Long-time URB scribe and everyone's favorite rap writer Jeff Chang discusses Jay-Z's legacy and explains the relevance of J-Hova to those crafty liberals for The Nation–the country's oldest weekly magazine. Contributers to the “flagship of the left” have included Albert Einstein, Hunter S. Thompson, Martin Luther King Jr and John Steinbeck.
Chang's article, “Moving On Up,” puts Jay-Z's career into the larger perspective of the world at large…looking at the reflexive relationship that the “CEO of the ROC” has had with the American economy and pop culture. We May not have a better scribe in this hip-hop journalism bit, so anything this man writes is worth 20 minutes of perusing. And while we're at it–and in case you missed it–check out info on Chang's new book Total Chaos.
Even though the attention is on Van Halen and R.E.M being named to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, its Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five who are making history. On Monday, Flash and the Five were announced as inductees into the U.S. Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame making them the first hip-hop act to ever be named into the holy rock n’ roll tabernacle.
The ceremony will take place on Mar 12 at New York’s Waldorf-Asoria Hotel. Although not confirmed, it’s most likely that Flash and Furious Five will perform at the ceremony. Raaah!!
The Good, the Bad and the Queen
The Good, the Bad and the Queen
★★★★
Gorillaz leader takes it back to Old Blighty with punk, shoegaze and afrobeat veterans
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(Virgin) Joe Meek was a famed and tragic English record producer whose 1962 song “Telstar” (a spacey instrumental tribute to the world’s fi rst communication’s satellite launched that same year) became the fi rst British record to hit #1 on the U.S. charts. It’s hard not to imagine Damon Albarn as a modern day Meek—an oddball British auteur whose musical vision has surprisingly captured the interest of American audiences in a time when most English musicians can’t get arrested on these shores. Of course, thus far Albarn’s success has been tied to an easily digestible cartoon pop group whose main inspiration comes from hip-hop. Albarn’s new “supergroup” is an …
Surely, such hyperbolic lunacy is the devise of a desperate headline writer, right? URB knows a few people—forever to remain unnamed—who own less than six hip-hop albums and each one of these suckas likes Wu-Tang. And we bet that if you mull over the same nefarious figures of your lives, that Supreme Clientele, Liquid Swords, 36 Chambers, or the perennial rocker underdog favorite: Bobby Digital are treasured portions of their album collections. Ghostface tells SPIN otherwise…
According to an interview with SPIN, Ghostface says that he wanted to do a song with The Killers—more mash-up then Crash Collision—but that the band denied and focused their attention towards a collaboration with the Boss. If you can't imitate Bruce Springsteen, you might as well join him. Whether Brandon Flowers is to blame or if any …
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