Roc-A-Fella Records LLC

ON THE BEATBOX

Just Blaze and Baauer take Webster Hall

What the Not Jay and Ye Members of Roc-A-Fella Records Have Been Up To

Tonight Gramercy Theater is hosting a Roc-A-Fella Records reunion concert. (Although, ummm, considering the notable absences, it seems maybe unauthorized.) It's been just over eight years since Jay-Z and Dame Dash split, ending one of the most influential and dominant labels in rap. While the long-r ... More >>

Live: Beanie Sigel Bids A Fanatic Crowd Farewell At S.O.B.'s

Beanie Sigel S.O.B.'s Thursday, August 16 Better than: The Beanie Sigel show I attempted to see in 2006, purportedly with a "live funk band," that was canceled due to something referred to as "a dental emergency." Nobody who came to Beanie Sigel's show last night at S.O.B.'s seemed to be expectin ... More >>

Slaughterhouse+Freeway+Pharoahe Monch

Santigold's Gold Standard

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

Beanie Sigel No Longer Peeved At Jay-Z

​"Whatever I felt this dude Jay did wrong to me, it can't outweigh the one thing he did do for me—he gave me an opportunity. Dude gave me an opportunity. A lot of people don't get opportunities. He gave me that. That outweighs everything. I need that in black and white. I got caught in t ... More >>

Big L's Unfinished Business

The young rapper had a killer sound. Then the street rubbed him out.

How A Village Voice Reporter Helped Write the Second Verse of Jay-Z's "Public Service Announcement"

​In 2003, this paper sent the writer Elizabeth Mendez Berry to profile Jay-Z on the eve of the release of what was then supposed to be his retirement record, The Black Album. Toward the end of the piece, which was published almost exactly seven years ago, Berry transcribes an interaction she h ... More >>

Dipset's Jim Jones and Dame Dash Crashed Das Racist's Show at Death By Audio on Friday Night

Jim Jones gives punk rock the gas face. All photos by Rebecca Smeyne.​These are strange, wonderful times for hip-hop fans in New York. Former Roc-a-Fella mogul and Jay-Z cohort Damon Dash is running a modern day version of Warhol's factory out of a rented loft in Tribeca. Curren$y kills time a ... More >>

Q&A: Curren$y and Producer Ski Beatz (and Damon Dash) Talk Pilot Talk, BluRoc, and Eating at Bubby's in Tribeca

Jonah Schwartz​Sir Lucious Leftfoot and Teflon Don have (justifiably) monopolized the conversation in recent weeks, but there's at least one other new hip-hop album worth clearing earspace for: Pilot Talk, a soothingly mellow alternative from the Damon Dash-backed Tribeca transplant Curren$ ... More >>

This Week in the Voice: The Tilda Swinton Moment

​How time flies, right? Eighteen years ago, Sally Potter had her breakout as the writer-director of Orlando, which also starred then-breakout Tilda Swinton. Now, for this week's Village Voice cover story, Melissa Anderson talks with Potter and Swinton about Orlando about their continuing caree ... More >>

This Week's Voice: Damon Dash Resurrected, Best Coast and Wavves, Wayne Coyne, Rick Ross, and More

Dame and Tallulah. Not pictured: Sienna Miller. Photo by Raquel M. Horn.​In this week's Village Voice, Ben Detrick profiles the post-Roc-a-Fella edition of Damon Dash as he haltingly embarks on a kinder, gentler comeback. Elsewhere, Sean Fennessey dissects the two halves of California's pre-em ... More >>

Damon Dash Resurrected

Cast out of Jay-Z's kingdom, a notorious hip-hop mogul takes a kinder, gentler, hipper approach to reinvention

In Defense of M.I.A., Circa April 26, 2010

She released an incoherent polemic of a video featuring nudity (NSFW!) and some truly distasteful violence (child murder! landmines!). For some reason, Pitchfork handed her the keys to their Twitter feed; she's spent the day spewing out streams of "go egosurfing DRINK A SHOT OF TEQUILLA spamouflag ... More >>

Interview: Just Blaze Talks Baseline Studios, From the Making of Jay-Z's The Blueprint to the End of an Era

"For The Blueprint, Jay-Z literally just walked into the studio one day and was like, 'Anybody got some beats?'" Kanye mourns, 1.30.10.​Last Thursday, when producer Justin "Just Blaze" Smith announced he was closing shop at Baseline Studios, longtime recording homebase for Roc-A-Fella Records ... More >>

Photos of the Dame Dash DIY Hideout Under 100

Somewhere downstairs Erykah Badu is covering Pavement. All photos of Under 100 by Rebecca Smeyne.​Brief recap, from yesterday: Under 100, the city's newest and potentially only Manhattan-based DIY showspace, just happens to be located in the basement of one Damon Dash, former Jay-Z partner and ... More >>

The Wild and Wonderful Story of Under 100, the DIY Show Space in Dame Dash's Basement

Sleigh Bells perform at Under 100 in front of an extremely focused Ryan Schreiber. Photo by Rez Avissar/Pitchfork. Used by permission.​Greg Finch is the 20-year-old Pitchfork.tv intern who, along with Less Artists More Condos' Ariel Panero, runs Under 100, the DIY show space located in former ... More >>

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

What's Beef? Ol' Dirty Bastard Manager Responds to Village Voice

Cam'ron Surfaces, Sort Of

Live: Jay-Z Makes Up with Lil Wayne, Ordains Jadakiss

Is Roc-A-Fella Coming Back?

Status Ain't Hood Podcast 7

Hova's Slight Return

Jay-Z's aura finally outshines his art—what a drag it is getting old

Where's the Party?

The Girls Get Ready to Turn It Out for Pride

Live: M.O.P. Does Whatever M.O.P. Wants

Both Sides Now

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

Dean's List

Status Ain't Hood is Worried About Beanie Sigel

Garridge's Sri Chinmoy Brushes Dirt Off Shoulder, Opines at Local Pub

Edges of the Groove

Arguments against education, reclaimed punk rants, electropop with staying power

Tales of the Tape

Mix CDs Radically Transform the Business and Culture of Hip-Hop

In Da Fight Club

When I Reminisce

Hip-hop Movies Mythologize the Age of Innocence

Destroyed

Hip-Hop's Ur-Self Got Himself a War

The Princess Diaries

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

2001 Gets Better

Kings of New York

Music

True to Their Schools?