Ben Grenrock takes a look at a new book of poetry, 'Voices From Leimert Park Redux.'

If not wearing pants is cool, you can call Dweez Miles Davis. “I love women. I never needed any help or ever had any trouble finding women. I just like to be with them, talking and shit like that. But I never have messed with a musician’s girlfriend. Never. Even if she hadn’t been with […]

Dweez confesses that he initially pavlovs from the Zeppelin “Kashmere” sample not from the original or the Schoolly D song but from Puff Daddy’s “Come With Me” off the Godzilla soundtrack. “Rap’s here-and-now is always here-and-now: a music without a future tense can’t but be immortal.” – David Foster Wallace (Page 144). I’d tried to […]

Chris L. Terry writes with the zigzag slang that can only come from overdosing on the right blend of rap and comic books. Like most of us, he’s the bastard child of a generation consigned to Yo! MTV Raps and cassette tapes. Baby boomer lit snobs might have thought it was purgatory, but Terry understands […]

Sach O can review books too. This one’s out of print but a quick Google search should help ya… Sometimes, it’s nice to be wrong. And in many ways, Kodwo Eshun’s More Brilliant than the Sun – Adventures in Sonic Fiction was as wrong as possible. A loving testament to the possibilities of futuristic Black […]

Ben Westhoff belongs to a dwindling breed. He’s a rap journalist, a real one, one who doesn’t relay on armchair assumptions or specious Wikitruths. He’ll pop up out the cereal and pester Luke Campbell to take him to a sub-Mason Dixon Mexican restaurant where the tequila is strong, the air thick and the girls thicker. […]

Cue the awkward self-promotional shuffle. Last summer, in addition to politicking with Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and the Gorton’s Fisherman, I was holed up in my lampless cavern working in secret(e) on eight essays for the recently released, Hip Hop: A Cultural Odyssey.  My articles included pieces on Wu-Tang, 2Pac, Dre, Eminem, Kool […]

Dave Tompkins says the best way to prepare for a vocoder reading in L.A. is by listening to Eazy E interview Roger Troutman on Ruthless Radio. Sage advice. Once upon a talkbox, 92.3, The Beat, offered Eric Wright his own program, a wonderful quagmire that forced him to wrestle with withholding  “bitch” and “motherfucker” from […]

Robert Charette, the author of this review, is a senior at Penn St. University. For an assignment in his Literature Public Sphere class, he was told to review a book and have it  published somewhere “where someone decides whether or not something or not is published.” For some foolhardy reason, Robert requested that The Passion […]