Old School Hip-Hop

Big Daddy Kane Returns With a Full Band at the Blue Note Tonight

For almost three decades, Brooklyn MC Big Daddy Kane has remained a fixture of "Greatest Rapper of All Time" conversations. From his iconic singles like "Raw" and "Ain't No Half Steppin'" to a live show that ranks -- even today -- among the most revered in the genre, his influence can be heard in t ... More >>

UNSIGNED HYPE

Rebel Diaz and friends host the first South by South Bronx

Q&A: Eric Haze On Going From A Graffiti Background To Designing Iconic Hip-Hop Logos

Sometimes cultural icons are known for their contributions to a culture, but the individual behind the talent gets lost in the sauce. Having designed a lot of rap groups' early logos, Eric Haze is one of these individuals whose work you see daily, but whose face and name you may not be familiar wit ... More >>

Q&A: Tone Tank On Making Bootleg Toys, The Beastie Boys, And Why L&B Spumoni Gardens Has The Best Sicilian Slice

Tone Tank anointed himself the King of Surf Guitar Rap back in 2009. It's a title the rapper, who resides in Brooklyn, admits he didn't have much in the way of competition for, but it's one that brought him to the attention of Geoff Barrow, the producer for Brit trip-hop troupe Portishead. Barrow wa ... More >>

BRING IT BACK

Step to the rhythm of Kurtis Blow at Crotona Park

Large Professor, Bigger Than Life

The legend continues with Professor @ Large

Win A Pair Of Tickets To See Ultramagnetic MCs At Music Hall Of Williamsburg This Sunday

This Sunday, the Bronx hip-hop stalwarts the Ultramagnetic MCs are playing a show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg as part of the Northside Festival, and Sound of the City has a pair of tickets to give away. See below for how to enter.

Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap

Kiss-FM, RIP

New York's urban radio pioneer goes dark after 30 years

Kiss-FM, R.I.P.

On Thursday Kiss-FM announced that after 30 years, it would stop broadcasting on 98.7 FM and join forces with WBLS, its longtime rival in the "adult urban contemporary" radio format in New York City. The stations will merge under the motto "One Family, One Station, Our Voice," with several Kiss-FM p ... 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.

Blondie (12) Faces Off Against Run-DMC (5) In SOTC's March Madness Tournament

​The Round of 64 for Sound of the City's own version of March Madness—in which you, the Sound of the City voting public, help determine the quintessential New York musician—finishes up this week, with the Round of 32 scheduled to kick off Monday. (The schedule and results so far are he ... More >>

Download: Kyle Rapps' BDP-Flipping "Bully"

Harlem rapper Kyle Rapps is gifted with the type of plainspoken, motormouth, socially progressive underground hip-hop that's not exactly fashionable in the age of fashion-label Tumblr rap, but is more than welcome when done with his head-knocking brio. Rapps is clearly a student of hip-hop—so ... 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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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

Excerpt: Dirty South: OutKast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, And The Southern Rappers Who Reinvented Hip-Hop, Wherein Scarface Recalls His Mental-Health-Ward Days

​Also-beloved friend-of-SOTC Ben Westhoff's new book, Dirty South: OutKast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, and the Southern Rappers Who Reinvented Hip-Hop, will be available on May 1st from Chicago Review Press. This excerpt focuses on Southern pioneers Geto Boys and particularly beloved rapper Scarfa ... More >>

Top Five Young, Hometown-Obsessed New York City Rappers

Roc Marciano, leading the charge​Last year a small, underground pocket of NYC-based hip-hop found its voice again. With Roc Marciano's unimpeachable Marcberg album as the catalyst, a crew of loosely associated artists shook off that tired cliché about our city's commercial-outsider status and ... More >>

MUSIC TO MY EYES

A visual evolution of the New York sound

Sara Moulton Talks Sexist French Chefs, Hip-Hop

Sara Moulton​"It hasn't changed enough. No way. New York in particular back then was a bastion of male domination in terms of the restaurant industry and most things. New York was where Le Pavillon was. ... When I first went to New York, I had worked in restaurants for seven years, and I could ... More >>

MIX MASTERS

Get down to Theophilus London and Grandmaster Flash

The Real Sugar Hill Records Story: In-House Drummer Keith Le Blanc on the Myths Surrounding Rap's First Label

​"I don't think the true Sugar Hill Records story has ever been told because there's so much skull-duggery attached to it," says Keith Le Blanc, the one-time in-house drummer for Sugar Hill Records. The pioneering New York label, which brought hip-hop to the world's ears in 1979 with the Sugar ... More >>

Pusha T Presents: A Clipse Guide to New York City

Pusha T at the Highline Ballroom last year. Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.​The Clipse make coke rap cut straight out of Virginia. But Pharrell's favorite rapping brothers, Malice and Pusha T, have a discernible New York streak running through their rhymes. Which is no surprise given that they were b ... More >>

How to Fix the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

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

Das Racist Speak Out On Their Beastie Boys Mini-Scandal: "We Might Be A Little Dusted But We're Not Insane"

See how they bleed for you, America? Photo by Mackenzie Schmidt.​Some context here: last week, local rap group Das Racist announced plans to cover the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique at Williamsburg's Cameo Gallery. Chaos ensued as the trio took the stage and proceeded to, in the group's own wor ... More >>

Run-DMC, the Musical?

​It's happening, according to Liz Smith (?!). Paula Wagner, Tom Cruise's producer, has apparently been shepherding Rev Run and DMC around Broadway, collecting inspiration for an original musical. "I feel their story lends itself perfectly to the stage," Wagner told Smith. "This project has bee ... More >>

LONG LIVE THE KANE

Brooklyn celebrates a homegrown hip-hop icon

The Top 10 Records Sold Last Week at Rock and Soul in Midtown

In 2009, the traditional practice of exchanging physical copies of records for money is a trade that might best be called quixotic. But New Yorkers are stubborn people, and the record store is not dead. Below, the top ten records that sold in the last week at a store near you. Rock and Soul start ... More >>

Jam Master Jay Memorialized on Tiny Green Sign

Hollis, Queens's Run-DMC will join Joey Ramone and the week-long promotional tour for U2's last album (R.I.P.) in having their name memorialized as a New York City street sign. The corner of 205th Street and Hollis Avenue in Queens will be renamed "Run-DMC JMJ Way," in dual homage to the slain Jam M ... More >>

Nas Has Great Taste in Beastie Boys Songs

The Beastie Boys played Bonnaroo this weekend, bringing out Nas--of all people to show up randomly in the middle of the Tennessee countryside--for a new song that is reportedly destined for the upcoming Hot Sauce Committee. That would make Nas the second confirmed guest on the record, after Santi ... More >>

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 >>

The Beastie Boys Preview New Record, Play Old Song, on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

The big Beastie Boys news of the day is the name of their forthcoming album, Hot Sauce Committee, which they revealed last night on Jimmy Fallon's show. But, as with everything else that happens on Fallon's stupendously awkward set, the highlight was a musical one. The trio were coaxed into doing ... More >>

Little Anthony & The Imperials, Run-D.M.C. to Rock Hall

We know it's silly, but we're excited for homeboys Little Anthony & The Imperials and Run-D.M.C., who have just been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Imperials began in Brooklyn -- Little Anthony, aka Jerome Anthony Gourdine, grew up in the Fort Greene projects -- and Run-D.M.C. i ... More >>

What I Want for Christmas: Brooklyn, Circa 2001

BACK IN BUSINESS

EPMD bring New York back

The Show Must Go On and On and On

Doug E. Fresh leads a delighted Brooklyn crowd down a Frosted Flake–filled memory lane

The Beastie Boys' The Mix-Up

Not trash exactly, but certainly heavily recycled.

CityParks Summer Concerts: Performers So Old School They Used To Gang Bang With the Flintstones

Diddy's Little Helpers

Why hip-hop ghostwriting is an art now, and an actually respectable one

Raw Shit and Rubber Duckies

A summer's day in Newark, where famous MCs roam but unknown MCs make better drama

An NBA Finals Playlist

Jam Master Jay, 1965–2002

Rhythmic Heart of the Kings of Rock

Power Nana Club

Music

We got your hip-hop hall of fame

Zooted, Blooted, Sclamslooted

Do for Self

Breaking's New Ground

Generation Next Spins on its Head