Ben Davis

Ad-Rock Hated "Faggots" and Other Beastie Boys Revelations Gleaned From Our Archives

Since October of 1955, when Norman Mailer and co. founded The Village Voice as a weekly paper for bros of the leftist pinko persuasion, we've done our dutiful best to preserve every word ever printed in our pages, tucking them away in our vast archival editorial library (pictured above). This summer ... More >>

All Art Is Propaganda

Ben Davis sums up art, class, and criticism in 9.5 Theses

'Scott Siegel's Broadway Ballyhoo Festival'

This Week in the Voice: "Gary Jones" Wants Your Nudes

This week in the Voice, out today, Camille Dodero writes about the FBI's investigation of revenge porn entrepreneur Hunter Moore, noting: "as more unsuspecting subjects ended up on Is Anyone Up, more of them claimed that they'd been hacked -- that someone had actually gained access to their e-mail a ... More >>

This Week in the Voice: Bail is Busted

This week in the Voice, out today: Nick Pinto busts bail and explains how jail really works, writing about OWS and incarceration: "As the Occupy Wall Street movement has introduced a new young generation of mostly white, mostly middle-class activists to civil disobedience, arrest, jail, and the inne ... More >>

Boom, Bubble, Bust: Matthew Barney + Jenny Saville + Mickalene Thomas

New York goes retread. But maybe there's a little hope

This Week's Voice: Winter Arts Guide, Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday, Iron & Wine, the Dipset Reunion, and More

Nicki Minaj, the O. Henry of rap. Photo by Howard Huang.​In this week's Village Voice, we present our Winter Arts Guide, featuring Mikael Wood on Iron & Wine's new record, Aaron Hillis in conversation with British actress Lesley Manville, James Hannaham's winter books picks, Ben Davis on artis ... More >>

This Week in the Voice: Dan Choi, Bad Lieutenant

​Lt. Daniel Choi resembles so many other American soldiers in many, many ways: as a late 20s West Point grad who loves his country, a born-again Christian, as a soldier who's served two tours in Iraq, and as a soldier who's been kicked out of the military. But even that isn't the distinguishment t ... More >>

This Week's Voice: Avey Tare, Greg Nice, and More

Crocodiles are kind of a thing for Avey Tare. Photo by Atiba Jefferson.​In this week's Village Voice, Andy Beta talks with Animal Collective's Avey Tare about this new solo record, Down There, and Jesse Serwer catches up with Greg Nice at the quarter-century mark of his august rap career.

This Week in the Voice: Inside the Brutal World of America's Kidnapping Capital

​Phoenix, Arizona! The fifth most populated city in the country. It's the capital of Arizona, the Grand Canyon State! It's also -- as the center of the United States' immigration crisis with two sides viciously battling over the future of millions of people -- the place where the most people i ... More >>

This Week's Voice: Queens of the Stone Age, Freddie Gibbs, the 100 Fake Bands of Sonny Smith, and More

Freddie Gibbs, who could use a better promo picture. Photo by Alexander Richter.​In this week's Village Voice, Rob Harvilla on the pointless, entirely necessary reissue of Queens of the Stone Age's Rated R, Jayson Greene assesses the market value of Freddie Gibbs, and Kurt Gottschalk talks wit ... More >>

This Week's Voice: Summer Guide!

​In this week's Village Voice, we present our annual summer guide, featuring all sorts of seasonal picks for music, film, art, dance, theater, food, etc., not to mention Mikael Wood on the club-pop reboot of Kelis, Ben Davis on Lightning Bolt's Brian Chippendale, Jed Lipinski on Pulitzer winne ... More >>

This Week's Voice: Spring Arts Guide, Todd P's MtyMx, Joke Rap, She & Him, Shopping with Gang Gang Dance's Lizzi Bougatsos, Loser Lit, and More

Lizzi Bougatsos joins The Last Supper on Canal Street. Photo by David Wentworth.​In this week's Village Voice, we present our Spring Arts Guide: Angela Ashman goes shopping with Gang Gang Dance's Lizzi Bougatsos, James Hannaham talks to Baise-Moi director Virginie Despentes, Ben Davis on Grúp ... More >>

This Week's Voice: Spring Arts Guide, Wells Tower, Metric, Soderbergh, Britney Spears, Will Oldham, Mary Gaitskill, I Love You, Man, and More

Frances Llewellyn In this week's Village Voice, we unveil our 2009 Spring Arts Guide: Stacey Anderson on Metric's dreamy new Fantasies, Zach Baron on author Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, Aaron Hillis in conversation with Steven Soderbergh, Robert Shuster on sculptor Chakaia B ... More >>

This Week in the Voice

When you think about out-of-control parents and coaches in little-league sports, you probably think of the suburbs. But right here in the city, there are sixth-graders playing 12 months a year, with sponsors like Nike, signing bonuses -- and out-of-control parents and coaches. This is Elite Youth ... More >>

This Week's Voice: Hipster Runoff, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Great Depression Double Bills, Piero Manzoni, and More

In this week's Village Voice Music Section, Rob Harvilla gives us "Hipster Runoff Explained (Maybe)," a possibly illuminating chat with the Internet's latest mystery man. Stephen Slaybaugh investigates the sweet pop pleasure of the Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Aidan Levy on the ambitious 'Searc ... More >>

This Week in the Voice

Graham Rayman has been following the "Fight Club" cooked up by Rikers Island guards for a couple of years, and the Bronx D.A. has started dishing out charges. Inmates used and rewarded as enforcers, beatings arranged so as not to leave marks, victims intimidated into silence (and a few killed) -- t ... More >>

This Week's Voice: An Interview with JT LeRoy, Built to Spill, T.I., the New York Film Festival, and More

Mel Cheren Memorial

Grave Occasions

Bench Coach

Herb Williams doesn't get on the court often, but he's invaluable off it