Old School Hip-Hop

In Advance of his 12-Hour 12/12/12 Extravaganza, Peanut Butter Wolf Picks His Top 12 12" Inch Singles He Bought at Age 12

Since unleashing his metal-themed 666 mix and DJ set on June 6, 2006, Stones Throw chief Peanut Butter Wolf has spent the last half-dozen years watching the signs of the beat. July 7, 2007 brought forth his 777 spiritual podcast mix, following by performances on seven consecutive nights in seven c ... More >>

Everybody's a Critic: Readers Respond to Our Food, Movie and Music Critics

KDAY, the Gangsta Rap Oldies Station, Breaks New Ground by Playing Music From the Bad Old Days

Here Are Pictures of Dr. Dre's New $13 Million House

See also: The Original Original Gangsta: Ice-T talks about his star-studded directorial debut, his famous affiliates and his life with Coco in New York Ice-T's ambitious documentary Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap comes out today, and in honor of the occasion we spoke with him for our music ... More >>

Those Shepard Fairey-Designed MCA Billboards? Here's How They Came to Be

See also: Adam Yauch, RIP: A Life in Photos Shortly after the death of Beastie Boy MCA in early May, a billboard appeared on an industrial stretch of Venice; designed by Brooklyn artist Kaves, it was mostly black and white with a Beastie Boys photo and lyric. (It has since moved to Sunset.) This we ... More >>

Rock the Bells 2012 Lineup Announced

See also: Our review of Rock the Bells 2011 Last night Guerilla Union announced this year's Rock the Bells 2012 dates, headliners and lineup. Beginning in 2010, the hip-hop festival's headliners -- famous acts whose first few albums often outshine their later work -- have performed their classic ... More >>

Henry Rollins: The Column! R.I.P. MCA

[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Saturday KCRW broadcast.] See also: *Adam Yauch, RIP: A Life in Photos *Let's Not Reduce Adam Yauch's Career to a Single ... More >>

Listen Now: Roy Choi Mike D on 'Food Is the New Rock'

Prior to his days covering the city's tastiest (and unhealthiest) lunches under $10, Los Angeles food blogger Zach Brooks of Midtown Lunch worked as a music programmer at Sirius Satellite Radio in New York. But when Brooks went bicoastal two years ago, he didn't give up his love for music but instea ... More >>

Is Syl Johnson Rich Off of Rap Samples? He Says So

The Grammy-nominated soul singer Syl Johnson is currently suing Jay-Z and Kanye West for an alleged illegal sample of his song "Different Strokes" on the Watch The Throne album track "The Joy." (No, not the theme song from the television show starring Gary Coleman.) If successful, it won't be the f ... More >>

Christmas Rapping: Jim Carrey, Busta Rhymes, And Eazy-E Bring The Ho, Ho, Hoes

​While visions of sugarplum fairies might be dancing in your head this time of year, it's going to take a little more to bring your Christmas party to the next level. While the traditional seasonal standards are... standard, the surefire way to put the star on your tree -- or the eggs in you ... More >>

Scarface Is Out Of Jail, Performs At Key Club Tomorrow: Excerpts From His Last Interview

​Scarface plays the Key Club tomorrow night. This is big news, considering most folks didn't even know that the greatest of all southern rappers was out of the pen. In October 2010 he began a term at Montgomery County Jail in Alabama over numerous unresolved child support cases. (There is also ... More >>

Afrika Bambaataa Plays Tomorrow, Inspires Our Top Five Electro Anthems Of All Time

Afrika Bambaataa​Along with Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa is a card-carrying member of hip-hop's holy trinity. Back in the genre's baby years, Bam helped bring competing Bronx streets gangs together in the name of musical unity, and cut the seminal electro track, 1982's "Pl ... More >>

The Top Five Sassy Salt-N-Pepa Songs

Salt-N-Pepa​Long before there was rap vixen Nicki Minaj, and almost a decade prior to Lil Kim and Foxy Brown introducing the world to their sexed-up shopping spree lyrics, two female rappers from the heart of Queens named Salt-N-Pepa helped craft the idea of sassy female rap. And while the wor ... More >>

Jill Scott - Gibson Amphitheatre - 8/10/11

Timothy Norris ​Jill Scott Gibson Amphitheatre 8/10/11 Better than ... drinks, dinner, and a movie. No venue is too big for Jill Scott's voice. It wields the kind of deeply supported, belly-rumbling power every Broadway baby dreams of. She had no problem saturating the Gibson Amphitheatre ... More >>

Hip-Hop: A Cultural Odyssey

'These Are The Breaks' Indeed: Kurtis Blow Cited For Marijuana Possession At LAX

YouTubeKurtis Blow on 'Soul Train' in the day.​Kurtis Blow, the rapper who wrote the urban chant of a decade (1980's "The Breaks"), caught a bad break of his own when TSA security screeners claimed to have found some weed on him Thursday. LAX police spokesman Harold Johnson tells the Weekly i ... More >>

John 5: Malice Man

Cash Reward Offered for Stolen Dublab Cassettes, Money Mark No Longer a Suspect

Sadness unspooled.​Last week, we hipped you to a free Friday night event hosted by the Dublab crew over at Silver Lake's Hyperion Tavern. This special edition of the typically great Calling All Kids night was to be soundtracked completely by DJ'd cassette music and thus, it was dubbed Top Tape ... More >>

Awesome Merch Alert: Stones Throw Offers Line of Cold Chillin', Biz Markie T-Shirts

Nothing says funky like Cold Chillin', the legendary hip hop imprint of the 80s and 90s that, in its prime, was one of the hottest labels in the country. During its remarkable eight year run, Cold Chillin' released classics by Biz Markie, Kool G Rap and DJ Polo, Marley Marl, Big Daddy Kane, Masta ... More >>

The Sly Life: Music-Biz Escapee Matt Robinson Finds Happiness as DJ Mattnifique

He spins at Stone Rose Lounge, Circle Bar and, on Friday afternoons, the Center for Yoga

A Conversation with Posdnuos of De La Soul: On Nike Run Mixes, The Current State of Hip-Hop and Oodles of O's

De La Soul, back in the day Only a handful of rap groups can be bandied about as G.O.A.T: Wu-Tang, Outkast, EPMD, Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, Run-DMC, UGK, The Geto Boys, and De La Soul. If you need an introduction to the De La -- Posdnuos, Dave/Trugoy the Dove, and Maseo -- you obviously hav ... More >>

Help Celebrate Unofficial, First Annual Big Daddy Kane Day in LA (and See Max Perlich)

We just made that up. There hasn't heretofore ever been a Big Daddy Kane day in Los Angeles -- probably because he's from New York. (We don't even know if he's ever even been given a key to the city.) But heck, you only live once, there's something powerful about grand, senatorial declarations, a ... More >>

Visual Artists Salute the Beastie Boys (and Biz Markie) at Gallery 1988 in Hollywood

When they burst onto the charts after serving as the opening act on Madonna's 1985 "Virgin" tour, the Beastie Boys were armed with a fully formed style, an unapologetic, in-yer-face mish mash of B-Boy sportiness and Jewish golf-iness, mixing gold chains, plaid slacks, and cop shades, sporting Kan ... More >>

Where the Spin Begins

The Many Moods of Rock the Bells

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

LAFF 2008: Gardening at Night

Scott Hamilton Kennedy is one of the whitest looking white guys you’ll meet, and yet he makes movies about South Central L.A. that come from a real place of knowing. Of course, OT: OUR TOWN was on one level just a movie about his girlfriend (now wife), but she also happened to be a drama teacher i ... More >>

Weiss Muxtapes #7 and #8: I Can't Live Without My (Internet) Radio

Have you ever read this blog and wondered to yourself, hmm...this Jeff Weiss fellow has some self-righteous and ill-founded opinions, is it possible that he may be in the wrong medium? One would hope. Yet despite my repeated attempts to turn these misguided ideals into a viable run for the GOP nom ... More >>

How PM Dawn Could’ve Avoided Getting Set Adrift On “Memory Bliss”

Maybe instead of wallowing in unchecked misery over "the girl with the fat diamond ring" (really, the fat diamond ring is the main thing that you remember about her?), you should just step to one of the mermaids swimming around the set of your music video. Granted, mermaid human/relations have al ... More >>

SXSW Flashback: Interview With Del Tha Funky Homosapien

It was my third night in Austin. Devin had just blazed through an epic set that had been celebrated in the appropriate fashion , El-P was currently on-stage and I was wandering around the Def Jux party with four cups of Jack in my stomach, a head full of smoke and the strange desire to approach p ... More >>

Rock Picks: Lucy Lawless, The Dagons, Big Daddy Kane and more

For the week of Jan. 25-31

Shows and Tickets Coming Up

Ryan Adams - Royce Hall, UCLA, Jan. 30 and Bridges Auditorium, Claremont, Jan. 22. Both shows on sale Saturday Avenged Sevenfold, Atreyu, Suicidal Tendencies - San Diego Sports Arena, Dec. 7 - All ages Andrew Bird, Handsome Family - Orpheum, Dec. 7 Black Ghosts, Mezzanine Owls, Tweak Bird, more ... More >>

N.W.A: A Hard Act to Follow

Hip-hop and hype from the streets of Compton (reprint of May 5, 1989, Weekly cover story)

Public Enemy's 20 Years in the Game

Bringing that beat back

Freaky Kinky Nation

The weird-ass, beautiful history of �80s hip-hop, as curated by Tommy Boy records

The Beat Goes On

Rick Rubin

''Led by God to Do Me''

Reverend Run, raising heck

Deconstructing Prophets

3 the Hard Way

Beastie Boys cl-clunk it out

Dandyland

Polaroids from Silver Lake

Turntablin�

Scratch takes its beats beyond the bling-bling

Om Nia Merican

Dr. Kool's Pop Quiz

Keith Thornton, Ph.d., an old professor from the new school, knows rap is here to test you

New World Disorder

Radiohead opts in/out

Down for the Good Life

A Unified Revolution Called Jurassic 5

Letters

Word According to B.I.G.

Still D.R.E.

Bring the Sauce

To live, love and leave before dying in L.A.: how the Beastie Boys beat the very odd odds

New + Improved

All About the Benjamins

Hip-hop: The need, not the greed