Q-Tip (Rapper)

He's Old, Missing Teeth, and Has a Funny Haircut: He's Danny Brown, Rap's Biggest Deal

Apart from the overcrowding and cost of living, subway ads are one of the most depressing things about New York City. But now, next to the usual ads offering escape in vacation destinations and self-realization in a pair of shoes, you'll find a glimmer of hope in a Uniqlo ad featuring 32-year-old De ... More >>

Colt Cabana: A Wrestler Grapples With His Entrance Music

The life of an independent professional wrestler is busy enough, but for Colt Cabana, squaring off in the ring is only the beginning. A wrestler, actor (you may have seen him with legendary Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka in a recent Old Navy commercial), stand-up comic, and popular podcaster, his ta ... More >>

Rappers At Award Shows: A History Of Violence

This past weekend saw Rick Ross and Young Jeezy's long-simmering beef boiling over into fisticuffs as the rappers and their entourages went at each other at the BET Hip-Hop Honors Awards (and possibly broke a very expensive mirror in the process). That squabble wasn't a one-off though! Here's a prim ... More >>

Santigold's Gold Standard

Santi White's genre-bending adventures continue on her second album

Laurie Anderson (7) Takes On Norah Jones (10) As The First Round Of SOTC's March Madness Begins To Wrap Up

​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 >>

A Tribe Called Quest (8) Take On The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (9) As SOTC's March Madness Keeps It Rollin'

​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—continues, and you get to vote on who makes it to Round Two. This time out, we return to the Brooklyn division wi ... More >>

Heavy D, R.I.P.

​Mount Vernon-raised rapper Heavy D passed away yesterday. The artist, born Dwight Errington Myers, was found having problems breathing outside his home in Beverly Hills; he was taken to the emergency department of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and died later in the afternoon. For many, Heavy D ... More >>

Kanye West Showed Up At The Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival

At this weekend's Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, Q-Tip brought out a few guests (Black Thought, Busta Rhymes), and among them was Kanye West, who performed a couple of his own tracks, assisted Q-Tip on "Award Tour," and took a flying leap into the crowd. The camera weaving in and out of the lower-right ... More >>

Strained Vibes, Excellent Scenario in Beats, Rhymes & Life

Michael Rapaport’s A Tribe Called Quest documentary eclipses the surrounding drama

Blue Note Records' Ten Best Sample Sources

Blue Note's cover art: Also an inspiration. (Original on the left, homage on the right.)​Hip-hop artists have never been shy about sampling songs from the vaults of the Blue Note jazz label, and few have pilfered with as much creativity and gusto as A Tribe Called Quest's one-time de facto lea ... More >>

SOTC Nightlife Awards: The Best Parties of 2010, Featuring Q-Tip, Let's Play House, Jelly NYC, and More

The crowd at Let's Play House, our favorite wandering house party. Photo by John Barclay.​Before we sink into holiday hibernation, we thought we'd take a moment to reflect on our exploits, and present to you our very own 2010 SOTC Nightlife Awards. Below, our fourth installment examines the ye ... More >>

Q-Tip Is Pissed Off About The A Tribe Called Quest Documentary

​So Sundance 2011, set to invade Utah in January, has announced a lineup that includes, in the documentary category, competing with such works as The Redemption of General Butt Naked, Page One: A year inside the New York Times, and BEING ELMO: A Puppeteer's Journey (ooooh), a long-rumored film ... More >>

MNDR Playing Santos Party House In December, Touring With Chromeo In 2011, Giving Away "Caligula (The Cold Mix)" For Free

​MNDR, a/k/a Amanda Warner, a/k/a the thinking person's club-pop diva, has been a Voice obsession for awhile now; last seen stalking the stage with Q-Tip as part of Mark Ronson's improbably successful and coherent live electro-soul revue, her live shows are a tremendous audio-visual feast of t ... More >>

Live: Mark Ronson & The Business Intl. (Featuring MNDR, Q-Tip, Spank Rock, And The Phantom Planet Guy) Invade Webster Hall

Ronson, MNDR, and Q-Tip (clockwise from top right) get down. Pics by Puja, more below​Mark Ronson & the Business Intl. Webster Hall Tuesday, October 12 Better Than: Mark Ronson's new hairdo. Mark Ronson & the Business Intl. played their second homecoming show last night at Webster Hall. The ... More >>

Live: Rating Rock the Bells Sets From Slick Rick, Wu-Tang Clan, Lauryn Hill, A Tribe Called Quest, Snoop Dogg, and More

Oh, hey Q-Tip. All photos by Rebecca Smeyne.​On a sweltering Saturday, the seventh annual hip-hop nerd convention Rock The Bells took over Governor's Island. It's a place where people know to "throw a one in the air" for Guru before DJ Premier even asked, a place where you can overhear a convo ... More >>

The Ten Most Exploitative Posthumous Rap Projects

​Being a dead rap artist isn't much fun. Whether The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, or J Dilla, death has never seemed to do much to alleviate the constant pressure on artists to muster up new recordings to satisfy the bulging posthumous rap retail market. (In the hip-hop world, possessing a heart t ... More >>

The Choice Is His: Black Sheep's Dres Picks The Five Best Bar Mitzvah/Sweet 16-Rocking Hip-Hop Classics Of All Time

Dres still loves "The Humpty Dance," just like the rest of us.​Few hip-hop songs rival the mass-anthemic appeal of Black Sheep's "The Choice Is Yours (Revisited)." A tweaked incarnation of an album track on M.C. Dres and producer Mista Lawnge's 1991 debut A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, it endeare ... More >>

I HEART BK

Enjoy good tunes under the Brooklyn sun

Q&A: California Rapper Fashawn on Remaking Illmatic, Nas's 1994 East Coast Classic

"All the shit Nas was experiencing as a 21-year-old in 1994, I'm experiencing that shit now as a 21-year-old in 2010." ​In 1994, a 21-year-old Queensbridge resident calling himself Nas made a svelte, ten-track album that he titled Illmatic. Over beats concocted by a dream team of New York pro ... More >>

Live From Santos Party House's Friday-Night reOPENed Party, Featuring Ladies Who Are All Legs And Dudes Who Are All Hands

A typical occurrence at reOPENed; just make sure it's voluntary. Pic from Mel D Cole/Village Slum ​Santos Party House's Friday-night situation has been a little dramatic lately. The club's weekly fete OPEN--featuring Q-Tip, Rich Medina, and Vashtie--seemed to be doing immensely well, even winn ... More >>

I Don't Go Clubbing, I Go Dancing: The Weekend In Nightlife, Starring Rob Swift And Total Eclipse, Just Blaze, And Louie Vega

​Friday is for hip-hop. First and foremost, the X-Ecutioners' Rob Swift and Total Eclipse headline the appropriately named "Respect the Architect" Full Spectrum party series at Littlefield in Brooklyn. Though Swift and Eclipse are turntablists at their core, expect a dance party easy on the sc ... 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 >>

The Black Keys and Damon Dash Get to Know Each Other on BlakRoc

Bloomberg Flexes Muscle; Q-Tip Strikes Back

Mayor Bloomberg's new election strategy seems to be an egregious display of his own power. His office announces that he will stage a massive outdoor rally on the West Side of Manhattan at 8 p.m. on September 15 -- just before the polls close in the Democratic Primary. He has also endowed with $1 mil ... More >>

Set Times for All Points West Announced

​ Despite a free Polvo/Obits show on Friday at the South Street Seaport and a dreamy sounding Saturday show in Prospect Park at which Dean & Britta will be performing their scores to Andy Warhol's screen tests, this week and weekend in NYC belongs to All Points West. On Saturday, APW announce ... More >>

Q-Tip's Memoir to Elaborate on Industry Rule 4,080 and Perhaps List the Other 4,079

So Q-Tip is writing a book, called Industry Rules, that will elaborate on the music-biz hostility informing the A Tribe Called Quest great's most famous line (one assumes that record-company people, however few of them are left at this point, nonetheless remain pretty shady), balanced with more pers ... More >>

Q-Tip, Profane Blog Commenter

Q-Tip Emerges Triumphant in The Renaissance

The award tour resumes after a decade or so in the wilderness

Busta Rhymes, Reanimated

Dysfunctional Family Affair

Sly Stone takes the stage! And even sings occasionally!

Sneaker Pimps

Moby, Q-Tip, and a bunch of a dudes on a bench bring a little bit of L.A. to the LES

Hot 97's Summer Jam: A Preview

Still Shining

Widely mourned but still underrated beat deity goes back to the present

Bring Hip House Back

VH1's Hip-Hop Honors: A Running Diary

Too Legit

Busta Rhymes pisses more grape seeds

Explorations in Mixtape Nation

Lil Wayne, Q-Tip, and Remy Ma feed into hip-hop's endless musical reserves.

Soft Sell

M-1 works to smoothly revolutionize the grown folks

Artsy-Fartsy

Art with a capital A: Chicks on Speed, Kevin Blechdom at Deitch projects

Over It!

Politicking With Michael Stipe; Hanging With The Hansons; Slash In Soho

Music

Music

Music

Jay-Z's Hard-Knock Week

New Abstract

Schizophrenic

Diddily-Dee

Respect Due

Meet the Counselors