by
John Flynn on May 18, 2016
In January of 2014, San Jose emcee Rey Resurreccion told Metro that his then-brand new Heart of the City was the first record he’d made after carefully studying what his fans liked. Considering that, his new EP—Sweet Tooth Tony, released earlier this month—makes total sense. At less than 30 minutes, his latest…
Continue reading »
by
John Flynn on May 11, 2016
After laying down beats, hooks and verses for six songs, Traxamillion got tired of his own voice. So he tapped three friends to feature over his hard-knocking trap tracks. After that, he threw the snack-sized project up on Soundcloud, tweeted it to his 25,000-plus followers and kicked back as the internet distributed…
Continue reading »
Alongside Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift and Beyonce, Rihanna sits atop the modern Mount Rushmore of American pop songstresses. But unlike the obsessively manicured images of her competition, there’s always been an ineffable realness to Rihanna—a steamy brashness that hasn’t waned in her inevitable, steady rise to stardom.
Continue reading »
by
John Flynn on April 20, 2016
On the cover of his latest album, Think Bigs, San Jose rapper Andrew Bigs wears wire-rimmed glasses and channels Steve Jobs in the iconic, if grammatically incorrect, “Think Different” Apple campaign. On the aptly titled release, Bigs distills his singular experience of growing up on the East Side, then attending private school…
Continue reading »
by
John Flynn on April 6, 2016
In the era of performative wokeness, it didn’t take long for the Internet to explode in a fit of raging think pieces over the second single from Macklemore’s second LP, This Unruly Mess I’ve Made. The eight-minute “White Privilege II” finds the white Seattle rapper taking a long, hard look in the…
Continue reading »
In the 32nd year of his life, Future stands at the vanguard of hip-hop. After a couple false starts and niche-satisfying mixtapes, the gritty Atlantan just charted three No. 1 albums. They lack front-to-back polish, but in the Internet era, prolificacy, innovation and viral slappers—all strengths of his—count most. The aptly named…
Continue reading »
by
John Flynn on January 6, 2016
thouDirtbag Dan bustles about his high-ceilinged studio in an industrial block just outside of San Jose’s Japantown. He points out a psychedelic mural of a shark by a local artist on one wall and mismatched grey curtains stapled to another. The latter serve as the backdrop for his battle rap podcast. It…
Continue reading »
by
John Flynn on December 9, 2015
East bay rapper Opio has gray hairs winding through his twisty locks. The tenured spitter has been a pillar in the Bay Area underground since the early ’90s, operating on his own and with the Souls of Mischief as part of the hallowed indie hip-hop collective, Hieroglyphics. With his most recent project, Sempervirens,…
Continue reading »
by
John Flynn on December 2, 2015
G-Eazy paid his dues. In the last seven years, the Oakland rapper shotgunned 11 projects at the Internet, starred in mega-popular music videos and established himself as a social media somebody—all before putting ink to a contract. His Web-based rise epitomizes the way recording artists get big nowadays. His proponents paint him…
Continue reading »
Shit went off at the City National Civic over the weekend, as the Safe In Sound electronic music festival hosted the laser synths and face-smacking snares of Datsik, the caffeinated drops and trappy vibes of Bro Safari, and the springing vibraphones and spectral melodies of Zed’s Dead. There was also a whole lot of…
Continue reading »
