hip-hop
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It’s Happening: L7 Reunion Tour
The formative LA group started talking about a tour with all original members at the end of last year, later coming out with a teaser trailer and plans for a documentary in the works. Sure enough, it’s all happening: tour dates…
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Surf Out in Time for Your Next BBQ
In case you missed it, Chance the Rapper and his band The Social Experiment collaborated with Donnie Trumpet to release their joint LP Surf last week and, well, it’s pretty great. And it’s free. The album could be the “most…
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The Rumpus Interview with Tyler Gartzman
Rapper Tyler Gartzman talks about getting high, hypothetically making out with George Bush, not getting laid since high school, and how a white, Jewish kid in Atlanta became a talented hip-hop wordsmith.
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Grandma Loved It
As if we needed any more evidence that Maya Angelou was both a goddess of verse and the chill best friend you wish you had (sorry JLaw), Billboard has revealed her collaboration on an album that mixes her poetry with…
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Rhyme’s Challenge: Hip Hop, Poetry, and Contemporary Rhyming Culture by David Caplan
Charlotte Pence reviews David Caplan’s Rhyme’s Challenge: Hip Hop, Poetry, and Contemporary Rhyming Culture today in Rumpus Poetry.
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Homophobia in Hip-Hop
Rumpus pal W. Kamau Bell talked to prominent hip-hop video-blogger Jay Smooth in an interview spotlighted over at Racialicious. The two discuss homophobia in hip-hop and the eminent wisdom of black queer icons like James Baldwin, Bayard Rustin, and Audre…
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The Rumpus Interview with Dessa
There are some important strands of humanity that I think do unite us, and I think stories are a powerful way of showcasing those universals or those commonalities.
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The Waka Effect
It’s a tale as old as the ancient bones of the hills: A middle-aged white lady develops an interest in blogging about rap music. She befriends hip-hop artist Waka Flocka Flame over Twitter. Her husband gets jealous and controlling. She…
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“Male Rapper” List Spoofs Industry Sexism
From his boy-next-door looks, you sure wouldn’t peg Eminem as superstar material. But put a beat behind him, and he turns from a feisty-cute Detroit blonde into a raging microphone demon. His autobiographical film 8 Mile is a riveting account…
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Drake’s East African Girl
Previously, we linked to a Feminist Wire post about being a black fan of a white musician who has said racist things. They have another great post up about race and music fandom, this one by Safy-Hallan Farah: For a…
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Putting Tracks on the Map
Jay Shells, an artist currently working in New York, is taking favorite rap lyrics and putting the tracks on the map … all over the Big Apple. This project, which Shells calls “Rap Quotes,” consists of homemade but very official-looking street signs…
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Straight Outta Stratford
Whom do we have to thank for the line “I’ll teach you how to flow”? LL Cool J? Method Man? Actually, it’s Antonio, Prospero’s villainous brother in The Tempest. HTMLGiant collects this and other Shakespeare quotes that sound like 1990s hip-hop…