Music

On his first solo song in two years, the rapper ushers in his new era as an independent artist Read More RSS: News News 

The state of pop culture has shifted a lot over the decades. The idea of the “rock star” had pretty much faded with the death of Kurt Cobain and the grunge era. Eventually, the battle for cultural supremacy was the pop stars and boy bands versus hip-hop. Through a war of attrition, hip-hop outlasted and became the face of pop culture. Nowadays, it’s hard to quite define pop culture at […]

You know a beef is destined to last forever when religious leaders can’t even end it. 2003 was the peak of the feud between 50 Cent and Ja Rule. 50 was coming off of some incredible mixtapes, solo and with the rest of G-Unit. Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ was setting the world on fire. Beg For Mercy made the rest of his crew look like superstars. Amidst all of […]

It’s not easy to rap and act well. Usually, one is favored more than the other because they are two different disciplines. There’s a reason Mark Wahlberg didn’t eventually go back to being Marky Mark and sending out good vibrations. Being on screen and playing a role was much easier than wielding a mic for him. Similarly, Drake was solid as Wheelchair Jimmy in Degrassi, but he’s clearly found his […]

Hip-hop heads heralded Lil Wayne in 2007 as one of the all-time greats. Da Drought 3 is arguably his crowning achievement out of his many fantastic mixtapes. Moreover, it was hard to listen to any song without a feature verse from the New Orleans legend. It’s that prolific, hard-working edge that made 50 Cent call him an “industry wh*re” at the time. However, in a 2007 interview with XXL, Wayne […]

We tend to judge a book by its cover when it comes to albums. Whether we want to admit it or not, an ugly album cover will disincentivize us from listening to a record. But if the right visuals speak to us, we’re more inclined to see what the full record sounds like. That’s part of why music videos maintained such a strong grip on society during the peak of […]

When you think about 90s R&B, what comes to mind? The casuals will play Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It” and Mark Morrison’s “Return Of The Mack” to death at house parties. You’ll get a little Jodeci and Mary J. Blige, and probably “Can We Talk” by Tevin Campbell. It can all run a little predictably. As a result, 90s R&B risks feeling a little cliché. But what […]

It’s hard to imagine a time when The Weeknd wasn’t always one of the biggest pop stars in the world. Nowadays, he’s always extremely visible. Beyond the music, he plastered himself on movies and an HBO TV show. To think there was a point where no one knew what he looked like. But back in 2011, the mind behind House of Balloons was completely anonymous. People spent months trying to […]