hip hop
Rizzle Kicks, The Dome, BrightonTuesday, 01 May 2012![]() So, Rizzle Kicks, teenybop pop-hop, right? So what we’re going to get is a bunch of over-excited tweens fobbed off with pre-recorded backing tracks, a bit of choreographed dancing and maybe some balloons? Certainly the support acts, Josh Osho and... Read more... |
iPads and smartphones go live with hip-hop dancingMonday, 30 April 2012![]() A new publicly funded UK web channel for performing arts opens tomorrow morning, preparing for a major launch this weekend streaming top international streetdancers to the web audience and publishing John Peel's notes on his record collection. The... Read more... |
Afrikan Boy Hard Times video unveiledTuesday, 27 March 2012After some time as a cult favourite thanks to diverse DJ play, the reworking of reggae classic "Hard Times" by Afrikan Boy with grime producer Darq E Freaker and country/soul singer Jeb Loy Nichols has a video.Afrikan Boy, South London rapper and... Read more... |
Singles & Downloads: March 2012Monday, 12 March 2012![]() After a nine-month absence, during which Joe Muggs explored the world's largest natural bassbin in the Amazonian rain forest and Thomas H Green waited to receive his passport back from the Bolivian government, Singles & Downloads returns to... Read more... |
Black Cab Sessions: music TV catches up with the net?Wednesday, 29 February 2012![]() Tonight on Channel 4, a new music series begins with a fantastic premise. A group of music obsessives drive around the USA in a London black cab, finding interesting musicians and recording them performing and talking in the back of the cab. Sounds... Read more... |
CD: Robert Glasper Experiment - Black RadioSunday, 26 February 2012![]() Where the creative interconnections between hip hop, jazz and soul are concerned, Robert Glasper proves himself a master on Black Radio. Featuring an impressive roll call of guest singers and rappers, the pianist has finally made the album... Read more... |
The Grammys: A Night of Surprises?Monday, 13 February 2012![]() Well, who could have predicted that? For once the Grammys proved that the US recording industry establishment is up for the challenge of reflecting the sense of a world in social and cultural flux by throwing surprise after surprise, bombshell after... Read more... |
Naturally 7, BarbicanWednesday, 08 February 2012Naturally 7 represent the point where close-harmony singing, beatboxing and spookily accurate instrumental imitation meet. The US septet call it "vocal play" - the voice as instrument - and last night they sent dopamine levels soaring in the... Read more... |
CD: Lana Del Rey – Born to DieWednesday, 01 February 2012![]() The dust will eventually settle around the flapdoodle about withdrawn albums, whether Lana Del Rey is authentic, a fabulist construct or rubbish live. And when it does, this, the debut album, will be left. There’s no doubt that “Video Games” and its... Read more... |
Manchester Rising: Celebrating the City's Vibrant Club SceneFriday, 27 January 2012![]() I first heard Zed Bias's Biasonic Hot Sauce – Birth of the Nanocloud last autumn. He may have been one of the key players in the London-centric sound of UK garage, but he was never of that scene. Based in Milton Keynes through the first phase of his... Read more... |
Download: VersA Beatz - ImogenSunday, 22 January 2012![]() I've seen some genre intersections in my time, but gangsta ambient takes the biscuit. Baghdad born South Londoner VersA Beatz began as a grime producer, but like many has moved from that genre's hyped-up energy into the slower, more menacing... Read more... |
CD: Gonjasufi - Mu.zz.leWednesday, 18 January 2012![]() Debut albums often set the bar high. How are you going to top a Psychocandy or a Piper At The Gates of Dawn? The answer is, not easily and, with rare exceptions, not at once. All those ideas that had been growing forever splurge out in those first... Read more... |
