Joe Budden

Pusha T & Fabolous - B.B. King's - 4/29/13

Better Than: Past Fabolous performances. "This life is so exciting!" chanted Pusha T and Fabolous in unison on B.B. King's stage while a crowd of ecstatically proud New Yorkers watched two of their native sons (yup Pusha was born in the Bronx). Last night the two only shared the stage for one song, ... More >>

Ten Potential X-Factor Replacement Judges

The list of former judges on FOX's The X-Factor reads like the attendance list at a Passages Malibu: Addiction Cure Center for celebrities obsessed with proving their talent (Nicole Scherzinger, 2011 and Demi Lovato, 2012), relevancy (Cheryl Cole, 2011 and LA. Reid, 2011-12), sanity (Britney Spears, ... More >>

Live: Boiler Room NYC with Flying Lotus, Just Blaze, Questlove, Flatbush Zombies

Better Than: Watching the Internet.Boilerroom.tv has become a sort of voyeuristic dream party for DJ nerds over the last year or so. Proudly self-branded as "the world's leading underground music show," the website is sponsored by a handful of lifestyle-branded music partnerships - Red Bull Music Ac ... More >>

Skyzoo On Bed-Stuy's Breakfast Options And Supermarkets, Spike Lee, And Not Getting Signed By Jay-Z

Editor's note: In Tweets is Watching, Phillip Mlynar will ask local artists questions based solely on the contents of their Twitter timeline. Skyzoo is a Bed-Stuy-raised rapper whose new album, A Dream Deferred, will be released at the start of October via the Brooklyn institution Duck Down. He ha ... More >>

Live: Joe Budden Tears Down S.O.B.'s While Tearing Up

Joe Budden S.O.B.'s Tuesday, September 4 Better than: The second-best sex ever, apparently. Joe Budden's lyrics are a minefield of emotions, bringing skeletons out of the closets and into the streets; there are times he's put the TMI in traumatic. Moments after getting jumped by Raekwon and Metho ... More >>

Which Member Of Slaughterhouse Went In Hardest On On The House?

There are two ways to tell if an upcoming album is going to be a letdown: • When the artist starts talking about his next project before the new project even comes out. See: Common hyping up his No I.D.-helmed The Dreamer/The Believer even before Universal Mind Control was released. And what ... More >>

Live: Busta Rhymes Pauses Conversation With Bun B To Perform At Angie Martinez's BBQ

Angie Martinez's Backyard BBQ The Garden At Studio Square Saturday, August 18 Better than: Getting lost coming home from Queens. CBS sitcoms, Tom Wolfe and Republicans alike have all painted New York City as a noisy, grimy nightmare, a melting pot of sex and kvetching, guns and soupy hot dogs, wh ... 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 >>

The Top 3.75 Hip-Hop Songs Of The Week

Welcome to Sound of the City's scouring of the many hip-hop songs that drop every week in hopes of finding a couple of songs that stand out. This week we managed to get our hands on three and three-quarters of them—not bad at all.

LORD KNOWS

Just Blaze heats up THE RUB

Live: Nicki Minaj Takes Off From Summer Jam, Nas And Lauryn Hill Climb Aboard

Hot 97 Summer Jam: Nicki Minaj, Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, J. Cole, Wale, Meek Mill, DJ Khaled, Waka Flocka, Trey Songz, Maino, Big Sean, 2 Chainz, French Montana, Mavado, Tyga, Slaughterhouse (and Nas and Lauryn Hill) MetLife Stadium Sunday, June 3 Better than: Seeing a Nicki Minaj concert. In an er ... More >>

Live: Slaughterhouse (Minus Joe Budden) Satisfy The Faithful At Best Buy Theater

Slaughterhouse w/Flatbush Zombies Best Buy Theater Thursday, March 29 Better than: Spending the next few nights in the bookings alongside Joe Budden. There's Joell Ortiz. Here comes Crooked I. Royce just bopped onstage... but where's... uh oh. "Where's Budden at?" shouted the tipsy Nets hat next t ... More >>

12 Tracks, Two And A Half Hours: Sound Of The City's Mixtape Of Long Rap Songs

Last week, the new Gorillaz track "DoYaThing" dropped. It's long—a full 13-minutes and some seconds of music, a lot of which involves Andre 3000 getting frenzied and inspired with that rapping thing he does so well. With "DoYaThing" and persistent talk about Outkast reunion rumors bedazzling u ... More >>

Joe Budden+Joell Ortiz

Radio Hits One: T-Pain Escapes Lead Single Purgatory

The Revolver cover.​On Thursday Jive Records announced that T-Pain's fourth album rEVOLVEr would be out on December 6. That same day, the rappa ternt sanga's single "5 O'Clock" reached a new Hot 100 peak of No. 25 . The timing wasn't exactly coincidental. The track, on which T-Pain is supporte ... More >>

Geoff Barrow's Sour Rhymes

The member of Portishead excavates his band's hip-hop roots

Live: Crooked I Shares The Stage With Slaughterhouse

Slaughterhouse S.O.B.'s Wednesday, May 25 Better than: Quoting Yung Joc lyrics. Even though the lineup had changed, the promo flyer for last night's show at S.O.B.'s still showed off Crooked I's scowl, his name looming large alongside. "I know originally we were doing a Crooked I show," he said, ... More >>

Slaughterhouse Hit the Crossover Road

Can Eminem help this quartet bridge the underground/mainstream divide?

Ten Reasons Why The Wu Tang Clan Are The Greatest Rap Group Of All Time

​Raekwon, the Wu-Tang Clan's resident slang scholar, released his new solo album, Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang, last week; it's the latest installment in a magnificent saga that's now nearly two decades strong and leaves Staten Island's finest rap representers firmly in the conversation for hip-hop's g ... More >>

The Five Best Things Lil B Raps Over on His Great New Mixtape, Red Flame

​If you've looked at the incredibly prolific, California-based rapper Lil B's twitter at any point over the past few days, you know that he's just released a new mixtape, Red Flame. B, of course, is heralding it as the greatest of all time. After a couple listens, this seems to be a bit of an ... More >>

The 10 Best Posse Cuts of 2010 (So Far)

​Posse cuts are like friendlier versions of the WWE's Royal Rumble -- a platform designed to showcase all of the stars in the game, both up-and-coming and certified. Think back to the Main Source's 1991 "Live At The Barbecue," featuring Akinyele, Joe Fatal, and the debut of a rapper named Nas, ... More >>

The Top Ten Rap Supergroups That Never Happened

Over the weekend, the rapper Sean Price took to Twitter to propose a collaboration album between his own Brooklyn-based Boot Camp Clik hip-hop crew and Staten Island's mighty Wu-Tang Clan. The idea has been received rapturously. But then again, theoretical hip-hop supergroups usually are. Rap's hi ... More >>

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 >>

I Don't Go Clubbing, I Go Dancing: The Weekend In Nightlife

​The Arms Around Haiti event at Public Assembly kicks off our Friday evening with a reminder that just because there haven't been any telethons lately doesn't mean the situation isn't just as awful as it ever was. The event spans over both rooms of the venue and boasts a lineup of over ten dis ... More >>

THROWBACK TO THE FUTURE

Duo Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek are back again

On Charles Hamilton, Joe Budden, Asher Roth, and the Perils of Internet Oversharing

Welcome to rap's online overdose

New Fabolous, NSFW Video Edition: "Welcome to My Workplace"

It's been a little while since we checked in with Fabolous, the Brooklyn rapper whose Twitter we interviewed back in the innocent days of May. Back then people still cared about swine flu ("NEWS FLASH : Kermit the frog just passed away this morninq from swine flu," he tweeted then, blaming the ... More >>

The New Rap Battle: 50 Cent Vs. Rick Ross

Building a new paradigm with fewer rhymes and more costumes

Status Ain't Hood Interviews Joe Budden

Emo-Rap Discovers the Mixtape

Is Roc-A-Fella Coming Back?

Guitar Hero 2 vs. Def Jam Icon

Stack Bundles is Dead

The (White) Rapper Show: Still Great

Jay-Z is Afraid to Fight

The New Jay-Z Album: A Bad Idea?

Lupe Fiasco: A Progress Report

Live: The Streets Have No Business Onstage

Both Sides Now

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

Jay-Z Signs Nas to Def Jam

Foxy Brown is Deaf

50 Cent Defends George W. Bush Against Kanye West

Overdetermined to Win

Menacing commercial rapper with purposeful image sells you the hyperreal you gotta feel

Music

Double Dutch in a War Zone

On Ghetto Streets, It's Bloodshed and Tears All Over Again

Shadows in the Cave

Bring the Pain

Mixtape Go-To Guy Raises His Issues

Monster Mash-up

In Da Fight Club