Tosten Burks is the Thelonious super microphonist. After blessing Curren$y with a set of dazed, grainy loops that form the backbone of Drive-In Theatre, Spitta’s best tape since he talked like a Pilot, Thelonious Martin – 21, bushy beard, bushier eyebrows, flowered bucket hat – is poised for a solid 2014. For one, he actually […]

  Tosten Burks has a wallet as big as NBC’s Chris Wallace. No point recounting the overshroomed self-destruction that drowned the past several years of Blu’s post-Warner career in lo-fi isolationism. The past is the past and if you hated him for it, you’re probably justified, but you also missed out on some of his best music. […]

More than half of this years nominees are based on true events, but none were Based on a TRU Story. Max Bell, Matt Shea, Trey Kerby, Harold Stallworth, Doc Zeus, Tosten Burks, Brad Beatson, Abe Beame and Jonah Bromwich weigh in on this years nominees. And we’d love to hear what you think, too.

Tosten Burks stands with Ashley Wagner. It was only a matter of time before we started using the term post-Bronson. Shit happens when you toss out guest verses faster than Shake can post them. And so, here is Retchy P with “Since My Dog Died,” looking dapper and eating snapper in Maine. The Jersey native […]

Tosten Burks deserves a day off. The Blogger and the Engineer The living room is not a living room – overstuffed couches swapped for 50 thousand dollars worth of studio equipment, tile floor crowded with new friends and old. A funky smoke lingers. They line up for the dining room that is not a dining […]

Tosten Burks invented seapunk four years ago in a crack alley on the outskirts of Bikini Bottoms. Whether Albert Redwine is first-gen #seapunk or just an appropriator riding a #waverave , I could care less, as long as he keeps feeding beats to ShowYouSuck, the Rad God of low-brow art-rap. The duo released “Old Voyager” […]

Tosten Burks is beatified. One of Chicago’s best young lyricists this side of the tweakers, twists 2013’s most iconic sample into lamentations of lifestyle, praying he’s not too preachy but preaching nonetheless. To the boys carrying guns to the beat, to the girls leaving their cherry stems in the street: everyone’s hanging too high to […]

Ain’t shit changed, but the lack of coast that Tosten Burks adopted. As Schoolboy readies Oxymoron, as Yeezy teaches K.Dot about leather jogging pants, as Ab-Soul keeps giving guest verses to every blog rapper and his mother’s extended family, as Jay Rock clings to people’s memory, TDE’s next generation extends further introduction. So far, they’re […]

Tosten Burks killed Walter White. Few things complicate and challenge the blog-rap come-up more than the immediacy of expectations. A little hype goes a long way in turning writers into prophets and young artists into pressure-cookers. More taxing yet is when the pressure simmers as quickly as it came. Nineteen-year-old Hyde Park native Vic Mensa’s […]

Tosten Burks prefers sour skittles. With Pineapple Now-Laters, BJ the Chicago Kid drew comparisons to Bilal and D’Angelo, patron saints of sexy neo-soul. That was a little off-base. Dude is too good at hooks to nail him down as a “songwriter.” For BJ’s roots, look more local. What I’m saying is, R. Kelly was the […]