50 Cent

The 10 Best Bay Area Rap Anthems of 2012

2012 was a fertile year for Bay Area rap, a time when the intellectual, the brazen, the sexed-up, and the chilled-out all took center stage at one point or another. There were songs that inspired dances, songs of Bay Area pride and protest, and more of that straight mack flow that still bumps around ... More >>

Spin Control: The Dos and Dont's of Landing a Song on KMEL

If you're a rising local artist, it's not easy to get a song played on KMEL, but it's not impossible -- and your odds are actually better than you might think if you pay attention to the opportunities the station currently offers to the local community. Having talent is essential, but it's not en ... More >>

Best of Coachella Weekend Two: Sunday, April 22

See also: Our complete Coachella coverage By the third day of Coachella's second weekend -- the sixth and final day of this year's festival -- folks had more or less learned to ignore the dust and the heat. Here are our intrepid writers' favorite things about the final hours of the 2012 event. F ... More >>

Alert: SXSW Coverage Ahead

"What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area." -- Tommy Lee Jones, The Fugitive You don't have to spend much time at South By Southwest to know that all of the above building ... More >>

Hot Mouth on Making "Songs You Could Kill a Kitten To" and Going Solo After LA Riots

Once a member of indie dance group LA Riots, Jon Pegnato, aka Hot Mouth, hasn't seen any drop-off in activity since going solo -- he's playing residencies in Vegas, recording a new EP, and keeping a full schedule of fun in between. Breaking away from the LA Riots sound, Pegnato has become known for ... More >>

MySpace Says It's Bringing TV to the Web -- But It Isn't

​Specific Media, now the owners of MySpace, took Justin Timberlake on stage with them Monday night at the Consumer Electronic Show, and with a lot of fanfare, they announced ... essentially nothing. The purported big news is that MySpace is revolutionizing television by bringing it to the Web an ... More >>

Honor Roll Crew's Josie Stingray Explains 'Josie,' Her New Single, and Her Sneaker Obsession

​"Shoe game is crazy but still elegant/With my Jordan threes, boy, I'll stomp you like an elephant." So spits Honor Roll Crew member Josie Stingray on her new, free-to-download, Trackademicks-produced song, "Josie." One of the Bay's brightest and feistiest upcoming rappers, we got the self-co ... More >>

Top 10 Weirdest Recent Couples in Music

We found out last week, from a variety of tabloidy sources, that 50 Cent and Chelsea Handler are currently -- well, not exactly hooking up, but having intimate conversations in a bar and talking about maybe hooking up. W.T.F. people? We'd like to take this opportunity to pat Chelsea on the back for ... More >>

Weekend Party Preview: Dirty Birds and Bassment Booty

Claude VonStroke with some bird.​People need to stop taking themselves so seriously when it comes to partying. Honestly, little is less fun than watching some straight-faced DJ and stoic club patron have a staring contest while your new favorite song blasts over the sound system. Music is great an ... More >>

These Earbuds Are Way More Hardcore Than Your Taste in Music

via gizmodo.comTeknine Nine Millimeter earphones by MUNITIO ​Absolutely no listening to the Jonas Brothers on the Teknine Nine Millimeter earphones by MUNITIO. Still waiting for the 50 Cent celebrity endorsement. [Gizmodo]Follow us @SFAllShookDown

(100) Days of Summer Movies

Over the Weekend: Zion I, Pep Love, and Dublin at the Independent

​Zion I, Pep Love, Dublin Friday, April 2, 2010 The Independent Better Than: Your last house party. Friday night, Zion I performed its second show in a row, joined by fellow natives Pep Love of Hieroglyphics and Dublin of Jazz Mafia fame. This evening was a showcase of Bay Area love, ... More >>

SXSW 2010 Showgoers' Guide to Bay Area Acts

What To Do? Thursday's Pick: Left Fest w/ Souls of Mischief

Souls of Mischief​Left Fest w/ Souls of Mischief @ MezzanineOakland rap quartet Souls of Mischief is most fondly remembered for a 1993 hit. Prince Paul is a legendary oddball production Svengali from Long Island who also goes by the aliases Chest Rockwell and Filthy Pablo. The idea of holing them ... More >>

Souls of Mischief embrace the Prince Paul regime

Listomania: Top Latin Music Picks For 2009

It's been a year of surprises in Latin music. Reggaetón continues fading, albeit slowly, and the industry's mainstays aren't garnering the attention they used to. Case in point: Don Omar's summer release iDon (no relation to your phone), which remained quiet after its first single, "Virtual Diva." ... More >>

Listomania 2009: Unintentional Lyrical Hilarity

NPR: Rap as Geopolitics

Il(l) like Kim Jong: Lil' Wayne National Public Radio has an interesting take  on beef in the rap world: it's essentially a mirror of global politics, according to Marc Lynch, a professor at George Washington University and the director of the Institute of Middle East Studies. ""The way that ... More >>

10 Music Stars Who'd Make Great Soap Stars

Paula AbdulAs people turn away from soap operas in droves, daytime television continues to pull out the dramatic stops in order to keep afloat in the recession. But if Days of Our Lives or All My Children wants a bit of a buzzy boost that a fictional transsexual rock star just cannot provide, the pr ... More >>

Hey DJ! Friday Q&A: DJ Centipede

DJ Centipede claims the distinct honor of having really brought down the dance floor. Literally. As the dude tells it, he was DJing a party in Oakland a decade back and the entire floor collapsed from people bouncing on it. Talk about dropping some bass.You can catch Centipede on Tuesdays (when he's ... More >>

Last Night: A Special Birthday Appearance by Talib Kweli at Levende Lounge's "Colors"

Black Stars:

Ghana's Hiplife Generation (Out Here)

SF Weekly Letters

Best Albums of 2007 — SF Weekly's David Downs

Young vet Bow Wow bestows advice on adolescent rappers

Talib Kweli To Justify ICER AIR Douche Fest

Silence the Violence -- or else!

Bunny-hoppin' beats: Oxy Cottontail bounces clubbers onto the dance floor

Built to Spill

Middle-class malaise meets inner-city despair in The Architect

New Wave Thuggin'

Kirby Dominant brings together niggaz and white girlz

Sorry Raters

Raucous doc catches moral watchdogs with their pants down

Thug life with Mobb Deep

Spray-On Soul

Getting Up is a flawed but fascinating ode to graffiti 's early years.

My Name Is Earl

E-40 blows up, and takes the rest of the Bay Area with him

Fuck me on the barstool: Disco D gets booties bouncing

San Quinn

The Rock: Pressure Makes Diamonds

Hot Chip

Coming on Strong

Hip Hop, Year 2 A.J.

Mixtape Shmixtape

Wherein we review Yay Area mixtapes of the day

Our top DVD picks for the week of November 8

School of Life

Daara J takes hip hop back

The Tinkerers

The Books, Battles, Prefuse 73, and other bands for whom, musically speaking, freedom is on the march

The Game

West Coast Resurrection

A New Dawn, a New Bay

A fresh, vital hip hop scene is shaping up in the Bay Area, and MC Balance is leading the charge

Artbeat

Our critics weigh in on local exhibitions

Best Sneering Sports Guy

Gary Radnich

Geek Chic

Stanford Junior MC Lars Horris may not unseat Eminem, but, with luck, he might be the next "Weird Al"

Prick

Don't hate me because I'm corporate

Yukmouth

Godzilla

Summer Events a Go Go!

What to do, all summer long