Feb
07

Flash Bang Grenada ft. Riddlore & Verbs – “Teleport Remix”

Flash Bang Grenada top Spock at his own game and teleport alongside Verbs and Riddlore. The latter is a Project Blowed O.G. and one-time member of Chillin’ Villain Empire (CVE). You should be aware of him, but you are likely not. This is a good place to start.This remix tweaks the original “Teleport” from last… Continue reading »

Feb
06

Ugandan Warhorns and Eagles

Dear Internet, Remember that one time when a bunch of you gave money to foot the bill for the weed carrier in Animal Collective to travel to Mali to play a concert and buy all sorts of exotic sandals. Well, this time I have an even better and less culturally noxious offer for you. Mike… Continue reading »

Jan
12

Nocando’s Zero Hour FreeEP

You already know the company line on Nocando.  In consecutive songs on his new Zero Hour EP, he spits hard as Hell(fyre) double-time raps referencing Oedipus Rex. The next song is called “Westside Rentals” and finds him dreaming of a “house with a pool on the Westside with a black Betty Page sitting deckside.”It’s smart,… Continue reading »

Dec
13

Video: Nocando – “Hollywood”

Nocando’s new video for “Hollywood”. Starring: balloon animals, souvenir shops, cigarettes, derelicts, beehive hairdos, noir-sunshine dialectics, Ripley’s Believe it Or Not, Elmo, the Low End Theory, Frank the Bouncer, doleful reggae, hoodies, popcorn, Union Station, cheap champagne, Pistol McFly, Sierra Nevada, and rap music. Nathaniel West and Weiss approved. Says James McCall, a.k.a. Gold Roger: … Continue reading »

Dec
02

Hellfyre and Extended Nightmares

I will probably scream until I’m Blu in the face that the Hellfyre Club deserve a fraction of the attention that other LA rappers receive. But it’s cool. I am as tired as you of rap writers getting agog that people will pay for Wale records but won’t support their personal favorite subterraneans (mine is… Continue reading »

Oct
01

Video: Duke Westlake – Sanity is Temporary

Duke Westlake, one fourth of E. Super, may just be the most overlooked producer in the greater Low End Theory constellation. Over the last two years, he’s steadily built a local rep producing for Mike Eagle, Nocando, Dumbfoundead, and others. But over the last six months, it seems that everything he’s been dropping is moody… Continue reading »

Aug
23

Video: Flash Bang Grenada – “Moisturizer”

Video budget breakdown for Flash Bang Grenada’s “Moisturizer”: $3,211 for Aloe Fresh Hydrating lotion. $32 for Nocando’s tennis racket. $17 for the Bjorn Borg/Richie Tanenbaum costume. Cooking dance lessons: gratis. All day long on Twitter, Busdriver has been releasing the unofficial liner notes to 10 Haters. He claims “10 HATERS actually is the ultimate recession… Continue reading »

Aug
23

Album Review: Flash Bang Grenada – “10 Haters”

Jonah Bromwich thinks you’re not bi-polar, but more like Amy Poehler. “Put in work, son.” “Do work, son.” These expressions have become ubiquitous mantras over the last few years. We say these things casually–to friends looking to score, to siblings with job interviews. They’ve become synonyms for “good luck.” When you say things casually, they… Continue reading »

May
10

The Liner Notes to Open Mike Eagle’s “Nightmares”

In previous episodes, Open Mike Eagle has been extolled for being one of the most incisive writers in rap. Self-aware and satirical, the Chicago-born LA-based rapper doesn’t shout out James Baldwin to sound smart. He does it because he understands too well that the “world in which he was born is nothing less than a… Continue reading »

May
04

Pistol McFly – Bong Rips and B.A.R.S.

Bong Rips and B.A.R.S. Like ice cream sandwiches and cornbread (kept separate), there is nothing wrong with that. We’ve heard it a hundred times. Rapper likes weed, rapper has swag, rapper is from Mars. These cliches are as calcified as coal. As someone who has incinerated enough smoke to acquire an ineradicable weirdness, even I… Continue reading »

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