On “Dancing in the Rain,” from Blu & Exile’s 2007 debut album Below the Heavens, rapper Blu describes a symbolic act of defiance. He clocks out of work in a rainstorm and discovers that he’s short on bus fare. In response to this stroke of bad luck, he turns up his headphones, kicks off his shoes, and stomps gleefully in the puddles near the bus stop. This spirit—of a resilient working-class bluesman, navigating the ups and downs of everyday life—animates Below the Heavens, which today remains a pillar of backpack rap, a union of two dedicated classicists who weren’t trying to reinvent the wheel but ended up paving their own lane. On Miles: From An Interlude Called Life, their first full-length album in eight years, Blu & Exile stay true to their roots…
At the end of 2018, the reggae star Buju Banton returned to Jamaica after almost seven years in a US prison, and Norman Manley international airport was mobbed. His flight was delayed, the chants of…
Dark Lane Demo Tapes is no small consolation for Drake fans. It has the songs they’ve been hungering for, like “Pain 1993.” And it features beats from a variety of producers old and new. At…
Earlier this month, more than 20 years after George first compared the two producers, they faced off in a widely viewed battle on Instagram, trading multi-platinum singles and old war stories while…
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