Soon after Wale took to Twitter with the news that fans could download his latest mixtape, the download page crashed. via How Wale’s New Mixtape Crashed HulkShare – Arts Desk – Washington City Paper.
Yesterday, comedian Aziz Ansari dropped a little gem from his forthcoming mixtape collaboration with TV On The Radio‘s Dave Sitek entitled “Aaaaaaaangry (with eight A’s).” Rather, it’s an almost-gem. Ansari’s rhymes are surprisingly solid and flow with ease thanks to his delivery. The production is sweet, as Sitek has proven to have one great ear for … [Read more…]
The new year is almost here, and with it comes a maelstrom of “End of the Year Lists.†Here on Ex-Spectator, I’ll be rolling out a few “End of the Yearâ€/â€End of the Decade†lists. Today’s list: The Best Albums of 2009. As I’ve mentioned previously, there are a lot of pitfalls for “best of†… [Read more…]
The new year is almost here, and with it comes a maelstrom of “End of the Year Lists.†Here on Ex-Spectator, I’ll be rolling out a few “End of the Yearâ€/â€End of the Decade†lists. Today’s list: The Best Free Albums, EPs and Mixtapes of 2009. Since Radiohead made the pay-what-you-want model so notable with … [Read more…]
There’s something so familiar about Wale’s “TV in the Radio” that it didn’t strike me until just now, late in the evening when I should be fast asleep. Yes, the song is catchy as all else, but seems so grounded in a historical sense of hip-hop. Something fresh, yet something experienced. It hit me after … [Read more…]
I mentioned Wale as a saving grace in hip-hop when I critiqued the “death” of hip-hop. Well, tomorrow the D.C.-Metro area rapper will drop his official debut album, Attention Deficit. So, what’s the word on the album? The New York Times‘s Jon Pareles gave the album a pretty good once over, but closed out with … [Read more…]
The New Yorker’s Sasha Frere-Jones recently caught flack for a piece titled “Wrapping Up.†Frere-Jones began the joint review of Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3 and Freddie Gibbs’ Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik with a pretty heady assertion: That hip-hop – gasp – is dead! If I had to pick a year for hip-hop’s demise, though, I would choose 2009, … [Read more…]
A countdown of the best albums of 2008, in all their colors.
Sometimes life feels like a Kurt Vonnegut book, the way seemingly random events and lineages come together in unknown ways. It also helps when you checking out a heaping helping of Vonnegut novels from the library and his particular method of story-telling seeps into your life. Let me explain: Having recently graduated and awaiting the … [Read more…]