After catching this NME piece from Frank Owen’s vault (courtesy of Mask Of Norro), which featured an actual interview with the great man shortly before he was fatally shot, I thought I’d dig out the 2002 XXL Mag piece by Noah Callahan-Bever and revisit the original New York Times report. The New Musical Express piece…
Category: Print Work
Magazine Vaults: The Time I Accidently Annoyed Keith Shocklee
Click for full-size version Quite possibly the highlight of my brief print magazine career was when Hip Hop Connection ran my interviews with DJ Johnny Juice/Son of Bazerk and Keith Shocklee side by side in issue #221. As you can read above, the Bomb Squad co-founder didn’t appreciate the presentation. The best thing about the…
Read The Label: The Hydra Entertainment Story
The independent hip-hop resurgence of the mid-90’s seems great in retrospect, but in the days before widespread internets access it was often a case of pot-luck when ordering the latest batch of vinyl via fax from Beat Street or Mr Bongos. While most artists were releasing one-shot singles on their own imprints, there soon emerged…
A-Trak – The Modern Fix Interview [2007]
Just found this interview from Modern Fix magazine, which was my first published cover feature, that I never put on the site. Ironically, A-Trak would prove to be heavily involved with the dreaded Hipster Rap invasion which Unkut was so instrumental in shutting down… While most of us were trying to score a six-pack and…
40 Years of Hip-Hop Tape Culture
^ Pic stolen from here. Mix tapes can be a whole lot more than a bunch of songs you record for a chick you’re trying to impress by revealing your “sensitive side”. In the world of hip-hop, they have proven to be one of the most important tools in spreading the sound of a native…
The Four Best/Worst Rap Alter-Ego Albums Ever
Nothing says ‘I’m out of decent ideas’ like the good old Alter-Ego album. For most rappers, it’s not really much of a stretch to adapt another personality, since 95% of them are acting anyway (except for everyone who’s gone to jail, natch). This was published in the last rag that’s still willing to print my…
Ghostface Killah & Raekwon The Chef – The Lost Unkut Interview
Around the time of Stark’s R&B album and Chef’s Cuban sequel, I interviewed the two of them for Hip-Hop Connection Digital. Here are some of the parts that I didn’t feature in the original piece that mainly cover some of the old days of Staten Island rap. Robbie: What were the early days like on…
How Eminem Won & Lost At The Same Time
Why do people who don’t even work in the music industry talk about album sales? It makes no sense whatsoever when you think about it, but since the young rap fans of today are often more concerned with what sort of jacket Kanye was wearing in his new video than what he says in his…
Internets Celebrities – Somebody Say Chea!
I’m not even going to attempt to explain who the Internets Celebrities are – that’s what the ‘About’ section of their site is for, dummies! Okay, since you’re clearly too lazy and/or hungover to crawl over to your laptop and wipe the Cheezel dust from your fingers, I’ll provide a Twitter-proof rundown in less than…
Sure Ya Right…
There are several things that can be expected when reading an interview with an established rapper or producer. Other than the obligatory wholesale abuse of the phrase, “you know what I’m sayin?’, approximately one in every three question and answer sessions will feature some kind of outlandish claim involving either innovations they haven’t been given…
Roc Marciano – The Unkut Interview, Volume 2
Photo: Alexander Richter The first time I spoke to Marciano, his UN crew had paired down to him two members and he had just landed a solo deal with SRC, with plans to put together a project for early 2008 release. Since then, he was pretty much MIA for a couple of years with the…
Killa Sha – The Unkut Interview
Photo courtesy Alexander Richter Killa Sha created the best rap album of 2007, but thanks to limited distribution and an absence of gimmicks, not enough people experienced his addictive GOD Walks on Water the first time around. With a follow-up titled The Shepard due in the near future, as well as a complete album with…