Posted on 02/06/2009
Neo Soul stars all see the same living room. They see the same intimate cluster of grown folks, parents, aunts, uncles, and family friends, gathered by the turntable drinking cold ones in the evening after work. They see the same haloed stack of records—it includes Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly,” Al Green “Simply Beautiful,” or maybe Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour.” With their own eyes, they witness the same joy, laughter, tears,...

Posted on 01/23/2009
My friends and I have never called John Legend by his name. Seriously. When Kanye West’s College Dropout came out and the four of us were huddled by the university’s sound stage with our teddy bear t-shirts, he was just the “piano guy,” talented as golden ducats but still nameless. Though we didn’t know his name, we acknowledged his comet-like stage presence; he was like a Motown deus ex...

Posted on 12/08/2008
Much like the cast of characters that make up his acclaimed comic strip The Boondocks, Aaron McGruder is a man unafraid to speak his mind. Whether addressing America’s racial stereotypes, the absurdity of its government, or the idiosyncrasies of its culture in general, McGruder’s smart and sardonic commentary earned him a legion of followers. Huey and Riley Freeman, characters that respectively represented a culture’s skeptical worldview and near-deification of hip-hop...

Posted on 12/01/2008
Evidence, the microphone proselytizer of Dilated Peoples (alongside Rakaa Iriscience), has dropped his own EP, The Layover, and it’s doper than rainbow sprinkled crack. The ten-track release, produced by Khrysis and a slew of fine gentlemen like Alchemist, Sid Roams (2 gentlemen to be exact), Babu, and the Cali bred emcee himself, broadcasts Evidence at his most astute. The EP represents a pad of cerebral rhymes and budding artists like...

Posted on 11/23/2008
Artist. Activist. Mother. Though not necessarily in that order, Ursula Rucker embodies all of those titles with a level of class not seen among most rebels. But she’ll be the first to tell you that juggling all those monikers is a daily grind, yet a welcome yoke she hoists upon her shoulders in order to teach her kids left from right and sleep at night knowing she’s fulfilling her purpose...