Making lists can sometimes be good times. This is not one of these times. Since I have no interest in trying to sum up the last ten years of rap at this particular point in time, I’ve decided to revert to the tried and tested method of figuring out which albums got the most airtime in my car this year. Since the ride is where most of us do our serious listening (what else are you gonna do? Concentrate on the road?) it seemed pretty clear that a quick check of my ipod’s ‘Play Count’ function would reveal all. Let’s not get bogged down in trivial pursuits such as trying to determine who made the greatest artistic statements or innovations – the numbers don’t lie. The shit I played while I may or may not have been partaking in a few quiet beverages is the only real truth to be told here. (more…)
The current whereabouts of LA rappers who made some noise in the late 80′s and early 90′s most likely isn’t something that you spend a lot of time thinking about during your daily operations, right? If it is, chances are you’re a blogger. The thing is, during a series of seemingly unrelated coincidences the other week, I discovered that pretty much every 90′s rapper from the West Coast has released new music in the last year or so. I’d assumed that most of these guys had given-up on the music game by the turn-of-the-century and opened up barbershops or gotten their real estate license, but it turns out that I couldn’t be more wrong. Let’s take a quick look at some of these old warhorses still churning out CD’s not named Snoop, Ice-T or Ice Cube…
MC Ren
The often-forgotten secret weapon in NWA‘s arsenal, the Villain In Black managed to release some quality solo work after the group crumbled, pretty much up the the point where he joined the Nation. His latest CD was released in 2009. (more…)
Just for shits ‘n gigs I thought I’d look back at the most viewed articles I dropped last year, according to WordPress Site Stats. Interesting that only one interview cracked the top ten, despite most readers telling me that the Q & A’s are the highlight of this spot and the fact that they take about ten times more work than the rest of the content on here. Shit happens I guess. (more…)
