The atmosphere is always electric at Middlesex Lounge. Well, I suppose I can’t speak for what it’s like there any day but every third Sunday, but I can at least confirm that once every three weeks, there’s a truly special kind of energy that invades Cambridge. More
The “Rap-Up” is a bi-weekly series highlighting new hip-hop music out of Boston. For this installment (July 26-August 8), we have new tracks from Michael Christmas, Real P, Latrell James, Black EL, and Dutchy D.o.B.a.d, as well as some exciting news from Dutch ReBelle. More
The “Rap-Up” is a bi-weekly series highlighting new hip-hop music out of Boston. For this installment (July 12-25), we have new tracks from Cousin Stizz, STL GLD, Real P, Natural, and OG Swaggerdick. More
The “Rap-Up” is a bi-weekly series highlighting new hip-hop music out of Boston. For this installment (June 28-July 11), we have new tracks from Cousin Stizz, Black EL, OG Swaggerdick and Bakari as well as two collaborative songs from Gio Dee & Frank Write and Avenue & Deon Chase, respectively. More
The “Rap-Up” is a bi-weekly series highlighting new hip-hop music out of Boston. For this installment (June 14-27), we have five new songs and videos including releases from Michael Christmas, Black EL, Deon Chase & Kareem $ully, STL GLD, and OG Swaggerdick. More
The “Rap-Up” is a bi-weekly series highlighting new hip-hop music out of Boston. For this installment (May 30-June 13), we have five new songs and videos including releases from Cousin Stizz, Gio Dee, Cam Meekins, JunkFood Kings and a collaborative track from Deon Chase, Avenue and Slumdog Hill.
When I was a little kid, there was only one thing I wanted to do more than be a professional basketball player—and that was be a professional basketball player on a team made up of nothing but my friends. It’s what I was doing every winter season anyway, and it was a lot of fun, so I figured, why not keep going with it? I would spend hours in the driveway every day after school putting up jumpers, counting down an imaginary game clock and drawing up nonexistent plays that almost always ended with a championship-winning bucket. I didn’t know exactly how it was going to happen, but I could see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. My friends and I were going to stick together, keep practicing and eventually travel the country and play basketball together for the rest of our lives. More
Admittedly, it took me a little while to “get” Future. My introduction to the Atlanta-bred rapper/singer/songwriter came with his 2011 single, “Tony Montana,” and though I may have been intrigued, I was far from sold as a fan. The song’s concept was simple, the hook was repetitive, and Future’s near-screaming vocals over the booming production made for an almost uncomfortably intense listening experience. But while I didn’t particularly enjoy it, I also didn’t fully look away. Future had something—even if I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly it was—and he certainly had people talking. More
For the second year in a row, SXSW was more to me than just a week of warm music and better people. It was that, sure. Anyone who works in the music industry in any capacity knows SXSW is essentially a vacation you take with all your favorite people in the world, where all your internet friends morph into real life characters, and where the tacos are abundant and the beer is free-flowing. More
In the genre of hip-hop, perhaps more so than in any other type of music, it’s almost standard practice for artists to come and go overnight. The “Lamborghini dreams and beach house wishes” that Wiz Khalifa rapped about in 2009 have hooked countless aspiring emcees, but more often that not, the attraction rapidly morphs into distraction and the dreams are never realized – not even at Acura and apartment level, forget Lambos and beach houses. In order to make a career out of music, longevity needs to be the goal, yet most up-and-coming rappers fail to recognize this. They’ll subconsciously sacrifice a foundation for 15 minutes of fame and be dumfounded when their one hit song they poured everything into grows stale. Luckily, Dom Kennedy, who comes to the Middle East Downstairs Saturday night, is not most rappers. More
