MF Doom

Premiere: Hip-Hop Crew 40Love Share "Tiki Tiki," Talk Working With Zion I's Zumbi and Their Crazy Animal Masks

The hip-hop troupe 40Love is currently in possession of the most famous animal masks in modern Bay Area music history. Having made their debut in the video for Wallpaper's "#Stupidfacedd," the plastic faces are now being sported by three-quarters of the group in promotional pictures for upcoming alb ... More >>

Weekend Parties: Tenderlions at Temple, Dabrye at 1015 Folsom, and More

It's almost the weekend, and you know what that means. Yes, it's time for another roundup of recommended nightlife events. This week we've spread our net wide to show off a broad picture of what San Francisco has to offer. From old-school '00s electro bangers to Ibiza veterans, we've got you covere ... More >>

Boot Camp Clik on Their Reunion, Working with 2Pac, and Duck Down Records

Brooklyn's Boot Camp Clik established its classic New York underground hip-hop credentials starting in 1992 with Black Moon's "Who Got Da Props?" and went on to rule the '90s underground rap scene with its signature raw and grimy sound. Comprised of Tek and Steele (also known as Smif-N-Wessun), Sean ... More >>

Instrumental Hip-Hop Sucks. Ban It Forever.

RJD2​ Instrumental hip-hop should be banned. It's the banal, meandering stepchild of hip-hop. It's a front-runner for the dubious honor of being the world's most snooze-inducing form of music. And, shockingly, there are still producers and fans who insist on validating it like it's anything bu ... More >>

Fujiya & Miyagi on Writing Songs About Child Stars, Soccer Players, and Boredom

By his own admission, David Best isn't all that great of a singer. As the voice of the Brighton, England-based four-piece Fujiya & Miyagi, Best provides a careful, static presence that works in conjunction with his band's Krautrock-indebted post-punk. He eschews wild notes or anything complicated, a ... More >>

Is This the Coachella 2012 Lineup?

Coachella 2012 is still more than four months away -- so naturally, it's time to start hyperventilating over rumored lineups for the first year the festival will stretch over two weekends. One "leaked" lineup appeared last week on StarzUncut, a celebrity gossip website with more than 58,000 Twitter ... More >>

Five Great Jimi Hendrix Samples in Hip-Hop Songs

​ Today is officially Jimi Hendrix-Winterland Day in San Francisco, which is a fine excuse to soundtrack the rest of your afternoon with a dose of Hendrix's classic guitar grooves. But beyond the deceased guitarist's own oeuvre, his music has received a second life as the sample source for a f ... More >>

J Dilla's 10 Greatest Remixes

J Dilla​ Deceased hip-hop producer J Dilla, née Jay Dee, first asserted himself on the rap radar with his group Slum Village. Lauded by luminaries Q-Tip and ?uestlove, the Detroit-based trio of Dilla, T3, and Baatin (also sadly deceased) are held in cult esteem today, and tonight, remaining g ... More >>

The Top Ten Hip-Hop Drinking Anthems

​Hip-hop's reliance on marijuana as a creative conduit and lifestyle accessory is well documented. But beyond the genre's top tokers, there's also a bubbling batch of rappers who've rhymed about not so much getting a little tipsy as daily dalliances with the dark world of being black-out drunk ... More >>

Happy Birthday Deejay Jay Dee: Listen to a Full-Length Jazz Cover of 'Donuts'

​Today would have been the 37th birthday of James Yancey, the Detroit producer better known as (a) Jay Dee, (b) J Dilla, and (c) the stylistic architect for an entire generation of hip-hop heads, member of Slum Village, occasional rhymer, maker of tracks for A Tribe Called Quest and Busta Rhymes, ... More >>

Evolution's Nuts: Darwin Deez Drops Rap Mixtape, Plays Hemlock on Friday

Fell in love with this fish who got caught in my mesh / Yo, she burned my scene up like David Koresh​ Maybe my bullshit detector has plutonium batteries, but I'm not so sure I trust Darwin Deez. I've read a lot about how he's the new hotness, a genius of musical invention, number ten on the NME' ... More >>

Turns Out Michael Chabon Is a Huge Hip-Hop Nerd

MIchael Chabon, wishing he was bangin' some Wu-Tang​If you haven't been obsessively up to date with the world of Internet news, Bay Area author Michael Chabon has been guest editing the culture section of The Atlantic's culture blog this week. The nifty gig also revealed perhaps one of the lesser ... More >>

Matt Black, Founder of Indie Eletronica Label Ninja Tune, Compares Major Labels to Nazis

Ninja Tune founders Jonathan More and Matt Black​Nowadays, long-term success in the record business has become so elusive and so revered that when that rare piece of good news does arrive, you better celebrate the hell out of it. Ninja Tune gets this. The international electronica-leaning indie l ... More >>

Ninja Tune celebrates 20 years of influential electronica

Download A Rare!!! Mixtape!!! From Bay Area Crazy Person Lil B

Just... wow.​I think we can all agree that Berkeley-based loudmouth Lil B is full of surprises: last week he released a splashy watercolor Hallmark card of an album called Rain In England; this week he's dropping MF Based, a "rare" (how does that work, exactly?) mixtape of half-baked freestyles de ... More >>

Listomania: Top Hip-Hop Picks For 2009

While year-end, catch-all wrap-ups are common to every musical genre, in no other style of music do they turn into the hand-wringing, "state of the game" examinations that hip-hop seems to provoke. (I've certainly written a few.) We worry because we care, of course. But at some point, like a thirty- ... More >>

New Grown Kids Radio Station Connects the Beats

Belio GomezLast week Pirate Cat Radio (online and at 87.9 FM) added a new batch of crate diggers to its collective with the Grown Kids Radio show. These dudes (Cyclyst, Diversify, Spinnerty, Brown Majic, and E da Boss) are already on to some sweet, party-rocking mixes, merging together jazz, hip-hop ... More >>

Why?

Alopecia (Anticon)

Anticon's Why? to Release New Album Alopecia 3/11

Hot Comments on SF Weekly — Kings of Commenting

Saga of the Simian Samurai

Saga of the Simian Samurai Threshold Recordings

Madlib, Stones Throw Brings B-Ball Zombie War to the Independent

Is Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah as Dumb as He Sometimes Acts?

MF Doom Dead! No? Ill! No? So, He's Just a Big Fat Jerk?!

MF Doom: Echoes of Lauryn Hill

Treasure Island Fades as Halo 3 Launch Looms:SFWeekly In Review 9.17-21

Treasure Island Fades as Halo 3 Launch Looms:SFWeekly In Review 9.17-21

MF DOOM Fucks SF?: WTF Went Down, Bay Area?

Doom Back in SF 9/18 -- Maybe

Rock the Bells, The Expendables, New Monsoon -- ASD's Live Music Picks for Saturday, August 18

LiveFEED: Rock the Bells, 2007!

MF DOOM Fucks SF?: WTF Went Down, Bay Area? Pt. 2

Beat Box

Hip hop's masked hero, MF Doom, scales Mezzanine's sound system

For Whom the Bottom Line Tolls

Hip hop's big Rock the Bells thinkers break free from industry shackles

The Fifth Element

As mainstream hip hop stalemates in commodities, underground MCs keep old-school aesthetics alive through art

Ghostface Killah

More Fish (Def Jam)

Cut Chemist puts a new spin on the art of the sonic collage

Hip Hop's Hit Ticker

Dabrye's nerdy interior

The blue-blooded Blowfly, the multialiased MF Doom, and the lyrically infallible Casual

The Talented Mr. Madlib

Hip hop sensation Otis Jackson Jr. has more personalities than albums (well, almost)

MF Doom

Live From Planet X

God Save the Scene

Sassy Brits, hoochie mamas, and a dude named Beans attempted to invigorate a stagnant year for hip hop.

BeatBox

The Germans are coming! Well, Ellen Allien is. And hip hop's own super-villain, MF Doom, shakes up Slim's.

Prince Po

The Slickness

Yesterdays New Quintet

Stevie

Get a Pop Life

The Grey Album made everyone forget about Danger Mouse and Jemini's Ghetto Pop Life. It's time to remember.

Mad Genius

Two guys, their two dozen personalities, and Madvillainy, an instant contender for hip hop album of the year

Prefuse 73

Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives (Warp)