Killer beats, huge hype, and failure to follow through.
hip-hop
Posted inEditor's Pick
I Feel Most Southern in the Hip-Hop of My Adolescence
“Joy Priest creates a Southern rap soundtrack of the cars, songs, and forces that sculpted her sense of freedom and confinement coming of age in Louisville, Kentucky, in the early 2000s.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The (Mostly) True Story of Vanilla Ice, Hip-Hop, and the American Dream
“He grew up lower middle class and toiled away at menial jobs while chasing his dreams—the lone white boy battling in an almost entirely Black environment. The plot of 8 Mile was Vanilla Ice’s story first.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Essays & Criticism, Feature, Story
Funk Lessons in Sonic Solitude
“Joi’s recorded performances embodied all the funkiness my little soul had been waiting for.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
The Messy Making of a Nearly Perfect Hip-Hop Album
Music as original as Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s sounds evergreen, but originality came with a high personal cost for its maker.
Posted inStory
Welcome to Hive
Hive is a new Longreads series about women and the music that has influenced them.
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Current Events, Essays & Criticism, Feature, Media, Nonfiction, Story
When American Media Was (Briefly) Diverse
An economic downturn in 2008 shuttered numerous publications and further marginalized people of color in an already minimally integrated industry. But in the 90’s and early-aughts, multicultural publications flourished, providing an alternative model for journalism that bears remembering.
Posted inNonfiction
It’s Like That: The Makings of a Hip-Hop Writer
Hip-hop was a different kind of music that needed a different kind of writer to cover it. This is how Michael A. Gonzales came of age in a time when Black writers began breaking the white ceiling.
Posted inArts & Culture, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
Shelved: Tupac and MC Hammer’s Promising Collaboration
Sometimes the most fertile creative relationships are the most unlikely.
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Essays & Criticism, Feature, Story, Unapologetic Women
Dancing Backup: Puerto Ricans in the American Muchedumbre
Carina del Valle Schorske traces a lineage of Puerto Rican backup dancers in American entertainment from Rita Moreno to JLo.