“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.”
rap
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story
It’s Getting Hot in Here, So Take Off All Your Constructs
Hot Girl Summer has women subverting a feminine archetype, but only if they can embody it first.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
‘Rhyming Was No Longer a Symptom, But a Cure’: From Stroke Survivor to Rap Legend
For stroke survivor Sherman Hershfield, rapping and rhyming kept his seizures under control.
Posted inEditor's Pick
How a Stroke Turned a 63-Year-Old Into a Rap Legend
For stroke survivor Sherman Hershfield, rapping and rhyming kept his seizures under control.
Posted inEditor's Pick
It’s Like This and Like That and Like What?
When the nineties’ heart of whiteness met g-funk, it was the illest — and wackest — of times.
Posted inNonfiction
It’s Like This and Like That and Like What?
When the nineties’ heart of whiteness met g-funk, it was the illest — and wackest — of times.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
While They Were Creating the Album, the Beastie Boys Were Also Creating Themselves
A look at how the Beastie Boys invented themselves with their 1992 album Check Your Head.
Posted inEditor's Pick
A New Day Dawning: How ‘Check Your Head’ Invented the Beastie Boys
“While they were creating the album, the Beastie Boys were also creating themselves.” After Paul’s Boutique was released and viewed as a failure, the Beastie Boys had total freedom to work on their next album. The result—1992’s Check Your Head—presented their most ambitious vision yet, and allowed the trio to finally come into their own.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Southern Music’s Racial Double Standard
We believe automatically that Chris Knight is not — could never actually be — that homeless man with a gun. Put the same lyric in Killer Mike’s mouth, though, and you think something different, don’t you? You do not assume instantly that Mike is merely inhabiting a character. No, in your mind, he is the […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
The Believer Interview: Ice Cube
Linda Saetre | The Believer | 2004 | 26 minutes (6,574 words) The below interview is excerpted from The Believer’s new book, Confidence, or the Appearance of Confidence: The Best of the Believer Music Interviews. Thanks to The Believer for sharing this with the Longreads community. * * * ‘Music Is a Mirror of What […]