Essay by Dan Adu-Gyamfi, art by Brad Beatson and captions by Son Raw. T-Pain’s use of Auto-Tune influenced many to follow their singing dreams even if their vocal chords refused to go along. A new rap subgenre was born: “Sad Robot Music.” The phrase was coined by site founder, Jeff Weiss, and rapper, Nocando, on […]

Doc Zeus wants a spaceship. They say that memories fade as the ever-persistent hands of time perpetually tick forward. However, I’ll never forget the first time I heard that album. It had been a particularly rough semester for me at Syracuse that February. I had grown a troubling habit of abusing prescription amphetamine psychostimulants to […]

Brad Beatson wrote this from the inside of a sarcophagus. Above is the video for Travi$ Scott’s “Uptown” featuring A$AP Ferg, released on December 1st. It’s the second he’s put out this year in which the titular song doesn’t drop until 2+ minutes into the video. The other, “Upper Echelon,” is posted after the jump. […]

When in doubt, take it back to the disco-rap. “Thank You” is barely past the evolutionary production stage of “Good Times,” but the wheel hasn’t been improved much over the last few millennium’s either. You know what has improved over the last few centuries though? Work-out plans. Maybe Kanye, he of the nouveau work out […]

Maybe you missed this because you’re sick of the onslaught of all things Kanye. Or maybe you’ve already watched this a half-dozen times. There seems to be little middle ground on the man who brought you the Little Lord Fauntleroy voice on the Kris Jenner show and then can smash paparazzis and primal scream in […]

Apologies for the relative inaction in these parts. I have been traveling and listening to the song on Yeezus that makes me want to listen to Mos Def’s “Traveling Man.” This is, of course, a lie because I only have time in my life to listen to ESGN and Run the Jewels and Migos (as […]

Like Eazy E, Douglas Martin has the last werdz. On 2011’s Watch the Throne — that year’s favorite hip-hop album of many a white person who only listens to (at most) three hip-hop albums in any given 365 — Kanye West co-starred with Jay-Z in an expensively produced piece about being self-made black men in […]

Brad Beatson likes bad bitches. When I initially listened to each of Kanye’s last four releases, I was confused. Where was the guy from the first two albums? I’m a Buffalo Bills fan, so I can take more than a few losing efforts, but these just felt different. Then, after I let them settle a […]

Adam Wray is still waiting. I’m not ready to pass judgment on Yeezus. Its early appraisers no doubt feel they’ve got a handle on it, and I’ve surely read some thoughtful, nuanced takes, but I have a hard time making a quick reckoning with works so polarizing. I’m too skeptical of my own ears and […]

Let me begin by saying how amazing it is to live in a time when the “finest” minds of our generation have spent a week exhaustively parsing the merits of an album called Yeezus. God bless the internet. I think this album is remarkable in many ways, few of which have much to do with […]