Sheldon Pearce
[Copyright 2024 NPR]
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Giving rap the future it deserves means smashing the infrastructure as it is. But with the battle lines drawn, we can still take heart in the artists teasing just how much further the culture can go.
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The 305's hedonistic reputation is not unearned, but there is artistry in its debauchery, and a young generation reinvesting the rewards of their predecessors' battles against censorship.
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Faith and religion have been career-long themes for the Run the Jewels rapper — if often in a wary, ambivalent light. But on Michael, his first solo LP in over a decade, something has changed.
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The poet's first recording with a band, when the poems do what they do, lends an emphatic new authority to her words, which she delivers with a hypnotist's composure.
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The singer and rapper displays the subtle breadth of his music in this Tiny Desk (home) concert.
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A longtime hero of the underground rap scene for his worldly, wily lyrics that are erudite and streetwise, billy woods has made his clearest, most engaging album yet with Maps.
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The rapper's third album is a string of prickly songs that spend more time exposing his neuroses than truly analyzing them.
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The joyously chaotic rap team-up Scaring the Hoes is less Watch the Throne and more Wedding Crashers: a pair of motormouthed eccentrics running wild trick plays and daring you to stick around.
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The first six albums from hip hop group De La Soul are finally out on streaming platforms after years being tied up in legal disputes.
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At this year's awards on Sunday night, Beyoncé could become the artist with the most Grammys ever. She could also go down in history as the most snubbed.