#devil-jam

#devil-jam

In that pre-pandemic era, one of my favorite duos was Nuk and Mo Money, who had the livewire hustlenomics on lock.

Earl has spent the past decade or so immersing himself in New York's underground rap scene, resulting in one of the most unique and unpredictable discographies of his generation.

Thaiboy Digital's first album in four years showcases a collaboration with the Swedish production collective Swedm, featuring contributions from Varg2™, Eurohead, and Jamesjamesjames.

In recent years, he's evolved into an emissary of Florida hip-hop and a rap star at the nexus of niche underground fame and household ubiquity, able to stunt on blockbuster movie soundtracks one minute and do pop-ups at Chinatown arcades with no security the next.

If someone was to come into this room right now and pop you and me in the head and kill us, when we turned around, what would we see? Would we see the devil sittin' there in that seat ready to blow our head off, or would we see a regular motherfucker?

Detroit techno, austere and futuristic, grew out of Black/queer culture, sci-fi escapism, and the repetitive language of automobile factories. San Francisco's techno, on the other hand, fused an outdoor hippie aesthetic with ecstatic, UK-derived beats that had crowds mass-hallucinating UFOs on Ocean Beach at dawn. Both shared a deep funkiness, however—remember when people of all shapes and colors once danced wildly?

Rockie does kinda feel like the album Donna Hayward would make if she could pursue her musical ambitions: She'd be influenced by Julee Cruise, for sure, and probably Chromatics, and Sky Ferreira, and what could be more Badalamentian than the cloudburst of synth that opens "On Our Knees"?

In §46, Kant defines genius as "the inborn predisposition of the mind through which nature gives the rule to art" (5:307). Because beautiful art cannot be created according to fixed rules, the artistic genius is a kind of channel for the way beauty appears spontaneously in nature. (My slideshow includes Angelus Silesius's "Die Rose" on this point: "The rose is without why.") For Kant, genius has a talent that cannot be learned or taught, and it cannot give an account of itself.

We started from a very silly place,

Prince Daddy & the Hyena have announced a new album, Hotwire Trip Switch, which reunites them with Counter Intuitive Records (after a stint on Pure Noise) and producer Joe Reinhart of Algernon Cadwallader (who produced the band's 2016 debut LP I Thought You Didn't Even Like Leaving). It comes out on April 17.

Intense listening capabilities from these exquisite players which required, more than anything else, a great deal of trust. They posited about thematic structures, which somehow got agreed upon, live in the moment through a collective groupthink. Right there on stage. No words spoken, just an exchange of bizarrely intense looks. Ranging from 'we're almost there' to 'don't you dare.' That's trust, people.

Last year, Four Tet started dropping a remix of 'Illegal'-the breakaway hit from PinkPantheress' 2025 mixtape -during his sets. As of today, Kieran Hebden's take on the track is now on streaming.

Helicopters, you could say, is a reaction to the lack of action or misaction we have witnessed over the last three years (but in reality, throughout my whole life) in regard to the blatant slaughtering and exploitation of our brothers and sisters around the world. The manipulation, lies, and treachery that the powers that be rain down upon us with absolute impunity.

"Many found the music offensive, the dancing objectionable, and the popularity of both with young people verging on a mental health crisis." So writes music historian Susan C. Cook about ragtime, the heavily syncopated ancestor of jazz that arose in the late 1800s. Like all things, ragtime's subversiveness faded over time, and, a century later, the works of Scott Joplin and other practitioners had been relegated to carnivals and fairs, their jaunty piano melodies now evoking quaint notions of old-timey fun.

Chances are, if the Atlanta rapper sounds like they have a loogie stuck in their throat, I'll probably like them. B5 and Zeeball? Yep-"Heist" might be the biggest omission from our Best Rap Songs of 2025 list. Rroxket? I still listen to his zooted-out regularly. Before I get carried away, let's add Bby Kell to that list. Her new tape, Straight Pop, is cool as hell-it reminds me of Glokk40Spaz back when his bread and butter was belligerent dark plugg.

Admittedly, I wasn't hip to Spank Nitti James until he spearheaded one of the best posse cuts of last year. Probably because I've been ducking Hit-Boy beats since King's Disease 3. But I've become a fan of his ability to balance heavy-hearted life lessons and reckless credit card swiping worthy of BlueBucksClan. On "LDO"-a thumping yet melancholic return to form for Hit-Boy-Spank splits the difference, preparing to turn himself in for an upcoming jail sentence by recounting all the cool shit that just started coming his way:

The vision was to bring H.R. into a space he hasn't visited in a long time, a sphere he helped create and pioneer,

Don't say you were not warned: stories, both in print and broadcast, are already being prepared about the 50th anniversary of punk rock. Indeed, 1976 saw the release of debut albums by the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, the Damned, and the first version of Blank Generation, Richard Hell's anthem. Of course, there are also nitpicky arguments for rejecting 1976 as the annus mirabilis.

A month after MC dälek teamed up with This Heat drummer Charles Hayward for the very cool HAYWARDxDÄLEK album, dälek have announced their own new album, Brilliance of a Falling Moon, due March 27 via Ipecac ( pre-order). "The whole project was very influenced by what's happening in the world and this country," says MC dälek. "During the initial days of the I.C.E. raids, it got me thinking. You see those powerful photos from the sixties when Black men were marching with the 'I AM A MAN' sandwich board signs. It was powerful then; it's powerful now."