Friends, the time has come to close the book on HipHopSite.Com. After nineteen years online, I have come to the decision to bring the site to its glorious ending. As many of you have seen, over the last few months I have been working closely with original Source Magazine founder Jonathan Shecter in creating Cuepoint at Medium. Most of my time and energy over the last few months has gone into acting as managing editor of Cuepoint, delivering a wide array of stories that cover all genres of music. Having also spent much of the last 19 years as a DJ, my musical palette has expanded well beyond just hip-hop. Cuepoint is a place that has allowed me to write, commission, and curate articles from the best writers in the business. I am very proud of what Shec and I have started, so now it is time for me to fully devote my time and energy into making Cuepoint into the best place to read about music.

I’ve had a lot of great memories in creating HipHopSite, from purchasing product to sell in our retail shop directly from an unsigned Eminem at a Motel 6 to crashing the “Forgot About Dre” and “Stan” video shoots. From helping unknown artists like Jedi Mind Tricks, Little Brother, and J-Live get heard to chasing down MF Doom in a Las Vegas casino for an in-store. From running official websites for Em, Doom, RJD2, Demigodz to hosting in store events with Redman, Pharrell, KRS-One, Questlove, Pete Rock, DJ Premier and Talib Kweli. It’s truly been an incredible ride, but now it’s time to move on to the next chapter.

I will still continue to write album reviews on own personal Medium.Com/@DjPizzo account and will deliver more in-depth articles directly for Cuepoint. HipHopSite.Com will remain online for historical and archival purposes, so the option is there to pick things up one day later in the future. But for now, the site will no longer be updated. To be frank, I am not interested in collecting the content that is already infinitely blogged across the internet for HipHopSite each day. I’d rather devote my time to delivering you bigger, better, harder-hitting articles and Medium’s Cuepoint is the perfect place to do so. So below are some links of a few things I have written for Cuepoint recently. I invite you all to comment, respond, and even write your own articles on Medium. Hopefully I’ll see some of you on the other side.

Thank you all for the many years of support.

Peace party people,

Mike “DJ” Pizzo
02/23/15

It Took A Nation: The Greatest Rap Album Gets Its Due

The Music Of Pulp Fiction

A Formal Introduction To Tuxedo: Mayer Hawthorne and Jake One

Hoping For A Better Tomorrow: How The Wu-Tang Clan Got It Wrong

Portishead’s “Dummy” At 20

The Far-Reaching Influence Of A-Trak’s Fool’s Gold Records

Hypnotic rhythms, dusty samples, turntable techniques, & intelligent lyricism combine to form Born With A Determined Idea, the debut album from Columbus, OH emcee & producer Lord Hakim, featuring Vast Aire (Cannibal OX), Dom Pachino (Killarmy), Bronze Nazareth, Planet Asia, & Lord Jamar (Brand Nubian).

An Emcee, Producer and Studio Engineer, Lord Hakim is a Columbus, Ohio native, is a Hip-Hop enthusiast to the fullest, but who like many of us, prefers his beats dirty and his lyricism enlightened. “My style of Hip Hop is grungy samples over boom bap percussion with razor sharp turntable techniques; now that’s Hip Hop! When it comes to emceeing, I’m a thinker; it’s all about vocabulary and being descriptive. The thing about Hip Hop is you actually get hear the novel within an orchestrated arrangement and it can set the mood for whatever chapter or track you’re on” Hakim states.

After previously building with Planet Asia (“Scripturez”) and Lord Jamar (“Peace God”), Lord Hakim returns with the visual counterpart for his collaboration with Can Ox’s Vast Aire and Phizz Ed “Brass Knucklez.”

If you delve into one post on the site today, listen to Ghostface and BADBADNOTGOOD’s excellent Sour Soul LP, hitting this Tuesday on Lex Records.

Introduction to the newest signee of Apathy’s Dirty Version Records. Wildcard. The War album coming this Spring on Dirty Version Records, featuring Crooked I, Apathy & Celph Titled and more.

Directed by Unjust.

Hieroglyphics Imperium: “As one of the pioneering artists to come out of L.A.’s beat scene, Free the Robots continues to expand minds around the world with his lineup of original recordings and energetic live performances. The beatmaker that’s spawned from the Low End Theory community with a knack for producing psychedelic, jazzy hip-hop soundscapes has teamed up with Souls of Mischief/Hieroglyphics rapper Opio for a forthcoming EP, The Subconscious Mind.

The Subconscious Mind EP’s second single, “Let the Bass Go,” embodies a thundering bassline that rumbles with a series of torpedoing synths as Opio contributes his charismatic flow. “My direction was very bass heavy, with slower hip-hop rhythms,” explains Free the Robots of the track. “I let my subconscious drive this song lyrically,” adds Opio, “I remembered the time I was first introduced to heavy bass, a time when all my big brothers had dope old schools with big systems.”

“Let the Bass Go” follows The Subconscious Mind EP’s first single, “Blow Sum Smoke,” which premiered with IMPOSE Magazine, who stated “try as you might, you probably could not get more West Coast than Opio and Free the Robots’s new California coast-spanning collaboration.” Opio and Free the Robots’ The Subconscious Mind EP releases March 3rd, and is available for pre-order on iTunes.”

From the duo’s Nautica Nagas coming soon. Directed by DirtyDiggs.

Produced by Maxwell Smart & Berner. Directed by David Camarena. Prohibition 2 coming soon.

New music from IAMSU!’s Eyes On Me, hitting February 24th.

Fashawn’s new album, The Ecology will hit stores on Tuesday, with help from Mass Appeal head Nas, Dom Kennedy, BJ the Chicago Kid, Aloe Blacc, Exile, Choosey and more. Stream the album in it’s entirety below.

Second video from the Pages From the Pavement Ep, produced by Shawneci. Directed by Vu Doo Films & Co Directed by DJ Deadeye

From Tity Boy’s T.R.U. Jack City mixtape.

Raekwon’s next albu, Fly International Luxurious Art is coming April 28th, 2015. Peep the cover art below.

Complex spoke with LL, Rick Rubin, Russell Simmons about the creation of this seminal classic.

New music from Juvenile under the Ca$h Money Records banner, strangely.

From Slay’s upcoming mixtape, The Industry Purge.