Doc Zeus is wearing no makeup. How do you follow a masterpiece? It’s a question that humans have asked since Homer wallowed in an Athenian bathhouse and drunkenly panicked: “How do you top the fucking Illiad?” What do you do after you’ve stretched each sinewy fiber towards grabbing the brass ring and you actually catch it? For […]
| Can’t Take Style From Me: Kendrick Lamar’s “Blacker the Berry” | February 10, 2015 |
Unpacking Kendrick Lamar's latest epic.
| The King & “i”: Hip-Hop’s Savior Complex & Kendrick Lamar’s New Single | September 25, 2014 |
Is there any good in "i"
| MobbDeen: Kendrick Lamar’s Motivational Plan | September 23, 2014 |
King Kendrick's comeback single meets the last "Control" response.
| The End of Days: Ab-Soul’s New Album | July 8, 2014 |
Max Bell carried the cross so you could play Candy Crush 2012’s Control System was an inspired and unforeseen coup. Ab-Soul brought inquisition and introspection, paranoia and conspiracy theories by the oz. There were hits of DMT, witty wordplay, and pineal gland prodding. It was the Carson native’s claim to the title of ‘Best Behind […]
| Best Verse of 2013: Kendrick Lamar’s “Control” | December 19, 2013 |
Words by Jonah Bromwich. Art by Brad Beatson Smarm is everywhere. Take Big Sean on “Control (HOF),” smarming it up like a pro. And if you go back and pay attention to Big Sean’s lyrics, he is a professional smarmer. “I’m over niggas sayin’ they’re the hottest niggas Then run to the hottest niggas just […]
| Kendrick Lamar & Y.G. Hootie: Two Presidents | November 29, 2013 |
The harder the rapper that Kendrick Lamar is paired against, the more vicious he is. It’s not like he’s remotely soft. This is the man who told the world that he has a collage in his garage of everyone he’s despised since the moment he turned five. But the show and prove element that he […]
| A Supposedly Great Thing Kendrick Lamar Should Never Do Again: Yeezus Comes to Medina | November 20, 2013 |
Abe Beame is waiting for your 4 page letter at [email protected] In the Summer of 2011, I immediately started pushing Kendrick Lamar and Section 80 for album of the year, following a headlining showcase at S.O.B.’s. The venue is a tiny sweatbox in SoHo, one of the few small and affordable places left to catch […]
| Fredo Santana & Kendrick Lamar – “Jealous” | November 1, 2013 |
This is not the 2013 “Cartoons & Cereal,” but this is the closest thing to replicating that equation. Kendrick + brazen drug-addled shooter + bando-rattling beat. A response to everyone who was worried that K. Dot was veering exclusively into Eminem’s “SCREAM AT MY MEAN MOM” flow. Maybe it’s the fact that Fredo has no […]
| Pusha T & Kendrick Lamar’s “Nosetalgia” | September 16, 2013 |
The king of coke rappers meets the most sober rapper from the Ronald Reagan era. Boogie Down Productions samples and bongo drums and a whole lot of drug talk. The guitars straight from “D.O.A” straight from Janko Nilovic. Pusha remains “puntastic,” flashing his one Zoolander-like look (“White Steel”). But he sounds rejuvenated through his hatred […]
