Run-DMC

The Miracle That Is 
A Charlie Brown Christmas

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] If you look outside while reading this, the odds are that it's sunny and mild. You might see green and red lights and tinseled pine trees glowing through ... More >>

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

FYF Fest - Los Angeles State Historic Park - September 1, 2012

Refused, Warpaint, The Vaselines, and others FYF Fest Los Angeles State Historic Park September 1, 2012 See also: F-Yeah! It's the 2012 FYF Quiz! Better than: Any cookout ever. Braving choking dust clouds, oppressive sunlight and the inevitable game of PortaJohn Roulette ought to deliver an eart ... More >>

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

The Zeros Play the Troubadour Tonight!

See also: The Best Five Concerts in L.A. This Weekend The Zeros were punk when most people didn't know what punk was. The L.A.-by-way-of-Chula Vista band released their first single on legendary Bomp! Records in 1977, that magical year when punk exploded. The folks involved in their early days re ... More >>

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 >>

Big Sean, Kid Ink - Club Nokia - 3/27/12

Big Sean, Kid Ink Club Nokia 3/27/12 Better Than... hanging out with the people who went to the Lady Antebellum show at Staples Center. Since 2008, XXL Magazine has anointed a group of up-and-coming rappers as their freshman class in order to show fans what the future of hip-hop will look like. M ... More >>

Why Limp Bizkit on Cash Money Makes Sense

See also: Fuck Guilty Pleasures: Limp Bizkit Had An Amazing Run It's confirmed: The Limp Bizkit-on-Cash Money era is upon us, whatever that might entail. We know because last week at the Laundry Bar in Melbourne, Austrailia, Bizkit/House of Pain turntabilist DJ Lethal spun "Ready to Go," the world ... More >>

Blue Ivy Carter: Top Five Worst Examples of Rap Nepotism

Barely two days after his and Beyonce's baby Blue Ivy Carter was born, Jay-Z put her on a song. "Glory" is a tribute to his new daughter, who closes the track out with a guest feature -- crying. Jay-Z may be starting his kid off young, but nepotism is standard practice among rap superstars. There' ... More >>

Moshe Brakha, Legendary Photographer, Collaborates with Son on Project of Interviewing One Subject a Week for a Year

Black Flag, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Keanu Reeves and Devo have all been shot by famed photographer Moshe Brakha. Charismatically colorful from the start, his photographs burst with movement and personality. He shot the cover for Boz Scaggs' Silk Degrees album in '76, shot Run DMC for Rolling Stone, a ... 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 >>

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 >>

Why Do Musicians Hate America? The 5 Worst Songs With "American" in the Title

​Oh, United States Of America. We love you, we really do. Hell, we live here, so we kind of have to. We show our love through the composition of endless tributes to the land, the people and the country itself. Clarification: we do this by shamelessly co-opting the entire continental Western He ... More >>

Natali and Lady Gaga? How About The Five Most Truly Talented Sets of Siblings In American Music?

Over the weekend we became aware of the fact that Lady Gaga a) has a little sister named Natali Germanotta and b) that Natali is pretty stylish, just like her big sis. This got us thinking about all the other famous musicians out there with siblings that are just as talented as they are, even if ... More >>

Judge Rules Run-DMC Photo, Used by L.A. Street Artist Mr. Brainwash, Protected by Copyright Law: What Will It Mean for Fair Use?

PHOTO BY GREGORY BOJORQUEZMr. Brainwash just got busted.​Forget the Shepard Fairey case. Music photographer Glen E. Friedman's lawsuit against Mr. Brainwash, the street artist profiled alongside Banksy in Oscar-nominated doc "Exit Through the Gift Shop," is the one to watch for legal fair-use ... More >>

Hip-Hop: A Cultural Odyssey

Music Picks: Evelyn Evelyn, Booker T. Jones, Kaki King, Pete Rock

Also, the National, Entrance Band, Noodles, Bunbury and others

J.ROCC, THE THRONES, BAND OF SKULLS, THE SLITS AND BRETT DENNEN

Also Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Espers, a Nicollete Larson Tribute, and others.

The North Pole Melts with R&B, Funk, Soul-Jazz, and Boogaloo on 'In the Christmas Groove' [MP3]

By Daniel Siwek ​Not everyone dreams of a white Christmas, if I have to hear Bing Crosby one more time I swear I'll make Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places look like Kris Kringle in the Miracle On 34th Street. Luckily Strut Records offers a surefire way to get some mistletoe smooching this yuletid ... More >>

Build an Ark’s Covenant

An L.A. collective conjures “California creative soul music with a lot of improvisational elements”

Last Night: Brother Ali and the Night of Three E-V's (Evidence, Evelyn and ... Everlast)

It's easy to think that underground hip-hop is dead. The Internet has equalized everything to the point that there isn't much difference between Mos Def's and Mickey Factz's marketing plan, or Elzhi's and Eminem's, or Wale's and Will.i.am's. During the WWWization of the rap world, the next generatio ... More >>

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 >>

SXSSXSW Day 4/Days Late (Pt. 1): On Rap/Rock, The Legacy of the Beasties, and Asher Roth Vs. The Knux

Other than freshman Delta Sigma Theta rushes at Cal-State Chico, no substrata of the American population has worse taste in rock than rappers. Sure, your little brother likes Fall Out Boy, but eventually, he's going to grow up and discover The Clash, then weed, then hopefully Junior Murvin and Lee ... More >>

Talking Hip Hop (and Phil Collins) With At the Movies' Ben Lyons

By Brandon Perkins Perhaps if Ben Lyons' movie chops were as obvious as his hip-hop track record, then sites like StopBenLyons.com wouldn't exist. Ever since the E! personality took the helm of the Siskel, Roper and Ebert's beloved At the Movies, Lyons has been berated with more thumbs down than ... More >>

Weiss' 50 Best Hip-Hop Songs of 2008 (#50-26)

Over the next two weeks, myself and a very talented cadre of contributors will be emulating the book above. Unlike said tome, it won't cost money and you'll get free MP3s--which, presumably, serve a tangible purpose. Now go cry into your near-beer, Phillip Ardagh, you lovable rogue. 50. Redman ft ... More >>

Idealist Propaganda: The Raw Power of Glen E. Friedman

Photos by Erin Broadley. Click images for entire Idealist Propaganda slideshow."Search and Destroy" funnels out onto the 10:30 p.m. Saturday Sunset Blvd. sidewalk, violently greeting late-arrivals to Glen E. Friedman's Idealist Propaganda exhibit. Iggy's cocaine cacophony carves up Tymphanic cavitie ... More >>

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 >>

Some Thoughts on the "Best. Politician. Inspired. Single. Ever." Also, Nazis. Also, Jesus. Also, NFL football.

Los Angeles's own Sa-Ra create a rallying cry for Obama. Plus, a bunch of other crap this video brought to mind. Super random, super fun.

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 >>

Record Reviews: Gnarls Barkley, Evangelista, No Age, Destroyer

Also, The Knux, Ghost on the Highway, The Little Ones

Del tha Funkee Homosapien Returns From Outer Space

God knows what Del's been doing since the millennium. The guy practically retired around then, after dropping the rightfully canonized Deltron 3030 record and appearing on "Clint Eastwood." It was a weird move considering that with all that Gorillaz exposure, Del could've probably signed with a ma ... More >>

Escape from Allentown

Beardo’s long journey into teenage wasteland

Public Enemy's 20 Years in the Game

Bringing that beat back

Theater Reviews

Freaky Kinky Nation

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

The Beat Goes On

Rick Rubin

Rawk Your Body!

L.A. club DJs mix indie rock and hip-hop; world does not explode

Grammy Diary - Updated

Tricky!

''Led by God to Do Me''

Reverend Run, raising heck

Deconstructing Prophets

White Man’s Burden

Eminem’s Encore falls into the gap between his obvious talent and his elevated stature

Dopest Throwback Jerseys Spotted

Eazy Does It

Gangsta rap hits L.A.

Dandyland

Polaroids from Silver Lake

Music of the Heart and Other Organs

You can’t dance to everything

Beat Baggage

Down for the Good Life

A Unified Revolution Called Jurassic 5

All About the Benjamins

Hip-hop: The need, not the greed