Tosten Burks looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the plug-in Hummer. When you listen to new music every day, it’s easy to be cynical. You’re looking for music to prove itself to you. This is what breeds the sexploitation of cynical music. What critics love the most is counter-traditionalism. Rebellion. The “new.” But then there’s music […]
| When Nosaj Thing Met Chance the Rapper | May 6, 2013 |
In which it is revealed that Nosaj Thing made the second half of the beat for “Pusha Man” from Acid Rap. This is probably my favorite moment on the album and I had previously assumed it was composed by Curtis Mayfield’s ghost. Wrong again. My review drops tomorrow on Pitchfork if you are interested. If […]
Slava P is better at Twitter than J Cole is at making you fall asleep. If you were anywhere near a computer, you probably noticed that both J.Cole and Chance the Rapper released free mixtapes yesterday. It was the rap game analog to the NBA’s Rookie/Sophomore game. One team consisted of a player who has […]
| Surveying the New Chicago underground | February 8, 2013 |
Tosten Burks won signing day. The most annoying part about Finally Rich, aside from “Laughing to the Bank,” was the Chicago hip-hop narrative it encouraged the blog mafia to settle for. Drill this, drill that. As if the only thing this generation listened to in their youth was Gucci Mane. As if there wasn’t a […]
| Does Chicago’s Chance the Rapper Have the Juice? | February 4, 2013 |
Joshua Lerner owns every Poor Righteous Teachers cassette. Today at school, I erased the dates of January from my dry-erase calendar and put in new ones for February. I thought about the 41 homicides we saw in Chicago last month, an 11-year record. Most think the murder rate will drop with the temperature as summer […]
