Kreayshawn

"Like Tumblr Times A Million": Chippy Nonstop on Her Summer in NYC

Chippy Nonstop is fast emerging as Kreayshawn's new BFF. Based in the Bay Area, the diminutive rapstress saw her profile bump earlier this year when Kreayshawn directed the video for her "Kicked Out Da Club" track. Now she's on the road with Kreay and Rye Rye for the Group Hug tour, which touches do ... More >>

The Least Likely Music Headlines of 2013

For the last six months, the Sound of the City Supercomputer (a 1998 Compaq Presario) has been analyzing the structure and content of every pop news headline in the world in order to create a highly detailed predictive model of the music industry. While this project has important practical uses, suc ... More >>

Kreayshawn On Her New Album and the Worst Assholes on Twitter

When her "Gucci Gucci" video dropped last summer, Kreayshawn found herself in the middle of a maelstrom. Some people thought she was a breath of fresh air and that "Gucci Gucci" was a much-needed middle finger to the label-obsessed materialism that's run unchecked in hip-hop for a very long time. Ot ... 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 >>

Your Frighteningly In-Depth Guide To Insane Clown Posse's Upcoming Record The Mighty Death Pop!, Featuring Kreayshawn, Ice Cube, Color Me Badd, and a Christina Aguilera Cover

On August 14, Insane Clown Posse will deliver their 12th studio album, The Mighty Death Pop! The last time Detroit's finest punching bags released a full-length original album, September 2009's Bang! Pow! Boom!, they gave the world "Miracles," an unintentionally hilarious viral-video ode to giraffes ... More >>

Angel Haze Forges Her Own Path On Reservation

2012 is already one of the best years for female rappers in a long while. Nicki Minaj's "Starships" has given her another massive hit at a time when those are vanishingly rare in rap, and Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded balances her fearsome skill as a rapper with her newly-minted pop star status. Na'Te ... More >>

Kitty Pryde: Hazy Beats, Crushed-Out Lyrics, And A Keen Eye For Detail

It would be easy to dismiss Kitty Pryde—scarlet-haired 19-year-old white women from Daytona Beach, Florida, would not fit anyone's profile of "the next to blow," and rap-singing songs about Justin Bieber ("Justin Bieber") and an object of her affection ("Okay Cupid") isn't the most direct path ... More >>

Zoo Troop Gang

Children Of The Night Wave The New York Flag On Queens... Revisited

"I find myself walking to work and I can see the sun rise right over Queens Boulevard, and I say to myself, why hasn't Queens gotten a trophy in a very long time? I mean, I feel like we deserve to shine right now, don't we? We got a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful team and I can see us parading down ... More >>

Katy Perry Covers Jay-Z And Kanye West, Adds Rapping To List Of Things She Is The Worst At

Off the top of my head, I can come up with more "controversial" stances Katy Perry has taken than I can count on one hand: "Ur So Gay" being mean, homophobic, and seemingly aimed at Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz; "I Kissed a Girl" being shock-Sapphic and heteronormative; "You / PMS / Like a bitch / I wo ... More >>

Nas Takes Illmatic To Texas As South By Southwest Comes To An End

Before the 2012 edition of South By Southwest blows out of town, allow Village Voice Media's editors to share their favorite moments from the festival's fourth, and final, day.

New Music Resolutions for 2012

Time to change up this rut we're in, music lovers

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 3: [White Person], [White Person Cutely/Seriously Performing Urban-Radio Hit]

The Songs: Karmin, "Super Bass" and "Look At Me Now" and way too many others; Mac Lethal, "Cook Wit Me Now"; Jackson Foote and friends, "Get Low"; Sophia Grace, "Super Bass"; probably more that are shooting up the Reddit charts right now. The Crimes: Anti-pop snobbery; humorlessness in the name of ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 2: Lana Del Rey, "Video Games"

The Song: Lana Del Rey, "Video Games." The Crimes: Irritated-alley-cat vocals; overwrought harps; fundamental misunderstanding of whether or not ironic critique of male-female mores can exist in the Hipster Runoff age; this poor girl's right thigh. In 2011 the phrase "Lana Del Rey" wasn't just the ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 1: Jessie J Featuring B.o.B, "Price Tag"

Ahhhh!! ​The Song: Jessie J, "Price Tag" The Crimes: Using what might be the entirety of her label's marketing budget to convince the world that she actually functions on a higher, post-capitalistic level; "video hos"; "ch-chang-cha-chang"; "bla-bling-bla-bling." The year's most grueling pop ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 5: Rihanna, "S&M"

The Song: Rihanna, "S&M" The Crimes: Dressing a bloodless ode to kink up by saying it's actually about the media? Na na na na na na, come on, girl. Pop stars need their personas as much as they need the songs that take them to the top of the charts—and lest you think that need exists in a va ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 4: Brian McFadden, "Just The Way You Are (Drunk At The Bar)"

The Song: Brian McFadden, "Just The Way You Are (Drunk At The Bar)" The Crimes: Setting sexual assault fantasies to the dulcet strains of "Cotton Eyed Joe," as remixed by a David Guetta clone. As has been the case for too many years now, 2011's year-end polls have ended in a wave of proclamations ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs of 2011

More reasons to turn off the radio

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 8: Tyler, The Creator, "Bitch Suck Dick"

The Song: Tyler, The Creator, "Bitch Suck Dick" The Crimes: Ugh. There really is no winning when one discusses the output of Tyler, The Creator, the leader of the West Coast hip-hop collective Odd Future, a skateboard-riding LA dude who this year showed the world that he loved the Neptunes and his ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 7: Maroon 5 Featuring Christina Aguilera, "Moves Like Jagger"

​The Song: Maroon 5 feat. Christina Aguilera, "Moves Like Jagger" The Crimes: Profligate whistling, misplaced sass, wholly unsexy instruction to "take [Levine] by the tongue." Earlier this year, both Maroon 5 and Christina Aguilera were coming off what might be called "soft landings"—th ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 6: Bon Iver, "Holocene"

The Song: Bon Iver, "Holocene" The Crimes: Shapelessness, "atmosphere," wondering if we're all just particles, man, invoking existential music-listening crises. Many of this year's most risible songs had clear reasons for being as irritating as they were—self-impressed "punk"dom, grating whi ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 10: will.i.am Featuring Mick Jagger And Jennifer Lopez, "T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)"

​The Song: will.i.am feat. Mick Jagger and Jennifer Lopez, "T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)" The Crimes: Overhashtagging, sub-"Dancing In The Streets" incoherence from Jagger, using "feces" as a term of braggadocio. Sometimes I feel bad for the music industry, which has had a rough go of it these ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 9: Katy Perry Featuring Missy Elliott, "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) (Remix)"

​The Song: Katy Perry Featuring Missy Elliott, "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) (Remix)" The Crimes: Chart-jacking, inanity, wasting the long-M.I.A. Missy Elliott on a nothing verse, allowing lazy writers to compare Teenage Dream to Bad because, seriously, as fucking if. The story of Katy Perry ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 11: Kreayshawn, "Gucci Gucci"

​If 2011 had one takeaway, it was this: It's really, really easy to write a song that's by-the-numbers lousy. Rebecca Black's "Friday," the mushmouthed ode to getting down on the weekends, is a prime example; made on a budget, it nonetheless had enough brain-sticking properties to get inside t ... More >>

Zoo Troop Gang

The Winners Of The 2011 Village Voice Web Awards

​It's finally here! The 2011 Web Awards winners have been chosen. Check em out after the jump, and check back tomorrow for highlights from the awards show, including our video for the lifetime achievement award!

CMJ Day Three: Iggy Azalea Brings Her Cat Scratch Fever To The Canal Room

CMJ Day Three: Iggy Azalea Better than: Writing your own mea culpa. When I saw that Iggy Azalea was performing at CMJ, my scathing reviewer senses began tingling. The Australian femme fatale is the kind of artist that incites fervor among the hip-hop cognoscenti with her raunchy lyrics and bar ... More >>

CHILLER INSTINCT

Neon Indian gets strange

HEART2HEART's "Facebook Official": In Which Lance Bass Proves He's Got The Internet-Attention Calculus Down Pat

​Last night, Lance Bass—former 'N Sync member, aspiring astronaut, and now apparently boy-band guru—offered a tutorial on how to get your probably-jokey, possibly-somewhat-serious musical project noticed by those folks on the Internet who are looking for things to giggle at as they ... More >>

Is Lana Del Rey The Kreayshawn Of Moody, Electro-Tinged "Indie"?

Now look what you've done. ​Last night Glasslands played host to a "secret" show by Lana Del Rey, an up-and-coming singer who was described by the one press release I received about her (in July) as a "gangster Nancy Sinatra" and whose overall aesthetic is like what would happen if you asked C ... More >>

Radio Hits One: Raising The Bar For "YouTube Platinum"

Justin Bieber and Ludacris: Congratulations. A lot of people watched your video.​On August 28, MTV will throw the 2011 installment of its Video Music Awards, honoring achievements in the art form that used to make up the majority of its programming. While it's all too tempting to note the iron ... More >>

Live: Kreayshawn Lets V-Nasty Steal Her Show At The Highline Ballroom

Kreayshawn Highline Ballroom Thursday, August 18 Better than: no other concert I've ever been to, and I've been to a lot. Maybe Kreayshawn is hip-hop's Andy Kaufman, a high-concept satirist pulling an elaborate cultural prank with her sister V-Nasty acting as the crowd-baiting Tony Clifton. Maybe ... More >>

Live: J. Cole Brings His Stardust To The Bowery Ballroom

J. Cole Bowery Ballroom Tuesday, August 9 Better than: Listening to "Headlines" on repeat. (Or even once.) It's not easy being J. Cole. Great expectations have been dumped on him, a steaming pile of hope and hype and hoopla on his shoulders. Bossman Jay-Z shoved him into the spotlight on "A Star ... More >>

Kreayshawn

The Top Ten "Otis" Freestyles

​ In the run-up to yesterday's release of Watch The Throne, the project's first official single, the Otis Redding-sampling "Otis," was re-done and freestyled over by many a rapper. So to tide you over until the physical version of Watch The Throne (packaged with a bonus CD-ROM containing a vec ... More >>

Matt Pinfield, The Believer

Down on the upside with rock evangelist

Live: Lil Wayne Is The Master Of Ceremonies In New Jersey

Lil Wayne w/Rick Ross, Keri Hilson, Far East Movement, Lloyd PNC Bank Arts Center Tuesday, July 26 Better than: Sorry For The Wait. Before Lil Wayne took the stage last night at the PNC Bank Arts Center, the PA was playing cuts from Sorry For The Wait, the stopgap mixtape released as an apologia ... More >>

Live: Kreayshawn Hits The Box For Less Than 15 Minutes

Kreayshawn The Box Thursday, July 21 Better than: Not being in an air-conditioned room. Kreayshawn—an Odd Future outlier and Lil' B acolyte—has skyrocketed upwards since her arrival on May 16, 2011. In the immediate days after "Gucci Gucci" hit YouTube, she spent time in the studio wi ... More >>

The Game Crams An Entire Mixtape's Worth Of Disses And References Into Four Minutes

​It doesn't twist the "Try A Little Tenderness" sample used by the song its title's piggybacking off, but the Game's "Uncle Otis" is full of peevish references to recent happenings in hip-hop and pop—Tyler, The Creator (who he claims to have "created," because he's clearly looking for a ... More >>

The Video Music Awards' Nominations Play To The Internet (Again)

​Last night MTV announced the nominees for this year's installment of their annual pseudo-event extravaganza, the 2011 Video Music Awards, and once again, the nominees for Video Of The Year have three pop picks ("Rolling In The Deep," "Firework," "Grenade"), one sop to the olds in the crowd wh ... More >>

Win Tickets To See Kreayshawn At A To-Be-Disclosed Location This Thursday

​The much-blogged about Bay Area rapper Kreayshawn, whose track "Gucci Gucci" sent her to the top of the trending-topics charts earlier this summer, will play a concert in New York City this Thursday. And we are giving away three pairs of tickets to the show, thus allowing you to check her out ... More >>

Sorry For The Weight: Lil Wayne's New Mixtape Full Of Empty Posturing

​Lil Wayne's mixtapes used to be events in rap. His incredible work on the Dedication and Drought series gave birth to the Mixtape Weezy that could credibly claim to be the best rapper alive in 2006-07, a rapper so good that Jay-Z admitted on his otherwise rapper-loathing "D.O.A." that he "mig ... More >>

Five Questions To Ask At Ben Westhoff's Dirty South Reading

​Tonight, Voice contributor and hip-hop sommelier Ben Westhoff will read from Dirty South, his look at the populist rise of rap music from the southern states, at Williamsburg's Book Thug Nation. The book focuses on the bigger names to have emerged from the south, with chapters based around Bi ... More >>