| On GoGo Penguin’s Self-Titled Opus | June 30, 2020 |
Chris Daly offers a few words on the Blue Note trio's fifth album.
Steven Louis surveys the Gary, Indiana legend's already rapturously received collaborative project with the all-time great beatmaker.
| NC-17 Dreams: El Michels Affair’s Adult Themes | May 18, 2020 |
Chris Daly adjusts the lens on the newest full-length from the New York funk artist.
| Grand Maestro of the Metro: On Wiki and the Sands of Time | December 10, 2019 |
Will Hagle goes in on the newest album from the New York spitter.
Steven Louis waxes poetic on the rap legend's excellent new album.
| The Most Villainous: Freddie Gibbs & Madlib Break the Piñata | March 18, 2014 |
Max Bell is not against rap or those thugs. Freddie Gibbs rose from scary Gary to Interscope refugee to widespread critical adoration. Some argue that the dexterous Gibbs can rap well over anything. Yet his last album, E.S.G.N. received mixed reviews. The album was solid, but it was also what you’d expect too. It didn’t help […]
| M.O.P. Forever and Always | September 9, 2009 |
“Forever and Always” is the anchor bolt embedded in Foundation. Were you unfamiliar with Warriorz, Firing Squad, First Family 4 Life, you’d understand MOP’s entire aesthetic in four minutes flat. Sure, there’s something trite about a “we still ain’t changed” track from a pair of New York 90s stalwarts who rap like Brownsville was a […]
| LA Times: Al Green-Lay It Down Review | June 4, 2008 |
Originally Published at the LA Times 3.5 stars out of 4 Woody Allen once opined that 80 percent of success is showing up, an adage that proves especially accurate when applied to the music of Al Green. Since the 62-year-old son of a sharecropper paired with Willie Mitchell for 1969’s “Green Is Blues,” every time […]
| Wale Realizes the Full Potential of the Mixtape | June 4, 2008 |
Last November, Zeus wrote a post dissecting the differences between albums and mixtapes for the benefit of crits and fans who had been mistakenly conflating Pusha-T rhyming over old G-Unit beats for high art. It happens. The post may have been a tad heavy-handed, but its point was salient. More often than not, mixtapes lack […]
One of the more frustrating things about hip-hop heads*, specifically those old enough to remember the first two Golden Ages, is the general groupthink that no hip-hop album made today can possibly be as great as anything made during 88-96. This is just how it goes. Nostalgia is a motherfucker and no matter how dope […]
