We celebrate everything from Lil Nas X’s conservative-baiting Montero to Wet Leg’s instant indie classic – as voted for by 31 of the Guardian’s music writers
Continue reading...Category Archives: Hip-Hop
‘Unapologetically truthful and unapologetically Blak’: Australia bows down to Barkaa
After overcoming personal tragedy, the rapper has clawed her way back – with a politically potent debut EP dedicated to First Nations women
Baarka didn’t come to mess around. Born Chloe Quayle, the 26-year-old rapper was a former teenage ice addict who did three stints in jail – during her last, five years ago, she gave birth to her third child.
Now the Malyangapa Barkindji woman has clawed her way back from what she describes as “the pits of hell” and is on the verge of releasing her debut EP, Blak Matriarchy, through Briggs’ Bad Apples Music. She has been celebrated by GQ as “the new matriarch of Australian rap”; and has her face plastered on billboards across New York, Los Angeles and London as part of YouTube’s Black Voices Music Class of 2022. (“I nearly fainted when I saw [pictures of it],” Barkaa says when we meet over Zoom. “The amount of pride that came from my family and my community ... It was a huge honour.”)
Continue reading...Rap battles return in Rio’s City of God – in pictures
Artists in the favela are starting to compete again after the Covid-19 pandemic curtailed public gatherings, a show that signals a return to normality for music lovers
Continue reading...Will Smith: now Hollywood royalty, the star’s rise has been far from painless
From Fresh Prince to King Richard, personal upsets have so far failed to derail his childhood goal to be the world’s biggest film star
There’s a seemingly offhand quality which is central to the appeal of Will Smith: an innate magnetism and loose-limbed, casual coolness. But the career path from teenage rap artist to TV actor to superstar status was anything but effortless; it was the result of a self-described “psychotic” work ethic and meticulous, perhaps even obsessive, planning.
For a while, at least, he was one of the most bankable film actors on the planet – a planet that he saved on a regular basis in summer blockbusters. But while that kind of success rate is hard to sustain, Smith has shown himself to be extremely adaptable compared to his contemporaries. From film actor/musician, he has evolved into a multimedia phenomenon. He has adopted a very marketable openness and accessibility, and embraced personal failures as teachable moments.
Continue reading...‘Music dug up from under the earth’: how trip-hop never stopped
Fused from jungle, rave and soul, trip-hop filled the coffee tables of the 90s, and is now inspiring Billie Eilish’s generation. So why is the term so despised by many?
Nobody really wanted to be trip-hop. The stoner beats of Nightmares on Wax’s 1995 Smokers Delight album were era defining, but it carried the prominent legend: “THIS IS NOT TRIP HOP”. James Lavelle’s Mo’ Wax label flirted with the term after it was coined by Mixmag in 1994, but quickly switched to displaying it ostentatiously crossed out on their sleeves. Ninja Tune did print the phrase “triphoptimism” on a king size rolling paper packet in 1996, but only as a joke about escaping categories.
“I always disliked the term,” says Lou Rhodes of Lamb, “and I would always make a point in interviews of challenging its use in regard to Lamb.” Mark Rae of Rae & Christian similarly says: “I would give a score of 9/10 on the lazy journalist scale to anyone who placed us in the trip-hop camp.” And Geoff Barrow’s ferocious hatred of the term – let alone its application to Portishead – has become the stuff of social media legend.
Continue reading...Astroworld: Travis Scott and Drake sued over deadly Texas concert crush
Lawsuits brought by some of those injured, including 23-year-old Texas resident Kristian Paredes
The rappers Travis Scott and Drake have been sued for having “incited mayhem” after eight people were killed and dozens injured in a crush during a Texas concert, a law firm has confirmed.
Thomas J Henry Law tweeted a story published by the Daily Mail on the lawsuit, confirming on Sunday that it had filed “one of the first lawsuits in Travis Scott Astroworld festival tragedy”.
Continue reading...The greatest songs about the climate crisis – ranked!
As Cop26 opens in Glasgow, we provide the soundtrack, ranging from Gojira’s metal fury to gorgeous environmental paeans by Childish Gambino, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell
From its cover shot of a submerged bedroom down, 2019’s Titanic Rising feels like an album informed by the climate crisis, but the lyrics seldom address it explicitly. Something to Believe is the perfect example: a plea not to feel overwhelmed by or nihilistic about the challenges faced, beautifully steeped in the lush sound of early 70s Los Angeles.
Continue reading...‘Our music charts are still kind of segregated’: critic Kelefa Sanneh on pop, fandom and race
The New Yorker writer’s book Major Labels examines why we tag music with a genre, be it for commerce or community. He explains why people still argue over great songs – and why they can thrive on cultural appropriation
When Nik Cohn wrote Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock in 1969, he only had 15 years of the rock’n’roll era to process. Five decades later, telling the story so far is such a daunting prospect that, while writing Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres, New Yorker staff writer Kelefa Sanneh’s trick was denial.
“I figured if I thought too much about the span of it, I would go insane,” he says cheerfully. “The idea of sitting down to write the history of music is horrifying. It feels more fun if I’m telling seven overlapping stories.”
Continue reading...The message: why should hip-hop have to teach us anything?
Almost since it first emerged on the streets of the Bronx, audiences have expected hip-hop to express a revolutionary purpose. But perhaps this music shouldn’t have to take a political stand
Halfway through side one of A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, the 1991 debut album by the hip-hop duo Black Sheep, some protesters interrupt the music. “Yo, man,” one guy says. “Why don’t you be kicking some records about, y’know, the upliftment of the Blacks?” Another asks why Black Sheep is silent about “the eating of the dolphins”. Someone else mentions “the hole in the ho zone”, turning environmental degradation into a dirty joke – perhaps unwittingly.
In response to all these demands for instruction, the guys from Black Sheep can only chuckle. Something about hip-hop makes listeners greedy for more words, better words. But Black Sheep made a brilliant album. What more could anyone want?
Continue reading...Fugees return to New York for their first gig in 15 years … after a three-hour wait
The rap trio kick off their just-announced world tour to an eager audience but fall into old habits of tardiness
Dressed in a red frock that flounced as she performed, the rapper, singer and musician Lauryn Hill told the eager but weary crowd: “Respect the miracle. Respect the miracle of this union” three and a half hours later than billed.
Related: Fugees announce reunion world tour, 25 years after The Score
Continue reading...Drake’s 30 greatest songs – ranked!
With the release of a new album – Certified Lover Boy – we pick the best tracks from the Canadian rapper and global superstar’s hit-studded career
Borne aloft on a blaze of horns and flanked by three all-time greats, this was Drake’s entry to rap’s big leagues: “Last name ever / first name greatest”, is how he opens his verse. It’s a rather corny boast and gets cornier still – punchlines like “at the club you know I balled: chemo” could be included in Christmas crackers, were they not deeply insensitive. But his cockiness connects, and the chorus hook is memorably strong.
Continue reading...Kanye West: Donda review – misfiring lyricism from a diminished figure
There is some sustained brilliance here, but unfortunately it comes from the guest stars – and at 108 minutes, this long-awaited album is in need of an edit
Chaotic preview events for Kanye West’s 10th studio album Donda have dominated social media feeds in recent weeks, each one promising a release date that never materialised. The coverage of the events has focused on Kim Kardashian dressed as a Balenciaga-clad sleep paralysis demon, $50 chicken tenders, potential Drake disses, levitation and cameos from alleged rapist Marilyn Manson and the homophobic DaBaby. Fans called West a genius capable of creating exciting theatre that evolves in real time; others saw him as an empty provocateur. Much like kindred spirit Donald Trump, West seems to instinctively know how to weaponise controversy to drive interest in a new project.
With the eventual release of Donda (named after West’s English professor mother, who died in 2007), there is a nagging sense the spectacle has overshadowed the actual music, with this bloated 108-minute album rarely sure of what it is trying to say. The intro, Donda Chant, a sequence of eerie recitations of his mother’s name seemingly designed to send you into a sunken place, is arresting, giving you the impression you’re about to undergo an immersive religious experience. But too often the songs that follow are built on half-baked ideas from a West more concerned with self-pity and martyrdom than confronting his contradictions.
Continue reading...Jade Hackett on hip-hop dance: ‘Black joy is just as powerful as protest’
The choreographer felt the urgent need to bring happiness and relentless fun to the weekender she has curated for the Southbank Centre’s Summer Reunion series
‘With the year we’ve had, we just needed people to have insanely, intensely engrossing, almost relentless fun,” says choreographer Jade Hackett of the weekender she has curated for the Southbank Centre’s Summer Reunion series. Working with music producer DJ Walde under the umbrella of ZooNation dance company, Hackett is taking over the Thames riverside terrace for a free mini festival, three days celebrating UK hip-hop culture, and just celebrating full stop, having been starved of live shows and social occasions during the pandemic.
“It’s the first stepping stone to reintegration, bringing people together in a really safe way,” she says. “We’ll kick it off with music by Afrika Bambaataa, Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder, that’s the vibe; awesome social dances, the electric slide, Soul Train lines, it’ll be super fun.” Audiences can watch dance battles and performances from the likes of female popping collective AIM and Afrobeats dancers HomeBros, but there’s an emphasis on participation, with a series of workshops covering dance from the 70s, 80s and 90s as well as newer styles such as Litefeet. There are daytime family activities and evenings dancing to DJ collective The Midnight Train playing garage, grime, house, R&B, hip-hop and soca – a little carnival fix for those feeling the gap left by the cancellation of Notting Hill carnival for the second consecutive year.
Continue reading...‘Nobody can gaslight us’: the rappers confronting Canada’s colonial horrors
The recent discovery of unmarked graves at residential schools is the latest incident in decades of trauma for Indigenous Canadians, who are using lyricism to process it
After the recent discovery of hundreds of Indigenous children’s unmarked graves at former Canadian residential schools, Drezus – an rapper of Cree and Ojibwe heritage from the Muskowekwan First Nation in Saskatchewan province – grew unsure about his longstanding plans to release a new music video, Bless. He starts the song by calling the atrocities his people have faced “an act of war”, then follows that with bar after bar of Indigenous empowerment. Unsure if that would be appropriate while his people grieved, he turned to his mother, who had attended one of those schools. Her advice? “Release it, son. We need it now.”
This government-funded, Christian church-administered boarding school system was established in Canada in the late 1800s. Its founders’ intent: to forcibly remove Indigenous children from their “savage” parents and impose English and Christianity. Some 150,000 Indigenous children attended these schools before the last one closed in 1997. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report detailed nearly 38,000 sexual and physical abuse claims from former residential school students, along with 3,200 documented deaths. The mortality rate for those children was estimated to be up to five times higher than their white counterparts, due to factors including suicide, neglect and disease.
Continue reading...Rapso: discover the pride and power of Trinidad’s rap-soca music
The striking vocalist Brother Resistance, who died this month, started a politically powerful hybrid of hip-hop and soca that opened new possibilities in Caribbean music
You would expect a song called Dancing Shoes to celebrate the unfettered joy of a good boogie, but Network Rapso Riddum Band’s 1981 track did quite the opposite. Lead vocalist Brother Resistance – whose death on 13 July sent shockwaves through the Caribbean music community – used Dancing Shoes to castigate his fellow Trinidadians for embracing foreign forms such as disco, delivering caustic lyrics in a flow laden with preacherly indignation.
The song heralded the arrival of a new hybrid sound in Trinidad and Tobago – one that hasn’t had quite the global impact of dancehall, reggae or other Caribbean styles but which is the source of some of its most fascinating and political music, dubbed “rapso” for its melding of rap and soca.
Continue reading...Biz Markie, rapper known for Just a Friend, dies at age 57
Hip-hop star known for his personality, beatboxing and freestyle skills scored his biggest hit in 1989
Biz Markie, the New York rapper, beatboxer and producer, has died at age 57.
Markie’s representative, Jenni Izumi, said the rapper and DJ died peacefully Friday evening with his wife by his side. The cause of death has not been released.
Continue reading...Mykki Blanco: ‘I’ve helped to push open some closed doors. It’s a cool feeling’
The rapper has worked with Kanye and Madonna and blazed a trail for black queer pop. Their new mini album, they say, feels like the start of a new chapter…
Mykki Blanco has just moved to Hollywood, and five minutes into our conversation, the 35-year old rapper’s beloved mother calls. “She needs to chill out. Like, I don’t work?” laughs Blanco. “She’s helping me pick out furniture and she’s gone crazy about the whole thing.” There is something pure about one of hip-hop’s most experimental figures having their mother help them decorate. The non-binary musician (who uses the pronouns they/them) has been living outside the US for the past five years, residing mostly in Europe: London and Portugal’s countryside. They also lived in Paris during the city’s second lockdown in late 2020 – an experience Blanco describes as “emotionally distressing”. But now, back living near family and friends, Blanco’s spirits seem high. Their new mini album, Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep, an electric collection of love songs featuring Blood Orange and Jamila Woods, is a fresh beginning. For starters, it’s the first time they have had a record deal.
That may come as a surprise considering Blanco has not only worked with Kanye West, Charli XCX and Madonna, but was also a founding member of “queer rap”, a sub-genre of hip-hop that allowed LGBTQ+ people to express themselves freely. Tattooed and 6ft 2in tall, Blanco has long played with drag and gender presentation, whether donning waist-length braids and a pink corset or a shirt and a shaved head; rapping bluntly over trippy synths, their hyperactive lyrics address sexuality, partying and bravado from a queer perspective. In 2012 Elle magazine declared them “hip-hop’s new queen”, and in the New York Times Michael Schulman enthused about their “glamazon alter ego… a redoubtable presence on the New York downtown art and cabaret scene”. They self-released their 2016 debut album, Mykki, to critical acclaim: it was described by the Observer’s Kitty Empire as “one of the year’s most riveting musical self‑portraits”.
Continue reading...UK rapper Enny: ‘Black women are beautiful. They don’t get told that enough’
Her track Peng Black Girls was a love letter to womanhood, and a huge lockdown hit. Now the rising south-London star is ready for her closeup.
Photography by Suki Dhanda. Styling by Barbara Ayozie Fu Safira.
In the depths of a bleak Covid winter, very few of us were feeling peng. With Zoom meetings and state-mandated daily walks our only form of socialising, there was little to dress up for, and few opportunities for us to feel beautiful.
Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips
Continue reading...Zimdancehall dreams: the back yard studios helping Harare get heard
Infectious hits produced on a shoestring allow Zimbabwe’s aspiring musicians to express their struggles and dream big
Inside a grimy flat in Mbare, Zimbabwe’s oldest township in the capital Harare, about 10 young musicians nervously rehearse their lyrical chants as they wait to be called into the recording booth.
Many celebrated musicians in Zimbabwe have been born out of this old flat. For those here now, this is their one shot at stardom, or at least a future in music.
Continue reading...DMX’s powerful work confronted an American hell of trauma and poverty
The rapper, who has died aged 50, parlayed his life’s difficulties into thrilling, combative, witheringly witty music
Listening to a DMX song from the late 1990s is like riding a wrecking ball through a gated community. The music video for Stop Being Greedy – one of many confrontational highlights from the rapper’s 1998 Def Jam debut, It’s Dark And Hell Is Hot – shows DMX hunting a wealthy white man across a mansion, before eventually feeding the poor soul like a T-bone steak to his pet pitbull; the rapper’s exhilarating, half-barked vocals gave the sense that he wanted to eat the rich.
It’s a song about the poor feeling so ignored that they have no choice but to confront the ruling classes (“Ribs is touching, so don’t make me wait / Fuck around and I’m gon’ bite you and snatch the plate”) and violently rip up their rules, and its message reflected an urge by DMX – who died on Friday at the age of 50 – to liberate a hip-hop culture that by 1998 had become too preoccupied with shiny suits in tacky music videos filmed inside a blingy Rubik’s Cube.
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