Darkstar, News from Nowhere
Placid on the surface, with intricacies that emerge with patient listeningSix years after their first batch of trad-dubstep singles, four years after the skittering buzz of their breakthrough “Aidy’s...
View ArticleAdrian Younge Presents the Delfonics
A fitting addition to the canon of a justly revered name in R&BThe original Delfonics lineup split up decades ago, but their legacy has lingered. The hip-hop generation saw to that, using Thom...
View ArticleTicklah, Ticklah vs. Axelrod
Melting-pot eclecticism done rightVictor Axelrod can do it all, or at least everything he feels like doing. As a contributing member of Antibalas, the Dap-Kings, Menahan Street Band and Easy-Star All...
View ArticleGhostface Killah & Adrian Younge, Twelve Reasons to Die
An elaborate, conceptual attempt at a fantastical origin storyThough his persona draws from comics, true crime and 42nd Street double features, it can still be pretty easy to see Ghostface Killah as...
View ArticleLilacs & Champagne, Danish & Blue
The soundtrack to the best stoner-rap neo-noir never madeGrails members Alex Hall and Emil Amos struck beat-geek paydirt in 2012 with their self-titled debut as Lilacs & Champagne, a musty,...
View ArticleAtmosphere, Southsiders (Edited Version)
A return to Atmosphere's rootsYou can’t blame Slug for being frustrated: When The Family Sign dropped in 2011, it proved to be one of Atmosphere’s most divisive albums, with the focus on domesticity...
View ArticleAtmosphere, Southsiders (Deluxe Version)
A return to Atmosphere's rootsYou can’t blame Slug for being frustrated: When The Family Sign dropped in 2011, it proved to be one of Atmosphere’s most divisive albums, with the focus on domesticity...
View ArticleG&D, The Lighthouse
Maintaining their futuristic-vintage outlook on music and philosophyGeorgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins have been making their spaced-out, meditative brand of astral soul so steadily —...
View ArticleAceyalone, Leanin’ On Slick
Toeing the line between underground rap and the traditions that scene built its base onFrom the breaks that first propelled Kool Herc’s parties in ’73 to Dre’s minimoogs to Mystikal’s manic James Brown...
View ArticleKendra Morris, Mockingbird
The soul-inflected singer goes all in with the most music-geek, history-minded of movesAfter a solid showing with her 2012 debut album Banshee, soul-inflected singer Kendra Morris has gone all in with...
View ArticleGoodie Mob, Age Against the Machine
It doesn't feel like 1995, but it still feels like Goodie MobExpectations are intrusive enough when you’re dealing with a reunion from a long-dissolved beloved musical act. With the new Goodie Mob...
View ArticleTanya Morgan, Rubber Souls
Merging goodwill spirit with a neo-soul vibeHaving broken through on 2006′s Moonlighting and reinforced their name on 2009′s Brooklynati, Tanya Morgan have hit that point in their still-evolving career...
View ArticleBlack Milk, No Poison No Paradise
A producer's ambition rewardedOnce touted as a potential Dilla heir, the producer and rapper Black Milk has evolved over his past few albums into someone much trickier to pin down. His Detroit-molded...
View ArticleQuelle Chris, Ghost at the Finish Line
Detroit rapper sounds like he could be good at anything, or everythingIt took a few years for Detroit-based producer/MC Quelle Chris to firmly establish his name in hip-hop, but on his solo...
View ArticlePusha T, My Name Is My Name
Self-assured presence, a cold sneer and X-Acto precisionTo call the years since “Grindin’” hit big “unpredictable” for Clipse would be a simultaneous understatement and exaggeration. Veering from...
View ArticlePusha T, My Name Is My Name (Edited Version)
Self-assured presence, a cold sneer and X-Acto precisionTo call the years since “Grindin’” hit big “unpredictable” for Clipse would be a simultaneous understatement and exaggeration. Veering from...
View ArticlePharoahe Monch, PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
A gripping reminder of what he can do when nothing holds him backAfter 2011′s thematically scattershot, lyrically inconsistent W.A.R. (We Are Renegades), it would have been sufficient for Pharoahe...
View ArticleAtmosphere, Southsiders
A return to Atmosphere's rootsYou can’t blame Slug for being frustrated: When The Family Sign dropped in 2011, it proved to be one of Atmosphere’s most divisive albums, with the focus on domesticity...
View ArticlePeanut Butter Wolf and Charizma, Circa 1990-1993
It’s one of the biggest what-ifs in underground hip-hop: What if Charizma, the young, slick MC with the command and bravado of prime LL, hadn’t been murdered a week before Christmas ’93? Would his...
View ArticleShabazz Palaces, Lese Majesty
The clearest statement yet from abstract hip-hop's calmest bomberIshmael Butler, the vocal force behind Shabazz Palaces, traffics in a strain of Afrofuturism that refuses to jettison the past or charge...
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