Son Raw makes 2 Live Crew look like some Mormons. Danny Brown ended XXX with a pained howl that would have made a fitting epigraph had drugs, violence or jail snuffed out his promising rap career. Thing is, that didn’t happen. Against all odds, the skinny jeans-wearing backpack-rapper with a blown out haircut and encyclopedic […]

We probably needed House Shoes and Hex Murda for ultimate last rites authority on all matters pertaining to the D, but the trio of Black Milk, Quelle Chris, and Denmark Vessey are among the best musicians that Detroit has produced over the last half decade. Knowledge was brought in via carrier pigeon and dispersed via […]

Evan Nabavian is pouring one out for Tone and Poke too. When Detroit saw a salvo of great rap around 2008, the names to know were Black Milk, Waajeed, House Shoes, Elzhi, Guilty Simpson, Royce da 5’9”, and Ta’Raach. But as with any great hip-hop scene, plenty more talent bubbled below the surface. In 2009, […]

Danny Brown subtly breaking down the potential for problems between Kobe and Dwight Howard. Between this and “Grown Up,” the Hybrid has starred in two of the best videos of the year and he doesn’t even have a new album out. Impressive. Don’t sleep on House Shoes either. He is one of the most quotable […]

Conventional hip hop logic holds that the DJ is enduring a long slow slide towards California Condor status. You could theoretically argue that things have gone downhill since Kool Herc essentially invented the genre. Serato has brought every amateur out of the Pioneer Speakers. Rappers can and do play live shows from CDs. Computer production […]

I’ve never been to Detroit but I grew up in Toronto, with Michigan just across the lake. Between Chicago and Detroit, the Midwest is having a moment right now. The cities are exploding with promising young rappers and overlooked local legends, Bandcamp, Twitter and YouTube providing the crucial arteries to broker homegrown talent to the […]

Detroit native Black Milk has been an active producer/rapper since 2002 as a member of hip-hop collective Slum Village. Production-wise, Black’s modus operandi can be described as Dilla-esque, but he doesn’t really imitate the late legend as much as utilize Dilla’s crate-digging approach to composition as a vantage point, which then gives Black an opportunity […]

Detroit native Skylar Tait AKA SKYWLKR made his name last year by producing the bulk of Danny Brown’s critically acclaimed album XXX. Recently named one of the FADER’s 5 producers to watch in 2012, Sky crafts blunted, psychedelic beats that sound like nothing else. In an interview conducted for our XXX making-of feature, SKY discusses […]

Jimmy Ness is neither related to Elliot nor Neutron. Boldy James has a love affair with the block. He sounds like Prodigy, flows like Curren$y and creates the kind of grimy tracks that most 90s rappers should return home to.The 29 year old bares his wounds and retells his days of struggle in a similar […]

One half of Crown Nation, Detroit spitter/producer Quelle Chris (@quellechris) does double duty as minimal synth one-man band Awesome in Outerspace and a zonked-out rap wonderkind with a lot to say for himself. His excellent album Shotgun and Sleek Rifle got substantial burn around these part. Since we already got him on the line for […]