DJ Premier

Ill Bill Gets "Grimey" on New Solo Album

After five years former Non-Phixion member Ill Bill has finally released his latest solo album, The Grimey Awards. The record looks to continue his gritty New York boom-bap vision that help defined the city's alternative rap underground in the late '90s. We spoke to Bill about the people in his life ... More >>

The Top 3.66 Hip-Hop Songs Of The Week

Hip-hop is at its best when artists collaborate, challenging one another to create their best work, and this week's best hip-hop tracks are highlighted by a collection of odd couples. DJ Khaled, of incessant yelling and inexplicably giving Ace Hood work, managed to put Nas, Scarface and DJ Premier o ... More >>

Six Great '90s NYC Rap Demos

"Please listen to my demo!" That particular plea may no longer be heard coming from plucky upcoming rappers, what with the Internet age and all, but there's an undeniable pull about getting to hear the industry-ears-only dusty tapes that begat some of hip-hop's finest album moments. This week sees t ... More >>

The Top Six Game Show Appearances By Rappers

The news of a rapper-packed revamp of Hollywood Squares has been greeted positively, not least because everyone has been able to join in the fun of Googling the demographic term "malennials" to find out if they are going to be allowed to watch the show. It's also allowed some people speculate on whi ... More >>

Rakim (6) And The Notorious B.I.G. (3) Battle In A SOTC March Madness Meeting Of Hip-Hop Greats

​Sound of the City's search for the quintessential New York City musician enters Round Two this week, with battles in the Round of 32 daily. Keep up with all the action here. Brooklyn's finest meets Strong Island's most prominent in a match up of two lyrical hip-hop powerhouses. Having steamrolle ... More >>

M.O.P.'s Five Favorite Collaborations

If you don't like M.O.P., you probably don't really like rap music—or so the cliché goes. But there's something in the sentiment: For nearly two decades now, Billy Danze and Lil Fame have been putting out passionate, uncompromising rap music that's rooted in a resolutely east cost aesthetic. ... More >>

Brooklyn's Nitty Scott MC Gets A 16-Bar Break On BET

​"Oh, snap, it's the real-life rap Halle Berry..." And lo, with 16 bars rapped over an instrumental spun by underground hip-hop gate-keeper DJ Premier, a new star was born at the BET Hip-Hop Honors earlier this week. Well, maybe—at the very least, the performer in question saw her profil ... More >>

DJ Premier & Kendra Morris

Peter Rosenberg's What's Poppin' Vol. 1 Takes The New York Hip-Hop Scene's Pulse

​New York City rappers have been cast as something of the rap world's whipping boys for more than a few years now. Not only is it fashionable to paint the city's scene as still stuck in the '90s—that's, er, despite the man who effectively runs rap, old man Jay-Z, being pretty proud to ha ... More >>

Ten Great Neighborhood-Specific Brooklyn Rap Anthems

​This Saturday, the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival will conclude with shows by Brownsville's mighty M.O.P., who will perform their rambunctious brand of rap down under the Brooklyn Bridge, and, er, noted Queens representer Q-Tip. Rappers from Brooklyn have never been shy about proclaiming their her ... More >>

Rock The Bells NYC Lineup Updated; Erykah Badu To Perform Baduizm

Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m. for the New York City stop of the Rock The Bells Festival, which will take place on September 3 at Governors Island. The lineup for the all-star hip-hop concert, during which a slew of heavyweights (Nas, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Raekwon & Ghostface) will revisit album ... More >>

Ms. Lauryn Hill And Nas To Headline Rock The Bells Festival, Which Hits NYC In September

​The Rock The Bells festival returns to the New York area with a Sept. 2 date at Governor's Island. This year's installment is headed up by a slew of full-album sets that includes run-throughs of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Illmatic (which Nas will perform with AZ, Pete Rock and DJ Premie ... More >>

SOTC Nightlife Awards: The Best One-Offs, the Best Party To Take Anyone To, and More

Farewell, Fat Beats​​Before we sink into holiday hibernation, we thought we'd take a moment to reflect on our exploits, and present to you our very own 2010 SOTC Nightlife Awards. Below, our fifth and final installment examines the rest of the best.

Hip-Hop's Top Ten Greatest Sneaker Songs

Kid Cudi, going all out for Converse.​Sneakers have long been hip-hop's footwear of choice. The links between the artists making the music and the companies behind the kicks are now totally intermingled, from top-end exclusive lines like Jay-Z's limited-to-five-pairs all-black Air Force 1s (de ... More >>

Week In Review: We Also Accept Your Future Apology In Advance

Everybody just stop yelling, OK? Photo by Daniel Snyder.​In the week we talked about Odd Future, kidnapping and murder, and why we sometimes like the things that repel us, we also saw the group live--alongside every other music critic in the city. They struck a weird balance to the other big r ... More >>

Live: Rating Rock the Bells Sets From Slick Rick, Wu-Tang Clan, Lauryn Hill, A Tribe Called Quest, Snoop Dogg, and More

Oh, hey Q-Tip. All photos by Rebecca Smeyne.​On a sweltering Saturday, the seventh annual hip-hop nerd convention Rock The Bells took over Governor's Island. It's a place where people know to "throw a one in the air" for Guru before DJ Premier even asked, a place where you can overhear a convo ... More >>

Fat Beats Will Host One Last Week of Performances From Just Blaze, DJ Premier, A-Trak, and More Before Closing on Saturday

​The much adored, lightly patronized NYC rap mecca that is Fat Beats will close on Saturday, following the lead of HMV, Tower, the Virgin Megastore, and pretty much every other non-iTunes record shop on the planet. "The closing of Fat Beats is just like one of my friends passing away," said DJ ... More >>

The Ten Most Exploitative Posthumous Rap Projects

​Being a dead rap artist isn't much fun. Whether The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, or J Dilla, death has never seemed to do much to alleviate the constant pressure on artists to muster up new recordings to satisfy the bulging posthumous rap retail market. (In the hip-hop world, possessing a heart t ... More >>

NYC Record Store/Hip-Hop Mecca Fat Beats Is Closing

"The slogan is it's the 'Last Stop for Hip Hop," a Fat Beats employee told us last year. "But now it literally is. All the other ones closed down." From XXL now comes word that Fat Beats itself will do the same, shuttering both its New York and L.A. locations. (They'll continue on at fatbeats.com ... More >>

Week in Review: What Your Kids Will Learn

Not again! Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.​In the week we mostly spent anticipating tomorrow's Siren Festival, we talked at length with headliner Ted Leo, celebrated at a pre-party with Monotonix, and looked back at nine years worth of past triumphs. See you there, hopefully?

Live: Joell Ortiz and Jay Electronica Command A Tough Crowd At Highline Ballroom

Possibly more people onstage than in the crowd here. Joell Ortiz/Jay Electronica Highline Ballroom Tuesday, June 30 After basically booing both CyHi Da Prynce (who I--and I guess only I--actually like) and Big Krit off the stage, an extra hard NYC crowd made it clear that they weren't going to ma ... More >>

The Hip-Hop/Jazz Crossover Strategy Guide

Revive Da Live brings in both crowds . . . very, very carefully

Q&A: California Rapper Fashawn on Remaking Illmatic, Nas's 1994 East Coast Classic

"All the shit Nas was experiencing as a 21-year-old in 1994, I'm experiencing that shit now as a 21-year-old in 2010." ​In 1994, a 21-year-old Queensbridge resident calling himself Nas made a svelte, ten-track album that he titled Illmatic. Over beats concocted by a dream team of New York pro ... More >>

Snoop Dogg, A Tribe Called Quest, DJ Premier, And, Yes, Lauryn Hill Added To Rock The Bells Lineup

​Well, this has been somewhat of a confusing rollout. The news: Snoop (doing Doggystyle in its entirety), Tribe (doing Midnight Marauders), and DJ Premier (doing a Gang Starr tribute that'll probably be the highlight of the whole thing) have been added to the bill (already loaded with Wu Tang, ... More >>

The 10 Most Shocking Revelations About the Tragic Last Days of Gang Starr MC Guru

Guru and Premier, in happier times​When erstwhile Gang Starr MC Guru passed away on April 19, the rap world mourned. Not just for the loss of one of the best to ever to do it, but also for the shadowy circumstances under which he died--alone, in a hospital bed, with his family forbidden to vis ... More >>

The Hacked Emails That Expose Former Guru Partner Solar As the Most Evil Man In Hip-Hop

​In the wake of one-time Gang Starr rapper Guru's death at the young age of 47, his latter day producer and partner Solar emerged as hip-hop's most loathed villain, accused of everything from denying Guru's family access to their dying kin to fabricating a deathbed statement from the rapper to ... More >>

Week in Review: Born Free

That's how you listen to Ghostface! Photo by Rebecca Smeyne​In the week M.I.A. broke the internet in a tidal wave of blood and guts and red hair, we did our best to put it back together.

Listen to DJ Premier's Radio Tribute to His Fallen Gang Starr Partner Guru

​Though Mister Cee stepped up right away, it was always going to be Premier--who, after all, made all this music with Guru in the first place--who got the last word. You will not be surprised to hear how hurt and angry Premier is: from the opening loop of "Betrayal" to his harrowing account of ... More >>

Gang Starr Rapper Guru Dies At 43; Extraordinarily Strange Letter To His Supporters Released

After a battle with cancer, a heart attack in February, and surgery in March, Gang Starr and Jazzamatazz rapper Guru, born Keith Elam, died yesterday morning at 43. "I write this with tears in my eyes, not of sorrow but of joy for what a wonderful life I have enjoyed and how many great people I ha ... More >>

Gang Starr's Guru Is In Recovery After Surgery

According to his partner, DJ Premier, and to AllHipHop, who cite sources as saying "Guru is alive and recovering from his surgery. Doctors are expecting a full recovery luckily." It's probably too soon to start talking about silver linings but if you were so inclined, you might hope that the MC's ... More >>

The Guru Respect Mix and Other Worthwhile Tributes to the Gang Starr MC

​DJ Wonder went in on Angela Yee's show today, unleashing a half hour, 24 track tribute to Guru, the ailing Gang Starr MC and rap icon who is reportedly in a New York hospital today, undergoing surgery after a heart attack yesterday. It's great, but then, of course it is. There's a reason Gang ... More >>

HIP-HOP HEADS

Brooklyn music fest turns five

AND YOU DON’T STOP

Kick it old-school at the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival

Preview: Bun B's New Album II Trill

Weekend Bender: Optimo, Trans Am, Oneida, DJ Rob Sheffield and more

Luscious Jackson: Better Than You Remember

Live: Vince Gill, the Most Unpretentiously Pretentious Guy Ever

The Unlikely Evolution of the Black Eyed Peas

Billie in a Bottle

On Xtina's noble but knuckleheaded plea for diva greatness

The Summer's Pop Videos

Beyonce and Jay-Z's "Deja Vu": Jam of the Summer?

Live: M.O.P. Does Whatever M.O.P. Wants

Live: Ghostface Rallies the New York Rap Troops

Both Sides Now

From the underground to the chart tops, Just Blaze aims to save New York hip-hop

Garridge's Sri Chinmoy Brushes Dirt Off Shoulder, Opines at Local Pub

All The World

Not Spyro Gyra, just a hip-hop band throwing a world party

Motherland Connection

Music

The Passing of the Mic