Going for a pimped-up-spacesuit look, Pink snatches the microphone and mauls her way through new album, Beautiful Trauma. Effortlessly caustic and feral, the “toughest gal in pop” sounds like she hasn’t eaten in a month, and savages the 13 tracks. Pink doesn’t sing. She sacrifices. And given the five-year hiatus … Continue Reading →

Don’t call Lecrae a Christian rapper. He wants you to let his music breathe. He wants it to go as far and as wide as it can go without being boxed in as “Gospel rap”. Let it touch whomever it will touch, however it moves them. Though he is known … Continue Reading →

A year before he would meet longtime collaborator Ryan Lewis, Macklemore released his first solo album, The Language Of My World, while building a name for himself around Seattle. He and Lewis would go on to become the four-time Grammy Award winning hip-hop duo, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, known for … Continue Reading →

It’s difficult not to compare all of Wyclef Jean’s solo albums to his ‘97 debut The Carnival. I remember when it hit the streets midsummer following the Fugees’ last studio album, but for me The Carnival really represents the end of the Fugees era, more than 1996’s The Score. I … Continue Reading →

When it comes to collaborations, The Isley Brothers and Santana as one legendary creative unit is pretty awesome. We’re talking over six decades of hit makers across the spectrum of American popular music between Ron and Ernie Isley, and Carlos Santana. But what is more noteworthy is how much members … Continue Reading →

Writers take a beating as Lana Del Rey’s Lust For Life album cover delivers more than a thousand words with one simple gesture: she is smiling. Her loyalty to pained poise, seductive pouts, and wounded glares has faltered and the joyful precision on her face ushers in a new artistic … Continue Reading →

As a fan, I’m not sure I really needed a fifth and final TLC album. Thinking back over the legacy of their career, from their debut, Ooooooohhh… On The TLC Tip, to their pinnacle with “Waterfalls”, T-Boz, Left Eye, and Chilli were already firmly etched in my mind as one … Continue Reading →

The sophomore record for any artist is riddled with the anxiety of having to top the debut record, in proving one’s worth to be a continuing card-carrying member of the priority artist club, where big budgets and marketing campaigns flow in a guaranteed return on investment, because after all, it’s … Continue Reading →

If three really is the magic number then recording artists better run for cover as trio London Grammar work their British voodoo on new album Truth Is A Beautiful Thing. Pulled from the hat following 2013’s acclaimed debut LP If You Wait, their new release flirts with evolution more than … Continue Reading →

Days before the untimely demise of Biggie Smalls, being gunned down in Cali, he sat down with Rap City host, Joe Clair, to give what would become his final televised interview to promote his second album, Life After Death. That was twenty years ago, yet the wounds of his unsolved … Continue Reading →