[Ed. Note: The following post ran on the music blog of the Voice's sister publication Houston Press on Jan. 23. We rerun it here re: relevant to our interests.] By Nathan Smith There are a few things you should know about A$AP Rocky. He's a pretty motherfucker. His new album, Long.Live.A$AP, is a ... More >>
Brooklyn Bowl goes Southern with Yelawolf and Rittz
Yesterday the Alabama rapper Krispy Kremethink 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 >>
If you're familiar with chaos theory, which in its basic form is the attempt to find patterns in this planet's many happenings, then you may understand the difficulty that comes with describing a full day at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. To break down the chaos, a few of Village ... More >>
by Chris Gray "What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area." Tommy Lee Jones, The Fugitive You don't have to spend much time at South By Southwest to know that all of ... More >>
Ed Sheeran Mercury Lounge Monday, January 30 Better than: Finding a Sugababes album in the 99-cent bin. British pop stars have had something of a rough go when trying to break America, despite often working with much better material than much of what's on the charts over here. The sacking of poor ... More >>
To supplement this year's Pazz & Jop launch, Sound of the City asked a few critics to expand on the reasonings behind their voting. Here, the British critic Alex Macpherson finds protest music and love songs that were worth holding on to past the end of the calendar year. Every year, I cavil about ... More >>
Time to change up this rut we're in, music lovers
Waka Flocka Flame is the sort of of hip-hop artist who doesn't so much rap or flow as he shouts his ass off. It's a formula that imbues the Atlanta-based rapper's songs with a boisterous, visceral appealand one that he's looking to continue with the release of his second studio album, Triple ... More >>
Class is in session at Brooklyn’s Southpaw
Sound of the City's year-end roundtable, with contributions from Tom Ewing, Eric Harvey, Maura Johnston, Nick Murray, and Katherine St. Asaph, continues. Follow along here. Hi again everyone, Sure, there was lots of great music put out by women this yearmy Pazz and Jop top tens will ... More >>
Now available on Etsy for your gift-giving needs: hand-stitched cloth versions of Kanye West's tweets. The commemorations of West's epic 140-character missives ("Sometimes I get the usage of puns and double en- tundras mixed up. I know sometimes one thing can be both. Rap God issues!!! LOL!!! ... More >>
If there were ever a moment for a queer, disabled rapper with a love for pot, jokes, and revolution to be a star, the moment is now
Snapped at last night's opening party for The Beats Store, an emporium devoted to Beats By Dr. Dre, the headphone line that sprung from the collective mind of the aforementioned rapper-producer and Interscope-Geffen-A&M honcho Jimmy Iovine. (Both Dre and Iovine were present at the bash, as wa ... More >>
Yelawolf w/Rittz Irving Plaza Tuesday, October 25 Better than: Fiddling with the radio. Midway through Yelawolf's show at Irving Plaza on Tuesday nighthis third time appearing on that stage, his first time headlining ithe invited the audience to get a little better acquainted with ... More >>
Das Racist, New York's Best Rap Moguls With A Business Plan. It's Best Of New York day! We've honored about 40 different music-related entities in our annual roundup of the best this city has to offer, from the Best Twitterer to the Best Fiddler to the Best Radio Show. Congratulations to all ... More >>
Yelawolf just wants to party at Irving Plaza
"Oh, snap, it's the real-life rap Halle Berry..." And lo, with 16 bars rapped over an instrumental spun by underground hip-hop gate-keeper DJ Premier, a new star was born at the BET Hip-Hop Honors earlier this week. Well, maybeat the very least, the performer in question saw her profil ... More >>
Over the weekend the sad-sack MC Drake put up a sad blog post announcing that Take Care, his long-in-the-works second album, would be coming out on November 15, and not in time for his 25th birthday on October 24. "So I have completed 19 songs (17 on physical and 2 on bonus), and have run into a roa ... More >>
Brisk timekeeping on Bleecker Street
In this week's Village Voice, available in a red box near you right now: Michaelangelo Matos talks to the Rapture about their new album In The Grace Of Your Love and their return to DFA Records; and I hit a pop-up venue on Bleecker Street to check out a performance by the dizzyingly talented ... More >>
Jennifer YinYelawolf Brisk Bodega Saturday, September 17 Better than: Your neighborhood bodega. If the Smithsonian upped its cool factor and wrangled a sponsorship from a multinational corporation looking to promote its iced tea line, the result might be the Brisk Bodega, a made-over ... More >>
The fleet-tongued Alabama MC Yelawolf has been making the rounds on the Warped Tour in advance of his major-label debut Radioactive, which comes out next month, and last night that album's first single leaked. "Hard White (Up In The Club)" is a flip of the club-jam with Yela using the settin ... More >>
Eric Church and Randy Montana navigate life
via FreshnessmagBun 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 >>
Rep. Joe Crowley, who represents New York's 7th District, took a creative approach to attacking the GOP on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in a presentation without spoken words titled, "Speechless." Even if it's not a direct homage to Bob Dylan, it reminds us pleasantly of "Subterran ... More >>
You don't have to go home, Tyler, but you can't stay here. All photos by Rebecca Smeyne.Another SXSW is in the books, granting great relief to those of us who were just subjected to five straight days of partying-related Twitter updates, and great sorrow to those who became accustomed to the ... More >>
Wu-Tang, who else? All photos by Nate "Igor" SmithThe Wu-Tang/Wild Flag encore of champions never quite went off the way we hoped it would, but Donald Glover's rapping alter-ego Childish Gambino did make a cameo appearance, Yelawolf took off his shirt, and fireworks shot off down the block, w ... More >>
"Just growing up when we grew up and how we grew up and of course where we grew up . . . I seen enough to keep me inspired for decades, man." From the moment we all heard those kung fu effects on "Protect Ya Neck," the world was hooked. Smitten by the rugged wordplay and seemingly endless li ... More >>
"I was before my time, as the record labels would say." At 17, Angela "Mecca" Scott was beckoned by producer Ski Beatz to fly from her Virginia home up to New York City to sing on a track for an up-and-coming Brooklyn rapper named Jay-Z. Over a beat based around a sample from jazz pianist Ah ... More >>
