JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown are two of the most innovative and edgy artists in Hip Hop, responsible for some of our favorite experimental Hip Hop albums released in recent times – Danny Brown’s sophomore album X X X (2011), the underrated Old (2013), and the masterful Atrocity Exhibition (2016) are excellent works of art, as are JPEGMAFIA’s boundary-pushing Veteran (2018), All My Heroes Are Cornballs (2019), and LP! (2021). Knowing both artists’ previous works, it’s no surprise this JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown collaboration alb ..read more

Normally we do not include mixtapes that are composed of leftovers from recording sessions for other albums on our best-of-the-year lists, but for this Arrested Development project, we have to make an exception. On The Cutting Room Floor contains ten tracks (actually nine and an interlude) recorded in the last ten years that were left off albums Arrested Development dropped in that time period. The fact that the songs on On The Cutting Room Floor didn’t make the cut is a testament to the quality of Arrested Development’s latest releases – it’s not for nothing Don’t Fi ..read more

Kool Keith has been an enigma ever since he appeared on the Hip Hop scene as part of the Ultramagnetic MCs crew more than 35 years ago, debuting in 1988 with the innovative classic Critical Beatdown. Always out of the mainstream spotlight, his signature style is a stream-of-consciousness lyrical flow with complex vocals usually peppered with bizarre, disjointed, even delusional or disassociated themes, concepts, and references – skills that earn him a perennial nod from the underground Hip Hop community. Quality control has never been his main concern, but among his almost endl ..read more

Debut album, ‘3 Feet High and Rising,’ was released March 3, 1989, 34 years ago today. NEW YORK, NY (March 3, 2023) – Legendary Hip Hop group De La Soul today announce their entire back catalog is available on all major streaming platforms and digital retailers for the first time. Listeners can now easily access the group’s classic albums, such as 3 Feet High and Rising, De La Soul Is Dead, and Buhloone Mindstate. Click here to access all albums. Also available today is exclusive merchandise, vinyl, CDs, and cassettes on the band’s website, wearedelasoul.com via their label AOI ..read more

When Long Island Hip Hop trio De La Soul arrived in 1989 with their debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, they sounded like nothing else. The album’s colorful, almost collaged production aesthetic and the rappers’ rhyme styles that were equal parts clever and goofily humorous made De La Soul a gentler, more inventive one-of-a-kind presence in a rap landscape largely defined by aggression and righteous anger. De La Soul was inventive and eclectic, bringing not only funk and soul, but also pop, jazz, reggae, and psychedelia samples into their strange and alluring patchwork of sounds. The group c ..read more

The untimely death at age 54 of De La Soul’s David Jude Jolicoeur, known widely as Trugoy the Dove and one of the founding members of legendary Long Island Hip Hop trio De La Soul, has elicited an outpouring of grief from the Hip Hop community on Twitter. ? Dave Jolicoeur, a.k.a. Trugoy The Dove, from legendary trio De La Soul has died… He was 54. #RIPTrugoyTheDove #RIPDave pic.twitter.com/Zkl66OhCXg — Hip Hop Golden Age (@HipHopGoldenAge) February 12, 2023   #RestInBeats my Bro #Dave #Trugoy #DeLaSoul forever ⁦@hiphopgods⁩ pic.twitter.com/bS5thhyOA1 — Chuck D (@MrChuckD) February 12 ..read more

Skyzoo’s eleventh studio album The Mind Of A Saint – produced entirely by The Other Guys – delves into the innermost thoughts of one Franklin Saint, the lead character in the hit FX show, Snowfall, which follows the early stages of the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. “When making this album, I wanted to do something that creatively pushed a button. Something that served a purpose while trying to understand both sides of the fence that it represents. The idea of a fictional character, Franklin Saint, and what his innermost thoughts could be when dealing with the ficti ..read more

The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop The essential oral history of hip-hop, from its origins on the playgrounds of the Bronx to its reign as the most powerful force in pop culture—from the award-winning journalist behind All the Pieces Matter, the New York Times bestselling oral history of The Wire   “The Come Up is Abrams at his sharpest, at his most observant, at his most insightful.”—Shea Serrano, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hip-Hop (And Other Things) ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Boston Globe, The G ..read more

Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm “This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius.” ―QUESTLOVE Equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century. He wasn’t known to mainstream audiences, even though he worked with renowned acts like D’Angelo and Erykah Badu and influenced the music of superstars like Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson ..read more

It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him From a talented young journalist on the rise, a deeply reported, timely new biography of the Notorious B.I.G., publishing for what would have been his 50th birthday The Notorious B.I.G. was one of the most charismatic and talented artists of the 1990s. Born Christopher Wallace and raised in Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, Biggie lived an almost archetypal rap life: young trouble, drug dealing, guns, prison, a giant hit record, the wealth and international superstardom that came with it, then an early violent death. Biggie released his f ..read more