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Mixtape Review: I Heard You Paint Houses by Conway the Machine & DJ Whoo Kid
Conway rhymes over beats jacked from 50 Cent, Eminem, and Biggie while DJ Whoo Kid hollers across the top. The writing makes the borrowed production…
11 hrs ago • Shatter the Standards and Devon Kai Brooks
Album Review: Waxing In Mecca by John Brown the Rapper & Da Beatminerz
Two years in Mickey Factz’s lyricism program, John Brown turns these beats into a clinic.
11 hrs ago • Shatter the Standards and Joelle Figueroa
Album Review: Fortune & Glory by Paul Wall
Paul Wall raps about money the way he always has, but the details have moved to crypto, the election, and cold plunges.
11 hrs ago • Shatter the Standards and Rafael Greene
The R&B of 2016, Ten Years On
A special look back at the year R&B got strange. Mýa funded her own Grammy nominee, Sean and Jhené played a couple falling apart in real time, a…
15 hrs ago • Soulpolitan
Wednesday Roundups #153: 20 New Projects You Should Listen to Now
Listen to new releases from Imani Imani, Paul Wall, Navy Blue, Smoke DZA, Jalen Ngonda, Latanya Alberto, Inayah, Sparklmami, Lakecia Benjamin, S!MONE…
23 hrs ago • Shatter the Standards
Album Review: The Way the Light Looks by Eligh & FAZE.ONE
Forty-six and content with no repeats, Eligh writes fatherhood and recovery plainer than the nanobot and matrix conceits he hangs beside them.
Jun 9 • Shatter the Standards and Harry Brown
Deciphering Jourden’s “The $triker”
On a single that opens with a cry for help on a Brooklyn corner, the rapper narrates her own drugging and knife-in-the-back escape, then spends four…
Jun 9 • Words Past da Margin and Okoye
Deciphering Tierra Whack’s “WAX PAPER”
On her first solo single in two years, the Philadelphia rapper turns a Conductor Williams loop into a two-and-a-half-minute homophone barrage and makes…
Jun 9 • Words Past da Margin and Blaise Freeman
Don’t Comment on My Body, Do Not Reply
Opening night of the Eternal Sunshine Tour in Oakland produced one of the best vocal performances of Ariana Grande’s career, and the replies from the…
Jun 8 • Shatter the Standards and Tai Lawson
Album Review: in this body by Sparklmami
Cut live and mostly in single takes, Sparklmami’s debut moves between Spanish and English over a band steeped in boleros and 1970s Brazilian jazz.
Jun 8 • Shatter the Standards and F. Qureshi
Album Review: THEE IMMACULATE by Thurz & 14KT
Thurz is a brawler and a block-level storyteller, and his peaks have real teeth, a murdered ice cream man, plus a pawned watch and a flat-out colorism…
Jun 8 • Shatter the Standards and Tariq Belson
Album Review: A Little Bit of Me by Mica Millar
Cut live with a band of soul, blues, and jazz players in Provence, Mica Millar’s second album moves between plainspoken desire and the language of the…
Jun 8 • Shatter the Standards and Raya Sinclair
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