As he enters his third decade in the music industry, he isn’t taking the moment for granted.
Ryan Cocca
Posted inMusic
Watch: Kooley High’s New “Alone” Video
It’s been about 258 years since Kooley High’s eternally forthcoming 9th Wonder-helmed album was first floated over social media. Last year, sensing that the fans needed something to hold them over, Kooley released Heights, a fantastic seven-track EP that represented, even in the wake of Rapsody’s massive departure, some of the group’s strongest work. Now, […]
Posted inMusic
Record Review: 9th Wonder’s Beat Tape Zion Is Enough to Get Us Excited
Few living hip-hop producers can make people drool with the words “beat tape” like 9th Wonder. In fact, few producers in 2016 can make people drool about a beat tape at all, not with mainstream hip-hop’s dependence on a “pop star” rapper at the core of every song, album, or video. Pop landscape be damned, […]
Posted inMusic
Art of Cool 2016: The Internet on Why Pop Music Matters Right Now
In the past, The Art of Cool has been more about Birth of the Cool than The Cool Kids. But festival organizers have smartly changed that by adding rappers, DJs, and neo-soul singers at unprecedented levels, blending elements of old and new, jazz and hip-hop in two days of programming. Few young working groups are […]
Posted inMusic
Stream Test Out These Records, from Great New Raleigh Rapper P.A.T. Junior
Local hip-hop scenes are generally pretty niche communities, and the Triangle hip-hop scene seems even smaller than most. It’s rare, then, that someone comes out of nowhere. But one such surprise in the past year has been the ascent of Raleigh producer and emcee P.A.T. Junior, whose steady flow of songs, videos, and local appearances […]
Posted inMusic
Record Review: Defacto Thezpian Is a Promising Emcee Needing Better Beats
Defacto Thezpian The Pinhook, Durham Thursday, April 21, 8 p.m., $7 www.thepinhook.com In sports, high-quality teams often play down to lesser competition, performing poorly in the absence of a worthy opponent as though they require a foil in order to focus. Likewise, good rappers sometimes trip through bad production, stumbling over beats that don’t challenge […]
Posted inMusic
Record Review: Kooley High’s Tab-One, Reliably Honest on Sincerely, Tab
Tab-One & Sinopsis The Pour House, Raleigh Saturday, May 7, 9 p.m., $10–$12 The hip-hop industry is obsessed with hype, with declaring who’s got next. The culture spits out and discards trends as fast as it embraces themremember DJ Khaled’s Snapchat? But Raleigh emcee Tab-One stands out for the most delightfully novel of rapping reasons: […]
Posted inMusic
Live: Chance the Rapper Makes Good in Raleigh
Chance the Rapper The Ritz, Raleigh Tuesday, March 29, 2016 Last November, Chance the Rapper disappointed North Carolina fans with the news that he would have to postpone indefinitely his Raleigh and Charlotte tour dates. He returned on Tuesday to make things up to his Triangle faithful, though, promising attendees a show that would be […]
Posted inMusic
This Week Has Been a Grind. Let GRRL’s “Keep it Going” End It Well.
It should come as little surprise that Durham dance producer and DJ [GRRL] was among the North Carolina representatives at the ever-expanding South By Southwest music festival in Austin earlier this month. That’s for a few reasons. First, look at the growing number of listens and followers on their Soundcloud following the release of last […]
Posted inMusic
Good Morning, Spring: Listen to Bobby James’s Balmy “Lifted”
With temperatures well above seventy degrees every day this week, many are taking North Carolina’s balmy weather as a sign that winter is gone. In my mind, it’s been over for a few weeks now—ever since the warm California breeze of Bobby James’s new track, “Lifted,” made its way to the East Coast. James, a […]