So, people went nuts today online about the new Brad Paisley/LL Cool J collaboration “Accidental Racist.” I was flying and didn’t get to listen to it until quite late in the day. I hadn’t intended on commenting, but now I have to. I’ve seen a lot of criticism of the song, both for its social [...]
Marco Rubio: Hip-Hop Head
Twitter is abuzz this morning over a GQ interview with Florida Sentator Marco Rubio. In it, he talks about his relationship with hip-hop. GQ: Your autobiography also has to be the first time a politician has cited a love of Afrika Bambaataa. Did you have a favorite Afrika Bambaataa song? Marco Rubio: All the normal ones. [...]
“If you’re thinkin’ about my baby, it don’t matter if you’re black or white.”
At some point in the Nineties, I became fascinated by “rock” covers of hip-hop songs. For example, there’s the Gourds’ cover of “Gin and Juice,” the Barenaked Ladies’ version of “Fight the Power” and Dynamite Hack’s “Boyz-N-The Hood.” It was around ’91 when rap music really took off nationally, and we started to see artists [...]
Alexander Hamilton caught beef with every other founding father.
When Lin-Manuel Miranda is on it, it thrills me to watch him perform. His Broadway show In The Heights is admittedly fraught with clichés, but seeing true hip-hop live on a Broadway stage sent chills up my spine. In this video, Miranda performs at the White House. I hope his description of The Hamilton Mixtape [...]
The Payoff of The Payoff Mix
Today is my 46th birthday. Among my gifts this morning was a disc from my Amazon wishlist: the Steinski compilation What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective. Here is the significance of that album. I launched a website at thepopview.com a decade ago, writing articles about popular culture. One of my favorite essays from the [...]
8track Mix of French Hip-Hop
You may recall that I wrote about the Muxtape service back in April. That streaming audio service got shut down by The Man, but it hardly comes as a surprise that replacements would come along. A friend recommended I check out 8tracks as an alternative. It has some differences that purportedly allow it to be [...]
Pop culture out of context
I want to follow up on the post below, where I spoke of the collision/collusion between pop culture and politics. In their most recent diavlog at bloggingheads.tv, Robert Wright discussed the “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” incident with Mickey Kaus. Watch this exchange where Wright (who has no idea who Jay-Z is and clearly has never [...]
“I’m the realest that run it, I just happen to rap.”
My new Spot-on column is up: A Revolutionary Soundtrack. It examines the relationship between politics and pop music and looks at an example from a few weeks ago when Barack Obama channeled Jay-Z. A lot of pop music ignores politics altogether. Some pop music is very earnest about pop music. You don’t often see artists [...]
“Stay sick.”
I am once again tardy in linking to my latest Spot-on column. It’s called Hip-Hop for the Long Haul and it focuses on the supposed conflict between 50 Cent and Kanye West. My point was that while the competition made for a great marketing angle for their respective new albums, the hip-hop genre is struggling [...]
“Everything I’m Not, Made Me Everything I Am”
The new Kanye dropped on Tuesday. Longtime readers will recall that I am quite enamored with both the hip-hop genre and with Mr. Kanye West. You may recall my earlier post about the official mixtape, which previewed the Graduation album and also included a couple tracks featuring raps over indie rock, specifically Thom Yorke and [...]