Untrained youth broke into the music industry 30 years before Rap…and were exploited just the same You could find them on street corners in cities all across America. Groups of (mostly) young men, standing in a circle, getting loose. They were striving to get notoriety. They also wanted to impress…

For this supposed anniversary, we investigate what a B-Boy from ’78 would think Comics are mainstream now. That’s how I arrived at this premise. There’s damn articles explaining how it could’ve been possible to bring back the suspended in animation Captain America. I said comics is mainstream so I don’t…

That’s an easy one I was excited. I can’t say that I’ve been gung-ho, day 1, all about that MLS life. I haven’t. But for the past six years I have been paying enough attention. And with the attention I’ve been paying, I’ve always felt that they can do better. …

Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Labor Day Weekend. The party really starts on Friday. Flags adorn every part of the car that can hold it. Anguilla, St Maarten, St Barthes, Barbados are some of the flags you’ll see — bookended by the ones you’ll see the most: Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago. …

This is all spoilers, it’s been long enough I too was under the spell. When I watched the first season, despite the fact that I knew what I was looking at was typical American myth-making, despite the fact that it was an insult to the sport that I love, despite…

If Kid Cudi was the beginning, this is where we are now. When Cudi spoke on his mental state it was revolutionary. Now doing so is de rigueur. What Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles did would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Mental health has become a part of the…

There are a lot of ways to market records. Posters and flyers used to be a thing. There was whole street teams dedicated to the distribution and posting of said paper promotions. Well the person that was credited with the phenomenon of street teams, Steve Rifkind, initially had another way…

for·mu·lae: a recipe or prescription — rec·i·pe: something which is likely to lead to a particular outcome — pre·scrip·tion: a recommendation that is authoritatively put forward. Now, these are unabridged, half-cocked, simplified, third grade level online bullshit definitions, but they’ll suffice. Usually when we hear that someone is adhering to…

Def Jam. Once the powerhouse trendsetting label that gave us artists from LL to X, now was one that chased trends. One such trend that was garnering attention was Drill. In swooped the labels. King Louie signed to Sony/Epic, Chief Keef signed to Interscope, and Lil Durk signed to Def…