The very first concert I ever attended was 92.3 The Beat’s (for all my Los Angeles heads) Summer Jam concert maybe 10 years ago (I can’t exactly remember when). To this day I consider it one of my favorite concert moments, and when the special, “secret” guests performed – OutKast together, shortly before their breakup/hiatus/whatever they’re calling it these days – the entire crowd got to their feet and roared in ecstatic excitement, myself included. When I used to live in Los Angeles, reading about, seeing pictures or watching footage of New York’s Summer Jam always intrigued me, as they fed ...

I have this one friend who’s as unapologetic as hip-hop fans come, the kind of listener who’ll decimate a song upon first spin and ignore ...

Nas "Street Dreams" Casino is a great film. It's one of those movies you can watch a million times and still feel like you need to ...

I dunno if it’s been said before but I'ma go ahead and say it here: Hip hop's fascination with the movie Scarface is weird. No ...

In yesterday’s post I mentioned how Diddy and Jay-Z have lately relied less on their respective rap trades (in Puff’s case, however, he wasn’t much ...

Puff. One of my favorite words. So it only seems right to be excited about putting Puffy on this month’s cover. Sure, it says Diddy ...

If you're an up and coming rapper, and you're incapable of coming up with a song anyone actually likes, you could always just pay several ...

Rap is the only genre of music where its denizens do not age gracefully. There comes a time where those gaudy, overpriced diamond chains look ...

Back when I was the music editor for this magazine, I always had to deal with questions about how the ratings were determined? How could ...