Kool Herc

RaptFM: Like Chatroulette, But Fueled by Hip-Hop and with Significantly Fewer Dicks

You enter the room and they're already there. Some of the names you recognize: Randa the Rhyma (45 wins), Gig@ntic (48 wins), and Novice Raps (53 wins). You've checked the boards obsessively, but you've only ever been here before anonymously, as a guest. This is your first appearance in competition. ... More >>

Barring a Few Unsavory Detours, Sample This Thrives in its Music and Legacy

The Ultimate List of Free Summer Concerts in NYC, 2013

Get ready to plug this in your bookmarks, iCals, sticky notes, and religious shrines, because the ultimate guide to free summer concerts in New York City is here! Seriously, scroll down and don't be stingy - share with your friends. Concerts aren't fun without friends. Just ask the lucky gal above e ... More >>

R.A. the Rugged Man: The Music Industry is "Crooked Fake Phonies Marketing hemselves to the world

R.A. The Rugged Man releases his Legends Never Die album this week. It's a project the thuggish ruggish rap chap promises will showcase his ability to "annihilate any rapper on this Earth." We don't doubt the Rugged man. In other, chirpier news, here's R.A. explaining away his Twitter timeline chatt ... More >>

EMP 2013: A Shadow of Its Former Self

Better Than: Watching two full days of rock docs. 
 At the 12th annual EMP Pop Conference at Tisch School of the Arts on Friday afternoon, Princeton professor Alexandra Vazquez was presenting on Superstorm Sandy, remaining structures of colonialism, and Cuban-American salsa singer La Lupe, also k ... More >>

The Ten Best Concerts in New York This Weekend, 12/14/12

Here are the best concerts to check out around the city this weekend, in no particular order.

UNSIGNED HYPE

Rebel Diaz and friends host the first South by South Bronx

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 >>

BRING IT BACK

Step to the rhythm of Kurtis Blow at Crotona Park

Kool Herc Gets Honored; Niagara Bar Lets Loose

Kool Herc's Birthday/Sutra; Normalized Dance Night/Niagara Bar Thursday, April 26 Better than: Reading about how NYC's nightlife is dead. Last month, in the spirit of March Madness, SOTC created a tournament with the aim of crowning the quintessential New York musician. Popularly dubbed the Godfat ... More >>

SOTC's March Madness: The Quintessential New York Musician Tournament

Sound of the City's monthlong tournament to determine the quintessential New York City musician (since 1955, the year of the Village Voice's founding) is taking over our site all March. The full schedule and results (as of March 23) below; you can also follow along with our bracket.

Dipset (13) Clashes With Bette Midler (5) As SOTC's March Madness Gets Heated

​Sound of the City's search for the quintessential New York City musician enters Round Two this week. Today, all the remaining contenders in the Uptown division battle it out in the Round of 32. Keep up with all the action here. As if predestined by the Moirai, Bette Midler and the Diplomats will ... More >>

Kool Herc (12) Takes On Bette Midler (5) As Round One Of Our Quintessential New York Musician Tournament Continues

The Round of 64 for Sound of the City's own version of March Madness--in which we determine the quintessential New York musician--launches this morning with a series of polls. Up for debate this time: Hip-hop pioneer Kool Herc and the brassy yet divine Bette Midler. Check out the arguments in favor ... More >>

FREESTYLE FELLOWSHIP

Stevie B, Corina, Safire, and more return to the Bronx

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 >>

Tonight! Will Hermes Talks About His New Book With Kool Herc, Laurie Anderson, Bob Christgau, And More

Yes, tonight at Housing Works longtime Voice pal Will Hermes assembles hip-hop Godfather DJ Kool Herc, Patti Smith Group guitarist Lenny Kaye, Laurie Anderson, Salsa legend Larry Harlow, and former Voice music editor Robert Christgau to discuss the city's music scene(s), as they unfolded from 1973 t ... More >>

MEMORY LANE

Weren't the '70s the best?

Live: Grand Wizzard Theodore Brings It Back, Fred The Godson No-Shows At Simpson St. Block Party

​ Grand Wizzard Theodore, Illstyle and Peace Productions, Hip-Hop Kung Fu, and more Simpson Street, Casita Maria Saturday, August 6 Better than: Cowboys & Aliens. "Some of you might say I'm preaching to the choir," Jorge "Popmaster Fabel" Pabon, a former Zulu Nation member and our master of ... More >>

Dig If You Will These Pictures: '80s Musicals, from Dolly Parton to Prince

Kool Herc's Top Three Old-School New York Hip-Hop Venues

​Kool Herc plays the genesis figure in hip-hop's fable; the first party the Jamaican-born, Bronx-raised DJ threw in the recreation room of his building at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in 1973 is credited with formalizing the genre. From behind two turntables Herc spun the short, percussive sections of ... More >>

DJ Premier: Kool Herc Needs Your Help

​Over the weekend DJ Premier, as authoritative a voice as you could ask for in a situation like this, raised the alarm re: Clive Campbell, a/k/a DJ Kool Herc, the guy with as good as claim to the Godfather of Hip-Hop title as anyone. Though details are scarce at the moment, evidently Herc's be ... More >>

Live: Nas, Cee Lo, Pete Rock, And Diplo Command An Open Bar Beneath The Manhattan Bridge At Heineken's Behest

Nas, imploring everyone to Tweet #heineken. Pics by Puja, more below.​Nas/Cee Lo/Pete Rock/Diplo/J Cole Some Random Warehouse Saturday, November 13 Better Than: The same show sponsored by almost anyone else. "How can you not have a good time when this is free?" shouted hip-hop artist Bua as ... More >>

A New Report Offers New Visions for New York's Street Fairs

A plague of souvlaki and tube socks.​The folks at Terroir aren't the only ones who have noticed that summer street fairs tend to suck. The Center for an Urban Future has just released "New Visions for New York Street Fairs," a report designed to "kick off a discussion about how these staples o ... More >>

Back to 'Africa' With Nas and Damian Marley

Why the blockbuster collusion of Distant Relatives feels so . . . distant

Live: Tears, Mind-Blowing Routines, And Intense Unity At The Roc Raida Tribute

​ DJ Scratch, doing the classics, to robust crowd approval. Pics by Puja Patel, more below.​ Roc Raida Tribute B.B. King's Thurday, October 22 The line outside B.B. King's last night for the Roc Raida tribute--celebrating the beloved turntable king who died September 19--took up half an ... More >>

The Slow Redemption of DJ Disco Wiz

Hip-hop's first prominent Latino DJ offers a grisly but triumphant memoir

Interview: Artist Ben Frost on His Latest Show, Plague Landscapes, at Brooklynite Gallery

"I faked my own death and everybody believed me: even my mum cried when she read about it in the paper." In 2000, Australian artist Ben Frost faked his own death, sending out newspaper funeral notices that doubled as invites to his solo exhibition. Some, of course, saw this in poor taste--but wha ... More >>

FROST'S BITE

Disney mixed with s/m? More, please.

Tonight They're Gonna Rock You Tonight: Zap Mama, Cake, and Some Golden-Age Hip-Hop

Starting today, intrepid Voice intern Michael Downes will offer a daily, highly biased digest of that evening's best NYC shows -- and the whole weekend's slate on Friday, which today is, mercifully, if you were not aware. Enjoy. FRIDAY Zaire-born Marie Daulne fronts Zap Mama at Joe's Pub. Foun ... More >>

KRS One+DJ Cool Herc

Live: Busta Rhymes and Ron Browz at B.B. King

Busta Rhymes and Ron Browz B.B. King Blues Club March 10 Star power does funny things to your eyes. Take last night's Busta Rhymes/Ron Browz show at B.B. King, for instance. I mistook Kool Herc for Grey's Anatomy's Dr. Richard Webber--an honest mistake considering that the four elements of hip-ho ... More >>

Trinity House Residents Seek 'Kool Herc' Reprieve

Herc's Building Saved, But What About Other Mitchell Lamas?

Kool Herc Fights to Save Birthplace of Hip Hop

Delicious Vinyl

Gorgeous crate-digger mag Wax Poetics teaches us to value the artifact as much as the art

Bee Kind, Rewind

The exuberant wild style of Busy Bee still resonates three decades later

A Deluge of Parades

Promoters, DJs, and dancers alike prepare for some much needed cabaret lawlessness

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

Pure Percussive Pleasure

Kenny and Louie's joyous retro reboots dominate clubs and living rooms alike

'Old-Schoolest of Collectors'

Grandmaster Flash and the Smithsonian's new hip-hop collection

A Soldier's Hagiography

Helping his people remember why they love themselves

Unstoppable

Veterans look back at hip-hop's big-bang birth in the Bronx

Can Flow Will Flow

'Give them an apocalypse, and they would dance': Jeff Chang's monumental hip-hop history

Hip-Hop Hooray

Generation Hiphop's Aesthetics

Rock: Festivals

American Bandshell

Music

Dreams of a Final Theory

Still Rough Enuff to Break from NY To Long Island

Out of Time