Jimmy Ness is never three mixtapes behind Kevin Gates is so good at rapping that the XXL Freshman ’14 cover could have been a close-up of his face. Few MCs combine lucid crime recollections, vulnerable introspection and speaker knockers quite like the Baton Rouge renegade. While the Passionweiss squad works on converting the site into […]
| Drake Suarez: If Rappers Were Footballers | June 20, 2014 |
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 […]
Blessed with gratuitous shout outs from Mr. Thanksgiving, XXL drops its Freshman Mixtape, which might be the best freshman mixtape yet — partially due to new two new tracks apiece from Isaiah Rashad and Kevin Gates. Lil Bibby has a pair on here too. Basically, everyone but Chance who was told by James Blake that […]
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 […]
| America’s Most Haunted: Kevin Gates’ By Any Means | March 25, 2014 |
Jimmy Ness is eating sashimi in Wales. Heavily inked, emotionally scarred and fresh out of the slammer, Kevin Gates returns with 16 bi-polar bangers. By Any Means is less personal than last year’s Stranger Than Fiction and The Luca Brasi Story, but the Louisiana’s rappers remains one of the best young gangsta rappers this side […]
| Kevin Gates, By Any Means Necessary | March 18, 2014 |
Fresh out the cell block, Gates returns with the Terminator Lestat in the year 3000 destruction: half-robot, half-Vampire. Kevin Gates and Boosie as True Detective, Season 2. I’m putting this out there world. You don’t even wanna’ know what will happen when these two touch down to give Thibodeaux hell. By Any Means is still […]
| Amnesiac: Kevin Gates & Doe B Try To Forget | February 26, 2014 |
Paul Thompson was nearly cast in the lead of Memento. Halfway through Stranger Than Fiction’s “Smiling Faces”, Kevin Gates can’t sleep. His past brings on panic attacks, dooming his relationship with the concerned girl lying next to him. “Every bitch I’m with find out I ain’t shit after three weeks of just fucking with me,” he […]
| How the Sad Robot Became The Dominant Sound in Rap | February 20, 2014 |
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 […]
| Knowns & Known Unknowns & Kevin Gates | January 23, 2014 |
Max Bell conducts all business meetings at the IHOP. The wise man knows that he knows nothing at all. I’m either paraphrasing Socrates or RZA. Listening to too much rap in college can cause you to conflate philosophers and rappers on a regular basis. Baton Rouge’s Southside Brasi, Kevin Gates doesn’t know many things either. He […]
| Starlito, Don Trip & Kevin Gates – “Leash on Life” | October 11, 2013 |
If you can watch this video and don’t get shook, then I feel sorry for you. Shit like this is why I loved rap music in the first place. It reminds me of the first time I heard the Menace II Society soundtrack with “Str8 Up Menace,” “Trigga Gots No Heart,” and “Pocket Full of […]
