An in-depth review of the Def Jam debut from Long Beach rapper Vince Staples.

Son Raw works according to his own internal logic. Slackk makes Grime, but he doesn’t make dance or rap music, the oppositional poles that form the genre’s DNA. Whereas Grime’s superstar emcees have gone on to successful careers not altogether different from American rappers, and experimental artists like Logos reformat the genre’s attitude and sounds […]

Peter Holslin wrote this from his vacation home on Mars Ishmael Butler handles the mic like a king. I mean this quite literally. On the new Shabazz Palaces album, Lese Majesty, I keep picturing the veteran rapper luxuriating atop a throne, ruling over some deep space Planet X, as he drops 10-dollar words (“sepulcher,” “farceur”), […]