2 Chainz

Riff Raff and Kapparot Chickens: Readers Respond

Top 10 L.A. Hip-Hop Producers in History

For better or worse, L.A. hip-hop is strongly identified with gangsta rap, and that genre is mostly identified with its rappers and their outsized personas. But the classic Los Angeles albums wouldn't be what they are without the incredible sonic textures that define them, the funk, electro, rock, a ... More >>

Music Picks: Hard Summer, Sunset Strip Music Festival and Bob Dylan

What Artistic Movements Do These Rappers Exemplify?

By Noah Hubbell Stylistically, rap has exploded, and the pieces have fall everywhere from the mind-bogglingly complex to the unbelievably simple, from the brazenly dissident to the unapologetically mainstream. Rappers' influences seem to come from everywhere, but the differences between, say, Aes ... More >>

Hard Summer 2013 Lineup Announced

This year's lineup for Hard Summer is out. Headliners include Knife Party, Duck Sauce, Dog Blood (ie Skrillex and Boys Noize), and Bassnectar See also: Our Hard 2012 slideshow This sixth annual edition of the two-day, EDM-focused festival takes place in downtown's Los Angeles State Historic Park ... More >>

Best of Coachella: Weekend One

Karen O's Outfit Karen O's wardrobe on Friday night was bad ass. The Yeah Yeah Yeah's front woman appeared on the main stage in a technicolor cape draped over a suit that looked like it was made of mercury. The vibrant collage was topped with a headpiece that Liberace might have worn had he ever bee ... More >>

Worst of Coachella: Weekend One

Daft Punk Fake-Out Friday and Saturday, all anyone could talk about was if Daft Punk was going to show up during Phoenix's set. Why? Because we were fucking teased. On the main stage before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a long commercial for their new album played, and then we found out that members of the ... More >>

Coachella: Questionable Fashion Statements

The fans at Coachella tend to wear things no humans should. (Except for the bros, of course.) But the artists on stage can commit some cringe-worthy fashion faux pas as well. (Here's hoping they take some of those hard earned Coachella dollars from this weekend and hire a better stylist for weekend ... More >>

Under-the-Radar Acts to See at Coachella

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] Beware any tutorial about the "right way" to do Coachella. Stay sentient, steer clear of phosphorescent forms in spirit hoodies, drink water, and never m ... More >>

Here Are All 80 Horrible Similes on Lil Wayne's I Am Not a Human Being II

Lil Wayne has just released his tenth studio album, I Am Not a Human Being II. Nowadays he sometimes feels like an old man playing catch-up in a style he practically invented. Whereas as recently as 2007 we were getting vivid gems like "I'm so motherfuckin' high, I could eat a star," now we're just ... More >>

Ariel Rechtshaid Is the Indie Super-Producer

He's not in bands, but he makes them sound a hell of a lot better

Somehow, "Gangnam Style (Diplo Remix)" With 2 Chainz And Tyga Ain't So Great

If, for the next few moments, we may be entirely liberal with the application of the term, I've remixed a fair amount of things in my short, trivial life. When I was a pup, several friends and I remixed the skateboard. We made something called a MEGA SKATEBOARD, wherein we took two four-foot-by-fo ... More >>

Street Teams Are Bullshit

Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls' Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to help you ... More >>

Producer Khalief Brown: Beats for a Space Brawl

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] It's rare that you hear a rap song on the radio and your only thought is, "Who produced this?" That's what happened last summer when I first heard Kid In ... More >>

LOLing At Rappers and Basketball Players at the NBA All-Star Game

This past weekend, Houston was host city of the NBA All-Star Game, which means that Houston was the center of the rap and basketball universe. I live in Houston, and I was able to go to some of the things. Plenty of smarter people have already written about the terribleness of Ne-Yo's performance ... More >>

Pitbull and Lil Jon Lead a Zumba Class! (Yikes)

Pitbull and Lil Jon Convention Center 2/15/2013 Better than...the fitness DJ in your spin class. Hip-hop and fitness might not seem immediately compatible, and Pitbull and Lil Jon aren't quite LL chiseled. But that didn't stop them from performing before 3000 freaking Zumba fitness buffs at the C ... More >>

Update: Times Story on Coachella 2013 Was Fabricated, Says Writer

Update: The Times writer whose byline appears on the screengrab, Mikael Wood, says that the post is completely fabricated. His comments are at the bottom of the post. According to a screengrab of what appears to be a page from the Los Angeles Times website -- which was posted on a Coachella message ... More >>

Bizarre Ride: Jeff's Humorous Predictions and Most Anticipated Albums for 2013

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] Half of January has elapsed and we've survived. There was no collapse due to fiscal cliff, Central American apocalypse or dubstep deluge. A new year unfu ... More >>

The Best Concerts in L.A. This Weekend

Friday, January 11 Carolyn Edwards, Adam Marsland TAIX As leader of both Spindle and 3D Picnic and a longtime member of The Negro Problem, Carolyn Edwards is one of the best and brightest musicians in Silver Lake's indie-pop underground, but she reveals the full breadth of her talent through her so ... More >>

Music Picks: John Beasley, Down, and Tift Merritt

Here's What Didn't Suck About B.E.T.'s Top 100 Videos Of 2012

On December 31, BET showed their Top 100 videos of the year. It was a block of television that ended at 10 p.m. and began, if I'm remembering accurately, around 48 BC. I'd planned on watching all of it, absorbing the videos and then using that information to reach some grand, great point about rap ... More >>

Power 106 Cali Christmas Concert - Gibson Amphitheatre - 12/14/12

Meek Mill, Rick Ross, Big Sean, 2 Chainz, Kendrick Lamar Power 106 Cali Christmas Gibson Amphitheatre 12/14/12 Ah, the holiday season in L.A. -- a crisp chill is in the air, every twinkly light installment and bit of tinsel available has been vomited onto that particular property on Los Feliz Blvd. ... More >>

I Go Out With the Group Substance Abuse and a Rapper Who Tries To Convince Me to Ho

[Editor's note: Soon-to-be-award-winning gonzo music journalist Danielle Bacher prowls the late late night scene for West Coast Sound. For this installment, she hit the town with MCs Subz and Eso Tre from Substance Abuse, who are known for their well-regarded 2006 album Overproof and their just-rele ... More >>

The Five Most Annoyingly Overplayed Songs at Greystone Manor

Greystone Manor is the trendy WeHo nightclub usually filled to capacity with A-listers, desperate housewives, Arabian sheiks, ball players, dot-com CEOs and others who have something to do with reality television. Any given Sunday night you might witness Drake buying twenty bottles or Rihanna and Ch ... More >>

Miguel Finds His Place

A rare R&B bird, he falls in somewhere between the hipsters and the mainstream

DJ Mustard and the Story of Ratchet

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] Hip hop is constantly inventing new slang for getting down and dirty. You could get buck, crunk, and freaky. Wild out or act a fool. This summer was the ... More >>

Kreayshawn On Her New Album and the Worst Assholes on Twitter

When her "Gucci Gucci" video dropped last summer, Kreayshawn found herself in the middle of a maelstrom. Some people thought she was a breath of fresh air and that "Gucci Gucci" was a much-needed middle finger to the label-obsessed materialism that's run unchecked in hip-hop for a very long time. Ot ... More >>