I’ve got a feeling Kanye’s MAGA period will be looked upon by future music historians as a bizarre, brief interlude in a great artist’s career, but I'm floored by the outpouring of support from the conservative right. But the election of Donald Trump has caused social conservatives to accept a level of in-your-face vulgarity simply unimaginable as recently as a couple of years ago. Once they've taken that leap, having nice things to say about rappers isn't such a big ask.
'Kids See Ghosts' is almost impossible to categorize the sound they've crafted but it's wholly their own it's got some very strong vibes. Not quite on Daytona levels, but definitely better than Kanye's own offering out of the bunch.
The long simmering 'beef' between Pusha T has full on erupted with Drake responding to "Infared" with the appropriately hard "Duppy Freestyle" then Pusha T escalated things to a whole other level with one of the most disrespectful disses we've heard in years with "The Story of Adidon." We talk about who we think has the upper hand, what's Drake's next move, and did Pusha T go too far? Then we give our reactions to Pusha T's Daytona album as a whole, discuss A$AP Rocky's horrible, horrible timing with Testing, and give a perfect score to Arctic Monkey's Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.
We're back and talking about Kendrick Lamar becoming the first non-classical, non-jazz musician to win a Pulitzer prize for music, Meek Mill finally being released from prison and whether we'll get a Drake collab to capitalize on the moment, and give our expectations for Drake's recently announced next album, Scorpion. Then of course we talk about all of the madness surrounding twitter and Kanye West and his upcoming projects. Lastly, we breakdown J. Cole's latest album, KOD, whether it's his best album yet, and try to understand why he's such a polarizing yet wildly successful figure in hip-hop.
We kick off the first volume of Compilation 2 of our Musicphiles podcast by taking a quick look back at some of our favorite projects to drop in 2016 and giving our overall rating for the year. Then we list our top 10 most anticipated albums of 2017 from artists like Andre 3000, Lorde, Kendrick Lamar, Japandroids, Drake, Kanye West, and many more. We finish things off with a discussion about the latest release from Run the Jewels, Tory Lanez, and others.
I think before I can continue with this trilogy (Frodo not Neo) I need to clarify what makes something a fear. There's a lot of things out there that make people uncomfortable; for example, a lot of people feel uncomfortable doing public speaking but they don't necessarily fear it, they'd prefer not to do it but if push comes to shove they'd be able to get up there and get through it. Now for someone with an absolute fear of it, nothing short of the will of God could make that person do it and if that will does one day come to pass they may just faint, convulse, vomit (true story), really do anything other than look like public speakers. For me, the thought of being average doesn't just make me uncomfortable it down right terrifies me; I'm shaking right now just writing out you know what. The day I feel like I'm living average may just be the day I say goodbye to the world and all my unborn seeds because death would be a reprieve from that life of hell. See the difference? Good, now let's continue...
We are back and we are in the full blown midst of Yeezy season. But before we get into the new albums we discuss Drake apparently wanting no more smoke with Pusha T, then we get to 'ye' and 'Kids See Ghosts' and discuss where they stack up to everything Kanye's had a hand in putting out thus far. Specifically if 'ye' is his worst album yet? We give our expectations for the Nas album which had still yet to drop, talk about Jay Rock's best album yet full of bangers, and get hype over Jorja Smith's incredible debut. Check the full episode out above and tell us your thoughts, comments, and questions about the topics in the episode.
It's not a bad album - the production is good, although not as good as Daytona, and more of an extension of TLOP - but ye was a major letdown for anyone looking for something more behind the self-centered, PR shtick we've gotten for the past month.
In this week's episode we talk about Spotify removing R. Kelly and XXXTENTACION from their playlists, the ongoing Kanye roller coaster, and Donald Glover's (aka Childish Gambino) turn as a SNL host, his mind blowing new video for "This Is America", and question whether he should be considered the greatest multi-talented artist we've ever seen. Then we end things by talking about a bunch of new albums to drop from Desiigner, Post Malone, Styles P, Rae Sremmurd, Janelle Monáe, Steve Angello, and BlocBoy JB. With Royce da 5'9", Janelle Monáe, and Steve Angello, in particular, taking their careers in new and exciting new directions with their most introspective albums yet.
We're back and we're talking about all of the recent music and music news that has happened over the past couple of weeks. This week we talk about the iconic Tom Petty's recent passing, XXL turning 20, Big K.R.I.T making his return with an upcoming double album - whether or not we think he's had a definitive album yet, and other notable news like Bill Murray garnering a #1 album on the classical charts. Lastly we discuss whether we believe Chance the Rapper to be for real or a fraud, and our thoughts on UK hip-hop.
In Volume 5 we discuss our thoughts about the 44th American Music Awards, the recent trend towards black consciousness in R&B and hip-hop, and Kanye West's latest meltdown. We also talk about what we're currently listening to, Yasiin Bey's (Mos Def) recent release, and our worries about Ab-Soul's upcoming project.
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