Rakim (Rapper)

The Best Concerts to See in L.A. This Weekend

Don't forget to check our constantly-updated Los Angeles Concert Calendar Friday, September 6 Anticon 15th-Anniversary Party featuring Baths, Daedelus, Doseone, et al. ECHOPLEX Tip your hat to 15 years of Anticon greatness: The label/collective founded by Oakland's Adam "Doseone" Drucker has champ ... More >>

Music Picks: Anticon Anniversary, Rock the Bells, Murder By Death

Music Picks: The Weeknd, That '70s Soul, Power of the Riff

How's That "Millennium of Aftermath" Going?

See also: *Here Are Pictures of Dr. Dre's New $13 Million House *The Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2012 Thus Far It was November of 1999 and we were on the cusp of the millennium when Dr. Dre famously proclaimed that the next one thousand years would be "the millennium of Aftermath," on the song "Forgot A ... More >>

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

Here's an Epic Ice-T Interview: Sure, He Once Wore Leather and Spikes, but He'll Still Fuck You Up

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 *Here Are Pictures of Dr. Dre's New $13 Million House Perhaps because he moved back to the East Coast and became an actor, Ice-T is sometimes over ... More >>

Georgia Anne Muldrow Is the Most Soulful Woman in the Western States

To invoke Bobby Byrd, Rakim and Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, soul is difficult to define, but you know it when you see it. It can't be calculated, borrowed or bought. The idea is more ancient than Scripture, and its effects are equally ineffable. "Soul" is pure cliché and an unavoidable as ... More >>

Music Picks: Regina Carter, Madness, Melvins, Grace Woodroofe

Also, Neon Indian, Moab, Damien Jurado and others

Ice-T vs. Soula Boy: Who Won?

​[Editor's note: In honor of Soulja Boy's performance at L.A. Memorial Sports Arena this Saturday, August 20, along with Kid Ink, Travis Porter and many others, here's an excerpt from my book Dirty South: OutKast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, and the Southern Rappers Who Reinvented Hip-Hop, which wa ... More >>

D.O.C.'s Top Five D.O.C. Ghostwritten Songs

Brandon Showers​In the paper this week I get inside the head of D.O.C., who ghostewrote the bulk of the early Ruthless Records catalog and is all over The Chronic and Doggystyle. His own solo career was ascendent on the strength of his platinum debut No One Can Do It Better before a car accide ... More >>

Sweetest Taboos: Top 5 Reasons Hip Hop is Way Into Sade

Oh yeah ... she doesn't age physically, either ​Last week's premiere of the remix to Sade's "The Moon and The Sky," featuring Jay-Z, on the rapper's new website Life and Times, was unusual for a couple of reasons. Sade is famously reluctant to do collaborations of any kind, but an LA Times int ... More >>

Exclusive Video: Urban Nomad at Rock the Bells, Ol Skool Edition featuring Performances and Interviews with Rakim, Supernatural, KRS-One's BDP and the Freestyle King

Urban Nomad, the gregarious Jeremiah Alexis, will be shooting exclusive video for LA Weekly. His first assignment: the legend-studded Rock the Bells hip-hop festival this past weekend. The URBAN NOMAD @ Rock the Bells 2010, San Bernardino, CA Ol' Skool Edition Follow The URBAN NOMAD backstage @ ... More >>

SF Edition: INCHES reviews Lazer Sword, Tempo No Tempo, Themselves, Young Prisms (MP3)

In the strange wake of music's digital rebirth, vinyl has experienced a modest boom in popularity, seen by many as a replacement for the awkward middleman that is the compact disc. INCHES reviews the output of L.A.'s healthy vinyl community (artists and labels, indie or other), believing that good m ... More >>

The 25 Best Hip-Hop Songs of 2007 Pt. 2 (#19-15)

This list has very little to do with Back to the Future II. However, I am writing it from the inside of a Delorean. 19. Pete Rock ft. Styles P & Sheek Louch-"914" Released by Nature Sounds in January as the single from Pete Rock' s still shelved New York's Finest record, "914" has inevitably bec ... More >>