Alex Koenig wrote this down by the river. When Isaiah Rashad released “Gusto” alongside Brian Cameron in early January, it came off as a celebratory cocktail of creativity and kief– fun, but not suggestive of what the 21-year-old MC was capable of. “Shot U Down” is Rashad’s first capital-M Moment, and its video suggests that […]

Comedian Rob Delaney’s humor strikes the rare and delicate balance of being both sophomoric and intelligent. His tweets are often entrenched in toilet humor and gag-inducing nicknames for the male and female anatomy, yet they’re too expertly worded to read like the spew of a teenager’s raging hormones. He’s like the goofy uncle who asks […]

Alex Koenig sets if off with his own rhyme. It spelled trouble when Matthew Barnes, the U.K. producer known as Forest Swords, began losing the most crucial one of his five senses. Not long after the release of his debut 2010 EP Dagger Paths, Barnes started suffering from tinnitus, a hearing disorder that caused his […]

Alex Koenig found the needle in the haystack. On Oscar night 1998, Elliott Smith graced the stage in a crisp white tuxedo to perform “Miss Misery,” a tender ballad written for Gus Van Sant’s coming-of-age film Good Will Hunting. Nearly 40 million home viewers fixated on a performer who a little over a year prior […]

Alex Koenig is tumbling dice. The spring of 1971 was a tumultuous period that all but guaranteed a burnout– the Rolling Stones owed more in taxes than they could pay and escaped their native Britain as tax exiles. The chemistry between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had grown out of sync; the former sought to […]

Killer Mike is like a personal trainer for the soul, bellowing commands at you to try harder, not letting you get up from the chest press until you’re sweating buckets, blowing his whistle more times than a ref when Lebron goes up for a layup. Love him or hate him, you have to listen to […]

Alex Koenig welcomes you to Zam-Rock. The mid-1970s were a disquieting time for the Southern African nation known as the Republic of Zambia: The economic value of the country’s largest resource, copper, plummeted; the nation was politically stifled under single-party rule; there was growing strife between countries on Zambia’s borders. Perhaps the only silver lining […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMAqry9TfLs This was Alex Koenig’s rough draft. “Jay-Dee’s Revenge” is the first track to surface from Rebirth of Detroit, an upcoming album that features Detroit artists rapping over unreleased J Dilla beats. But “Revenge” isn’t one of the late producer’s sweeter donuts—the song’s harsh, deep bass line and oscillating synthesizer pattern signify menace. Danny Brown […]

Alex Koenig got a 10/10 on the Kool Keith or James Joyce test. Over nearly the last 30 years as a recording artist, legendary Bronx MC Kool Keith has subverted nearly every hip hop cliché whilst staying completely true to his personality. At his best, Keith comes off as an unhinged and maniacal artist whose […]

Detroit native Black Milk has been an active producer/rapper since 2002 as a member of hip-hop collective Slum Village. Production-wise, Black’s modus operandi can be described as Dilla-esque, but he doesn’t really imitate the late legend as much as utilize Dilla’s crate-digging approach to composition as a vantage point, which then gives Black an opportunity […]