rap
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Making Sense of the World: A Conversation with Dessa
Dessa discusses her recently released album, Chime, where she stands on the intersection of poetry and performance, and self-care for busy artists.
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How to Workshop N-Words
I am not willing to let go of one of the only things that truly belong to my people and me. It’s a very exclusive, very tumultuous kind of privilege.
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STRIPPERDADDY
My thoughts hovered above the scene pondering the reasons why and time felt like the waves of a puddle lapping against cracked asphalt.
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Staying Syncretic: A Conversation with Kool A.D.
Kool A.D. discusses his debut novel, OK, the war on drugs, systemic destruction of left-leaning movements by the government, and the inability to escape American capitalism.
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Album of the Week: Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN.
With rumors and speculation about another new record dropping on the second Coachella weekend flying, Kendrick Lamar’s fourth studio album DAMN. (out via TDE/ Interscope) has already established itself as an instant classic. Lamar, who prefers to identify as musician…
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Song of the Day: “Louder Than A Bomb”
“Rhythm is the rebel,” Chuck D raps on “Louder Than A Bomb,” one of many outstanding tracks from Public Enemy’s touchstone 1988 record, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. Of all the controversial and heartfelt statements…
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Vince Staples’s Challenge
Vince Staples appeared on Hot 97 recently to deliver a freestyle, challenging #BlackLivesMatter protestors to make the future brighter through positive community action, among many other things. (He also would be happy if his girlfriend looked like M.I.A., for instance.) Listen to the full rap…
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A Music Drama (Actually) about Music
Netflix’s The Get Down is receiving quite a bit of attention for being the unicorn of music drama: for once, a show about a moment in musical history is actually about the music! Directed by Baz Luhrmann, the show is receiving accolades for following…
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Dinosaurs, Aliens, and Rappers
In its infinite wisdom, VICE has produced a show for the company’s TV channel, VICELAND, where Action Bronson and his friends smoke themselves into oblivion while they try to grapple with the immensity of history and the cosmos as communicated by cheeseball history…
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Living Performance Art
The Internet’s been freaking out about Kanye West’s latest bid to be the center of all things surreal about our culture: his video for the track “Famous” features breathing sculptures of celebrities who may or may not have given permission for…
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Cosmically Illegal
At the Kenyon Review blog, Brian Michael Murphy celebrates the sheer density of reference and intricate structuring of rap lyrics revealed by a computer program, The Raplyzer, and its Rhyme Factor Scale. Murphy dissects the lyric genius of Wu-Tang’s Inspectah…
