It was a little weird when Apple released their onslaught of cryptic press over finally landing the rights to all of the Beatles’ music. They may have, in fact, created too much hype, as the advertisements suggested that Steve Jobs was set to announce that he had signed Lebron James, legalized marijuana, or done both. Many fans had the same reaction once the news was revealed: Doesn’t Best Buy have the White Album already? Don’t I have the White Album already?

What Apple was trying to access, however, were the deep nostalgic recesses of their older customer’s minds. They didn’t care about the seventeen year old who hasn’t paid for a song since 2002- they were reaching out to his parents, specifically the ones who screamed and cried and dated Japanese girls and altered their entire outlook on life because of four lads from Liverpool.  Beatlemania seems to be something so unique and powerful that no one in his twenties or thirties should really try to describe it. It seems, though, like the closest thing our culture has to the orgasm-aneurism hybrid that the band consistently produced is the way someone reacts today when their soul has been saved in front of a congregation of hundreds.

To Jobs and company, tapping into that religious devotion meant huge numbers on iTunes. In the opening week, they sold almost half a million albums and over two million individual tracks.  Some customers were undoubtedly first-timers, but it’s likely that the strength of those huge figures came largely from die-hard fans that ached to have a new experience with their old idols, even if it meant buying additional copies of music they’d already memorized the words to.

It was another brilliant move by the company that stays winning, but one person has actually harnessed collective nostalgia on an even larger scale. Ironically, his name is Brandon McCartney. Most of us know him as Lil B. Read the rest of this entry →

First of all:

The rabbit in the backyard is not Kanye’s sexuality.

The marching band is not the Democratic Party.

The kid with the red smoke is not LeBron.

It doesn’t make sense to analyze Runaway frame by frame, searching for symbols. Kanye himself seems unable, and unwilling, to find a coherent message in his visual tour de force. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth discussing, though. For all that the film leaves untouched on a symbolic level, it speaks volumes about where hip hop may be headed. Read the rest of this entry →

The recent cultural emergence of Willow and Jaden Pinket-Smith has led many to complain that their success is only due to the trail their father blazed. While this might be true, what these people fail to recognize is that the exact same thing can be said about grown men and women all over the hip hop world.

Arguably the best, and possibly the last, true triple threat entertainer, Will Smith has been quiet lately, but his influence in hip hop can be found all over the industry. Everyone from Mos Def to Ludacris to Drizzy Drake owes at least a small part of their success to the Fresh Prince. We may never see another performer like him, and it’s about damn time that Will Smith gets the credit he deserves. By helping to expand the cultural boundaries of the hip hop industry, Smith was one of the primary figures ushering in the new age of the cross-cultural rapper-entertainer.

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Many artists, including Diddy and Young Jeezy (and even Britney Spears) have claimed to be the embodiment of the American Dream. Indeed, the ashy-to-classy narrative that has been woven so thoroughly into hip hop’s fabric suggests that hip hop as an entire genre embodies this idea. Kanye West’s relentless pursuit of recognition and his resilience after his famed car accident would seem to lend itself to a similar American Dream status, but this is not quite the case. Kanye West in his current form is, culturally, the least American musician in the country, and this fact has done wonders for the establishment of his ever-growing importance. Through his duality, complexity and unwavering sense of self, Kanye West has reshaped what an artist in the public eye can hope to be, what is expected of him, and what we can learn from his choices.

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August isn’t always the most eventful month in hip hop. The big albums and singles have been out for weeks, and everyone in the industry begins to look forward to the most hyped stories of the fall, leaving the last few weeks of summer to melt away quietly. The one exception to this rule is Rock The Bells, the annual concert series that revives fans across the country with its always-consistent lineup of all-stars. In the constantly-evolving hip hop industry, there are still a few certainties: Kanye will be a narcissist, Lil Mama will never be taken seriously again, and Rock The Bells will be absolutely dope.  This year, however, the lineup will take on a noticeably new look, with the concert featuring some of hip hop’s hall of famers performing their classic albums in their entirety. Snoop Dogg will do Doggystyle, A Tribe Called Quest will dust off Midnight Marauders, and Wu-Tang is slated to break out the 36 Chambers. Throw in some other classics, and the rumored return of Lauryn Hill (Rock The Bells doesn’t seem 100% sure that Ms. Hill will be there, as she’s way down at the bottom of the set list when she would clearly be the biggest act), and fans at the series’ four shows will undoubtedly see something legendary. What’s most intriguing, though, isn’t whether rap’s Brett Farve will actually come out of retirement to perform Miseducation- it’s how the change in Rock The Bells, and its homage to an era that only now exists in flashes, represents major shifts in not just the industry’s makeup, but the way hip hop is now being consumed in America. Read the rest of this entry →

If you asked your average American citizen to judge the strength of our society soley by listening to popular hip hop, the answer you might receive could very well approach utopia. In a broader context, this may seem like an absurd departure from reality- hip hop has long been considered a bastion of misogyny and materialism- but if your only data came from the industry’s hottest new artists lamenting how hard it is to be rich, famous, and knee-deep in swimsuit models, you might also come to the conclusion that the structure of society was allowing people to live existences impeded only by personal issues resulting from wealth, success, and pressures of stardom. This was not always the case.

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At 12:01 on July 1st, the universe stopped, a thousand angels received their wings, multiple ESPN analysts collapsed from sleep depravation, and Lebron James officially became a free agent. In the midst of frenzied speculation that makes TMZ look like Robert Gibbs sits Jay-Z, a minority owner of the New Jersey Nets. Uncle Hov’s close friendship with Lebron is on the short list of reasons why the Nets are in the running for the services of The Chosen One. Media outlets everywhere have examined the relationship between the King of New York and King James, but with basketball and hip hop having been culturally entangled for decades, the real question is, why don’t we see this kind of thing more often? Hopefully the day will come when the league expands and more rappers have a stake in NBA teams, but until it does, we can only imagine what some of these franchises would look like…

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It seems that as some people get older, there are events that make them wish they were younger. One of these moments for me is the day The Score dropped. This June marks the fifteen year anniversary of Wyclef, Lauryn, and Pras disappearing into Wycelf’s basement and coming out with a masterpiece. The Score, which quietly became one of the most commercially successful albums in hip-hop history, is impressive not just for the quality of its lyrics and production, but because with its emotional truth and elegant style, it succeeded in ways that no album has ever done since.

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I often get to witness the hectic schedule of my twelve year old stepsister. School to swim practice to bar mitzvah tutoring to homework to bed (dinner? Please. Dinner was so 1990). Seeing this, however, doesn’t make me think of the plight of the overworked suburban tween. It makes me think of Jay-Z. I think of Hov because I imagine his schedule bears some sort congruence with Claudia’s: Def Jam meetings to Rocawear powwows to the-maybe-someday Brooklyn Nets to the Four Seasons to MSG to 40/40.  What’s interesting to me, however, is not that my stepsister’s activities remind me of Jay, it’s that when I imagine Mr. Carter’s day, he’s never rapping.

This issue, the lack of actual music in the lives of some of hip-hop’s most talented artists, is forcing fans to suffer through diluted, listless albums from guys capable of producing classics. Call me old fashioned, but I like my rappers to rap once and a while. Read the rest of this entry →