Mississippi Bluesman Big Jack Johnson has died. His performances in the documentary Deep Blues are brilliant. He was last surviving major performer featured in the film.
posted by zzazazz on Mar 14, 2011 - 7 comments

Legendary hip hop producer DJ Premier interviewed in the XXL Icon Interview and The Smoking Section. Remarkably candid conversations about his life in East Coast hip hop, with interesting stories about his work with Jay-Z, Biggie, Puff, Nas, Jeru the Damaga, Group Home, Suge Knight, Christina Aguilera and of course, Guru. On finding records to sample: "Well, there’s still diggin’ spots. If you’re in that world like I am, you know the spots, you see everybody—Just Blaze, Alchemist, Large Professor, Pete Rock—we still pop up in those spots. You got Big City records, you got Turntable Lab, you still have A1, you got Academy, you know. I’m not gonna tell you all the digging spots."
posted by the mad poster! on Dec 20, 2010 - 11 comments

Steve Albini: Don't Call Me Producer
posted by boo_radley on Dec 17, 2010 - 18 comments

Big Rock Candy Mountain is just a wonderful little song. I don't know many hobo tunes, but this one gets stuck in my head from time to time. It has been covered by Burl Ives, a drunken Tom Waits, and then was reworked as the theme song to the amazingly awesome animated TV show that is The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.
posted by GavinR on Jan 2, 2010 - 61 comments

Who Killed Tupac Shakur? More importantly, does the L.A. Times run the risk of re-igniting an east-coast/west-coast rap "war" by implicating a certain notorious indivdual in a feud that was virtually nonexistent until the media hyped it up the first time around?
posted by aflores on Sep 6, 2002 - 34 comments

LA Cop shot Notorious B.I.G.?! While I hope justice will be served, I can only pray that this does not come to be the case. LA is already spooked about the police force. This could start another riot.

Just another day in Southern California. Sigh.
posted by Brilliantcrank on Oct 16, 2000 - 3 comments