When I heard about the new Crime Wave album Scripture Won: The Beginning Of… dropping, I had to pull out my old Shamus “Tight Team” and Crimewave “Serving Life” records for a few spins. They were records I used to spin on the regular, and news of a full length immediately brought back the craving for these [cont.]

From Minnesota, arrives a four-man troupe proving correct the old saying “hard work pays off.” With two of the members already in New York for school, the group took a leap of faith and decided they would all move to the East Coast. Seeming focused, dedicated and sounding even hungrier than previous releases, Oddjobs have embarked [cont.]

What else can be said about Jay-Z? He is perhaps the only artist in New York City, much less this industry, who demands equal respect from the streets, the underground, and lovers of pop music – the determining factor that separates him from every other hip-hop artist, surpassing even the late great Frank White. Jigga [cont.]

Casual’s comeback trail is still getting blazed but the road isn’t as smooth as we’d probably like. His braggadocio style is as brutal as always and “Same O.G.” gives you a full three verses to marinate in. The hook is the only things that’s really off – “just because I got my own CD/and I’m [cont.]

      “In five years I see myself where Jay-Z is now”, said North Philly’s Grand Agent to the interviewer in an article printed in a Landspeed distribution catalog. Whether the Agent’s aspirations are attainable, or merely dreams remains to be seen – but in either case, By Design is the blueprint for whatever the outcome, dipping into [cont.]

 The Pittsburgh to Cincinnati duo of J. Rawls and J. Sands are Hip-Hop personified, from Sands off-beat lyrical sidestep to Rawls sublime musical subtleties, the two have risen above the blase’ marketeers to become a respectable pair for 2001 and beyond. The Lone Catalysts’ sound isn’t abrasive or mind-altering, rather it’s subdued, with a producer/emcee relationship reminiscent [cont.]

Known to most as the “I Hate You So Much Right Now Girl”, she should be better known as the first act executive produced by The Neptunes for their own Star Trak Entertainment imprint. While this is her second album, (the first best known for it’s irate single “Caught Out There”), Kelis is experiencing the classic Neptunes [cont.]

Masta Ace is sick and tired of hip-hop; at least one would think so after listening to his fourth entry, Disposable Arts. With over ten years under his belt, his career spans from humble beginnings, back when it was just he and The Biz (puppet), to his Brooklynized attack on the gangsta-rap Slaughterhouse, and it’s [cont.]

In essence, the release of Binary Star’s Masters Of The Universe (also known as Waterworld) was comparable to Brandon Lee’s untimely death while filming The Crow. Here was an album that was recorded in 1997 and 1998, but was held in the vaults until the year 2000, when it was finally released. It received a [cont.]

 Working as their second release, following last year’s Nightlife EP, The Outsidaz, a once dirty dozen that spawned the likes of Eminem  and Rah Digga, bring their first full-length project with The Bricks. With most of its members hailing from the same Jersey city that has been immortalized on Redman’s last few albums, The Bricks [cont.]

Guru is forever trying to create a separate identity for himself, as his Gang Starr co-pilot, DJ Premier has become one of the most sought after producers in hip-hop, churning out beats for everyone from Screwball to Black Eyed Peas to Jay-Z  to Limp Bizkit. Meanwhile, Guru has experimented with his theories of success being based upon “mostly [cont.]

Every couple of years, an emcee comes along that completely redefines the listener’s conception of what hip-hop is. Whether it was the leader of the new school, Rakim, the radical rhyme animal, Chuck D, the abstract poet, Q-Tip, or the wild styler, Busta Rhymes, they each changed the way you looked at the emcee. These [cont.]

Quickly following up his debut, The Truth, one year later, Roc-A-Fella upstart, Beanie Sigel looks to solidify his place in the rap game with his sophomore release, The Reason. Once hailed by hip-hop journalists as the next great emcee to emerge from the streets and change the game, The Reason deflates these over-zealous predictions, proving [cont.]

In 1995, Immortal released The Next Chapter, a dope little compilation released in 1995, spotlighting unsigned emcees before it was the cool thing to do. The album introduced acts like Defari and Dilated Peoples, who are now underground success stories, and also brought forth a hungry emcee named, Mykill Miers, on “Soul Searchin’”. Five years later, [cont.]

 The opener, a symphony of strings meshed perfectly as the Intro is a fading instrumental less than a minute long, and by the texture, it’s not at all hard to believe that a hip-hop group oozing music so melodic, was conceived at Berkley’s College of Music in Boston. Although they may have been formed there, [cont.]

 If you were here to experience it, hip-hop in the early to mid ’90s around the Bay Area was nothing less than magical. If New York had its moment in the early ’80s, the Bay followed suit a decade later, blossoming into a vibrant local scene on the strength of the success of the Hieroglyphics clique [cont.]

 The Coup’s Party Music, originally planned to feature a cover image of Boots Riley blowing up the World Trade Center, while Pam The Funkstess waved a composer stick, an image created before the events of September 11. While Boots has stated that the cover was meant to symbolize the destruction of Capitalism – not the [cont.]

Who the fuck is Aes Rock? As he states on “Coma”, the self described “result of Dragonball Z / Speed Racer gene splicing”, is one of the most talked about abstract underground emcees on the rise, graduating from do-it-yourself discs to a deal with El-P’s Def Jux imprint. Aesop Rock is an obvious graduate of the [cont.]

 While packaged and presented as one, All Mixed Up isn’t a mixtape at all, but instead an ever-evolving organism of DJ Spinna’s heavy beats. Collecting twenty-three of Spinna’s most obscure remixes outside of his traditional hip-hop production, this 74 minute mix encompasses his career thus far, and defines him as one of today’s greatest beatsmiths. [cont.]