Eric B. & Rakim

The Top 20 NYC Rap Albums of All Time: The Complete List

Any list of the Greatest New York Rap Albums of All Time is, essentially, a list of simply the Greatest Rap Albums of All Time. The genre was invented here, after all, and over the years -- from early days to Golden Age and onward-- the city's hip-hop history has been an embarrassment of riches. Fas ... More >>

The Top 20 NYC Rap Albums of All Time: 10 - 1

Any list of the Greatest New York Rap Albums of All Time is, essentially, a list of simply the Greatest Rap Albums of All Time. The genre was invented here, after all, and over the years -- from early days to Golden Age and onward-- the city's hip-hop history has been an embarrassment of riches. Fas ... More >>

Rakim's Most Random and Confounding Appearances

This Thursday night, the man who set the standard for greatness in rap, Rakim, takes the stage for a show with Wu-Tang member Raekwon at Stage 48. It's a rare event that fans get to see Rakim as, even in this era of 24/7 social media, he's remained one of the few artists in hip-hop to maintain an au ... More >>

Defend Your Ballot: Rob Sheffield, Pazz and Jop 2012 Contributor

You can't really know where you're headed unless you know where you've been. For that reason, we're taking a look back at Pazz & Jop 2012 to drill down into the ballots of contributors and voters who participated. Maybe amongst the rubble we'll find clues about what lies ahead for music lovers in 20 ... More >>

Rolling Stone's Top 50 Rap Songs of All Time: Six Alternative Number One Picks

Rolling Stone recently published a run-down of the top 50 hip-hop songs of all time. After consulting with a panel of 33 journalists, industry figures and artists (including professional rap encyclopedia ?uestlove and the remaining members of the Beastie Boys), the numbers were crunched and Grandmas ... More >>

Large Professor, Bigger Than Life

The legend continues with Professor @ Large

The Five Most Priceless 45s In Kenny Dope's Collection

Looking for something funky, fresh, and 45-based to do this evening? Check out Mobile Mondays at Bowery Electric, which kicks off tonight with the Brooklyn-born Masters At Work partner Kenny Dope headlining and spinning a set of nothing but 7-inch records. In advance of the funk shindig, we got Kenn ... More >>

Jimmy Castor, R.I.P.

Jimmy Castor was a smart aleck; a wise guy; a clean shit-talker with so much joie de vivre you had to laugh even when his truth-telling smacked you upside the head. So when he died this past Martin Luther King Jr. Day at 71 near his home outside of Las Vegas, far away from the streets of Harlem he o ... More >>

Guns N' Roses And Some Other People Get The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Nod; Plus, Get A Peek At My Ballot

​This morning the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame announced its 2012 inductees, and topping the list is the snarling chroniclers of Sunset Strip decadence Guns N' Roses. (Will they get back together for the induction dinner? Is Axl Rose only going to call up Izzy for the big night? How does Tracii ... 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 >>

A Dissenting Opinion: Let's Quit It With The Live Performances Of "Classic" Hip-Hop Albums

Back in 2007, All Tomorrow's Parties and the Pitchfork Music Festival decided that getting GZA, the Wu-Tang Clan's resident rhyme scholar, to reenact his crime rhyme masterpiece Liquid Swords in full was a good idea. And it probably was—once, maybe twice. But the third time removed the charm. ... More >>

The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Class Of 2012 Could Include Eric B & Rakim And Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses ca. 1987: If nothing else, that pouf should be immortalized for eternity. ​The Cure, Eric B. & Rakim, and Guns N' Roses are among the new-to-the-ballot artists on the list for for the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame's class of 2012, announced this morning; they join previous nominees ... More >>

'Blue Note Jazz Festival: Paid in Full 25th Anniversary with the Roots+Rakim'

The Ten Best Hometown Productions By Large Professor

​Large Professor cuts an outside figure in the New York hip-hop scene these days. As a producer who also happens to rap in an endearingly economical manner, he's integral to any overview of hip-hop's storied golden era--he tutored under Paul C, contributed production input to Eric B & Rakim so ... More >>

The 10 Best Remixes By Ad-Rock

​The Beastie Boys' Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2 comes out Tuesday. But beyond the trio's newest collection of raffish rap japes, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz--the Beastie who isn't going gray and who isn't rumored to be related to Saved By The Bell's Screech Powers--has been steadily carving out a nic ... More >>

Download: Beans' Latest Avant-Rap Fashion Statement, "Deathsweater"

Yes In My Backyard is a semiweekly column showcasing MP3s from new and emerging local talent. "Man, I'm old"​A shrapnel bomb of ill-angled words and sputtering electronic bloops, Beans has been the most visible member of longstanding NYC avant-rap crew Antipop Consortium. He says his confessi ... More >>

Marcus Samuelsson Remembers His Humble New York Beginnings

​"I love old Times Square; it's the first place I got to when I was 18 and landed in New York. They were filming a music video with Eric B and Rakim, with LL Cool J and some other guys in the background. People stole our bags, but despite that, I remember feeling like I had arrived." -- Marcus ... More >>

Mike Tyson's Top Ten Rap Cameos

​Reggie Rock Bythewood's One Night in Vegas, airing on ESPN tonight as part of the network's "30 for 30" documentary series, shines a light on the little known friendship and many parallels between tortured souls Mike Tyson and Tupac Shakur. The title of Bythewood's documentary is a reference ... More >>

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 >>

Christian Scott, Jazz's Own Public Enemy

With maybe a bit of Rakim, too

How to Fix the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Tips on how to expand its reach—or blow it up entirely

Rakim's Second Coming

The God MC confronts a hip-hop landscape far different from the one he once ruled

The 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees: A Report Card

Ghost's Second Kilo From 2006 Cut With Filler, But Pure Enough

Get Purely Physical

Low-end theory becomes law as the Bronx's ESG enter their third decade of body-moving

The Status Ain't Hood Valentine's Day Playlist

You Better Shop Around

Real Life Consumer Guide 2005: The music bargains start here

Repaid in Full

Talking with Brian Coleman, self-published hip-hop author

Compa$$ionate Capitali$m

Russell $immons wants to fatten the hip-hop vote—and maybe his wallet, too

A Ken Burns Xmas

The Human Gaza Strip

This Year’s Remodel

Fool’s Paradise

The Passing of the Mic

Teletubbies: The Album