Tag Archives: Hip-Hop

Gallery Music Who is Sozay?

by Nicole Pajer and Dustin Downing
February 21, 2011 - 1:12 pm

Sozay is a rising Los Angeles rapper who aspires to step away from today’s overdone rap lyrics that cater to egos and empty messages. Striving to provide fans with meaningful rhymes packed with emotion and heart, Sozay prides himself on his ability to comfortably expose his insecurities and give people a true insight into who he really is. Considered a lyrical mastermind, Sozay isn’t afraid to push boundaries and challenge today’s hip-hop standards. He looks to rappers of the past as sources of inspiration and constantly pulls elements of these iconic performers into his music today.

With a persistent work ethic and exploding fan base, Sozay is making his mark on the rap scene. He recently released a teaser EP titled, “Who is Sozay” and his track “High Hopes” is rotating through West Coast stations. Sozay is currently putting the finishing touches on his upcoming debut “Black September” and is about to hit the road in March to share the stage with hip-hop legends, House of Pain.

On February 10th, LA guests were treated to a pre-Grammy party, featuring a special performance by Sozay. Before the guests arrived and rushed the open bars, the rapper, who is soon to be on everyone’s radar, gave ChinaShop a behind-the-scenes look at his booming career.

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Music Talib Kweli’s Road Rules

by Soren Baker
February 4, 2011 - 11:18 am

Talib Kweli 2011

Talib Kweli learned an important lesson on the road. Before the Brooklyn MC broke out with Reflection Eternal, Black Star with Mos Def or embarked upon a successful solo career, he saw the importance of visiting places beyond the New York state line.

“Traveling has definitely enabled me to appreciate other cultures musically, even cultures within hip-hop, whether it’s Down South, Midwest, West Coast,” says Kweli, whose new album, Gutter Rainbows, is due in stores today (January 25) and features the song “Mr. International,” which details his life on the road. “Me working with Hi-Tek early in my career and spending a lot of time in Cincinnati really opened me up. When I was first in Cincinnati, they were listening to a lot of E-40. E-40’s Federal was the album that they were on. Then it moved from the West Coast with E-40 and Spice 1 and Dr. Dre influence to a Down South influence with the rise of Master P.”

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Music For Dee-1, Music Has A Mission

by Soren Baker
February 3, 2011 - 9:58 am

Dee-1 2011

Though the South spawned such top-notch lyricists as Scarface, Big Mike, 8Ball & MJG and OutKast in the 1980s and 1990s, the region was never regarded as a lyrical hotbed. Lil Wayne is doing his best to correct this wrong.

Dee-1 may be next in line. The New Orleans rapper set the Internet ablaze in late 2010 with “Jay, 50, and Weezy,” an inventive cut where he imagined a conversation he would have with each artist. But rather than just begging to be signed, Dee-1 saluted each rapper before pointing out ways they could help their communities and the rap community.

Virtually instantly, Dee-1 became a rare Southern MC: a rapper known for his lyrics, his creativity and his musical agenda. “When you have a calling and a mission, it doesn’t matter where you’re from,” Dee-1 says today. “I think it’s just all about exposure to people and that’s what I’m focusing on, just getting exposure to people. I think that regardless of me being from New Orleans, being from the South, whatever people might label me as, I think it’s just a connection that people are going to make to my purpose and to my movement. So I don’t think that geography is going to matter.”

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Music Having Fun with Hip Hop: Redman

by Shop Keeper
January 10, 2011 - 7:08 am

Redman

Redman has jumped off of stages and into crowds – and off of airplanes into clouds. It’s that kind of recklessness and willingness to take extreme risks that has enabled the New Jersey rhymer to sustain a wild rap career that has lasted nearly 20 years.

“It’s like my personality in the music,” says Redman during an interview from Def Jam Records’ New York office. Redman’s seventh album, Redman Presents…Reggie, was released on Tuesday. “It allows me to branch off into any area that I want because I’m open,” he continues. “I could be your hardest asshole and I can be the easiest guy to get along with. That’s what my music is. I have people music. I don’t just have, ‘OK, I’m a thug. I can’t smile.’ Or, ‘Fuck that. I don’t do that X Games bullshit.’ I don’t have that kind of look. I have the kind of look like, ‘Hey. I like that guy. He smokes. He pays his bills. He steps in his pants one leg at a time just like we do,’ and that’s the feel and the vibe that I give off to people, so when I do things like the X Games or a Gillette commercial people see me and be like, ‘Wow. Look at this dude,’ not, ‘What the fuck is he in there for?’ It was like, ‘Yeah, well, why not?’ It’s just his personality.”

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Music Spank Rock! Need I Say More?

by Shop Keeper
January 7, 2011 - 9:16 am

Spank. And Rock.

Hmmm. Here’ a particular group with songs called “Pu$$y”, “bitch,” and “BOOTAY.” And albums called YoYoYoYoYo!, and Bangers and Cash, as well as the pictures of some fairly big-bootied girls on the album covers.  The question is: Has 2 Live Crew reunited yet again, or could there be a more devious, tongue-in-cheek rapper/DJ behind this nasty piece of work?

The answer, perhaps thankfully, is that the guys who wrote a song called “Get the Fuck Out of My House” — and meant it seriously — have been successfully parodied (perhaps unintentionally) by a more talented and spinner(s) named Spank Rock. Yes, no one’s still quite sure how many are in the group altogether. But when Xfm London breakfast DJ Lauren Laverne gives you her prestigious “Album of the Year” Award, and you’re being played on a Wish-Bone salad dressing commercial, people tend to sit up and pay notice.

His — or their – hip hop songs run the gammut, from the hard-hitting and bass-heavy rap of the early 90s, and combining it with that electro sound that’s dominating the charts today — all for a sound that sounds eerily like the aforementioned Crew, actually — and they’ve even composed an ode to producing God Rick Rubin. You can get a piece of the action right now on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.

Music Dan Charnas: Strictly Business

by Shop Keeper
January 6, 2011 - 7:04 am

Charnas in NYC

Dan Charnas witnessed and participated in hip-hop’s explosive growth from a 1970s New York subculture to its status today as one of the world’s most predominant cultural movements.  The New York native worked for record labels and was a journalist, both helping promote rap records that mattered and discussing them in the media.

Charnas’ just-released book, The Big Payback: The History Of The Business Of Hip-Hop, is a must-read for anyone serious about hip-hop culture and its evolution.  In the following Q&A, Charnas discusses the genre’s growth, how it was able to thrive and how he would like to see it presented.

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Music Kanye West’s Top 10 Producing Credits

by Shop Keeper
January 4, 2011 - 11:36 am

Kanye West

Before he was throwing temper tantrums at the MTV VMAs and being labeled the biggest jerk in the history of hip hop, and before he released his critically acclaimed My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye West was producing some of the dopest beats the game has ever heard.

Kanye’s career as a rap artist didn’t exactly take off like a Gulfstream en route to the south of France. Prior to reaching superstar status as a rap artist, many labels were reluctant to sign Kanye West “the producer” to a record deal.

It took a 2003 car accident to inspire Kanye to write and produce “Through the Wire”, a track he recorded with his jaw wired shut. With critical acclaim, his career as a respected rap artist and eventual superstar was launched. For Mr. West, there was no looking back.

Luckily for you, we enjoyed history class in high school. So much so that we decided to take a look back and list our favorite pre-superstar Kanye-produced tracks:

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Music Can Kanye ‘Survive in America?’

by Yael Reed Wachspress
December 7, 2010 - 12:20 pm

Kanye West My Dark Twisted Fantasy album cover

Kanye West, Swizz Beatz, Pusha T, RZA and CyHi Da Prynce all repeatedly chant, “It’s like that sometimes, I mean ridiculous / It’s like that sometimes, the shit is ridiculous” over the track, So Appalled, debuted on Ye’s fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. And that’s exactly what the whole entire album is, ridiculous. Ridiculously good.

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Gallery Music Red Bull Big Tune Welcomes Black Milk to Chicago

by Max Herman
November 19, 2010 - 12:34 pm

Let’s just get this out of the way: hip-hop shows, more than any other genre, regularly feature an absurd amount of waiting before the headliner you went to see finally hits the stage—often after midnight. Some of the opening acts or DJs you see beforehand might be good and you may even be hyped to have been introduced to them, but when it takes four hours before the main act steps on stage, shit can get old. With this in mind, Black Milk’s last minute, Red Bull Big Tune pre-show in Chicago at Reggie’s Rock Club was as close to ideal as you can get.

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