Feb 6th
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| Hailing from Toronto, I try to keep up with rap released north of the border. While Canada’s had a Hip Hop scene since the early 80’s, it wasn’t until the late 90’s that we really started making noise. And within the past few years, we’ve seen the scene grow and artists and producers become recognized [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | 
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5 hours, 28 minutes ago. Jan 31st
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| Everybody’s from somewhere and rappers, more than artists in any other genre, always seem to be the first to big up their cities on wax. No matter the state, country [...] |
The Smoking Section | Read More
| 6 days, 4 hours ago. Jan 30th
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| We usually take this time to give you a recap of the previous day’s playoff games with our notes of things learned. But since there wasn’t a real game on [...] |
The Smoking Section | Read More
| 7 days ago. Jan 26th
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| We all know the saying, “Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t…” which has become the modus operandi on how the music industry deems it should cater to when measuring an [...] |
The Smoking Section | Read More
| 11 days ago. Jan 25th
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| When it comes to artists doing commercials, I’m firmly in Bill Hicks his corner. It’s nigh impossible to do it without turning into a cornball sell-out in the process and it renders every other word… |
The Rap Up | Read More
| 12 days ago. Jan 24th
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| Intro by Gotty™ They know exactly who they are and what they’re doing. They’re members of a small set of celebrity women who just ooze promiscuity. Whether they’re whoring for [...] |
The Smoking Section | Read More
| 13 days ago. Jan 19th
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| During his show’s two-year run (many of us don’t count the third season), Dave Chappelle used his clout in the entertainment industry to reel in rap’s A-listers for weekly musical [...] |
The Smoking Section | Read More
| 18 days ago. Jan 17th
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| Last week, we laughed at the thought of Trina posing as the spokeswoman for Tax USA but she’s neither the first, nor will she be the last rapper to appear [...] |
The Smoking Section | Read More
| 20 days ago. Jan 16th
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| Here’s what we know following the divisional round in the playoffs: a new Super Bowl champion will be crowned. Before shifting our attention to the AFC and NFC title games, [...] |
The Smoking Section | Read More
| 21 days ago. Jan 14th
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| For those who took a week off, shame on you. Here’s a recap of the Double R’s annual end-of-year lists. Catch up below and see you next year. Best Albums #1 The Throne Watch The Throne | #2 Drake Take Care | #3 Common The Dreamer/The Believer | #4 MMG Self Made | #5 Bad Meets Evil Hell:The Sequel | #6 Kendrick Lamar Section.80 l #7 J.Cole Cole World: The Sideline Story | #8 Wale Ambition | #9 Young Jeezy TM103: Hustlerz Ambition | #10 Mac [...] |
Rap Radar | Read More
| 23 days ago. Jan 13th
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| On Monday, Lupe Fiasco announced that he and Pharrell will be releasing an album together soon. Fantastic news for fans…but all it did was remind us of that now-forgotten Child [...] |
The Smoking Section | Read More
| 24 days ago. Jan 12th
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| Graphics: BEWARE Like two peas in a pod or two tears in a bucket, you simply can’t mention one without the other when it’s regarding Outkast. Now that André Benjamin [...] |
The Smoking Section | Read More
| 25 days ago. Jan 11th
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| Sure, ODB could sound slightly paranoid every now and then. Okay, he sounded paranoid a lot of the time, but is it all paranoia when the feds are really gunnin’ for ya? It’s not like… |
The Rap Up | Read More
| 26 days ago. Jan 10th
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| Believe it or not, certain athletes are prone to to represent the city that adorn their jersey better than others for a variety of reasons. Call it the luck of [...] |
The Smoking Section | Read More
| 27 days ago. Jan 9th
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| In a weekend largely defined by blowouts, we ended wildcard weekend with an instant classic. From the first round of playoff football, from the obvious to the no-so-obvious, from Megatron [...] |
The Smoking Section | Read More
| 28 days ago. Jan 8th
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| I am known for my love [and borderline obsession] with Hip Hop however music [in general] lives in my heart. I check for it all: soul, electronica, dub, whatever. And there were a lot of artists [last year] that pulled me from my beloved Hip Hop, who span a wide range of genres that at [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 29 days ago. Jan 8th
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| Happy New Year soul people! This year will definitely be one of the most exciting and best years for soulful music with the much anticipated return of soul’s prodigal son D’Angelo, as well as new releases from Erykah Badu, Maxwell, Robert Glasper Experiment (with a catastrophic guest feature list), Esperanza Spalding, Jose James, and many more. We also [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 29 days ago. Jan 8th
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| You can’t deny that the Native Tongue Era and the genre known as boom bap helped introduce a whole new audience to this sound called Jazz. Although we may have heard it before, something about the marriage between Hip Hop and Jazz was just righteous. However, for so long after, many Jazz purists tried to [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 29 days ago. Jan 8th
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| This year was quite an eventful one in the arena of indie and global/electro soul. So good, that we had to divide albums and EP’s. Thanks to social networking, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, and the blogosphere, we saw a plethora of super talented producers and singers. And although it was EXTREMELY hard to narrow it down to [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 29 days ago. Jan 7th
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| 2011 is behind us and it’s time to anticipate the future. Since the first quarter (January – March) is normally very quiet for music releases, there hasn’t been too many albums that have officially been announced for release and those that have be announced are more than likely to have their release dates pushed back [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 1 month, 0 days ago. Jan 5th
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| Kevin Nottingham: 2011 brought us a lot of great hip hop. So much that it was almost impossible to do a Top 10 list. If you look at are lists below, you’ll notice we have just as many honorable mentions, making these more or less a Top 20 list! For me though, the Top 5 [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 1 month, 2 days ago. Jan 5th
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| Justin Ivey: For this list, I always like to spotlight albums that even the most ardent Hip Hop fan tends to overlook or completely misses altogether. Señor Kaos, with the help of producer Illastrate, hit a home run on his solo debut The Kaos Effect LP and earned the #1 spot for me. Houston legend K-Rino ended up with two picks [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 1 month, 2 days ago. Jan 5th
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| Outside of checking the dresser to find out you’re out of boxers, there’s nothing more difficult in the morning than hearing the alarm clock go off. Such a belief leads [...] |
The Smoking Section | Read More
| 1 month, 2 days ago. Jan 5th
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| Justin Ivey: The albums on my list “earned” their spot by delivering subpar quality and in some cases, a simply awful effort on their LPs. The worst offender was Lupe Fiasco, whose fans battled Atlantic Records to get Lasers released and were rewarded with an awful mess of pop cliches. Blu continued his streak of dropping albums that sounded [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 1 month, 2 days ago. Jan 4th
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| Justin Ivey: After years of having fans anticipate when his L.A.B.O.R. album would drop, One Be Lo made it well worth the wait by delivering one of the best LP’s of the year which earns him the top spot in my book. Nemo Achida went from breakthrough artist in 2010 to one of the most [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 1 month, 3 days ago. Jan 4th
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| Justin Ivey: Kno continues to cement his spot as not just one of the best producers at it right now, but of all-time and 2011 just added to his amazing resume. The Atlanta beatsmith unveiled some amazing sounds handling all the production on the latest CunninLynguists album as well as his collaboration with MarQ Spekt. Ski [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 1 month, 3 days ago. Jan 4th
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| Compiling the top 10 posse cuts of the 2011 was probably the most difficult of all the lists for me. The basic criteria is simple: four emcees have to be rhyme on the track. The top spot was the one thing I was sure of as producer TrakkSounds enlisted the help of Bun B, Killa Kyleon, Pill [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 1 month, 3 days ago. Jan 3rd
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| Justin Ivey: Another year, another #1 free album for Big K.R.I.T. The Mississippi emcee/producer stole the show once again with Return Of 4Eva, the follow-up to his breakthrough K.R.I.T. Wuz Here. After releasing the very dope Digital Dan LP in the spring, Nemo Achida showed he was holding onto some even better material on his album Nemotional. THURZ broke away from [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 1 month, 4 days ago. Jan 3rd
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| Justin Ivey: There were plenty of high quality mixtapes released in 2011, but the one thing Jeremiah and I could agree on was that nothing topped Elzhi’s outstanding Illmatic tribute, ELmatic. A lot of “sequels” made their way onto my list from the likes of Killa Kyleon, Young Gully, Dee-1 and Tommy Nova. Portland emcee Luck-One manage [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 1 month, 4 days ago. Jan 3rd
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| Justin Ivey: I’m a huge fan of the EP because it’s a great quick way for up & coming artists to introduce themselves and a chance for veterans to hold fans over until their full length projects are released. 2011 brought a lot of high quality. The top spot came down to Nemo Achida and [...] |
KevinNottingham.com | Read More
| 1 month, 4 days ago. 