I’ve made Turkey basically every way you can think of, and my hard earned piece of wisdom is you can get a Turkey from Popeyes for $50, throw it in the oven for a few hours and end up with a bird better than any you’ve ever had
Hate to ruin anyone’s NYE with this, but I’m doing research for a piece and just found the absolute worst music review I’ve ever read in my life, so now you have to look at it (don’t mean to go at anyone’s neck, more shocked P*tchf*rj hasn’t taken it down).
Saw a guy on Flatbush in a horrific mid aughts Jamal Crawford jersey with matching shorts and a Knicks snap back. As I was riding past him, we made eye contact, and without context I said, “Fuck yeah”. He responded, “Let’s fucking go.”
Have a ton of respect for billy woods man. He was just rapping about the Rhodesian Bush War on an album of the year contender, and he writes his own PR emails. That’s hustle.
Folks, millions of Americans are saying these are the lowest vibrations they’ve ever seen. They’re practically underground! Undetectable! Vibrations have never been this low before, never will be again.
Some days I genuinely believe the best restaurant in the city is De Bamboo Express in Flatbush, a flawless Sino-Trini takeout spot I’ve hit at least once a month for over a decade. This is a plate of jerk wings with a plate of jerk lamb *and* jerk pork lo mein.
Notice how Kendrick Lamar is placed slightly on the left of the video (similar to where The Heart is located in the human body) and his constant bounce representing The Heart beat. ART.
The Rolling Stone piece is incredible journalism. Not just exhaustive, not just heartbreaking, but actually seeks to paint a portrait of a personality and diagnose a pathology, which it does convincingly. As great as a story that terrible can possibly be.
This is great, but claims the film was never released. I’ve had a copy that appears to have been released by producer Quincy Jones III since it came out. Still a fantastic interview with the director of the best music doc I’ve ever seen.
15 years ago, a filmmaker followed Lil Wayne around and made one of the best hip-hop docs ever
Unfortunately, it was hit by lawsuits and never properly released, so it remains difficult to find
I interviewed the director about how it all happened:
Yankee stadium flop era. No chance that ball isn’t caught by an off duty fire fighter who brought a glove to the game at the old park. Bunch of Ossining tax attorneys and dentists in the front row.
“Line cooks aren’t smart enough to work office jobs” is the single dumbest thing any politician has said since Yang’s “imagine raising kids in a two bedroom apartment during Covid” line. This city is a political asshole magnet.
What if this whole rollout has been an elaborate bit and when we throw on the new record tonight it’s Andre spitting coke rap over the grimiest Alchemist beats
Several months ago, I sat down with the great
@Dart_Adams
to discuss the frustratingly incomplete, lazily reported, and misrepresented history of rap. This one is definitely for the nerds, but if you follow me, you probably are one. Tap in.
In a stunning move, I turned a dumb/fun bar argument into a treatise on criticism, the politics of a 30 year old rap publication, and the 15 albums it helped immortalize.
NYC’s indoor vax mandate goes into effect today. Tip well, be patient and considerate when you go out. It’s going to be an extremely annoying and shitty couple of weeks/months for the service industry depending on what neighborhood you’re in.
Between our younger rappers dying violently and tragically at exponentially higher rates, and our older rappers beginning to go for causes at least closer to natural (while still tragic), this really might’ve been the worst year in rap history.
Two of my favorite writers both grappling with the essential tension of this entire situation: from a fan’s perspective, it’s dark, dispiriting, exhausting, AND for any fan of rap beef and competition, exhilarating and very fun! Neither is wrong or right. A real Rorschach test.
@CoodyP
Threw some lamb stock, dried shìtakes and onions in the bottom of the roasting pan this year, strained the drippings and worked it into a basic roux. Electric.
Wrote about one of the few non-annoying rap production trends and enlisted the expertise of old friends
@CashCobain_2x
,
@evilgiane
, and the great
@ariellenyc
to walk me through it.
@imjasondiamond
Funny to imagine Corden settling into a corner banquette at Balthazar brunch and immediately turning into a Guy Ritchie bad guy named “Mingy” or “the Potzer” or something.
Folks, today, it’s been 20 years since we got The Listening, so I spoke to
@RapperBigPooh
and
@phontigallo
about what was the hands down most obnoxious era in the 50 year history of rap discourse.
Can’t really explain Omar’s impact on the cultural landscape in the early 2000s. A once in a generation character we’d never seen before and haven’t seen since. Could’ve so easily gone left. No one else could’ve done him justice. R.I.P. to Michael K. Williams, a genius.
I find it genuinely fascinating that we’re constantly complaining about the slow death of this industry, our friends and colleagues do great work on a daily basis, it’s literally free to promote it, and so many of us rarely, if ever use our platforms to put anyone else on.
Folks, a few weeks ago I got dinner in K-Town with
@VEEZE4Eva
, the unlikely breakout rapper of 2023. We looked back on what's been a wild year, and tried to figure out how he got here, and where he's headed. A profile for
@Complex
.
I went to see Project Pat at a sold out show in Bushwick on the 27th anniversary of the day Biggie Smalls was murdered, and attempted to wrap my arms around *gestures wildly at everything and nothing* all of this, for
@stereogum
HH50 has been such a net good in the world. Artists getting gigs and profiles for the first time in decades, outlets that rarely cover rap reaching out for commissions, editors assigning legendary writers to write context heavy historical pieces we never see anymore.
Incredible.
@tombreihan
sums up the entirety of the discourse and nails the album in one day. Completely fair, nuanced take on the artist, actually listened to the same album I did. I’m shocked, but I shouldn’t be. Take notes🤌🤌🤌
Really have to be a special type of moron to immediately make the news that an 18 year old suffered a heart attack about your stupid fucking conspiracy theory.
Some personal news: My basketball card collection officially begins and ends today because I copped the Ja Morant rookie with Dolph in the stands and I’m never buying another card. Never selling. Changed my death plan, being buried with it like a pharaoh. R.I.P. DOLPH.
Had the opportunity to speak to Roc Marciano for a European streetwear brand that put out a lit mag which may never hit the internet. My favorite part was post Flipmode, pre Marcberg, Roc was signed to Carson Daley’s label, so I got him to speak on that (very positive) experience
In a related story, a Nets fan in Dumbo was on line at a shitty deli, waiting to order a pastrami and Mayo on white bread, belatedly looked at his phone and said, “Oh, sick. The Nets won last night.”
Had access to an aux cord last night in mixed company. Wanted to have a Kendrick listening party. Got shouted down and had to switch up after a single song. Literally “scared the hoes”.
This weekend, Michael Mann returns to the biopic with Ferrari. It’s very good, but his best is still his misunderstood 2001 masterpiece, Ali. I looked back, for
@GQMagazine
.
Michael K. Williams was such a presence in Flatbush. Can’t tell you how many people over the last few weeks have told me these insane personal anecdotes about him being warm and generous in these little moments, touching their lives. He’s going to live here forever.
I don’t often get too personal on here, but for the last ten years I’ve had this awful neighbor I can’t stand, so I wrote a Facebook Community style post complaining about it.
At long last, I spoke to David Krumholtz about his great, recently deceased Twitter account, The Charles Smith Game, the best performance in Oppenheimer, Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar speech, and three incredible decades in the industry, for
@GQMagazine
.
So proud of the work I’ve done for OKP. Wasn’t just a gig, I loved the experience writing for that site. Being able to work with and for passionate, thoughtful writers and editors was a pleasure. Feel like I just got punched in the face. Can’t imagine how the actual staff feels.
Pretty incredible that two guys from the Bronx making hyper specific, local reference based humor became the biggest act in national late night media over the last five years. Miraculous accomplishment. Onwards and upwards.
You have to have an incredibly deep and rich institutional memory of aughts era rap cable programming to understand why this is the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me online.
Spoke to the great
@rocmarci
a few months ago and it’s live online: Biggie, Dreddy Kruger, Large Professor, Alchemist, Ka, Carson Daly. We get into all of it.
On Saturday night, I went to a synagogue on the Lower East Side and listened to *some of* RZA’s ten year old non fungible token, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.