Fabolous (Rapper)

A Father's Day Mix Of Songs With Mixed Feelings About Fathers

Every May, there's no shortage of mawkishly sentimental songs to play on Mother's Day, but a month later, there are comparatively few Father's Day equivalents. Sure, there are some treacly tracks like Bob Carlisle's 1997 adult-contempo hit "Butterfly Kisses," but fatherhood is more often than not in ... More >>

A List Of Things That One Should Get If One Pays $1500 To See Jay-Z And Kanye West

"I thought you said you'd take me to McDonald's" ​Saturday night, after reading a flurry of tweets from Jay-Z and Kanye West's show at the Izod Center, I bought tickets to nosebleed seats for last night's Watch The Throne show at the Garden. It was worth it, though—especially since yeste ... More >>

Ten Trends That Watch The Throne Could Kickstart

​It's way too early to have a critical judgment on Watch The Throne; didn't you read the rules? But since Kanye West and Jay-Z's colossal collaboration plopped into the raging waters of Internet opinion early Monday morning, I've been watching for ripples. Here are ten new things that Watch Th ... More >>

Live: The 4Knots Party Continues With Dan Deacon And Yeasayer (And The Spice Girls, Too)

Willie Davis​4Knots Music Festival: Dan Deacon, Yeasayer (DJ sets) Saturday, June 16 4Knots Indoor Lounge Better than: Going home and passing out. In my coverage of the 4Knots main stage, my "critical bias," as named at the bottom of these write-ups, has been fairly obvious—almost so o ... More >>

The Top Ten Failed First Singles Off The Game's The R.E.D. Album

​This list began as a joke, but the longer I contemplated it, the more depressing its basic concept became. Consider: not only could I easily string together ten of Game's fruitless attempts to force label executives to release The R.E.D. Album, his followup to 2008's LAX; I had to make decisi ... More >>

Live: Pusha T And Ryan Leslie Win Some And Lose Some

FlashFWD Awards featuring Pusha T and Ryan Leslie Gramercy Theater June 8, 2011 Better than: Watching two sets by Ryan Leslie. An award show wouldn't be an award show without winners and losers, speeches that run for too long, fashion mistakes and surprises. The FlashFWD Awards, a night of Intern ... More >>

Can Sadat X Make Wine Hip-Hop?

He's trying with True Wine Connoisseurs, YouTube's most entertaining wine-themed rap show

Nate Dogg, R.I.P.: A Tribute And A Playlist

​Hip-hop legend Nathaniel Hale, a/k/a Nate Dogg, has passed away at the age of 41. The cause of death is still being investigated; he suffered a pair of strokes in recent years, reportedly paralyzing the left side of his body and severely impairing his speaking ability. Hailing from Long Bea ... More >>

Cee Lo Green and the Year of "Fuck You"

Summing up 2010 in two little words

Zach Baron's Top 10 Albums of 2010

Guess who? Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.​Alright, let's do this, before I change my mind. With apologies to The-Dream, Sleigh Bells, Ted Leo, Kylesa, Swans, Zola Jesus, Marnie Stern, and all other vestiges of my punk rock past, and especially you Nicki Minaj, who missed both of my lists this year. ... More >>

Zach Baron's Top 10 Singles of 2010

Rich aliens, rich alienation. Still via connect.in.com​With sincere apologies to Chuck Eddy, my two favorite records of the year also produced my two favorite singles: funny how that happens. And though ten songs increasingly feels like about forty too few, especially when Dr. Luke is working, ... More >>

Was 2010 The Best Year For Music Ever? LCD Soundsystem and Nostalgia's Creeping Scourge

Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: Rob Harvilla, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. We'll be here all week! James Murphy, pulling no punches.​Dear fellow illumin ... More >>

Was 2010 The Best Year For Music Ever? Throw Taylor Swift In A Well

Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: Rob Harvilla, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. We'll be here all week! Pay Rich Juzwiak what you owe him, Jay Leno. Twitpic by Dav ... More >>

The 20 Worst Songs of 2010, #8: Ludacris featuring Nicki Minaj, "My Chick Bad"

F2K10 is a countdown of the 20 worst songs of 2010. Track our progress here. ​Your chick ain't the only thing that's bad...

The 10 Biggest Music Stories of 2010

Ah M.I.A., it just wasn't your year, was it? Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.​In 2010, Vampire Weekend and Arcade Fire both had #1 records. LCD Soundsystem, Spoon, MGMT, the National, M.I.A, and Sufjan Stevens all had albums debut in the top ten. Kanye West joined Twitter. Drake started a riot in New ... More >>

Live: Drake Brings Out Jay-Z, Trey Songz, Birdman, and Fabolous at Radio City Music Hall

Drake Radio City Music Hall Wednesday, September 29 Better Than: Pitbull. (And Curren$y!) Drake isn't the best at arena-swallowing mega-hop, as evidenced by a guest appearance from Jay-Z, who casually uncorked Radio City with his verses from advice rap touchstone "Light Up" and ... More >>

The Great Dancehall Freeze-Out of 2010

Why are many of Jamaica's biggest acts now barred from entering the U.S.?

Cam'ron Betrays the Working Man on New Mixtape Boss of All Bosses 2.5

​So much for 2009's "My Job," Cam'ron's non sequitur but nevertheless moving declaration of solidarity with the proletariat--"The way we look at it," the rapper says on his newest mixtape, Boss of All Bosses 2.5, "the working man's a sucker if you ain't making six digits or better." Further to ... More >>

Where Cam'ron Meets Viral Video: The Epic Beard Man-Sampling "Amber Lamps"

Cameron Giles is no stranger to viral videos, of course: his poolside, boxer-shorts monologue at the height of the Cam'ron-50 Cent beef was the hilarious and much-watched first salvo in a war that leaned almost exclusively--to the major detriment of actual rapping--on the YouTube medium. So leave ... More >>

Jay-Z's 'Empire' Strikes Back at Last

His first #1 song is his first Pazz & Jop chart-topper as well. Go Yankees.

Eminem Can Still Rap, World. (So Can Black Thought.)

Every year, the BET Hip-Hop Awards--the 2009 edition of which aired last night--round up three or four different rapper cyphers, taped off-site and with somewhat counterintuitive gangs of MCs going in with what are ostensibly freestyles. Last year, Jadakiss, Fabolous, Juelz Santana, and Ace Hood t ... More >>

Week in Review: I Have a Blog, This is What Happens.

Rebecca SmeyneThese Are Powers' Pat getting his temperature taken in China​ In the week leading up to All Points Wet (har har), vandals insulted the word "gay" in describing Coldplay, we came up with suggestions for a Beastie Boys tribute on Friday at All Points West, and there were plenty of ... More >>

The Lupe Fiasco "Shining Down" Leak: Point, Counterpoint

Lupe Fiasco's new "Shining Down," the hyper-lyrical first single destined for his forthcoming Lasers, leaked in full quality today, to some considerable controversy. In response to the song's rapid transit around the internet, Fiasco posted an outraged statement to the comments section of the LupE ... More >>

R. Kelly Still Wants To Have Sex With Every Woman in the World, Unfortunately

R. Kelly hasn't tested out his commercial might much since his 2008 acquittal on child pornography charges--12 Play, the follow-up to 2007's Double Up, never came out--so the album-buying public has yet to get a chance to render a verdict on the continued viability of dude's career. But he has occ ... More >>

Fabolous: The Twitterview

Fabolous, the Brooklyn rapper whose Loso's Way is forthcoming in June, maintains a Twitter feed of such complicated brilliance and wisdom that we felt the need to interview it. What up Fab? Morning my twiggas. As the rooster crows. What's on the docket? hav a show n Niagara Falls 2day.. Ah, ... More >>

Bill O'Reilly Last Guy On Earth Still Willing to Watch Random Videos of Rappers Smoking Weed

We won't even bother to throw up our hands in outrage at Bill O'Reilly's suggestion that Barack Obama deport Snoop Dogg for the crime of holding a blunt in the general vicinity of the rapper's own Obama-by-Shepard Fairey t-shirt, so as to make it look like the red-white-blue presidential portr ... More >>

On Jadakiss's Kiss My Ass Mixtape, "Turn My Swag On" Remix, Etc.

There's something reassuring about Jadakiss's promo run up to The Last Kiss. 50 Cent has an album to promote now, too: at the moment, he's surveilling DJ Khaled's family, bragging about having congress with Rick Ross's baby mother, and generally doing everything but killing another human being by ... More >>

Streets Is Watching: Rap and Surveillance

Pop Matters today publishes an essay, "Watching Rap," which starts like this: In March of 2008, the LA Times published an article that implicated Sean "Diddy" Combs and his associates in the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur at Quad Recording Studios in New York. A few days later, the Times retracte ... More >>

Young Jeezy Live at the Blender Theatre

The Quarterly Report: Status Ain't Hood's Favorite New Albums

Status Ain't Hood Does Summer Jam, Again

Hot 97's Summer Jam: A Preview

Wednesday

Prodigy’s 25th Hour

A Queens rap icon scrambles to prepare for life on the inside

The Quarterly Report: Status Ain't Hood's Favorite New Albums

Timbaland, Reconsidered Again

Track 18 Wins Again

Major-label hip-hop records in burying-best-tracks shocker!

Stack Bundles is Dead

VH1's Hip-Hop Honors: A Running Diary

Grow Dem Bow

Reggaetón expands, consolidates, gets gussied up, breaks through, and looks to firm up its pummelling legacy

French Basketball Players Pretend To Be Rappers

Pulling the White Strings

Light-skinned acts ride hip-hop’s changing tide with dark-skinned Svengalis

White Freedom

The angstiest wigga alive exercises privilege, bears cross, rallies flock, begs forgiveness

Fast and Folliclous

One of the rapidest guest-rappers around thinks as slow as he helps everybody else jam

Missy E for President

The Augustus Pablo of the mainstream underground takes her private pleasures public

Listings

Listings

Who's That Man, Momma?

Tragicomic Masterpieces Go Unheard

The Bridge Is Still Over

Post-Rappers' Delight