Lists

It was barely a few years ago when we were wondering what boarding school Earl Sweatshirt was hiding in, but now he’s back. And with a vengeance too. The Odd Future young rhyme spitter was geared to be one of the greats prior to his hiatus, and now he’s inching back into that territory once again. A huge plu...

Today marks the 54th birthday of one of Brooklyn's finest, Jay-Z, the hustler-turned-rapper from the Marcy Projects who grew out of the shadows of Jaz-O, Big Daddy Kane and The Notorious B.I.G. to stake a credible claim to being the best rapper alive for more than a decade...

When Clams Casino first arrived on the scene a few years back, his production style was like a breath of fresh beats. He combined trippy electronic samples (shout out to Björk), and created a new sound. Some call it Cloud Rap, while others don’t know what exactly Cloud Rap is (or was). Neverthel...

"I think what Kanye West is going to mean is something similar to what Steve Jobs means." Kanye West said those words in an interview with the New York Times back in June and he's been hammering this point home in almost every press appearance since then...

It's a good time to be a Busta Rhymes fan. Earlier in the month, the 41-year-old rapper made waves by releasing "Thank You," an incendiary new track with frequent collaborator Q-Tip. He's built on the excitement by announcing a collaborative mixtape with Tip due out in December and by stopping by A Tribe Called Quest's reunion performance during the Yeezus tour stop in Brooklyn... Read M

Alas, Thanksgiving is upon us, and  with it comes three million ways to re-cook a turkey once the turkey has already been carved for the holiday. It’s amazing, really, how obsessed people become with turkey for the few days surrounding the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s almo...

Young Jeezy made ends meet moving another type of weight. He was relentless on the streets, making the transition from drug-dealing narrator to one of hip-hop’s biggest names on the corporate level. Through his grind, Jeezy served the block with a string of pre-album mixtapes that established him as a hometown hero. The ...

The A$AP Mob is collectively moving up the ranks as one of hip-hop's most promising crews. Led by A$AP Rocky, the collective is offering a new take on Harlem rap mixed with fashion and an entrepreneurial spirit. A$AP Mob members are known to drop a guest verse on a song or two, helping each other out or artists outside of the fold...

Can you imagine modern rap music without Kanye West's 808s And Heartbreak? It's difficult at this point. Though many artists have blurred the lines between hip-hop and other genres—upon its release 808s was compared to everything from Andre 3000's The Love Below to Common's Electric Circus—few records have had such an immediate, noticeable effect. With its s...

Noah “40” Shebib is best known for being Drake’s beatsmith in rhyme since Drizzy first rose from his Degrassi wheelchair and became a permanent fixture in our musical lives. 40’s beats consistently run the gamut of sounds—from super mellow to super amped up—depending upon the situation. He is well on his way to superprod...

Funk Volume emerged from a combination of frustration and ambition. As XXL detailed back in our most recent issue, the L.A. based label formed after rapper Hopsin went through a messy split with Ruthless Records that left the contact-sporting artist with a bad taste in his mouth...

Earlier this week, a rap video featuring Gabe Day, the son of accomplished actor Daniel Day-Lewis, made the rounds on the Internet after the Sarah Lawrence college student posted his a video for his song, "Green Aura," on YouTube. As with anytime a novelty like this begin to circulates the web, it was met with a combination of confusion, condescension and ironic amusement from bloggers a