This year marks four decades of avant magazine the Wire. Throughout, the British publication has frequently if fitfully championed interesting rap artists.
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Author: mreeves
Opening Acts: When the Tide Is High
Wu-Tang Clan’s second album, Wu-Tang Forever, elicits a discussion on the end of imperial eras. Plus, thoughts on Kendrick Lamar’s new album and a Fat Joe TV doc on A&E.
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Opening Acts: Rock & Rap’s Imperfect Hall
This week’s entry discusses the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted Eminem on May 4; and picks a few nuggets from Ben Merlis’ oral history of the Juice Crew and Cold Chillin’ Records.
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Opening Acts: The Best Rapper Alive Since…
This week brings a new column of hip-hop happenings past and present: Opening Acts. The inaugural edition mulls over a GQ cover story on Future, Alchemist vs. Get on Down, a reissue of Godfather Don’s Hazardous, and the UK group Caveman.
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The 100 Best Rap Singles of 1992
The year 1992 not only brought a cornucopia of thrills, it also marked the beginning of the second half of what’s now known as the “golden era,” when the genre’s greatest peaks and worst tragedies were just beyond the horizon.
View More The 100 Best Rap Singles of 1992Ranked: Kanye West
The College Dropout (2004) — ***** Late Registration (2005) — ****1/2 Graduation (2007) — **** 808s & Heartbreak (2008) — ***1/2 My Beautiful Dark Twisted…
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Curren$y & The Alchemist, Continuance
Continuance is the latest in a series of well-received collaborations between Curren$y and the Alchemist, engaging an audience in thrall with classicist tropes.
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Sole & DJ Pain 1, Post American Studies
On his latest collaboration with DJ Pain 1, Sole delivers an anarchist broadside against global inequity and US hegemony.
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A Company Flow Fan’s DJ Bag in 1997
As I spent the weekend revisiting Company Flow’s Funcrusher Plus — an album I once had on constant rotation — I began to wonder…what other records did I spin as an amateur DJ in 1997?
View More A Company Flow Fan’s DJ Bag in 1997