Paul Thompson doesn’t need extra cheese on that Sicilian You’re lying in bed, colorless. Liquor stores. Barbed wire. Jesus candles. There’s a pounding on the roof. It’s Vince Staples, sueded out and giving startlingly few fucks. Christmas comes in August, except the 19-year-old from Long Beach is jacking you for everything you own. If it […]

Paul Thompson paid for the necklace and ate breakfast We celebrate a curious quality in our rap stars. The contradiction—a blunt, imprecise tool—humanizes these larger-than-life figures, we say. Makes them seem like us. Nas documents the plight of the black woman, then buys her jewelry and holds it over her head; Kanye laments his materialism […]

Paul Thompson leaks Mott Street noodles out his mouth when he talks “We never really stopped,” says Elucid. “We already had the groove.” Armand Hammer is New York’s new perpetual motion machine. After a 2013 that saw both a mixtape (Half Measures) and a critically acclaimed album (RACE MUSIC)—not to mention a solo record from […]

Paul Thompson is now signed to P0rnHub “I just want to be genuine with whatever it is I’m doing.” Greg Grease moves at his own pace. Minneapolis rappers are carving out a new identity, with more dimensions—the old-guard Rhymesayers disciples are sharing stages with irreverent party-starters like Prof and Lizzo; Mike Mictlan is turning your […]

Paul Thompson might take a loss but bitch, he’d rather take his chances Do you remember the single from the second Mike Jones album? Of course you don’t. “Mr. Jones” was released in September of 2006, debuting at #92 on Billboard and disappearing almost immediately after. You remember the beat, though—Lil Wayne repurposed it as […]

Think Paul Thompson’s a joke? Har-dee-har Every now and then, there are glimpses of the old Jay Z. You hear the half-maniacal laugh, you can still smell the crack in his clothes. But underneath the Samsung deals and the half-hearted veganism lies a bleak, existential truth: Jiggaman got rich and took the doo-rag off. Shawn […]

Paul Thompson is hotheaded with cold shoulders Elucid and Billy Woods just want to pay their rent. Collectively known as Armand Hammer, the duo is responsible for the best album you missed in 2013: the stellar, heady RACE MUSIC. Whatever you were listening to on the way to work this morning, this record knocks harder […]

Paul Thompson’s brain is IBM compatible Eyedea was the meanest battle rapper you had ever heard–until he wasn’t. Micheal Larsen won Scribble Jam the same summer he graduated from Highland Park High School in St. Paul. The following year–when he was finally old enough to vote–he beat Immortal Technique in New York to win Rocksteady […]

Paul Thompson acts his waist size  Henry Canyons is hungry. Maybe you can tell when he’s bobbing and weaving between French and English on “Evander Holyfield’s Ear”; maybe it’s when he trades foreboding barbs with Billy Woods on “Mood Swings”. One way or another, his new EP One Thousand Plateaus is a vivid opening salvo. […]

Paul Thompson eats rappers as part of a complete breakfast You know MF DOOM as the villain. Operation: Doomsday was the warning shot, the fractured origin story; Vaudeville Villain and the rest of the early-aughts side projects served as a slow crescendo to the main event. When Madvillainy finally hit shelves and cerebellums, there was […]