Fun fact: this video was created entirely out a photo collage of pictures taken from Blu’s Instagram page. Media TakeOut told me that Lana Del Rey demanded her swag back after watching this (and a full definition of what swag means in 2012). Madlib is credited with the beat. Only the IRS knows if he […]

October is the time for Gonjasufi. Nothing says derangement like the crazed vagabond vocals of Sumach Ecks. Don’t be fooled by the Alan Wiggins-era San Diego Padres logo above. There is nothing Catholic about this. In my imagination, Sufi is the next Nate Dogg for all left field rappers. Need a hit for your haunted […]

This is the first contribution from Tosten Burks. It will not be the last. When you debut with (near) perfection, what happens next? This question is Nas’s career. No matter how highly you revere Stillmatic or any of his other post-Illmatic works, Nasir Jones’s legacy will always be a tale of an artist beating on […]

Jonah Bromwich’s favorite color is Cardinal. Enigma. Anomaly. Sky-high potential. Game-changer. Rap messiah. We’ve heard these labels applied to up-and-coming rappers many times over the past decade. A short list of them goes as follows: Wale, Lupe Fiasco, Lil B, Tyler the Creator, B.O.B., and of course, Jay Electronica, who has personally used all of […]

Never heard of Homebase. Never been to one of their parties. Does that make me out of it? I might be down though after this. They must have that Chilly Tee money. After all, I assume that Blu, Sandman, Gibbs subscribe to Danny Brown’s dictum laid down in “LOL”: don’t text…if it ain’t about dough. […]

I’ve already done the sales pitch for Co$$ and the first leak from his forthcoming debut, Before I Awoke is further validation. Subtly paying homage to 2Pac (“my thoughts are so deranged“), Co$$ and Blu assert themselves as LA’s best one-two combination this side of Pau and Kobe. There’s a lot to unpack in this […]

Credit due to Aaron Matthews for unearthing the buttery “Dreamland,” that operates equally well as warm milk before bed or alongside coffee and the morning paper. Smooth Sunday music. Johnson Barnes negates any theories about “hotness” or the need to flood the market. He just drops gems, quietly and understated.

Posted because Blu’s sense of timeliness is congruent with my own and because of my predilection for things that remind me of Adult Swim that aren’t actually Adult Swim. Wildly tardy, but in the words of Cheech Marin in Ghostbusters 2, this is better later than never. For those keeping score, Flying Lotus claims that […]

There’s a mild hypocrisy in championing Blu’s sporadic output while crowning Jay Electronica with this year’s Chuck Norris: Missing in Action Award for Absentee Rapping (a prestigious throne alternately held by Dr. Dre, Andre 3000, Del the Funkee Homosapien, and Slick Rick).  Via their occasional appearances and withdrawals from the LED limelight, both MC’s have […]