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The most difficult challenge an artist may encounter is the struggle that comes with generating new fans while remaining true to their core audience. Fans often feel alienated when expansion happens too quickly. More than anything, it seems like they want to know that they are still being represented by the artists performing. Now apply this relationship between expansion and fans to the growth of a festival. For the past five years, Paid Dues has provided fans with the most consistent annual hip-hop festival, but with each year comes higher expectations as fans argue how Guerilla Union and Murs will be able to top themselves. On Saturday April 2nd, at the NOS Event Center in San Bernardino California, the sixth installment of Paid Dues demonstrated that the best way to bring in new fans is to bring in new artists that represent the Paid Dues culture, and in doing so this installment the most successful to date.
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Roughly 16 years ago, Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects was released in theatres to high praise from critics and relatively low turnouts from moviegoers. Kevin Spacey, playing a character by the name of Verbal Kent, used his ability of observation, wit, and intelligence to create a narrative that would simultaneously keep the detectives interested and pull the wool right over their eyes. Five years after the release of this film, an MC from the Windy City decided that he would use the Verbal Kent moniker. Since 2003, Verbal Kent has been one of the hardest working MCs dropping a total of six albums. With all of the hard work and noteworthy collaborations he has had over his career, sometimes, just like in the Bryan Singer film, It …
When it comes to the N.B.A.’s annual All Star Game weekend, a few things can be counted on: a high level of presentation, surprise collaborations, and frenetic fans. With this year’s All Star game taking place in Los Angeles, California, many of hip-hop’s all stars decided that they would put on shows in some of the most popular venues throughout the county in hopes of achieving this All Star Effect. On February 18 at the Hollywood House of Blues Roc Nation’s All Stars Wale and J. Cole put on a show that would rival any performance made on the hardwood.
Performing material off of All About Nothing Mixtape and Attention Deficit, Wale, backed by his band UCB, set the tone with his highly energetic and crowd-focused performance. Despite the H.O.B. being an intimate venue, Wale made it clear that he never …
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Whenever one year rolls into the next, we tend to reflect on everything that came our way in the previous year and what we have to look forward to in the year to come. While 2010 brought us plenty of memorable albums, DJ Premier is promising there will be a lot for hip-hop heads to look forward to in 2011. Knowing that he would not be able to release any of these projects that he was working on before the year ended, he wanted to give fans something to tide them over. Laughing, Preemo refers to this as “the stalling album.” In mid-December, his stalling project dropped: DJ Premier presents Year Round Records – Get Used To Us.
“I really wanted to drop at least one album in 2010, and …
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