Abe Beame is waiting for your 4 page letter at [email protected] In the Summer of 2011, I immediately started pushing Kendrick Lamar and Section 80 for album of the year, following a headlining showcase at S.O.B.’s. The venue is a tiny sweatbox in SoHo, one of the few small and affordable places left to catch […]

This is not the 2013 “Cartoons & Cereal,” but this is the closest thing to replicating that equation. Kendrick + brazen drug-addled shooter + bando-rattling beat. A response to everyone who was worried that K. Dot was veering exclusively into Eminem’s “SCREAM AT MY MEAN MOM” flow. Maybe it’s the fact that Fredo has no […]

The king of coke rappers meets the most sober rapper from the Ronald Reagan era. Boogie Down Productions samples and bongo drums and a whole lot of drug talk. The guitars straight from “D.O.A” straight from Janko Nilovic. Pusha remains “puntastic,” flashing his one Zoolander-like look (“White Steel”). But he sounds rejuvenated through his hatred […]

Max Bell’s skyline is the clearest. Jay-Z’s second annual Budweiser Made In America Festival is this Labor Day weekend. Somehow Black Hippy aren’t at the top of the bill. Perhaps to rectify this (and many, many other things Jay-Z must atone for), Hov’s company Life+Times has released a short documentary (16 mins) chronicling TDE’s performances […]

Deen is still hoping for Gibbs’ response. Here’s the latest batch of Kendrick responses. I don’t know why I volunteered to do this. That was dumb. But I’m a man of my word, so here we go again: Astro: I’ll be honest, I don’t know this nigga. But he came with it. I’m impressed. Statik […]

Deen is the illegitimate son of DMX. I’m going to show you muthafuckas a lotta respect and just assume that you’ve all heard the Kendrick verse that shook the world. If you haven’t, stop reading this now, go listen to that shit and re-arrange your priorities. Don’t worry. I’ll wait. Done? Good. Kendrick’s dynamo of […]

From here on out, to be “controlled” should replace “renegaded” as what happens when you shouldn’t let another rapper on your song for fear of incineration. K. Dot reminding everyone that he has a parking garage with a collage of everyone he despised from the moment he turned five. He mentions Kurupt and “Calling Out […]

Neon washed, kaleidoscopic visions of the floating head of Schoolboy Q in a tie-dye bucket hat: the video for “Collard Greens” is here. It’s as good as it sounds. House party and bottle popping to pool party and booty popping — this is rap video traditionalism at its highest. In the finest of fabrics, Schoolboy […]

Wise moves from title to execution. Who doesn’t like collard greens? Who doesn’t like Schoolboy Q and Kendrick? The former is fast becoming the rap game, Raoul Duke, from appearance to addled state. His flow here is slower and less tangled than Q normally deploys. But it’s no less effective. It sounds like a hunter […]

A rule of thumb: when you cringe at the cheesiness of a rap song at the 20 second mark, but are chanting along at the one minute mark, it is a certified hit. This figures to be the one for Quincy. The hook appeals to the molly mangled, the freaks will get up out their […]