The last time Wale released a summer mixtape to hype a fall album, he had a Lady Gaga cameo. Nowadays he's just grateful for his Twitter fans: The Eleven One Eleven Theory dropped after he clocked his millionth follower. The new mixtape may have crashed HulkShare yesterday, but it's fair to say Wale can't claim the same level of anticipation [...]
It’s difficult to approach Watch the Throne—the collaborative super-friends blockbuster from Kanye West and Jay-Z—while keeping the vitriol in check. This is Brett Favre stunting the development and progress of his home team by not stepping aside and letting Aaron Rodgers forge style and identity. Through its corner-office reign, the pair has kept a vice [...]
Click Track says it's the "Year of the Fugazi Cover", now that TV on the Radio's brilliant live rendition of "Waiting Room" at last weekend's Pitchfork Music Festival is all over the Internet. (Full disclosure: Hearing the song's bass intro after battling the heat all day cheered me right up.) The year is barely past [...]
It’s Monday night at the Kennedy Center, and the cocktail crowd is confused. On many evenings, programming on the arts center’s free Millennium Stage skews toward background music for patrons killing time before Wicked. But at this particular moment, there’s no exchanging of pleasantries.
A front line of poets performs sharp-elbowed verse while prickly guitars, percussion, [...]
Slug has been a professional rapper for over 20 years. He’s happily married, runs a flagship indie hip-hop label, and cares tons about his legacy. To points of paranoia: It’s days before his sixth Atmosphere album, The Family Sign, hits shelves and Slug can’t pirate it online.
“Usually if it doesn’t leak through the press circuit [...]
Is Nothing Sacred?: If the federal government shuts down this weekend, the Cherry Blossom Festival parade may be canceled. The parade, which draws thousands of people each year, partially takes place on lands controlled by the National Park Service. Festival spokesperson Danielle Piacente says organizers are fighting back: “We’re ready to appeal to whoever we [...]
All week, Arts Desk profiles area artists heading to Texas for the South by Southwest Music Conference, March 15-20.
On last year’s exceptional summer mixtape, The Letterman, DMV rapper Phil Adé made his intentions and aesthetics perfectly clear:“I’m the only 21-year-old that raps like he’s 30.”
Adé’s flow is mature and smoky. Catch his guest verses alongside area MCs [...]
Hip-hop producer and rapper Black Milk is easy to pull for. He hails from Detroit, a hub of American heartache. The ideas of representing and tradition—specifically of carrying on the beat-making values of the posthumously celebrated-en-masse J Dilla—are not lost on Black Milk (born Curtis Cross). His work is mostly outstanding. He’s pensive and humble [...]
June Summers f/ Waka Flocka Flame & Fat Trel – "Shooter"
WCP's favorite shirtless local gangsta rapper and WCP's favorite shirtless national gangsta rapper have finally made a record. It's not a life-changing record, but a solid display of utilitarian goon-hop with Waka revisiting his "stepchild of hip-hop" motif while Trel makes some seemingly R. Kelly-inspired [...]
This week "H.A.M.", the first single from the highly anticipated Jay-Z and Kanye West collaborative album, Watch The Throne, dropped. Internet insta-reaction was mixed, which is understandable considering expectations were so high. After all, West's recently released My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the greatest thing since the advent of air, and the pair have [...]
