NO TRIVIA

September 14, 2012 – So, E-40 was on America's Got Talent last night, rapping with an old guy. To explain: When this season of the show began and they went through the prerequisite freak show, one act was a wrinkly creep named Burton Crane, who dressed like Don Magic Juan and said "whatcha gonna do" over and over again, which was enough for him to declare himself "the grandfather of rap." Old people are weird like that.

September 14, 2012 – "We're just getting old. Me? I got a daughter, I got a family." That's Yung Clova, one half of the defunct-for-the-moment, Huntsville, Alabama duo G-Side, and now the head of Lambo Music, over the phone yesterday afternoon. "It's time for me to support them; I can't keep..." Then he trails off. For Clova, it seems, the DIY grind that was a source of pride for G-Side was also beginning to feel like, well, too much of a grind.

September 13, 2012 – Consider Berkeley rapper 100s' Ice Cold Perm an album-length bizarro version of the Coup's "Fuck a Perm," from that Bay Area group's 1993 Kill My Landlord album. It's as if this whole mixtape's a response to Boots Riley's funny, pointed celebration of going "natural" that, if you think about it, also encourages a whole bunch of somewhat problematic ideas about "purity" that hip-hop still needs to shake.

September 12, 2012 – G-Side, the Huntsville, Alabama, rap duo consisting of ST 2 Lettaz and Yung Clova have split up. "It just felt like it was time," ST told me over the phone yesterday, on his way to a performance in Austin, Texas. "It was time to go elsewhere creatively. We've been doing records since 2004.

September 7, 2012 – Labtekwon has released more than 30 albums since 1993. His debut EP, Ghetto Gospel, is the type of rare, regional rap 12-inch that commands outrageously high prices on eBay: From a golden, bygone era, and expertly delivered, yet tinged with the more specific sounds of his Baltimore hometown, and pretty much impossible to find. To certain circles, Lab's a #randomrap superstar.

September 7, 2012 – A few weeks ago, when I was talking about 2 Chainz and Kanye West's "Birthday Song," I compared Kanye's recent production style to Christopher Nolan's. These days, Kanye's pretty much making "the portentous Christopher Nolan version of trap music," I said. The prime directive seems to be to make everything grand and elaborate, often to the detriment of the song or concept.