Hip Hop/Rap

Def Jam So much ink has been spilled about Jay-Z’s “comeback” that you’d be forgiven if you spin “Kingdom Come” expecting a blinding light of salvation to explode from your speakers. Breathless music writers nearly lost their collective mind when Jigga announced that his retirement (“casual hiatus” might be more accurate) was over and he […]

Def Jam Lady Sovereign (Lady Sov if you’re nasty; Louise Harman if you’re her parents) arrives on American shores behind a mountain of hype taller than she is. Pint-sized but big-mouthed, this latest British hip-hop export is the newest face in Jay-Z’s galaxy of petite female stars (oh, whither Rihanna?)’ a foul, verbally agile hybrid […]

Sony Urban  Soulful vocalist and ubiquitous music-video fixture John Legend follows his acclaimed debut “Get Lifted” with “Once Again,” an equally mellow sophomore album and one which doesn’t alter his proven formula so much as stretch it in subtle new directions.   Legend is understandably more visible this time around and his terrific first single, […]

Jive “Hey Ya!” was probably the worst thing that could’ve happened to OutKast.The mega-enormo 2003 single catapulted the Atlanta duo’ Andre 3000 and Big Boi’ from avant hip-hopsters creating intense masterpieces to a mainstream pop act; in short, a pair of artists once comfortably under the radar were now undone by their own ambitious achievement. […]

Jive Few artists have invested more energy in freeing themselves from their past than Justin Timberlake; his fierce determination to demolish his pretty-boy pop image is, at times, awe-inspiring’ having successfully stepped out on his own with 2002’s “Justified,” Timberlake spent the intervening years jet-setting, holding court with Cameron Diaz and remaining one of the […]

BBE J Dilla’ one of a handful of names James Yancey is known by’ is not a producer with the name recognition of a Pharrell, Kanye or Timbaland, but within the hip-hop community, his breathtaking beats have earned him the respect of the movers and shakers; look no further than The Roots’ latest, “Game Theory,” […]