April 11, 2012 – One should always be suspicious of nostalgia for a supposedly more pure or idyllic time. Too often, when you dig a little deeper, you uncover some racism, sexism, classism, and, as is the case with Alexandra Molotkow's New York Times Magazine piece, "Why the Old-School Music Snob Is the Least Cool Kid on Twitter," elitism. Molotkow begins all the way back in 2004(!), at some "showcase that bartered cassette tapes in exchange for things like drawings and telling jokes." This sounds like quite possibly the worst event in the history of events, but for Molotkow, then 19, it was some sort of pre-Web 2.0 paradise full of, in Molotkow's words, "lousy bands" that "mattered" because "no one else knew anything about them." From there, her essay tells readers why the Internet is problematic and how it's now cool to be popular, and why all that sucks.

April 11, 2012 – This blog has spent plenty of time piling on superlatives in praise of Lee Bannon (innovative producer on par with Clams Casino, and creator of one of the most slept-on release of the year, so far), so I thought I'd let the Sacramento producer discuss Caligula Theme Music, his free download follow-up to February's blenderized, post-Dilla glitch freakout, Fantastic Plastic. Caligula Theme Music began as a experiment — "a way to get over the learning curve" — as Bannon learned the ins and outs of his new MacBook Pro.

April 6, 2012 – For the second week in a row, I am going to use this space to mourn the death of a weirdo cult figure only tangentially related to hip-hop. This time, it's director African-American filmmaker Jamaa Fanaka, best known for the 1979 prison fight flick Penitentiary. Dialogue from the film is sampled on plenty of hip-hop songs and it's the origin of cult rapper Lil 1/2 Dead's name.

April 6, 2012 – Simon Reynolds' Retromania thesis — we've become weighed down by the past and as a result, the 2000s lacks its own signature sound — seems pretty spot-on to me. But I'm beginning to suspect there actually is a distinct "2000s sound." It's the druggy, know-it-when-you-hear-it haze of synths and manipulated vocals that are heard across multiple genres. In hip-hop, it's called "cloud rap" and when mainstreamers like Rick Ross and others do a more lavish version of it, it's "yacht rap." Indie and electronica have melted together into chillwave, and then, there's all of the all the fist-pumping, radio-rave pop, a sound which hinges on globs of Auto-Tune and serotonin-explosion synthesizers.

April 6, 2012 – Alternate title for this little listicle: THE FIVE MOST SLEPT-ON ALBUMS OF THE SPIN NO TRIVIA ERA. Cutting the year into quarters and gauging where music is at that actually kind-of-random moment is a bit of a cheat. But the sheer amount of rap launched via the Internet necessitates slowing up and seeing what you missed. Here are my five picks: DDm, Winter & The Tinman's Heart Highlights: "Run," "Click, Pow," "Getting By" RIYL: Roman Zolanski, Isaac Julien's Looking For Langston, Ghostface From cruel bullying ("High School") and alienating religious hypocrisy ("Run") to the cathartic dance-my-pain-away partying of club and ball culture ("Click, Pow," "Fake Girls") to just being an average dude in a financially fucked city (somber closer "Gettin' By"), DDm's concept EP, Winter and the Tinman's Heart, captures the multitudes of the gay experience.

April 5, 2012 – Recently, Entertainment Weekly reported that a biopic about the final, troubled years of the Wu-Tang Clan's Ol' Dirty Bastard was in the works. The big news was that Michael Kenneth Williams, best known as Omar from The Wire, would play ODB. The Wire and Wu-Tang, two things that every rap nerd loves, right? But strangely, this movie is titled Dirty White Boy, and it focuses on the relationship between ODB and Jarred Weisfeld, who was ODB's manager until the rapper's death in 2004. From the title on down, this is not so much the story of a legendary, eccentric rapper, but the tale of a guy who tried to stage-manage the last years of that legendary rapper's career. This isn't surprising given the manager's spotlight-stealing reputation, but it feels a little bit like The Help, in which the story of a troubled African American is filtered through his white benefactors.

March 30, 2012 – Writer Harry Crews died on Wednesday. He was 76. What's that have to do with rap music? Well, not too much, though I'd encourage you to hunt down one of his novels if you're near a pretty good library (which you're probably not), or an okay used book store (even less likely). I'd recommend Car, about a dude who decides to eat a Ford Maverick. It is probably easier, though, save for a trip to Amazon Marketplace, to encounter Crews' work through the 2006 movie, The Hawk Is Dying, based on Crews' novel of the same name. It's a small, sad, really good movie that no one cares too much about, and it actually does have something of a hip-hop connection.

March 29, 2012 – If you watch one rap video with awkward dancing today, make sure it's Western Tink's "Fancy Schmancy," and not, T.I.'s "Hot Wheels," an attempt to wedge Iggy Azalea into T.I., Travis Porter, and Young Dro's world with little to no success. Iggy, who we're now forced to care about for some reason, tentatively bobs to the beat as the camera lingers on her for as little time as possible, like everybody knows how WTF this whole team-up is. Contrast that with Tink's apartment chill-out featuring red Solo cups, goofy geeked-up guys and girls, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Robot Chicken posters, a Vans-sporting stripper, and woah, yeah, a stripper pole right in the middle of an otherwise regular-ass apartment.

March 29, 2012 – MDNA is Madonna's modern day EDM exploration, past-present meta-pop career summation, and Lady Gaga beef record. Pitting female pop stars against each other is what goofy white males like myself seem to do often, and though I hesitate to continue such a dopey tradition, the annoying presence of Lady Gaga does hang over much of MDNA. Most explicitly on "I Don't Give A," a rap track that positions Nicki Minaj, not Gaga, as the brash, pop subversive in the tradition of Madonna. The song also finds Minaj testifying to Madonna's significance, twice: "Ay yo Madonna, you the original: Don Dada," Nicki shouts mid-verse; she ends the song declaring, "There's only one Madonna, bitch." "I Don't Give A" is Madonna's rap song to all the "haters," and addressing "haters" has become rap's predominant narrative.

March 28, 2012 – Since 2008, Supa Villain has worked closely with Rich Boy, providing the sturdy though often lost Alabama MC with a whole bunch of emotive, synth-rap beats. It has lead to a dependable mixtape discography in lieu of a "proper" follow-up to 2007's Rich Boy, which, as the years go by, seems more and more unlikely of ever happening. The Gulfport, Missisippi producer/rapper himself, has released nine mixtapes. They're all filled with frustrated, pained rapping over top his creative, worker-bee production which takes Southern hip-hop, slows it down a bit, then adds pensive keyboards, video game-inspired bleeps and bloops, and swirls of synthesizers. Upon first listen, 40 Days, 1 Dark Knight probably sounds a lot like my pick from a few weeks ago, Big Kuntry King's 100% Kane.