Joshua Lerner died for your sins. Reading Just Kids, Patti Smith’s poignant retelling of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and their magical early years in New York, provides a lot of context for her music. She wrote a song for Janis Joplin. She liked dancing to the Marvelettes. Dylan was her idol, but it was […]

ShowYouSuck is a rapper from Chicago. Listen to any one of his One Man Pizza Party releases (there are now four of them) and you’ll quickly hear the variety of his influences, both musically and culturally. There’s a Southern and West Coast feel, merged with the latest trap sound. Yet Show still finds a way […]

Joshua Lerner has delusions of flaneur. For some time now, the career arcs of Rick Ross and Lupe Fiasco have followed opposing trajectories. Five years ago, the very ordinary job of Florida corrections officer, revealed to be hiding at the bottom of Ross’s resume, put his drug kingpin persona in peril. But from where Ross […]

Joshua Lerner is dressed in azure. You might first have heard Chicago’s Lili K.her rhyming “D. Rose” with “free throws” on Chance’s “Hey Ma” from 10Day. More than just the nostalgic hoop references, she actually makes that song, adding a layer of smoky vocal lines throughout the verses and well-textured harmonies on the hook. It’s […]

Joshua Lerner is pouring out some Johnny Walker Blue. Upon the passing of some semi-forgotten musical legend, biographers and hagiographers alike will strive for a modern angle as they pen their too-short obituaries. How is the music relevant today? Which modern artists were influenced? If the deceased did not already belong to a well-known musical […]

Joshua Lerner has bow tie envy. Five minutes into the video for Janelle Monae’s new single, “Q.U.E.E.N.,” there is a cut to a man in a tuxedo clacking out a repeated line on a typewriter: “We will create and destroy ten art movements in ten years.” Like the rest of the song and video, this […]

Joshua Lerner is mighty healthy. Shit moves quickly on Twelve Reasons to Die. When “An Unexpected Call (The Set Up)” begins, our hero Pretty Tony is knocked out by men in the backseat of his girlfriend’s car. One line later, he wakes up in a “melting pot” in the DeLuca family compound. By the end […]

Joshua Lerner is dropping knowledge like Galileo dropped the orange. “I try to start off with sixteen dots on the paper.” This is how Rakim explains his process of writing to Ice-T in Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap. He continues. “If it’s a sixteen bar rhyme then at least I know what I’m […]

Photos via Tito Garcia & Quayvo Shots. Joshua Lerner teaches at a school, accredited. If most rap artists still make their bread and butter through touring and stage performances, as Harold Stallworth stated last week in an article for this site, it serves us well to wonder: what are the factors that make for a […]

If you’re a rapper and your last name is Battles, it’s pretty easy to hype yourself as a battle rap specialist. Whether that surname is your given name or a chosen alias, dropping the Battles name reminds the listener that you may be able bring another rapper down via verbal dexterity and intimidation. It would […]