Jay Z

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Gift Guide 2010: Books that'll make your coffee table look smart

Rock of Pages
There are books, and then there are deluxe books. They're like normal books, but more badass.
By MICHAEL GOETZMAN, MICAH HAUSER, AND STEVE MILLER | December 08, 2010

By | January 01, 0001

Transcript: The Phoenix interviews M.I.A.

In September 2004, Diplo still had to explain who M.I.A. was.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | October 06, 2010

Video: The 12 acts you should've seen at Bonnaroo 2010

From the xx to Jay-Z
When I told my bosses here at the Phoenix that I was going to need some time off to attend Bonnaroo for my third year in a row, I expected to hear something along the lines of, "Have fun, don't die, and we'll see you when you get back."
By MICHAEL C. WALSH | June 22, 2010

Crossword: ''All the right angles''

They've got the market cornered.
They've got the market cornered.
By MATT JONES | June 09, 2010

Pressing Obama for an answer

Inside Job Dept.
Convicted murderer Darrell Jones has accomplished more in the worlds of media, entertainment, and activism from behind bars over the past 25 years than most free people do in a lifetime.
By CHRIS FARAONE | May 27, 2010

Dese | Dese Be With You

Cursed Out (2010)
Before Sam Adams, sleazy Boston co-eds relied on the Camp to get their panties moist.
By CHRIS FARAONE | May 17, 2010

Interview: Sarah Silverman

Staying dry
Recently, “Sarah” — the character played by Sarah Silverman on Comedy Central’s The Sarah Silverman Program — was upset because in today’s world it just wasn’t safe anymore for children to get into strangers’ vans.
By JIM SULLIVAN | April 23, 2010

The Big Hurt: ICP take on magnets

Plus Slash loves Axl and Dre does Freddie
Would that I could simply post the entire lyric to “Miracles” by INSANE CLOWN POSSE and call it an article.
By DAVID THORPE | April 13, 2010

Joyride

The Worcester Art Museum shows us ‘Who Shot Rock & Roll’
It is May 1966, in the Prelude Club in Harlem, an Atlantic Records release party.
By GREG COOK | March 24, 2010

Review: Jay-Z at TD Garden

Jay-Z, live at TD Garden, March 11, 2010
There was something about the way Jay-Z hyped the crowd up at the start of show opener "Run This Town" that was not only emblematic of his performance style, but of his general appeal as a performer -- a key to his likability.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | March 22, 2010

Photos: Jay-Z at TD Garden

Jay-Z, live at TD Garden, March 11, 2010
Photos of Jay-Z's Boston stop on his BP3 tour.
By KELLY DAVIDSON | March 12, 2010

The Cultural Caucus's big gamble

Formed to be a savior of the arts in the Bay State, a political coalition is playing high-stakes poker by putting casinos in its sights
The recently formed Cultural Caucus, a loose, formal coalition comprising a dozen arts-friendly state legislators, appears poised to christen its political life by inserting itself into what could be the most intense statewide political battle of the spring legislative session: the move to allow casino gambling in Massachusetts.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | March 03, 2010

Two great flavors

Freeway and Jake One team up to lay it down
"When I said that I wanted to use 'What We Do' as a single," Freeway explains, "people said it couldn't happen because it didn't have a hook. You know how the rest of that one goes."
By CHRIS FARAONE | February 16, 2010

Tom Caruana Presents: Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers | Wu-Tang Vs. The Beatles

Tea Sea (2010)
There were mash-ups before The Grey Album . (They were called "hip-hop songs.") And there will be mash-ups in the future.
By CHRIS FARAONE | February 09, 2010

Fela Kuti | The ’69 L.A. Sessions

Knitting Factory (2010)
Amiri Baraka put it best in his poem "In the Funk World": "If Elvis Presley is King/Who is James Brown, God?" So, by that logic, is Fela Anikulapo Kuti higher than or equal to God?
By ZETH LUNDY | February 09, 2010

Obama's year two to-do's

What Have You Done for Me Lately Dept.
This week marks the one-year anniversary of Barack Obama's inauguration. Can you believe it?
By MIKE MILIARD | January 20, 2010

Spring fever

Ten shows you didn't know you'd be going to
As action-packed as the holidays are, they can be a real dead zone when it comes to decent shows.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR | December 30, 2009

50 ways to leave 2009

Get your New Year's Eve down to an Auld Lang science
We sent a team of future-thinking Predator drones all across the state of Maine, and a little ways down into Seacoast New Hampshire to sniff out any NYE happenings, from barely-off-the-couch to the Maine mountains, all the way to interstellar travel (we're not kidding!).
By JEFF INGLIS | December 30, 2009

Beyond Dilla and Dipset

Can hip-hop deliver in 2010?
With a semi-sober face I'll claim that hip-hop in 2010 might deliver more than just posthumous Dilla discs, Dipset mixtapes, and a new ignoramus coke rapper whom critics pretend rhymes in triple-entendres.
By CHRIS FARAONE | December 29, 2009

2009: The top 10 in pop music

Music you need to own
Hmm, lots of women, a few old dudes, and some African banjo (not to be confused with Steve Martin's Hollywood banjo).
By JIM MACNIE | December 22, 2009

The Big Hurt: Lambert works it, 50 blows it, Moz ends it

The Big Hurt: Music news in brief
ADAM LAMBERT 's spicy AMA performance continues to dominate entertainment headlines, weeks after it first scandalized the nation — but why does America care what a man does with another man in the secluded privacy of the American Music Awards?
By DAVID THORPE | December 09, 2009

Good Fela! beats Nigerian drum

Boston and Broadway
Riddle this: what's more unlikely than the fact that the current toast of Broadway is a musical about a Nigerian agitprop pop singer, or that it owes its existence to a Caucasian commodities trader from New England?
By CHRIS FARAONE | December 09, 2009

Greg Epstein, Atheist Superstar

Can Harvard's humanist chaplain save nonbelief from itself?
Once an intellectual taboo, atheism has become one of the great growth industries of the third millennium.
By ADAM REILLY | November 24, 2009

Swollen Members | Armed to the Teeth

Battle Axe (2009)
I’m not completely sure why the mere mention of Swollen Members rubs so many underground rap snobs the wrong way.
By CHRIS FARAONE | November 18, 2009

Blind ambition

Brother Ali is more than just albino
The only thing less common than Brother Ali–caliber MCs are profiles that don’t credit dude as “blind” and “albino” in the first graf.
By CHRIS FARAONE | November 05, 2009

Interview: Warren G

Smooth hustler
Humble and nonchalant as ever, Warren G is cooler than Miles Davis smoking an Alaskan cucumber.
By CHRIS FARAONE | October 28, 2009

Jaysaun and DJ Revolution | Game of Breath

Brain on Drugz (2009)
Jaysaun is my best proof that Jay-Z is mediocre, as well as the first MC I play for hoodlum friends who accuse me of favoring white-boy art rap.
By CHRIS FARAONE | October 21, 2009

Sarah and the shipmates

Vowell on the Puritans and the founding of Rhode Island
Humorist, historian, superhero. Sarah Vowell is a woman of letters and voices.
By MICHAEL ATCHISON | October 22, 2009

Grown man rap

Masta Ace and Edo G pair up to tear down
Del the Funky Homosapien and Tame One. Canibus and Keith Murray. AG and OC. Buckshot and KRS. Masta Ace and Edo G. These aren’t comments on a Facebook thread asking for hip-hop dream duos. They’re real pairs of united legends who are giving disenchanted heads unprecedented reasons to put aside the throwbacks and enjoy music recorded this millennium.
By CHRIS FARAONE | October 13, 2009

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