Hip-Hop/Rap

If Montreal rapper Backxwash’s previous album God Has Nothing to Do With This, Leave Him Out of It was about feeling your pain, growing past it and learning to forgive those who disappointed you in the past, (although, refracted through an industrial hip-hop lens, that’s kind of hard to tell) then I Lie Here Buried […] More

In the broadest terms, Afro-Pessimism is a school of thought that theorises blackness as a social categorisation wherein black people are subject to an appointed societal role that is assigned to them externally. Blackness in America lacks the ability to determine itself, as it exists under constant duress from the dominant white American culture, which […] More

New Jersey rapper Deathirl makes a bid for the experimental hip-hop pantheon with their new six track EP Fresh Flowers for Ill Fruit, a project just as great as their last, Death In Real Life, but in totally different ways. Deathirl often seems willing to allow their collaborators to dictate the style and tone of […] More

It’s perhaps strange that North Carolina rapper Jermaine Lamarr Cole should be one of the most polarising rappers of recent years. On paper he has a lot going for him; as one of the most old-school rappers of his generation, few artists on his level have respected the hip-hop blueprint as much as Cole. He’s […] More

When Brockhampton exploded onto the scene in 2017 with no less than three full length albums, their Saturation Trilogy, the group quickly established a reputation with their huge lineup of members and their resulting eclectic, genre-hopping style. Few rap groups have ever sounded so experimental and yet so consistently fun. However, the group hit a […] More

2020 has been a tumultuous year for almost everyone, however Megan Thee Stallion, the Texan rapper who became one of 2019’s biggest breakout artists, has had a particularly erratic twelve months. Since May this year, she was at the centre of the year’s biggest story within hip-hop after being allegedly shot by her ex-boyfriend, spoke […] More

As we approach the time of year when list article ideas begin percolating with the hot chocolate, it is becoming clear that despite the turmoil that 2020 delivered throughout public life, and many other branches of the arts shutting down or restructuring, the musical landscape has continued to deliver on some phenomenal releases. From the […] More

I must confess that I have little previous experience of the work of ‘alt-rapper’ and comedian Open Mike Eagle, however, with his fifth studio album Anime, Trauma and Divorce racing to join of the pack of the very best rap albums of 2020, the fault is clearly all mine, and I look forward to hearing […] More