Southern Rap

Let Them Eat Cake

You are cordially invited to the week’s best birthday party

Dissecting the Politically-Charged Subtext of Nicki Minaj's "High School" Video

Last week, Nicki Minaj released the highly-anticipated music video for "High School" from her album Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded - The Re-Up . The video is completely over-the-top. It's also factually inaccurate, since Nicki Minaj went to LaGuardia High School and LaGuardia High School is not the spr ... More >>

This Week in Pop Videos: Robin Thicke! 50 Cent! Lil Wayne! More!

A look at the week's hottest pop clips, including the frolicsome ribaldry of Robin Thicke, the mansion malaise of 50 Cent and the insufferable wackness of Somethingorother Yacht Idiots.

Lil Wayne: Human After All

Friends. Romans. Martians. I stand before you not to bury Lil Wayne and I Am Not A Human Being II, nor do I intend to praise it. Instead, I implore you to marvel at this album's sheer existence, because yet again, Lil Wayne has managed to accomplish something only great artists can: he's made someth ... More >>

FRESH TO DEATH

Mannie Fresh goes behind 
the board at santos

30 Rock's Most Hilarious Rap References

30 Rock wraps up tonight, as the Tina Fey-penned show signs off with its final episode. During the show's seven seasons of hilarity, it's never been shy of weaving rap references into its script (a tick helped by Donald Glover a/k/a/ Childish Gambino holding down a writer's position at one point). S ... More >>

BEEZ IN THE TRAP

2012’s hottest dance trend keeps going

Trey Songz Opens A Much-Read Book To Chapter V

Much of R&B has been devoted to negotiating the relationship between men and women, and Trey Songz has always been traditional in that regard. His new album, Chapter V is organized neatly into three sections. The first and longest section is a hedonistic celebration of the player lifestyle (note the ... More >>

Seven Speaker-Shattering Busta Rhymes Guest Verses

Busta Rhymes will headline this year's 2012 Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival with a performance down under the borough's namesake bridge on Saturday. With a stash of rap anthems that includes "Pass The Courvoisier," "Woo-Ha!! (Got You All In Check)," and "Hands Where My Eyes Can See," the big man's set is ... More >>

Live: Drake Brings Dipset, Busta Rhymes, A$AP Rocky, And More To Jones Beach

Drake w/ J. Cole, Waka Flocka Flame, Meek Mill, 2 Chainz, French Montana Nikon Theater at Jones Beach Saturday, June 16 Better than: That other suburban rap mega-show. Well over halfway through his set, having already given the crowd a festival's worth of openers and played everything but his bigg ... More >>

CREW LOVE

Drake and friends head to Jones Beach

FLOSSIN' SEASON

Juvenile remains as good as ever (almost)

Radio Hits One: Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, And Other Urban Radio Staples Turn To Clappers

Lately, when I turn on a hip-hop station, I feel like I'm being applauded, and I don't always feel like returning the favor. I'm not referring just to the default use of handclaps (sampled or, more likely, emulated by drum machines) as snare drums in beats, which has been a common practice and has b ... More >>

Oddsmaker: Do Beyoncé And André 3000 Have Enough Swagu To Beat Kanye And His Dozens Of Friends At The Grammys?

​The Grammys created the awkwardly named Best Rap/Sung Collaboration category ten years ago, around the time Ja Rule's various "thug love" duets were dominating the airwaves. The award recognized a growing sector of popular music that didn't quite fit into the preexisting rap, R&B or pop song ... More >>

53 More Great Songs From 2011

Earlier today, Maura offered a list of the 47 songs on her "2011 Awesomeness" Spotify playlist; to complement that, here are the 53 songs from my less cleverly named playlist, "2011." As is the usually the case with these mega-lists, I compiled mine a bit haphazardly, throwing together a substantial ... More >>

Ke$ha Works Both Sides Of The Pop Aisle

​This morning brought the release of "Sleazy 2.0 (Get Sleazier)," the all-star remix of Ke$ha's Dr. Luke/Bangladesh banger about men who are a bit too impressed with their wealth "Sleazy"; the new version contains the quietly gut-punching verse that Andre 3000 added to the original remix, as w ... More >>

Beyond Jay And Kanye's Throne: Ten More Regal Seats In Hip-Hop

Coming to an arena near you this weekend: Jay-Z and Kanye West. ​Kanye West and Jay-Z's grandiose Watch The Throne tour comes to the New York City area tomorrow, and sticks around through next week—the pair perform at the Izod Center on Saturday and Sunday, and at Madison Square Garden o ... More >>

Live: Yelawolf Mixes It Up At Irving Plaza

Yelawolf w/Rittz Irving Plaza Tuesday, October 25 Better than: Fiddling with the radio. Midway through Yelawolf's show at Irving Plaza on Tuesday night—his third time appearing on that stage, his first time headlining it—he invited the audience to get a little better acquainted with ... More >>

The Top Ten Failed First Singles Off The Game's The R.E.D. Album

​This list began as a joke, but the longer I contemplated it, the more depressing its basic concept became. Consider: not only could I easily string together ten of Game's fruitless attempts to force label executives to release The R.E.D. Album, his followup to 2008's LAX; I had to make decisi ... More >>

'The Governors Ball'

Live: Bun B Gets His Kicks At Good Units

via Freshnessmag​Bun B Good Units (Complex Foot Locker's Sneakerpedia Launch Party) Tuesday, May 17 Better than: Waiting outside in the rain (at least for the shoes' sake). Last night at Good Units, there were more cameras aimed at the floor than at the stage--which might have been fittin ... More >>

Top 10 Lex Luger Tracks You Probably Haven't Heard (But Probably Should)

​ In 2010, a new generation of rap producers, from AraabMuzik to Droop-E, made huge strides both artistically and commercially. But none distinguished themselves more than Lex Luger, the 19-year-old Virginia native behind both Rick Ross's "B.M.F (Blowin' Money Fast)" and a good deal of Waka F ... More >>

D-Grade Rap Star Possibly "Riding Dirty" with Newly Minted Baller-Status Michael Arrington, Other Nerds

​Remember rapper Chamillionaire ("Chameleon" "Millionaire"), who had that song about "Riding Dirty" that was less about unspeakable sex acts we'd probably rather not want to catch him in the middle of rather than the proposition of being pulled over by law enforcement officials with illicit ... More >>

T.I. in Takers

This is the best baseline-competent action movie to come out all summer

Q&A: Bertolain Elysee, Co-Curator of the Maysles Institute's "Country Rap 2: The Gulf States" Series, Opening This Weekend

​The Maysles Institute's documentary film series "Country Rap 2: The Gulf States" and its accompanying program "Katrina: Five Years Later"--both opening this weekend--tie the rich spirit and deep history of Southern hip-hop to recent tragedies like Katrina and the Gulf oil spill. Films about M ... More >>

New The-Dream, Featuring T.I.: "Fall in Love Again"

Leave it to The-Dream to make us impatient for the end of a T.I. verse. What works great on a T.I. album--"Like I Do," anyone?--isn't exactly what we want for Love King, the new Dream LP for which this record is presumably intended. The-Dream, who has written a hit for pretty much everyone in the ... More >>

A Comprehensive Guide to B.o.B, the Rapping Coldplay Acolyte Who Is About to Be Enormously Famous

​In two weeks the first rap album of 2010 that matters will be released. How much rap will appear on The Adventures of Bobby Ray is still a mystery. But the recent hip-hop trend of paradigm-shifting MCs--e.g., rappers who don't always seem interested in rap--continues with the big top arrival ... More >>

Take Donald Glover, Aziz Ansari, and Das Racist's Joke Rap Seriously

A new generation of MCs grapple with how funny they're allowed to be

Michael Jackson and Hip-Hop

Guess which one of those things didn't die this year

Goodie Mob+Scarface+Slick Rick

How to Rob, by M.I.A.

M.I.A. triumphantly knocks the hustle that's driving hip-hop's materialist malaise

UGK's Underground Kingz

Overdue Southern comfort

The Motormouth of the South

DJ Khaled is taking over, 200 words a minute and one guest-star at a time

Insanity and Other Mutations

Hiphop's future is cloudier, but not necessarily darker

Outsourced

Vociferous MC thinks globally, acts less locally

Outcasts Search for the Love Above in Ambitious Hip-Hopera

Top Ten Plus

Hey Get Ya Mom a Crazy Milkshake in Da Club

Love and Crunk

Rowdy Big Boi and fly Andre 3000 divide and conquer the Dirty South book of hiphop rules

Music

Beneath the Arch, Thurr's No Business Like Ho Business

The South Does It Again, Sort Of

Rap Trounces Rock Below the Mason-Dixon

Licensed to Lil

Sugar Daddy

So Stank, So Clean

Twerk to Do

Make My Crunk the P-Funk

Memphis Bleak

For the Love of Money

Butta-Knife Love

F(reakiness) M