The world never sleeps: continuing an April filled with life-altering, traumatic events, the start of May brings more change and sometimes, more of the same. From Jason Collins' public declaration of his sexuality to Lil Wayne's ill-timed and very poor joke about Emmett Till, every day is a new dose...

By Aarica West

Kendrick Lamar has been the exception to the rule in many regards throughout his life. While the divorce rate is steadily on the rise, Lamar was privileged to have grown up with both a mother and a father in his household. Living in the rough,...

by Shawn Setaro

Something is in the air among rappers this fall. There has been a spate of releases by artists who hearken back to an approach to music-making not seen since the height of the soul era. Several recent albums form a mini-trend...

by Shawn Setaro

Lupe Fiasco has recently been one of rap's most fascinating figures. From his shockingly open pronouncements about record label pressures to his bold political statements (being an early and vocal advocate of Occupy Wall Street, performing on BET while wearing a Palestinian...

by Aarica West

If you've got it, flaunt it; and even if you don't, front like you do. At least, this is what Rick Ross successfully embodies. Although much of what he raps about seems to be a fabricated, fanciful lifestyle, it's clear that Ross has...

by Abby Raskin

When I think "modern American pastimes," I think birth certificate conspiracies. In the case of DJ Khaled, I've often wondered whether he may have been born with ten or so exclamation points after his name. His latest venture and sixth studio album, Kiss the Ring,...

By Brandon Gross

Disclaimer: The review you are about to read was inspired while on a stationary bike from the confines of my well-appointed employers on-site fitness room, and subsequently penned from the comforts of rapidly gentrifying Venice, Calif.

I share this seemingly irrelevant note...

by Shawn Setaro

Rick Ross' new album God Forgives, I Don't gets released this week, and much will be said about it, both positive and negative. But the true nature of the album will likely go largely unnoticed. It is, in fact,...

By Shawn Setaro

The 1996 movie Space Jam, a half-animated, half-live-action trifle featuring Michael Jordan in his, um, "acting" debut, caused a big splash at the time of its release. However, it was quickly forgotten about and relegated to a special hell where other post-Mel Blanc Bugs projects lie. (We're...

By Alan Pyke

There's nothing on Channel Orange that captures the deathwish misery of "Swim Good" or the slacker sexiness of "Novacane," but Frank Ocean's debut LP is very enjoyable despite not scaling the pop-epic heights of his first hits. And if the heights aren't so high,...

Should we care whether Frank Ocean is gay or bisexual? The short answer is no. Recently this week Anderson Cooper and Megan Rapino, a soccer player on the U.S. women's national soccer team came out of the closet but it wasn't a big shock to anyone who followed their personal...

Royalty - Childish Gambino

The more things change, the more Childish Gambino's commitments to Asian women and pop-culture references stay the same. The style wrapped around those CG mainstays is evolving for the better, though. For a successful comic cat who's decided to fight for rap legitimacy, Royalty is a...

Rapper Lupe Fiasco is intimately familiar with the pressures on artists to make hits. He went through a very public spat with his label, Atlantic Records, over the direction of his 2011 album Lasers, and was publicly indifferent about the finished product -- an indifference...

Maybach Music Group, now ironically named after a defunct auto trademark, shows no signs of losing traction. Over the past few years, the tight-knit group of artists, namely Rick Ross, Meek Mill, Wale, and Stalley, have transformed the rap landscape with their constant supply of Ciroc and...

Kanye West is back, and he brought friends! The ambitious and always-entertaining rapper has a new film, Cruel Summer, and a soundtrack that features tracks from him and the rest of his G.O.O.D. Music crew. So far, the standout song of the...