All posts by Andy Bustard

Brother Ali projects poignancy to screens as he debuts the music video for the Jake One-produced title track from his forthcoming album, Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color. As the Rhymesayers emcee puts it himself, the first part of the clip highlights (albeit through a black-and-white filter) the dire situation of today’s violent and [...]

While the Black Hippy crew are known to keep things largely in-house, their foremost talent Kendrick Lamar has been forging some surprising partnerships of late. While his most recently-announced single with Lady Gaga seems to have left fans divided, his collaboration with Kid Cudi, which was reported back in July, surely had listeners excited. In [...]

Out with A$AP Rocky, in with Skepta. That’s how the Boy Better Know emcees’ latest offering shapes up as he remixes the trendy Brooklyn rapper’s “Big Spender” hit, taken from his Rose Island Vol. 1 mixtape. Needless to say, Skepta gives the 1966 Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields‘ musical-sampling number a more rough and ready [...]

As he gears up to release his new EP, Power & Passion, on October 30th, the burly Brooklyn-bred emcee known as Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire drops off a new joint via SoundCloud. Commencing with a sample of N.W.A‘s “Dopeman,” before venturing into a predictably dark and dizzying soundscape, “The Message” is all well and good, only [...]

After evoking quite a lot of head scratching with the all-black cover art for his forthcoming fourth studio album, Food & Liquor 2: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1, Lupe Fiasco keeps the surprises coming as he unveils the tracklist for his new LP. It reveals a total of 17 tracks, with features from [...]

Even with contributions from Asher Roth, Casey Veggies and No I.D., you can’t help but feel like Pac Div‘s 2011 debut album, The DiV, slipped under the radar (for one, it didn’t even chart on the Billboard 200). The West Coast trio are looking to change their fortune with their sophomore effort, GMB, however. Following [...]

Notting Hill Carnival may be over, but that doesn’t mean the party has to come to an end. Released last week, Toddla T, Cleo Sol and Scruffizer‘s jungle-vibed collaboration “Code To Crack” gets its official visuals today. Fittingly, the clip gathers footage from Ms. Sol’s festivities last weekend, with cameos coming from Maverick Sabre, Mz [...]

Just because he slung a $10 million lawsuit Mac Miller‘s way, doesn’t mean Lord Finesse isn’t down to support up-and-coming emcees. The former D.I.T.C. crew member keeps a relatively low profile these days, but he recently supplied fellow Bronx native Butta Verses with some heat for his comeback track, “That’s Me.” The emcee, who used [...]

Jay-Z may have popularised The Blueprint, but Trae Tha Truth takes things a shade darker and presents his new mixtape – and first release under T.I.‘s Grand Hustle label – Tha Blackprint. As we’ve seen from both his “I’m On” and “I’m On 2.0″ remake, the Texas veteran has no difficulty recruiting high profile names. [...]

I think we can all agree that Block Beattaz did a pretty damn good job crafting Stalley‘s “Petrin Hill Peonies,” capturing his blue collared identity with their sample of Charles Bradley‘s “The World (Is Going Up In Flames).” But if you’re looking for something different from this particular Savage Journey to the American Dream cut, [...]