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December 15, 2017
Lil Peep’s Optimist Love Songs
Gustav Åhr was emo-rap’s most visible representative and the genre’s most mainstream success, but what set his music apart was not its despair but its deep sense of hope.
Bijan Stephen
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December 14, 2016
The Ten Best Albums of 2016
As the business of recorded music roils, the making of music rolls on.
David Hajdu
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November 18, 2016
A Tribe Called Quest: Thank Them for Their Service
The group returned just when we needed it.
Marcus J. Moore
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November 5, 2016
Common and the New Aesthetics of Blackness
Rap music’s nice guy plays it safe on his new album Black America Again.
Marcus J. Moore
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September 15, 2016
Diamond-Dust Baroque
The Get Down, Baz Luhrman’s fairy-tale remix of the birth of hip hop, offers a glimpse of the beginning of the end of US power.
Joshua Clover
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May 2, 2016
The Extra Ordinary Bryson Tiller
Despite his laconic demeanor, lowered expectations, and swag-proof wardrobe, the singer has still managed to create a platinum-selling album.
Frank Guan
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March 31, 2016
The Lakers Can Kindly Shove Their Bro Code
D’Angelo Russell is being dragged through the mud by his teammates and the media. But it’s his entire organization that should be looking in the mirror.
Dave Zirin
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March 18, 2016
Faith, More, Safe, War
On The Life of Pablo, where Kanye West most fully shares his doubts, he is more convincing as a Christian than on his other albums.
Frank Guan
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January 27, 2016
Sneakers, Through the Looking Glass
The comedian Kevin Hart’s new signature Nike shoes represent a complicated mixture of pride and injury.
Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib
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July 2, 2015
The Fierce Urgency of Nina Simone Now
Perhaps her real audience was not her contemporaries in the civil rights generation, but their grandchildren.
Syreeta McFadden