Common (Rapper)

Joan Jett Is the Sunset Strip Music Festival 2013 Honoree

She don't give a damn 'bout her bad reputation, which is why Joan Jett is the official honoree at the Sunset Strip Music Festival this year, West Coast Sound can exclusively announce. The fest takes place August 1-3 and Linkin Park, the headliner, is the only other announced performer so far. Past ... More >>

These Are the Strangest Hip-Hop Soda Commercials

Earlier this month Mountain Dew pulled its Tyler, the Creator directed commercial wherein a trash-talking goat in a police lineup (full of black men) taunts an assaulted women attempting to identify the perpetrator. Accused of both racism and trivializing violence toward women, it was another Tyler ... More >>

Phife Dawg Is Down With Posthumous Holograms, Likes Funyons

See Also: Michael Rapaport's A Tribe Called Quest Documentary A lazy reader of the internet would believe that since A Tribe Called Quest's 1998 breakup, Q-Tip has a platinum album and Grammy wins, while Phife Dawg has done little more than gotten a kidney transplant and eaten a bag of Funyons. Of ... More >>

Syd the Kyd On Odd Future, Her Sexuality And Why She Hates The Word "Lesbian"

Star Foreman​In this week's cover story, we kick it with Odd Future members Syd the Kyd and Matt Martians, and talk with them about their new duo The Internet, whose album Purple Naked Ladies was recently released digitally. Syd also opens up about her sexuality and what it's like being in a g ... More >>

Mos Def and Talib Kweli - Club Nokia - 12-15-11

Timothy Norris​Black Star (Mos Def and Talib Kweli) Club Nokia 12-15-11 Better than: Vanilla Ice's cameo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. Mos Def and Talib Kweli were already established alternative hip-hop artists when they came together to form Black Star, produc ... More >>

Music Picks: The Descendents, Stones Throw 15th Anniversary Show,, Princess Pangolin, Brian Setzer

Also, Guns N' Roses, Weingart, Stevie Wonder's House Full of Toys, and others

Drunken Tiger - The Jungle Concert In L.A. - Wiltern - 12-02-11

Roselle ChenTiger JK of Drunken Tiger​​See also: *Big in Koreatown: Dumbfoundead inspires a tremendous following with his unlikely story *Dumbfoundead Interview Outtakes The Jungle Concert In L.A. Tiger JK, Yoon Mi Rae and Lee Ssang The Wiltern 12-02-11 The Jungle Concert In L.A. was a nig ... More >>

Music Picks: Digital Underground, Beady Eye, Erykah Badu

Also, Jane Birkin, Human Drama, Big Jay McNeely

There's Three Of Us, But We're Not The Beatles: The Ten Most Illogical Rap Lyrics In History

Wait, where's Ringo?​By Chaz Kangas "No one ever climbs a ladder alone," said Bill Clinton at his Hollywood Bowl fete on Saturday. This makes not a lick of sense. But perhaps he was just taking cues from the world of hip-hop, which is famous for its wildly inaccurate and illogical statements. ... More >>

Meet The Guy Who DJs for Obama

​The Secret Service was busy digging through the background of Adam Bravin, aka DJ Adam 12, when the two of us spoke yesterday. The reason? The spinner behind popular old school hip-hop party AFEX -- which debuts at Los Globos on Thursday night -- will perform at an Obama fundraiser at House o ... More >>

The Ettes, Sade, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Benefit for Nick Curran

Also, Kendrick Lamar, the Punk Rock BBQ, Katy B and others

Erykah Badu Speaks On Her Private Life With D.O.C.

​Erykah Badu is known foremost for her mesmerizing, cutting-edge R&B. I put her recent album New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh) in my top ten for last year, and it's just one of her many groundbreaking works. But beyond her music she's probably best known as baby mama to the rap stars ... More >>

Music Picks: Tinariwen, Colbie Caillat, A.R. Rahman, Best Coast

Also, Monopoly, David Bazan, Gravespawn and others

Pan African Film Festival 2011

Documentaries shine at 19th annual event

2Pac and Walt Whitman

Two professors anthologize the best rap lyrics

Lil B Disses Kanye West and Claims He Killed Hip-Hop, Cormega Backs Him Up

Lil B to hip-hop: Eat my swag, bitch.​Bay Area rapper Lil B -- the one who brought you "Ellen DeGeneres," the song, only two weeks ago -- has struck again, releasing a new free song called "I Killed Hip Hop," subtitled ... "MESSAGE TO KANYE WEST." Lest you think it's little more than an atte ... More >>

What's Your Favorite Slash Moment? Sunset Strip Music Fest Bands Semi Precious Weapons, Delta Rose, Thick as Theives & Others Share Stories (and One Sex Fantasy) About the Rock N' Roll Icon

Lina LecaroMyles Kennedy, Fergie and Slash perform SSMF 2010​L.A. Weekly's Nightranger Lina Lecaro put it best in her Sunset Strip Music Festival live review: "Whether you're 20, 40 or 60 years old, grew up in Los Angeles or hopped right off the bus a la Axl Rose in 'Welcome to the Jungle,' if ... More >>

Music Picks: Dr. John, Herbie Hancock, Sunset Strip Music Festival

Also, Funkfest, Chromeo, Slayer and others

Stars, Cars and Guitars: Gibson GuitarTown Debuts on the Sunset Strip

Lina Lecaro Cherie Currie and son Jake Hays with The Runaways guitar by artist Sonia Lopez-Chavez. ​A drive down the Sunset Strip always promises a few things: flashy billboards, rockin' (usually studded) get-ups, beckoning marquees and maddeningly slow-moving cars. Now there's something fun ... More >>

Open Mike Eagle Unapologetically Talks About "Art Rap"

[Make sure to read Jeff Weiss' piece on Open Mike Eagle, from the LA Weekly print edition.] Open Mike Eagle - I Rock from Mush Records on Vimeo. In the first ten minutes of his acidic and excellent debut, "Unapologetic Art Rap," Open Mike Eagle samples Pavement and sings a portion of TV on the Ra ... More >>

10 Hip Hop Highlights of 2009, from Doom to Raekwon to Antipop and Beyond

Top of the Hip-Hop Or, how Dan LeRoy learned to stop worrying and love da bomb.   While year-end, catch-all wrap-ups are common to every musical genre, in no other style of music do they turn into the hand-wringing, "state of the game" examinations that hip-hop seems to provoke. (I've certainly wr ... More >>

Beyond the Stage: Def Jux Rapper Cage Talks New Kid Cudi Collaboration at House of Blues

View more photos in the "Beyond the Stage: Cage at House of Blues" slideshow. Erin BroadleyCage at House of Blues​It's another Friday night in Hollywood and the Sunset Strip looks like a war zone. Cars inch forward and break hard, some get stuck merging and block traffic, everyone is honking, ... More >>

Rock Picks: Amadou & Mariam, Manimal Festival, Marianne Faithfull, Gil Scott-Heron

Also, Kylie Minogue, the Joe Perry Project, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks and others

Rock Picks: Rain Machine, Pearl Jam, Wallpaper, Bon Iver, Dodos

Also, Seasons, Brodinski, Autolux and others

Rock Picks: Sly & Robbie, Johanna Kunin, White Rabbits, Daniel Francis Doyle

Also, Blue Jungle, A Camp, Neko Case, Jay Reatard and others

Rock Picks: Everest, Mumiy Troll, Busta Rhymes

Also, Faun Fables, Chris Darrow tribute, Allen Toussaint and others

J Dilla's Legacy Honored at Luckman, Talib Kweli, De La Soul's Pos, Common, Others Make Surprise Appearances

Randall Roberts (with apologies to professional photographers everywhere)Miguel Atwood-Ferguson conducts his Suite for Ma Dukes at the Luckman Last night at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex composers/producers/musicians Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and Carlos Nino debuted their "Suite for Ma Dukes," a colle ... More >>

Live at Amoeba Records: Illa J and the Timelessness of J Dilla

Erin Broadley Los Angeles is always hot, but it's rarely warm. And cold, cavernous Amoeba Records is hardly an emotional bastion, unless you're talking caustic clerks castigating a moldering collection of Chicago records. But behind me, a group of saucer-eyed sophomore girls, eyebrow rings and flann ... More >>

Weiss' 25 Best Hip-Hop Songs of 2008

25. Prafit-"Nice Weather" The nice weather is long gone--the ostensibly immutable Los Angeles sun blotted by kidney colored clouds and cold rain. So Prafit's ode to the sizzle of July feels like an antique postcard documenting endless light, chicken breasts smothered in BBQ sauce, and basement ... More >>

The B-Sides: Blu Interview

Contrary to popular belief, Blu did not take his name from the Eiffel 65 song popular in the late 90s. Q: So where exactly in LA did you grow up? A: I was born at St. Andrews and 54th, at my grandparent’s crib, that’s where I was living last year and it’s the first place I ever stayed. But ... More >>

Has the L.A. Hip-Hop Plague Finally Passed?

Four on the floor

Solillaquists of Sound, J-Live and Chali 2Na Release a Tribute Song to J Dilla, Inspired By LA Weekly Article/Follow-Up Interview With Dilla's Mom, Ms. Maureen Yancey

Still a little stunned by this one. I suppose we can chalk this up as some minor triumph to the power of the media, at a time when the Fourth Estate isn't exactly going through its finest moment. I'm not in the habit of running press releases in full, but I'll make the exception after the jump. I ... More >>

The 10 Best Hip-Hop Albums of the Half Year

Yes, I'm aware that this is a month late. I never said punctuality was my strong suit. (That would be rambling, stoned gibberish. ) Look for the best 10 non-rap albums sometime next week. 10 (tie). Nico the Beast-No Beast So Fierce Genre purists and anyone weaned on that mid-90s school of sav ... More >>

An Interview with J Dilla's Mother, Ms. Maureen Yancey

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece discussing the difficulties J Dilla's estate has had in enforcing copyright law and paying off the six-figure IRS debt left behind. In the aftermath of the story's publication, I had the chance to speak with his mother, Ms. Maureen Yancey about Dilla's legacy and ... More >>

Rock Picks: The Ting Tings, The Fratellis, Rilo Kiley

Also, Nico Vega, Martha Wainwright and more

Rock Picks: Dethklok, Billy Bragg, Erykah Badu, Mr. Gnome

Also, shows by Listing Ship, Detroit Cobras and more

Daliwood

And anarchy on Sunset

Rock Picks

For the week of May 24-31

How Shit Be

Freestyle riffs & ruminations on black music and pop culture at the dawn of 2007

Rebel Central

The fantastical real-life story of L.A.’s Stones Throw Records, a hip-hop legend in the making

Hardcore Middle Class

Kanye West is no savior, but his refusal to be anything but himself just might set hip-hop straight

Brother Man

L.A. rapper Kam and the politics of love

Coachella 2005: The Year of the Cult

A highly opinionated user’s guide

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