It’s only been a few days since another hip-hop legend has been taken away, and already the fuckery has reached fever-pitch. It’s almost like an unwritten law that with each and every death in the rap world, the same circus springs-up and goes through the motions. The extent varies according to how well-known the artist…
Rest In Peace GURU
Respect Due To The GURU This is fucked the fuck up. I can’t add anything to the piece I wrote in March other than to say Rest In Peace Keith Elam…a true Master of the Ceremony. I can still remember the first time I heard the ‘Positivity’ remix on the radio….
Kill That Noise – Rap Rumors That Don’t Matter
You could be excused for believing that I spend every waking hour obsessing over rap trivia while preparing for my next interview with an obscure hip-hop character, but that’s not really the case. Admittedly, a lifetime of perusing linear notes and thumbing through old rap magazines can tend to have some unwanted side-effects, but beyond…
TJ Swan’s Lost Single
First there was The Search For TJ Swan, followed by the Tribute and eventually this: tj swan is my father…i mean sperm doner..he fell off and is gonna stay off..he doesnt take care of his daughter’s (he has 3) i am his 1st daughter n i want evryone to know he’s a liar and a…
Diary of a Mad Print Writer – 10 Depressingly Annoying Things About Modern Rap
Phillip Mlynar isn’t Australian, doesn’t roam a post-apocalyptic wasteland searching for fuel and may not even own a dog. But ask him the timeless question, ‘U mad, doggie?’ and he’ll reply, ‘Yes, I am.’ Fresh from his stint of yelling ‘Eff you and Your Heroes‘ like this was a listening session for the first Lench…
Producer, Engineer or Beatmaker?
Some things are hard to define. What exactly is the role of the ‘Executive Producer’ on an album? Is it the guy who paid for the record to be made? The dude who decided which beats to use and which guests to invite? Or the character who sat up the back and simply nodded his…
Rick Rubin – The Man, The Myth
When Rick Rubin is written about in the media, he is either portrayed as “the most important producer of the last 20 years” or as the shaggy ‘Wolfboy’ guru who carries lapis lazuli Buddhist prayer beads and dislikes footwear. While many of the startlingly broad range of musicians that have worked with Rick gush his…
10 Things I Discovered From The Book ‘Def Jam, Inc.’
Somehow or other, I recently found myself at the local library, where I stumbled across a book titled Def Jam, Inc. The author, Stacy Guerseva, did a great job of recalling the history from the early days of the label based in Rick Rubin‘s dorm through to the powerhouse that it would eventually become. Of…
Five Zealously Overrated (And Often Dead) Hip-Hop Artists
Here’s a guest drop from Phillip Mlynar, who was the Deputy Editor at Hip Hop Connection magazine before people stopped buying rap magazines. Talking about rappers whose fanatical fan worship bore no relation to their actual talent or recorded output used to be easy. Someone would say that 2 Pac was the greatest ever rapper….
Toney For Mayor?
Guess some Nas stans got a little butt-hurt over the last piece. Of course, they failed to read the part where I declared that “there’s no denying that Nas is one of the greatest MC’s of all-time” and shed tears over the fact that I didn’t list ‘If I Ruled The World’ as a ‘classic’….
How Can Nas Be Garbage?
“With the exception of G Rap, Nas has more dope songs then anyone from Queens and just as many as any other rapper in the world” – Johnny Hardcore Following this challenge of sorts by a guy who seems to have taken his screen name from a male pr0n star, let’s take a look at…
Meyhem’s Top Five Songs That Represent Queens
During the interview with Meyhem which I dropped yesterday, I asked him which three songs he’d play to someone who’d never heard hip-hop from Queens before. He gave me five…