| An Honest Review of Future | April 29, 2014 |
Doc Zeus is honest, even when he lies Atlanta rap troubadour/robot Future is one of rap’s greatest stylists. The breakthrough success of his 2012 debut album, Pluto, transformed Future from a gruff mixtape trap star into something approaching a sensitive, sentient rap love-bot seemingly inventing a new, heavily imitated aesthetic on the fly. Pluto’s audio […]
| Load Up The Spaceship: A Eulogy For The Ultimate Warrior | April 9, 2014 |
One of Doc Zeus’ biggest inspiration is Sting Nobody stays dead forever in comic books. A superhero can ostensibly “die” in the story but the ceaseless continuity of the medium demands that the dead will eventually rise again. Batman died, Spider-Man died, even the seemingly indestructible Superman died. They would all eventually resurrect to continue […]
| YG & The Enduring Legacy Of Gangster Rap | March 20, 2014 |
Doc Zeus is from Bleveland. If your only contact with rap music was through the lunatic rantings of Bill O’Reilly (who reflexively equates “rapper” with “criminal”), you might not know that the influence of gangster rap has declined during the last decade. The transformative success of eclectic, “middle-class” artists such as Kanye West and Drake […]
| Master Denim: The Grotesque Self-Parody Of Rick Ross | March 4, 2014 |
You already knew that Doc Zeus was rooting against all things Miami. The reality of Rick Ross, “rap superstar” seemed absurd even before his fabricated criminal lifestyle came to light. When Rick Ross emerged in Summer 2006, he seemed little more than the fatter, uglier, marginally less authentic version of Young Jeezy – a corporatized […]
More than half of this years nominees are based on true events, but none were Based on a TRU Story. Max Bell, Matt Shea, Trey Kerby, Harold Stallworth, Doc Zeus, Tosten Burks, Brad Beatson, Abe Beame and Jonah Bromwich weigh in on this years nominees. And we’d love to hear what you think, too.
| Heaven or Hell: Does Schoolboy Q’s “Oxymoron” Live Up to the Hype? | February 25, 2014 |
Doc Zeus knows the woopty-woop. Creative burnout is the most common pitfall facing young rappers transitioning from blog fame to the unyielding lights of major label stardom. The combination of dwindling-to-non-existent resources for artist development, a democratization of DYI self-recording processes and the Internet’s revolutionary free distribution model spawned a glut of thirsty, talented, unsigned […]
Doc Zeus wants a spaceship. They say that memories fade as the ever-persistent hands of time perpetually tick forward. However, I’ll never forget the first time I heard that album. It had been a particularly rough semester for me at Syracuse that February. I had grown a troubling habit of abusing prescription amphetamine psychostimulants to […]
| The Rise of Isaiah Rashad & TDE | February 4, 2014 |
Doc Zeus is from parts unknown. For an independent rap label approaching total rap game domination, you might not have noticed that Top Dawg Entertainment spent the majority of 2013 scarcely releasing music. After a run of multiple great releases in the two years leading up to Kendrick Lamar’s platinum-selling, Grammy-snubbed masterpiece, good kid, m.A.A.d […]
| Why The World Doesn’t Need Jay-Z’s 1% Raps | July 8, 2013 |
Doc Zeus has accepted a full-time position at XXL. This will be his last post here for the immediate future. Buy him a bottle of Riesling to celebrate. Let me tell you about my favorite moment of Jay-Z’s post-retirement career. It occurs on “New Day,” off the 1% fantasy Watch The Throne–but ultimately, it underscores […]
| El & Mike Make Dollars: A Review of “Run the Jewels” | July 2, 2013 |
Doc Zeus is okay with Anthony Bennett too. Looking back on the past fifteen years of hip hop, one of the biggest blown opportunities was that the misguided dogma of mainstream and independent hip hop fans prevented a generation of talented performers from collaborating. A self-imposed segregation of the genre helped stifle overall creativity, create […]
