Categories
Writing

My Best Writing of 2022

As both my personal and professional lives became not just busier, but also more complex, my writing output — and my readership and reach — has declined. 

However, I do feel like almost everything I do publish these days is worthy of being clicked on and read. I couldn’t always honestly say that. Still, some things are better than others so I’ve collected the best things I wrote this year — a tradition that dates all the way back to 2015. It’s like my own personal literary version of Spotify Wrapped.

So please take a look below and, if something strikes you as interesting, please give it a click. 

Categories
Greatness Hip-Hop I Was There Rap

I Was There: State Property & The LOX Live

Cross another off the concert bucket list.

Categories
Greatness Hip-Hop Rap

The LOX Have Some of the Best Hooks in Rap History

“N—as rhymes be aight but they need hooks”

— Jadakiss

Rappers and hip-hop artists of a certain type value lyricism (“bars”) over pretty much everything else.

As a purist, I appreciate that, but I think it ignores a vital yet rare skill that only some MCs possess, even those that can fill notebooks: the ability to write and deliver a great chorus.

MC’s that can craft an intricate hook hold a higher spot in my personal rankings and the LOX have some of the best rap choruses in hip-hop history.

Categories
Hip-Hop Rap

Classic Non-Album Cuts: The LOX

2008 Power 105.1's Powerhouse Concert

The LOX are legends.

Categories
Week in Review

Week in Review (March 25, 2016)

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It’s been a Batman week for me.

For my birthday, my wife (and kid) decorated the dining room in a Batman theme and gave me a Batman cake like I was turning 12 and not 36.

I also wrote a long piece on how Tim Burton’s Batman films are better in memory than in reality.

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Flashback Friday Flop

Flashback Friday Flop: “Money, Power & Respect”

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Welcome back to the latest edition of Flashback Friday Flop, a weekly feature in which I examine a hip-hop album from years ago that was considered a flop, either critically or commercially or both, when it was released and see if it has gotten better – or worse – over time. 

This week: The LOX’s Money, Power & Respect (1998)

Puff Daddy and Bad Boy dominated the music industry in 1997, releasing three albums that year – The Notorious B.I.G.’s Life After Death, Puffy’s own No Way Out, and Mase’s Harlem World – that combined to sell twenty-one million copies and gave birth to the Shiny Suit Era.

Categories
Greatness Hip-Hop Nostalgia

The Other Great Rap Battle of 2001

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Everyone knows that an epic hip-hop battle that took place in late 2001, when Jay-Z and Nas brawled for the throne, but far too many people forget that another classic rap clash began that year as well.

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Week in Review

Week in Review (November 20, 2015)

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My daughter is only three, but I often worry about her.

Categories
Hip-Hop Nostalgia

Revisiting the Hip-Hop Class of 1998

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Class of nine-eight, my fellow graduates / Well-known savages
– Nature, “Fire”

A seismic shift occurred in hip-hop in 1998.