Wu-Tang Clan

The Ten Best Concerts in New York This Week, 5/13/13

Support live music and check out one of these 10 shows this week.

Ghostface's Twelve Reasons to Die and Hip-Hop's Other Audio Films

One of rap's most overused cliches is the phrase "my life is like a movie." Significantly much harder to come across are the artists who liken their entire albums to the medium of film. Most recently, Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge teamed up for Twelve Reasons to Die, an album made to sound like ... More >>

The A$AP Rocky Drinking Game

This month buzzier-than-thou rapper A$AP Rocky released his major label debut, Long.Live.A$AP. You may have heard. We've thought long and hard about the album, and want you to have the optimal Rocky listening experience. Among its tracks you'll find several tropes and repetitive aspects. A$AP Rocky ... More >>

Coachella 2013 Lineup Announced

After countless rumors, false starts, and fakes, the ACTUAL, REAL DEAL, NO BULLSHIT Coachella Lineup has finally been announced. And, no, the Rolling Stones aren't headlining. But you already knew that. So who is? These are your Coachella headliners: Stone Roses and Blur the first night, Phoenix the ... More >>

Q&A: Raekwon Recovers Some Lost Jewelry

Raekwon is the mayor of fly shit. Snow Beach pullovers to Cuban links, his oft-imitated style and slang have been referenced for the past 20 years -- as Cappadonna once put it, "Half the East Coast sound just like Rae"). In the past, he's accused Frank White of biting his visual style. Today, if he ... More >>

Why We Still Love Cypress Hill

Tonight, west coast hip-hop favorites Cypress Hill return to the Best Buy theater. With over two decades of nationwide touring, they've developed a reputation as one of the most anticipated and consistent live shows in the genre. Even after departing from their longtime label Sony in 2008, the group ... More >>

Can My Left Tit Make New York Laugh Again?

It's a tough time for music with a sense of humor. An earnest wave of boring indie bands has just tried to ruin CMJ (like they do every year), their beards matted with their own knob-slobber and playing the kind of music that wins first prize in a dick-shrinking contest. Then Hurricane Sandy left a ... More >>

A Killer Mike Crash Course

Tonight, one of Atlanta's favorite sons, Killer Mike, plays with Wu-Tang Clansman GZA at Irving Plaza. In many respects, this has been a banner year for Mike, whose El-P produced album R.A.P. Music has given him the most accolades of his career, as well as his work touring with the Into the Wild tou ... More >>

Musical Heroes: A New York Comic-Con Playlist

If things seem a little more heroic around you than usual, it's because today marks the start of the 2012 New York Comic-Con. The NYCC is one of the nation's biggest comic conventions, attracting fans, artists, industry types and celebrities from all over the entertainment world. The lines waiting f ... More >>

A Bite With The Band: Talking Mythology And Twitter Over Spumoni With Ava Luna

A lot has happened since SOTC met Ava Luna two and a half years ago. Drummer Alex Smith has been replaced by the returning Julian Fader, who played with an earlier iteration of the band (in the interim, he was a member of bands like Quilty and a couple others). The backup vocal trio is down to a due ... More >>

In Honor Of National Donut Day, The Trollgaze Index Sizes Up Krispy Kreme (The Rapper, That Is)

Yesterday the Alabama rapper Krispy Kreme—think a 21-year-old Paul Wall lookalike who sounds like a Yelawolf impersonator whose tricks are performing with a mouth full of marbles and rhyming "back" with "back," streamed over a super-slow Internet connection"—released the song "Best Frien ... More >>

Geoff Barrow's Sour Rhymes

The member of Portishead excavates his band's hip-hop roots

Top 10 Rap-Related Reality-TV Moments

​"Reality rap" was once a phrase invoked by gangsta rappers to defend their music against moral outcry from the mainstream media and pesky suburban dwellers. These days, the term largely refers to the slew of emcees lining up to star in their own TV shows. While Boogie Down Productions associa ... More >>

Odd Future Will Be Back In New York City on February 15 at Santos Party House

​Uh oh. When last we saw teenage L.A. scandal rap collective Odd Future, it was in the basement of Webster Hall, where the entire evil axis of New York rap critics gathered to watch frontdemon Tyler the Creator take emphatic hits off an asthma inhaler. (Once he got his breath back, he told us ... More >>

Live: Syl Johnson Socks It To 'Em At Southpaw

Clap harder and he'll bust his ass even more. Pics by Rob, more below.​Syl Johnson Southpaw Friday, December 3 Better than: Whatever you did Friday night. "I'm gonna fuck the band up," announces Syl Johnson, and he means it. He has commanded a sold-out Southpaw, packed wall to wall with vint ... More >>

The 10 Best Verses From Kanye West's Good Friday Project, So Far

​As sustained, goodwill-generating rap publicity stunts go, Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Fridays series is almost entirely without precedent. Other rappers, guys like Freeway and Crooked I, have given away free music in regular installments, but those guys are B-listers and supporting players, and th ... More >>

Rock The Bells, New Orleans Bounce, And Michael Jackson Headline Your Weekend In Nightlife

​We're going to recommend you avoid Manhattan this weekend. Thanks to NYU and Columbia, every 20-year-old within a ten-mile radius will either be moving back into their dorms or celebrating the end of summer with one last cityside hurrah. Instead, take Friday night off and keep yourself in the ... More >>

Jim Jarmusch's Showtunes

On ATP 2010, musicians as actors, Tom Waits's threats, and what planet ODB was on

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 >>

Bushwick's Party Expo Is Still Having (Dry) Shows, Despite Cop Shut Down

all photos by Nate "Igor" SmithNYPD pays a visit to the Street Boners book-release party Last Thursday, the NYPD shut down our favorite Wu-Tang-endorsed, Superman-marked DIY space, Party Expo, during the release party for Gavin McInnes's Street Boners book. Wyldlife and Das Racist were scheduled to ... More >>

Prof. Steven Hawking, on Aliens: Earth Should Watch Its Ass

​Well, looks like someone's been watching a little too much V.

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

This Week in the Voice

Photo by Star Foreman. You're going to love Zoe Kazan. She's Hollywood royalty (granddaughter of Elia Kazan). She's been on Broadway and in movies, one of which, The Exploding Girl, debuts at the Tribeca Film Festival. Melissa Anderson interviews her. You may also view Star Foreman's photo slidesh ... More >>

Best Fall from Local Rap Grace: The Diplomats

Cam'ron Surfaces, Sort Of

A Running Diary of Hip-Hop Superfest Rock the Bells

The exquisite joys of a sunny Sunday afternoon on the LIRR, Mos Def's basketball uniform, and De La Soul's late-'80s nostalgia

Wyclef Jean's The Carnival II and Pitbull's The Boatlift

Two big shots rock the boat people

Test My Balls of Fury

Answer all correctly and win a Def Leppard album

Live: Spoon Blows the Fuck Up

Night Becomes Eclectic

Brooklyn melting-pot supergroup Volney Litmus keeps the fire and the conversation going

VH1's Hip-Hop Honors: A Running Diary

Hip-Hop's New No Wave

Downtown's odd relationship with rap bravado continues this fall—now with Muppet costumes

Don't Stop

Two unlikely DJs, Womanmaker and Fancypants, spin hip-hop at the unlikeliest venue

Status Ain't Hood's Top Five Live Shows of 2005

French Basketball Players Pretend To Be Rappers

'Ho-Obsessed Staten Island Potty Mouth Not Always a Hoot

And the Winner Is . . .

Misstress With the Mostest

Brooklyn-Via-Egypt-Via-the-World Post-Dub DJ Gets Coy-Tricky and True-Gritty

Today's Mathematics

Music

Dookie from Dubuque

Catch a Fire

Proof of Life

A Death in the Wu-Tang Clan

Turning Japanese

Demographic Violence

Poetic Injustice: A Gravedigga Fights for Life

The Critical Condition of Health Coverage in the Music Industry

A to the B

Consumer Guide

Appalachian Sprung