In a Summer watered down with Advance Your Tax Bracket Rap, Castle has delivered Gasface for you. If you’re looking to rock some Tom Ford,what are you even doing here? If you’re wishing to uppercut your boss, you’re in the right place. Castle has found his voice on this project by rapping his stories so relatably […]

Since graduating from Philadelphia’s Temple University in 2006, Noah Goldstein has engineered, mixed and occasionally produced for Nas, Jay-Z, 2 Chainz, Snoop Dogg, Patti Smith, The Mars Volta and Ryan Adams. But his most interesting client might be Kanye West, who he has worked closely with since 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He was […]

You know when someone derisively describes something as “tumblr rap”? (You’re reading Passion of the Weiss, so of course you do.) What they usually mean is that the music, tumblr rap, is very stylish without actually being good. Earlier this year I might have begrudgingly lumped Spark Master Tape into the tumblr rap category. But […]

ShowYouSuck is a rapper from Chicago. Listen to any one of his One Man Pizza Party releases (there are now four of them) and you’ll quickly hear the variety of his influences, both musically and culturally. There’s a Southern and West Coast feel, merged with the latest trap sound. Yet Show still finds a way […]

There might not be a more dynamic duo in rap music right now than Killer Mike and El-P. Responsible for two of last year’s finest releases in R.A.P. Music and Cancer4Cure, they’ve returned as Run the Jewels with a new full-length and a massive, summer-long tour with Despot and Kool AD. That’s one hell of […]

Lamont Jody Hawkins is better known by his rap alias U-God, but it’s the “Four Bar Killer” nickname that has defined his career. Wu Tang’s mastermind RZA treated each member of the iconic group like a chess piece and used their individual strengths in a specific way while recording their early work. Unfortunately for U-God, this […]

While admittedly leaning for most of these questions and answers, Starlito never lacked for words or charisma. He spoke like he raps: honest and effective. Sometimes clouded and complex, talking circular and not necessarily in succession of thought. We met in studios and a restaurant over the course of three days during A3C in Atlanta […]

Dub Club is no longer just another weekly in L.A., if it ever was to begin with.  It’s an institution, respected by Reggae heads from Silver Lake to Kingston. There are other places in the states where you can listen to DJs spin Reggae, Dub, Ska, Dancehall, and anything else worth listening to that’s come […]

After a nearly four-year hiatus, AZ is finally gearing up to release his ninth studio album, tentatively titled “Doe or Die II.” His impact on the ever-evolving world of rap is difficult to quantify by hard statistics and direct influence. Despite never being the brightest star or biggest draw, even within his own freakishly talented […]

As an Australian-based journalist, it’s a little rare to interview an American artist on the verge of an album release. But not as rare as it used to be: independent musicians now make the majority of their money touring, and that includes touring internationally. Sometimes the timing gets a little awkward. I caught up with […]