, and “Black Helicopters”. Backed by the production of then up-&-coming emcee/producer, Necro, (who happens to be Ill Bill’s brother), [cont.]

Beantown rep Insight may be known by underground heads as the man behind the boards for a variety of tracks by Mr. Lif, KRS-ONE, and many more, but on Updated Software v. 2.5 he comes out from behind the MPC3000 to single-handedly lace vocals, skratches and deliver a bunch of good ol’ fashioned hip-hop. Being a [cont.]

Scratch (Of The Roots), if you’re not familiar with by now, is that integral ‘human-instrumental’ member of The Roots ensemble, amazing fans worldwide from stage to stage with his vocal variations in sound. Now with his first solo release, the purpose and true entertainment value of listening to a human beat box for an entire album, [cont.]

The story of Royce Da 5-9 is long and depressing, but it’s not over yet. After guest appearing on Eminem’s “Bad Meets Evil”, and going toe-to-toe with Shady on two tracks via Jon Shecter’s Game imprint, he proved that he’s not only down with Slim, but he can hang with him – lyrically – much more than [cont.]

 As in all things, with time, we hope for progress and usually anticipate inevitable change, and while it can be wholly difficult and even more frustrating to gauge the progress of time within our society, at least we can relish the growth of our beloved artists that have kept us oh so inspired throughout the [cont.]

“When we met I left a negative impression / yet another state of metaphosis.” says Mr. Lif on “The Unorthodox”, perhaps referring to the slightly more aimless fantasy battle rhyme style he showed us on Enter The Colossus, as his new EP presents a more focused version of our hero, in the post-September 11th U.S.A. Mr. [cont.]

Coming from the Windy City aka Chi-Town is All Natural, a fresh new group that debuted independently a year or two back, with their first three song 12 inch “50 Years”/”MC Avenger”/”Hip Hop History 101″. These two avengers for the art we call hip-hop seem to be fed up with the current state of hip-hop, [cont.]

After building his name producing a number tracks for run down hip-hop acts such as Das Efx, K-Solo, Channel Live, and Big Daddy Kane, on his various compilation albums - Game Over 1 & 2, and Behind the Doors of the 13th Floor - Domingo returns with The Difference, perhaps his strongest effort yet, showing maturity and growth [cont.]

 One man’s floor is another man’s ceiling, dig? Hip-Hop remains progressive and stagnant almost simultaneously, or is it perhaps progressively stagnant or stagnantly progressive? Which ever end you light it, it’s ultimately going to burn down to something. It could be the essence, the bomb, or it could essentially be a bomb, like weed, follow? [cont.]

Forget the whole Marshall/Slim Shady/Eminem trichotomy, the real identity crisis going on in hip-hop is in the churning thoughts of Oliver Hart, alias Eyedea. He’s a self-hating braggart, an introspective extrovert, a seriously poetic battle rapper, a new-jack producer, at home alone with a pad as he is onstage on HBO. After slaying his competitors on [cont.]

Seemingly the first of its kind, well regarded Dilated Peoples (amongst others) music-video director Jason Goldwach (aside producer Peter Bittenbender) team up with indie-mogul Damian “Domino” Siguenza (Hieroglyphics, of course) to churn out one very interesting film/album package. One side you have a compact disc soundtrack, highlighting exclusives from the likes of Del The Funkee Homosapien, [cont.]

Ever since his 1998 debut, Confessions Of Fire, Cam’ron’s relationship with his former label, Epic, has been sketchy at best. Though both of Cam’s releases on Epic went Gold, his claims of mismanagement are not entirely unfounded, as radio-friendly singles came (“Horse & Carriage”) and went (“What Means The World To You”) without being fully [cont.]

Cormega is one of those rare artists that after dealing with a fair amount of label politics, continued to work his ass off and do whatever it took to get out of his deal with Def Jam, and release a solid debut album, which came in the form of last year’s The Realness. After such a [cont.]

Review 1: There are certain artists (2Pac, Notorious B.I.G., Public Enemy, Jay-Z, N.W.A., among many) that transcend the genre of hip-hop and reach a level of popularity so intense that their every move becomes news fodder. The spotlight that is now firmly attached to Eminem’s back, can also be correlated into the public microscope he now [cont.]

There are very few emcees that can combine a good voice presence and content during their whole career, let alone one album. When Mars Ill (featuring ManChild on the lyrics & DJ Dust on the beats and cuts) first released Raw Material a few years ago – they not only began growing a fan base, but [cont.]

To my knowledge DJ Murge is a producer from Victoria Island in British Columbia, right outside of Vancouver. This is his production compilation set atop a backdrop of some artists you know (especially if you follow the affiliated Battle Axe movements) and some that may not (if outside of the greater BC area you dwell). So all [cont.]

Dedicated crate diggers People Under The Stairs are the exact opposite of the conventional sampling method, going to extreme lengths to unearth rare records to make the tightest beats possible. In contrast, mainstream artists with enough cash to get the rights to the music they to want sample just for the recognition, not for love of [cont.]

Off the strength of the lead single, “Addictive” featuring the legendary Rakim, Truth Hurts was immediately thrust into the limelight of the hip-hop and soul sub-category. The first question lingering about this release is, can Truth Hurts bring enough bad assed singing to make a long player listenable? The second question, can she find a mix [cont.]

 Each of The Demigodz core members had impressed us with a number of classic indy 12″ singles over the last few years, but the name remains unknown. They appeared on the types of songs that the average head might recognize from their local college radio show, but somehow couldn’t put a name to the voice (or [cont.]