A word about the passing of KMG the Illustrator of Pomona CA. Born Kevin M. Gulley he co-founded the now mostly forgotten, massively underrated hip hop group Above the Law with Gregory F. Hutchison aka. Big Hutch aka. Cold 187um, Go-Mack and DJ Total K-OSS in the mid-eighties. Released on NWA co-founder Eazy-E’s label Ruthless…
Yes, I haven’t been posting a whole lot here for some time, and it will be a while longer because this weekend I’m at the Roskilde Festival reporting for Rapspot, as I have for a number of years. Last night featured Janelle Monae’s showstopper of a performance from which the above image by my man…
We must gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people… Remember, we have not established a revolutionary value system; we are only in the process of establishing it. I do not remember our ever constituting any value that said that a revolutionary must say offensive things towards homosexuals, or…
As the stray reader might have noticed, the blog has been dormant for a while here, feeling the effects of pressure elsewhere. I can’t let the passing of Adam Yauch, aka. MCA of the Beastie Boys pass in complete silence, however. I refer you to the New York Times obituary for the lowdown on his…
The week in review Vacation and work have kept me away for a while, a will probably continue to do so for a little while yet. While in Boston, I checked back on one of the city’s premier cultural institutions. The new wing of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston is emblematic of museum…
Jimmy Castor’s death this week brought me back to the early days when hip hop first came to town. People breaking, popping and locking on street corners to that 808 sound, but also to old tunes that held great mystery to us kids. Later we would learn their names: “Apache,” “Dance to the Drummer’s Beat”,…
As annual procedure dictates, the Rapspot crew have once again pooled our resources in order to present for your edification a qualified proposal as to the best (and worst) in hip hop music in the year that went. Check it out here, and take a minute to (re)watch Tyler going bi-polar in Yonkers above.
As I was writing this, my wife went into labor. Our child arrived nine days earlier than expected. It may have been the bass. I’m lost for words, except to say that publishing this, in a sense, is the best way for me to mark here at the Bunker this singular event in our lives.…
The week in review. Another fine week. Spent a few days in London for work and had the chance to see a number of the exhibitions on display there. I will return to the landmark Leonardo show at the National Gallery presently and hopefully also to the eye-opening Degas show at the Royal Academy, and…
Yesterday saw the passing of golden age hip hop MC Heavy D, “The Overweight Lover,” at the too-early age of 44. Best know to the world at large as the man who spat the nimble rap verse on Michael Jackson’s “Jam” (1992), he was an important figure in 80 and early 90s hip hop whose…
The Week in Review What a week. Starting with Fantask’s fortieth anniversary celebration last weekend and ending with my participation at NNCORE’s foundational meeting with a short Berlin jaunt to see the astonishing Renaissance portraits and Hokusai shows there. I hope to return a bit to the portraits (though I can’t promise anything), but just…
The picks of the week from around the web. Music! So as I wrote, good to be back. And there’s a bunch of new, homegrown music out. Up there’s my man Ras Money’s first stab at deejaying on wax. He’s no Sizzla, but he represents his neighborhood Nordvest 2400 fresh as can be. Cop the…
“Of course London’s riots weren’t a political protest. But the people committing night-time robbery sure as hell know that their elites have been committing daytime robbery. Saqueos are contagious. The Tories are right when they say the rioting is not about the cuts. But it has a great deal to do with what those cuts…
I’ve been on a bit of a Tribe quick this last week, culminating Saturday at the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival, where Q-Tip was the headliner. It was a bravura set by a born performer: Tip’s clear delivery, whether rapping, singing (weakly, but charmingly) or beatboxing, coupled with a tighly-knit band animating the Tribe compositions with…
Yes, I missed the festival this year, damn it. Would have loved to wyle out with the Odd Future crew, peeped Atmosphere doing their new sh*t, and checked for the Big Boi/Janelle Monáe double feature, etc. And just to have been there, as usual. But it was not to be. Fortunately, others were, and as…