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by Zoe Wilder
Atlantic City is Vegas’s raunchy second cousin, lacks pomp but brims with circumstance, usually of a suspicious nature. Makes me reminisce about the time I visited a BYOB strip club for my buddy’s bachelor party or the time my friends and I got mugged on the boardwalk by our own pedicab driver, or the time we tried to fit five people into a two person hot tub or the time I modeled nude forty floors up, at sunrise, overlooking the water… …MORE
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Being a long time fan of the CunninLynguists since their debut record Will Rap for Food, and surprisingly having never seen their live show, I had huge expectations coming into this performance. Rocking with rapper Homeboy Sandman, Blue Sky Black Death, and affiliate and often-collaborator Tonedeff (pictured below), the CunninLynguists had quite a bit of opening performers to ready up the crowd. While some of the sets felt a bit long (such as Homeboy Sandman’s and Blue Sky Black Death’s which I will get to later), ultimately, the CunninLynguists delivered. Given the departure of one of the Lynguists’ members—the always ill Mr. S.O.S. (departed half a decade ago but still on the QN5 label)—left CunninLynguists with Natti, Deacon and Kno with DJ Flip Flop spinning the mentals on his Serato …
Tyler the Creator, frontman of L.A. hip-hop convoy OFWGKTA (Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All), won’t admit to it but I’m sure he understands his audience to be predominantly white, suburban, indie-teens-in-training. Let’s try to keep that in mind here, now that there seems to be a somewhat recognizable consensus on Tyler the Creator’s second full-length album and first major label release, Goblin on XL Records. From where I’m standing it seems like folks are a bit dissatisfied. Granted there hasn’t been too many local hip-hop acts with this kind of trajectory since the astronomical rise of Lupe Fiasco, the quizzical introduction of Wiz Khalifa and others, this record leaves a lot to be desired. The album is choppy, draining, and quite lengthy. Some of the standout tracks (“Yonkers” and “Sandwitches”) on the record feel somewhat superfluous since they’ve …
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A celebration dedicated to too many people to mention both living and resting (R.I.P. Guru), DJ Premier and the Beat Junkies (including DJ Rhettmatic and DJ Babu) absolutely obliterated hip-hop at the Echoplex on Saturday only to reconstruct it via expertly crafted golden age-inspired sets. Babu and Rhettmatic made their way through the likes of James Brown, Dead Prez, …
I knew what I was getting myself into. I made the appropriate mental adjustments to enjoy a show with a crowd I readily don’t frolic with, partly by chance, partly by destiny, and wholly by confusion. Still, I made the trek to “cosmopolitan” mecca Echo Park, California. I was there to enjoy the up and coming talent and doo-wop drone sounds of Dirty Beaches. Amongst the painfully nonchalant frequents of the now reputable The Echo, Dirty Beaches did work and interpolated some furious toe-tapping, of which I was no doubt a part of. Out the window went any concerns or reservation I had about thoroughly enjoying myself in an alien environment. Good tunes have a good habit of doing that.
Alex Zhang Huntai, the man behind Dirty …
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