Hip-Hop Culture

What Music Do Immigrant Janitors Listen To? And Other Questions at L.A.'s EMP Conference

The Seattle-based EMP Pop Conference -- Shangri-La for music nerds -- has this year split into five regional ones, and the Los Angeles incarnation starts tonight. Musicians, scholars, and music writers from all over Southern California will discuss and debate, with specific focus on everything from ... More >>

Everybody Krump Now!

Krumping Moves Indoors as Dancers Including Miss Prissy and Lil' C Perform at USC

It was a long, long line that snaked away from USC's Bovard Auditorium as the sun was setting Wednesday night, a diverse crowd and potential full house of 1,200 waiting to get in for the premiere of The Underground: From the Streets to the Stage. So while we waited, we talked about what we were goi ... More >>

Author Jeff Chang: Hip-hop Predicted the L.A. Riots

[Editor's note: Over the past week West Coast Sound has been speaking with rappers and writers whose work has been influenced by the L.A. riots, to coincide with their 20th anniversary yesterday.] Jeff Chang is the author of Can't Stop Won't Stop, perhaps the most important book about hip-hop ever ... More >>

Roxrite, an Angeleno Who Became a World B-Boy Champion

Two days after Thanksgiving Day 2011, hardcore b-boy fans poured into Moscow's Nikulin Circus for the annual Red Bull BC One Championship. The event is one of the largest and best-known international competitions, tagging itself the "Official Breakdance World Championship." Sixteen of the world's to ... More >>

Krump Dancer Manny Fernandez Was Hit by a Car. That's When He Started to Kick Ass

In August of 2010, Echo Park krump dancer Manny Fernandez was on his way home from work when a Ford F-250 truck hit him from behind, knocking him off his bike and smashing the frame. He was rushed to the hospital. When he came to, doctors told him he had a concussion and a broken leg. He went home w ... More >>

Hip-Hop's Four Elements: The Old Ones Suck. Here's Our Suggestions for New Ones

We've long thought hip-hop's "four elements" were bogus. Sure, back in the early days of the genre, rapping, DJing, graffiti writing and b-boying were interwoven into the culture. But c'mon. Even back then, it was pretty arbitrary. I mean, it's not like guys in the Bronx invented tagging. Cavemen ... More >>

Know Your L.A. Hip-Hop Dances: Popping Birthed The Moonwalk

[Editor's Note: Writer Jessica A. Koslow is a USC master's student writing her thesis on krumping. Know Your L.A. Hip-Hop Dances explores some of the most popular street dances in our city.] Popping Popping is harder than it looks: Like a robot, or even a mime, your body is stiff and you move slo ... More >>

Know Your L.A. Hip-Hop Dances: Locking Is So Easy, Even Dom DeLuise Can Do It

[Editor's Note: Writer Jessica A. Koslow is a USC master's student writing her thesis on krumping. Know Your L.A. Hip-Hop Dances explores some of the most popular street dances in our city.] Locking Not to be confused with popping, locking is the signature move of Rerun from What's Happening!! T ... More >>

Know Your L.A. Hip-Hop Dances: The Cat Daddy

[Editor's Note: Writer Jessica A. Koslow is a USC master's student writing her thesis on krumping. Know Your L.A. Hip-Hop Dances explores some of the most popular street dances in our city.] Cat Daddy Background: Filmed on Venice Beach and featuring Chris Brown, the Rej3ctz's "Cat Daddy" video h ... More >>

Know Your L.A. Hip-Hop Dances: The Evolution Of Krump

Dave LaChapelle's "Rize"​Editor's Note: Writer Jessica A. Koslow is a USC master's student writing her thesis on krumping. Know Your L.A. Hip-Hop Dances explores some of the most popular street dances in our city. Krump Background: Krumper Lil' C holds court on So You Think You Can Dance, an ... More >>

911 Is a Joke, and So Is Flavor Flav

Hip-Hop: A Cultural Odyssey

Russell Simmons

Battle of the Year: Deep Inside the World Cup of Breakdancing

Dov RudnickHow do you say it, "le breakdancing"?​Report by Dov Rudnick, Exclusive for LA Weekly "Hip-hop is about a party, its not about a competition," DJ Skeme Richards says over breakfast. We are sitting in the lobby of the Citadines hotel in Montpellier, France, on November 20, the mornin ... More >>

HOW HIP-HOP ARE YOU?

Antics Performance

Over the Weekend: Beat Swap Meet and DJ Battle in Chinatown

Rafael Cardenas​Flocks of vinyl junkies filled the Grand Star Jazz Club in Chinatown on Sunday and transformed the indoor/outdoor space into the Beat Swap Meet, a treasure-trove for record collectors. Sunday marked two years since the start of the 12-inch and 7-inch record celebration and fe ... More >>

EXCLUSIVE Video Premiere: RJD2's "The Shining Path"

​East Coast producer/DJ RJD2 will be appearing at the El Rey this coming Tuesday, April 6. This "sample slayer" will be showcasing material from his recent, hip-hop inflected album The Colossus. RJD2's show will present "a mixture of live-band playing and turntable shenanigans," plus, allege ... More >>

Underground Japanese Beatmaker DJ Nujabes Confirmed Dead

​It was confirmed today that underground Japanese beatmaker Jun "Nujabes" Seba died last February 26 after a car accident. His family buried him privately and the anouncement of his death did not make the news until today. Nujabes was known for delicate, often mournful beats that were respect ... More >>

DANCE THE YEAR AWAY

Meet Your Food Blogger: Eddie Lin of Deep End Dining

"Eddie Lin eats raw chicken," sounds like the kind of insult you might find scrawled on a bathroom stall or passed around on a piece of scratch paper in a high school classroom. In Lin's case, it validates a Renaissance eater. Eddie Lin, the blogger behind Deep End Dining, has risked his stomach ... More >>

Rattling the Underground With Nosaj Thing and Low End Theory

Mural Talk

Taiwan Film Festival Needs No Headline

Get Your Freakdance On

Tonight at the Silent Movie Theatre: Rare Footage from the Delicious Vinyl Vaults

Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre has been on fire this month, each week delivering films from the birth and golden era of hip hop. This is the final week of the month-long series. Tonight they're turning over the reigns to the estimable Delicious Vinyl crew, who will be screening rare foot ... More >>

From the Street to the Screen

In the Beginning: Hip-Hop at the Movies

Rapper's delight

The Many Moods of Rock the Bells

Hip-hop's been in a lull. Meet the new torchbearers

Fresh Rock: American Hip-Hop

Uprock-77

Dance Club Pick: DJ Babu at Boombox

Old school's in session

Get Your Scratch On

And Jep’s hit list of Fil-Am club nights you don’t want to miss

DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, Madlib, Jurassic 5, Dilated Peoples, MF Doom—No Shit!

Bang a Bong

Dilated Peoples: L.A. b-boys hit the NBA

Dope Architecture

RJD2, ACEYALONE at El Rey Theater, February 17

Spooky Rebirth

Rock The Bells!

Summer love-in for underground hip-hop fans

Dancing on Live Grenades

How David LaChapelle’s Rize beat the odds — and MTV — to bring us the ghetto art of krumping

Before Bling

Hip-hop’s storied past

Praying to the Beat

Rennie Harris assembled Facing Mekka from the spiritual shards of a diaspora

Ghosts vs. Boasts

Hooked on Sonics

Turntablin’

Scratch takes its beats beyond the bling-bling

Higher Science

Better deejaying through turntablature

Work the Angles

Dilated Peoples in the main event

Between the Lines

Filling in the rap gap

Still D.R.E.

Hit the Beach!

Cops swarm Venice; residents flee

All About the Benjamins

Hip-hop: The need, not the greed