Hip-hop sometimes sounds like a once future culture hung up on its past. Welcome back Izod Lacoste pastels and skinny jeans, cocaine binges and nuclear fears. But what once appeared effortless now seems premeditated. Missy's Cybotron and Fergie's Sexual Harrassment samples are noise as capital, a guarantee against future earnings. Atlanta's "snap" and "trap" allude to mid-'80s New York minimalism and late-'80s Los Angeles brutalism. These are noise-as-mask strategies, invoking battles already won to armor artists for the war ahead. What becomes pop in America must return as... More >>>