Clik here to view.
Freddie Gibbs and Madlib Craft a Deft, Eccentric Street-Rap Epic on ‘Pinata’
7 SPIN Rating: 7 of 10Release Date: March 18, 2014Label: Madlib Invazion Piñata, the full-length collaboration between 21st-century gangster rapper Freddie Gibbs and 31st-century producer Madlib,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Roots Save Their Sour Notes for the Quizzically Bleak ‘…And Then You...
6 SPIN Rating: 6 of 10Release Date: May 20, 2014Label: Island Def Jam In this post-Internet age of cross-platform synergy as condo down-payment survival, the Roots have flourished. There is the band...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kendrick Lamar Has Already Won in Every Way, But Sure, He’ll Take a Grammy Too
Back in 2009, just as Kendrick Lamar began to gain notice on blogs such as 2dopeboyz.com, he offered this lyric on “I Am (Interlude),” from his self-titled EP: “See, y’all don’t understand me / My...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Open Mike Eagle and Paul White Get Up Close and Well, You Know, on...
7 SPIN Rating: 7 of 10Release Date: March 18, 2016Label: Mello Music Group If the late, lamented revolutionary poet Gil Scott-Heron was a college-bound poet today, he might be writing raps in the vein...
View ArticleClik here to view.
SPIN R&B Report: Tweet Flutters Back Into View, K. Michelle Puts the Real in...
Yes, there’s more to R&B in early 2016 than Anderson .Paak. The Los Angeles dynamo has been rightly lionized for blending hip-hop, pimpish soul, and skate-park pop on his second album Malibu,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Come Test Death Grips and Get Sliced on ‘Bottomless Pit’
8 SPIN Rating: 8 of 10Release Date: May 06, 2016Label: Third Worlds / Harvest Four years ago, Death Grips exemplified the anti-corporate violence and rugged individualism of black-bloc anarchism. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Life After Death Row: A Guide to Snoop Dogg’s Post-‘Doggystyle’ Career
The quarter-century-long career of Calvin Broadus — a.k.a. Snoop Doggy Dogg — is full of contradictions. He’s a husband and father whose devotion to his family is evident in such heartwarming reality...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: NAO Fumbles Toward Ecstasy on ‘For All We Know’
8 SPIN Rating: 8 of 10Release Date: July 29, 2016Label: RCA British R&B singer Neo Joshua has charted a slow — yet inexorable — path to her own startling breakout moment. She entered as one-fifth...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Rae Sremmurd Dim the Fun, Along With the Lights, on ‘SremmLife 2’
7 SPIN Rating: 7 of 10Release Date: August 12, 2016Label: EarDrummers/Interscope Last year, it was impossible to go anywhere — a nightclub, a rooftop barbecue, even the supermarket — without hearing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
SPIN R&B Report: Yuna Props Up Woozy Soul With Smelling Salts, Laura Mvula...
While the world spent much of this year waiting for Frank Ocean, R&B continued to evolve. This season’s picks illustrate that there’s a thriving crop of sounds beyond the pop and social-media...
View Article