Harold Stallworth is in the club singing off-key. Sometimes a go-go cover sounds absolutely nothing like the genuine article, and more often than not, we’re all better for it. When the TOB Band—former home to up-and-coming D.C. rapper Yung Gleesh—repurposed Ron Isley’s “Contagious” and The Fugees’ “Killing Me Softly” during a performance at Gary’s Cafe […]

Harold Stallworth still has a ringtone. Throughout the Clinton era, rap music and telephones were a heavenly match. Mobb Deep’s “Party Over,” Biggie Smalls’ “Warning,” Danja Mowf’s “Phone Tag,” Medina Green’s “Crosstown Beef,” The Firm’s “Phone Tap,” and Capone-N-Noreaga’s “Phone Time” were recorded in a world when jacks still had an air of mystique about […]

Nature’s calming voice can be heard on some of DJ Clue’s earliest mixtapes, bringing forth timeless street parables rather than cheap punchlines. He made his bones on New York City’s brutally competitive mid-90s mixtape circuit among the likes of Jadakiss and Canibus. His masterful freestyles would eventually earn him admission into The Firm after Cormega, […]

Harold Stallworth wrote this off a six-pack of gluten-free beer. Fat Joe is a second-ballot Hall of Famer, but a rap legend nonetheless. As a technician, he’s never went to hell for snuffing Jesus, nor traveled at magnificent speeds around the universe. But en route to amassing a respectable catalog, he’s given us a staggering […]

Harold Stallworth has a pink suit on layaway. The Game’s latest DJ Skee-curated mixtape, Operation Kill Everything, will probably get lost in the ether of Datpiff fodder, and that’s okay. He’s one of the few rappers smart enough to save most of his stellar records for retail albums. But at 19 tracks deep, he was […]

  Harold Stallworth is dating Kitana. In the days before CD-R technology, retail albums were unalterable works of art, ironclad in their vision or lack thereof. For better or worse, tracklistings now serve as little more than reference points for neurotic fans masquerading as seasoned A&Rs. Migos, Atlanta’s latest brand of hip-hop antichrist, orchestrated an […]

Harold Stallworth sips the Pora and listens to Cappadonna. Last Thursday, I made an impromptu visit to “Fuego,” a Maryland strip club nestled behind an industrial strip off Kenilworth Avenue. It’s the neapolitan ice cream of adult entertainment. Three different exotic dance troupes, divvied by ethnicity, take turns occupying the main stage in half-hour rotations. […]

Harold Stallworth is washing money at the Laundromat. Numbers may not outright fib, but more often than not they only tell half the story. Soundscan can’t explain why Meek Mill is far more likely to be heard blaring in god-awful D.C. traffic than most of his RIAA-certified contemporaries. The closest thing we have to a […]

Harold Stallworth wrote this after reading a green energy book. It’s been an unusually quiet 9-month stretch for Lil B. He’s currently on pace to release 100-odd songs by year’s end. In 2012 he recorded at least 17 mixtapes, several featuring upwards of three dozen tracks. While his productivity has nose dived into mortal territory, […]

Harold Stallworth is throwing rappers in the Boston Crab. J Cole is Fayetteville, NC’s quintessential hip-hop success story. But a full decade before his raspy voice blared from black college dorms across the country, an obscure rap duo known as Bomm Sheltuh was projected to be his hometown’s vessel for national exposure on the music […]