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Nastradamus
In the span of his four-album solo career, Nas has gone from being a leader of the new school to being a follower. On Nastradamus, Nas is torn between socially conscious lyrics and the fear of forfeiting his ghetto pass if he rhymes about anything other than mayhem, murder and money. In spite of boasting […]
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One Day It'll All Make Sense
Common could be the most thoughtful, lyrically skilled rapper you've never heard of. His third album, One Day It'll All Make Sense, is a 17-track assortment of meditations and musings; over minimalist drumbeats, Common's incisive observations offer a contrast to the materialism drowning today's hip-hop. "Retrospect for Life," featuring the Fugees' Lauryn Hill, is the […]
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I Got Next
Ten years and nine albums is a highly unlikely life expectancy in the here today/gone tomorrow world of hip-hop, but self-proclaimed rap specialist KRS-One has both under his belt. Just as significantly, he's remained relevant in a genre that has changed dramatically during the past decade. And with the release of album No. 9, I […]
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Check Your Head
The Beastie Boys — Mike D., MCA and Ad-Rock — are back after a three-year hiatus with their most unconventional outing to date. While their first two albums, Licensed to Ill and Paul's Boutique, presented in-your-face rhymes, offbeat humor and a white-boy perspective on the hip-hop world, Check Your Head has a simple formula: no […]
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Bury Me Like a G: The Short Life and Violent Death of Tupac Shakur
And the rapper's singular, enduring legacy
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ATLiens
The title of OutKast's second album suggests that the Atlantabased rap duo is spaced out on a P-Funk-style otherworldly trip. But ATLiens, like its platinum predecessor, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, is a gritty document of what's happening here and now, an up-to-the-minute briefing on Southern black ghetto life on which OutKast members Andre and Big Boi cast their […]
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Tupac Shakur: 1971-1996
Rolling Stone's 1996 story on the short life and violent death of Tupac Shakur
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Chic-ism
There's something a bit surreal about the return of the trendsetting late-Seventies dance band Chic. Visions of polyester-clad bodies bending and churning beneath strobe lights, heated by disco fever, are vivid. And so are the echoes of the relentless, textured, slicing rhythmic grooves that lifted folks to the physical bliss of that decade. With the […]
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