“My jewelry gold like the tokens at Chuck E. Cheese.” Quoth semi-professional gemologist, Jeffrey Williams. Thug raps like he’s only been eating weed brownies, Strawberry syrup and soda and molly for the last six months. His insides probably look like rotting pumpkin, but his raps are box cutter sharp. Wayne is the most obvious analogue, […]

Dewey Decibel is freestyling right now over coffee and brunch This summer mix is a compilation of my top played tracks in my iTunes right now, an eclectic mixture of tracks that I have been banging on the regular. There is usually a track that comes along while I am grinding on some graphic design […]

Somehow the rap game, reminds Dweez of the beautiful game. Art by Ben Bjelajac. Drake featuring Drake. We’ve now seen all 32 teams play in this tournament. Google searches are 10x higher for the World Cup than they were for the NBA Finals this last week. The game done changed and here is a guide […]

Paul Thompson was last scene at Harold’s with a two piece and fries If you still haven’t seen True Detective, don’t worry. We here at Passion of the Weiss present the following footage just as Freddie Gibbs chose to: without context. But as you follow Matthew McConaughey’s Detective Rust Cohle through doors and past stunned […]

I’ve spent a significant part of the last few years taking the death of gangster rap for granted. The narrative that I’ve run with tracks the rise in popularity of artists like (duh) Kanye West, the explicitly fake Rick Ross, and Drake, and the concurrent fall of Young Jeezy, the disappearance of 50 Cent, the […]

Max Bell is not against rap or those thugs. Freddie Gibbs rose from scary Gary to Interscope refugee to widespread critical adoration. Some argue that the dexterous Gibbs can rap well over anything. Yet his last album, E.S.G.N. received mixed reviews.  The album was solid, but it was also what you’d expect too. It didn’t help […]

Max Bell also enjoys the New Beverly theatre.  After 30 plus projects, summarizing and/or describing the tropes of Curren$y’s music seems futile. The kush is from L.A. and the wax is from the Bay. The kicks are dead stock, the finest vintage. The money, classic cars and women keep moving. I know, you know, and Curren$y […]

Will Hagle blames Young Chop for getting “Guap” stuck in his head. Gangsta Gibbs. Young Chop On The Beat. Retrospectively the greatest, most unexpected soundtrack possible for the Mike Tyson v. Evander Holyfield fight. The build-up to the inevitable biting of the ear consists of standard Gibbs hook-and-verse brutalization. Violence on violence. Gibbs verbal pummeling […]

Deen is not berserk. Gangsta Gibbs never really gives us much time to breathe. To quote that now boring, but still genius white nigga, “rap feels so empty without (him).” At least for those of us that still dig gangsta rap. I dunno about the rest of you muthafuckas. Thankfully, Gibbs works really hard to […]

Will Hagle has seen you’ve played knifey spooney before. Flume’s self-titled debut album was released less than a year ago, but the SoundCloud comments on the LP’s re-released, revamped “Holdin’ On” dismiss it as old. Even Flume himself lists Flying Lotus, now essentially one of his contemporaries, as one of his major influences. The Australian-bred […]