Remember these cats from the early 1990′s? Yet another victim of record label and corporate cutting, their scheduled sophomore release back then timed unfortunately into being shelved. Basically, Yaggfu Front were dropped from their label, Mercury. But now, under an independent Mends, The Secret Tapes puts together some of their nostalgic productions and rhymes from 1992 [cont.]

Apparently their follow-up album got caught in some sort of release limbo, thus the massive L.A. Symphony take a break from their vast individual solo releases to throw out a quick 9 song EP in the form of the cutely titled and packaged (in a baggie with a baloney sandwich on the cover) Baloney. Conceptually, they [cont.]

Described as both “a party at Dan The Automator’s house” in the liner notes, and “a look inside my head”, by Dan himself, Wanna Buy A Monkey is the first mix CD from one of music’s busiest and most well-loved producers, covering everything from raw hip-hop to indy rock, and his own stuff that lands [cont.]

Irony, pain, vulnerability, and insanity are apparent in the title before the listener hears the album. This is not music you pipe into the background at a party to boost the ambiance. This is real music – the cries of a tortured soul who lacks the ability to express himself any other way. It becomes [cont.]

 After seeing his debut, The Best Part, get massively bootlegged and go unreleased for nearly three-years, J-Live is already well versed in Industry rule #4080. Yet, at least J was proactive during his prolonged absence, as just months after The Best Part’s “proper” release, J-Live is ready to tackle the arduous task of following up [cont.]

 At this point, each release from the Wu-Tang Clan should instead have a giant question mark on the cover, rather than a yellow phoenix icon. Reason being is, that ever since the release of Wu-Tang Forever, the have been wildly inconsistent – but still would surprise us from time to time with an album like Ghost [cont.]

As the first solo act to emerge from the Weightless Recordings stable, Illogic  steps up with his second disc, Got Lyrics, and puts his flag down in the state of Hip-Hop. With many having slept on the first disc, judging a book by its cover (only a plain white background with the words Illogic -Unforeseen Shadows [cont.]



       Conjuring up images of Common holding a mug asking “Can I Borrow A Dollar”, or Eazy E dancing with a piece of cardboard in the “Dre Day” video, the Cunninlynguists debut album Will Rap For Food instead follows a different philosophy – if rappers make “jiggy shit” because they “gotta eat”, then why not rap for [cont.]

Name one up-and-coming emcee, (or, in fact, any established emcee) that does not yearn to hear their voice over the production of DJ Premier. However, for every benefit that comes from working with Primo; his signature drum claps and cut-up voice samples add an instant credibility and curiosity to any project. There are drawbacks as [cont.]

 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.]