Son Raw would like to advise you that this video is vaguely NSFW As Jeff mentioned in his Fort Romeau post, House isn’t our forte around here: too fast, too close to disco and whether the fist-pumping or elitist varieties, you get the sense that Hip-Hop stoners such as us just don’t belong to the […]

Time for some Roc Marciano to poison the palate. As always, there are too many quotables to list without rewinding two dozen times. Yes, he did say that he runs the break like Dave Wingate.  Roc remains more vicious than an unfed Hoya. I can’t spot the sample so anyone with deeper crates should tell […]

Photo via Jose Flores I assume that the idea of house music is anathema to 94 percent of this site’s readership. The genre has long since been stereotyped as the province of over-gelled fist-pumpers and aptly mimicked by the “ooncha ooncha” sound. You know what I’m talking about even if you don’t know what I’m […]

Slava P prefers The Dillinger Escape Plan. By default. Out of all the white rappers trying to make a name for themselves, Machine Gun Kelly may be my least favorite. Maybe it’s because he takes himself too seriously. Maybe because Diddy signed him. Maybe it’s because he reminds me of a younger and somehow angrier […]

Killer Mike and King Koopa have roots dating back to the crunk years. Back in 05, Mike Render and the good Pastor helped Cham get revenge. A few years later, the pair teamed with Messy Marv to make a very good song about money and cars in a genre with many good songs about money […]

Welcome home to the man who passed more essays than motorcade police parades through East LA. Pharoahe’s last album did the impossible (make me ambivalent about one of my all-time favorites), but this is a blistering return to his hyper-technical but melodic conspiracy rap. There is a bit of singing, but he seems to have […]

This is just your normal video in which a champion teenage ice skater falls through the thin ice in a skating rink and ends up almost drowning in frozen water. Thankfully, she emerges from the arctic sea and winds up at a carnival where she declines to drink some slush puppies. Obviously, she is still  […]

Oh you know Son Raw wasn’t going to let these slip, right? Repeat after me: Grime is not an album genre. While the most dedicated fans might disagree, the general consensus about Grime is that it’s heyday was an era of pirate broadcasts and 12 inch singles, completely divorced from the album medium. Even mixtapes […]

O.C.may never receive the proper dues he’s long deserved. The BK rapper, one-time Crooklyn Dodger and D.I.T.C. representative became an underground legend due to his carefully crafted verses and thoughtful storytelling. His 6th album “Trophies,” produced entirely by Detroit beatmaker Apollo Brown, dropped in May; it was his first solo album in six years and […]

If you inhabit the Internet music bubble, you probably caught wind of the tragic death of Matthew Africa earlier this month. Africa was a great DJ in the most pure and classical definition: his mixes were peerless, his crates were deep, and when he wrote or spoke, you knew to listen up. To honor his […]