Sean Combs

Dawn Richard Finds New Life Outside of Diddy's Pop Machine

Dawn Richard's Goldenheart album is the sound of freedom, of a singer-songwriter unfettered by the binds of the pop music machine. Released in January, Goldenheart quickly topped the iTunes R&B chart and opened up a wide new fan base for the New Orleans-born singer best known for being one-fifth of ... More >>

US Air Guitar Championships: Witness the Madness of People Rawking on Thin Air

Did the 11-year-old in you never quite get over shredding air in front of the mirror to Master of Puppets? Well maybe that's good, because there's a thing called the U.S. Air Guitar Championships, where similarly imaginative virtual noodlers gather every year to face off in friendly competition. Wit ... More >>

Top Five Reasons P. Diddy Is Hilarious Now

​Earlier this week, Rolling Stone our colleagues at L.A. Weekly reported that an ex-LAPD detective has implicated Sean Combs in Tupac's murder. Greg Kading apparently asserts in a new book that Suge Knight and Puffy ordered the murders of Biggie Smalls and Tupac, respectively, and that h ... More >>

The 10 Greatest Music Video Babes of All Time

From the dawn of the music video, there has been the music video babe. Perhaps she's the star of the video, perhaps she's a backup dancer, maybe she just looks longingly at a musician. Most of the music is terrible, a lot of the videos are insipid, and yet somehow these women make it all worthwhile ... More >>

Sizzle & Fizzle: Highs and lows from the last week in S.F. music

Friday Night: Diddy Dirty Money Holds Court for Three Hours, Brings Out Lil B at the Warfield

Richard HaickP. Diddy at the Warfield Friday night.​ Diddy Dirty Money Tour May 6, 2011 The Warfield Better than: Not getting to study the science of weave-ology on a Friday night. "I thought I told you that we won't stop!" Friday night at the Warfield, Sean "Diddy" Combs, the artist former ... More >>

Listening to the Music of Home: Diddy, Deerhunter, and the Field Mice

​The last moment I spent at my childhood home was essentially a re-enactment of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"'s final scene: I smiled regretfully at an empty room, flicked off the lights, and quietly closed the door. Life's weighty moments demand significant gestures on our part. I guess mine aren't ... More >>

P. Diddy Is Here To Help You Celebrate V. Didday with 'LoveLOVE vs. HateLOVE'

​Rap impresario and motivational speaker Sean "Puff 'P. Diddy' Daddy" Combs wants you to have a festive, funky, and above all, thought-provoking Valentine's Day. Which is why he and his femmetourage Dirty Money have just released the eminently Kierkegaardian LoveLOVE vs. HateLOVE mixtape, a handfu ... More >>

Dear Famous Musicians, Stop Trying to Fleece Us With Your Overpriced 'Signature' Headphones

You trust this guy's opinion about headphones?​It's CES time again, that once-a-year event when every consumer tech company that you have (and haven't) heard of flocks to Las Vegas to reveal this year's lineup of middling products they're sure will drive profit margins up. And, building on re ... More >>

R.I.P. Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, 1941-2010

Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart​Captain Beefheart, the noted experimental musician and painter born Don Van Vliet, died this morning in California following complications from multiple sclerosis. He was 69. Van Vliet is best known for his 1969 album with the Magic Band, Trout Mask Replica, ... More >>

Hilarious Pics: Kanye West's Dark Twisted Fantasy in LOLCats

soldout.squarespace.com​After what will be known in future years as The Week of Kanye -- "perfect" new album released, surprise NYC show packed with stars, signature rant caught on YouTube -- Kanye West has finally risen to the level of a true cultural icon. By which we mean that his latest album ... More >>

Friday Night: Lindstrom Makes Sonic Love at the Mezzanine

​ LindstromPublicist Friday, November 12 @ The Mezzanine Better than: The music Larry Craig must listen to in his pre-clubbing bubble baths before entering the "bathroom seduction" mindstate. The hype: Norwegian DJ Lindstrom comes to America every couple of blue moons. His current tour of Ameri ... More >>

Trey Songz: Show Preview

Felix Da Housecat: Show Preview

Rap Albums You Probably Don't Know But Should, Part I

Illmatic isn't Nas' only good album, despite what you may have heard​Since many recent Next Big Things in rap have proven disappointing -- see Wale, Asher Roth and B.o.B. -- it might be time to consider the possibility that hip-hop tastemakers don't know what to look for in the first place. T ... More >>

"Get Him to the Greek": Crude on the outside, sweet in the middle

Go Back to Berkeley

Will Lil Wayne's Stardom Survive Lockup? Look To 10 Other Jailed Rappers

RJ Shaughnessy​Lil Wayne, perhaps the most commercially successful and critically-lauded rapper of the past few years, was recently granted a reprieve from his date with destiny. Due to be sentenced on February 9th after pleading guilty to gun possession, the proceedings have been delayed until Ma ... More >>

Panini, Puffs, and Pralines: Our Humble Suggestions for Rec and Park's Street Food Quest

Last week, SFGate reported on an approved plan by the Recreation and Park Commission to open up 219 of the city's parks (excluding Golden Gate Park) to food vendors for a (minimum) fee of $1,000 per month, a figure that's prohibitively expensive for the majority of independent street-food p ... More >>

Unagi keeps hip-hop reference-rich

Saturday Night: The 20th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at the Hilton

Chelsea HandlerGLAAD Media Awards May 9, 2009 The Hilton Review and sketches by Evan James Better than: All six volumes of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. So much great writing has been done about gay media awards shows--The Sound and the Fury, Moby Dick, Little Women. ... More >>

The 10 Awesomest Wardrobe Malfunctioning Celebs

(Is All My Children's Cameron Mathison wearing a thong?)10. Cameron MathisonThe sole male representing on this list, All My Children's Mathison (who plays leading man Ryan Lavery) flashed what looks awfully similar to a thong during an episode of the soap last December. He claims it was just his s ... 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 >>

Biggie, Small

Notorious B.I.G., made B.L.A.N.D.

When ATLiens Attack

Mysterious Talented Silly Person

LA Times to Puff Daddy: Sorry, Bro.

CD Review: Jay-Z -- American Gangster

They Killed the Dog

Beastie Boys Q&A: B-Boys Visit Bay Area For Rhymin', Stealin', B. Diddy and Warriors Basketball

Dream Girl

The making of Malika

RIP Disco D

Diddy

Press Play (Bad Boy)

The Dutch Ryan Seacrest helps save the day

Follow the Leader

Rakim's oft-imitated, never duplicated rap style

What the Fuck, 2005

The 10 most head-scratching, insulting, crass, craven, and weird musical moments of the year

The Education of Kanye West

The College Dropout rethinks his stance on education in the year 2010

If it's kinda, sorta music-related, we'll review it. This week: the "Rev." in Rev. Run.

OK Then, 2004!

A dark year for America resulted in a great year for music

Merry Christmas, Beeyotch!

Forget caroling. Here are a few hip hop jammy-jams to warm your yule log.

OK Then, 2004!

A dark year for America resulted in a great year for music

Hear This

Kanye West is everywhere, including Oakland; My Chemical Romance delivers its canned goth-pop

The Notorious B.I.G.

Ready to Die: The Remaster

Biz Markie

Weekend Warrior

Untitled

In his first column, Garrett Kamps ponders the big questions

Best Rap Album by Horny Punk Kids

Gravy Train!!!!'s Hello Doctor

Hear This

Puffy AmiYumi brings its madcap genre interpolations stateside

Black Rage

The Coup just may be the greatest, angriest, most militant hip hop act around. So what's up with the Puff Daddy tour?

Reviews

Words + Guitar (+ Beats + Skronk)

What mattered and what splattered in pop, 1997