I was a freshman in high school when I really started to get heavily into music magazines. I deaded my subscription to Beckett Baseball Card Monthly, eased up on the Mad Magazine and Sports Illustrated, and broke the seal on a subscription to Rolling Stone. I regularly picked up The Source, and would spend hours...
A couple months ago we released the Closed Sessions B-Side, “Good Pussy In Chicago”, which featured Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire and Goldie Glo. If you are into song credits, you may have noticed that the record was produced by The Innovatorz, a production duo from the small suburb of Bollingbrook that are starting to make large...
My favorite album of early 2012 goes by the name of Plateau Vision from Philadelphia’s Lushlife. The album presents an intriguing dichotomy of flush, thick, and genre-stretching production filled in with rhymes that speak to the core of Hip Hop music and culture. In fact, several times throughout Plateau Vision, Lushlife offers listeners Hip Hop...
Scheme and DJ Scend have been a really dope thing going in their 2 Turntables and A Mic series. Each edition pays homage to a great Hip Hop producer, as well as the elements and the history between the emcee and the DJ. Plus, Scheme is a ridiculously dope rapper so… This latest edition pays...
Following up on freestyles by Jon Connor and Calez, we bring you the next in our series of freestyle and interview videos. Here we showcase Spenzo, an up and coming emcee from the Windy City, who at only 16, is already starting to gain notice. Spenzo spoke to us about being a high school student,...
In 2004, just a day after George W. Bush won re-election, the Beastie Boys hit Chicago alongside Talib Kweli in support of their ’04 Hip Hop album, To The 5 Boroughs. At the time, I was 22 and teaching 2nd grade in Englewood on the southside of Chicago. I was also working at SoundSlam.com, where...
“Best Shit You Never Saw” is a series in which we revisit some of our old interviews, and shed light on some of our favorite moments that didn’t make the original cut. These are clips that didn’t fit with what we were doing at the time, yet still contain key information or insight into Hip...
Most people are just entering the workforce at the age of 21. They are graduating from college, moving out of mom and dad’s, and beginning to get their feet wet in “the real world”, and they make plenty of mistakes. While he doesn’t have it all figured out just yet, Chicago’s Rockie Fresh is already...
The natural order of things is usually respect then money. That’s the basic shit. But there’s really no blueprint or guidelines on how to go from one to the other. Many of the most respected people, in any field, are undervalued and underpaid. This intersection is where Scheme sits right now as well. He’s regarded...
While other producers are currently dominating the headlines, Chicago’s Nascent has been quietly collecting placements, checks, and respect for years in the Windy City Hip Hop scene. Along with QB, Nascent has produced records for national acts such as 50 Cent, AZ, and Juelz Santana, as well as the Chi’s favorite emcees like YP, L.E.P.,...
