Celebrating 20 years since their landmark album, Yasiin Bey (fka Mos Def) and Talib Kweli have been busy taking their show on the road. On Saturday (July 14), the pair rocked the hometown stage at the 2018 Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival. The day before (July 13), the former Rawkus Records... Read more

Ed Lover is best known as one of the hosts of Yo! MTV Raps in the late-1980s and early-1990s. However, the Queens, New Yorker has worn many hats over the years including rapper, actor, radio personality, and even dance innovator. His prominent positions in TV and radio have allowed him... Read more

From its inception in 1988 to its final episode in 1995, Yo! MTV Raps was a top springboard for Hip-Hop artists. It was an opportunity to showcase skills and unique styles on one of the largest platforms available to the genre. In an interview with HipHopDX, Parrish "PMD" Smith spoke... Read more

Hip-Hop is big enough to have some artists with multiple names. Notably, Mobb Deep and South Central Cartel were each compromised of duos Prodigy and Havoc (or "Prodeje" in S.C.C.'s case). There have been two Guru's, a couple Jay Dee's, and several Mike D's. Perhaps no tandem is more famous... Read more

Contemporary Hip-Hop has a plethora of media personalities presenting, dissecting, and analyzing the music and culture. Names such as Sway Calloway, Charlamagne Tha God, Miss Info, and DJ Vlad come to mind in breaking news, discourse, and reaction to the daily stream of events. These personalities use different media platforms... Read more

There may not be a more singularly recognized television channel as MTV, which launched on August 1, 1981. Originally formulated as an all-music outlet (MTV once stood for Music Television) devoted to airing videos, it eventually grew to include original programming and underwent a significant identity change in the 2000s.... Read more

When the trio of Buckshot, 5ft and Evil Dee, otherwise known as Black Moon, hit the Hip-Hop scene, they brought a sound that fused dark Jazz chords and boom bap drums with gritty Brooklyn flows. The group is the latest subject of Ed Lover's "Behind The Hip-Hop" segment, which takes... Read more

Big Daddy Kane was a recent guest on Ed Lover's Sirius XM Backspin show. In addition to adding some context to his championing Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' willingness to work with and support Hip-Hop pioneers, B.D.K. looked back at key career moments with the former "Yo! MTV Raps" co-host. Ed... Read more

One of the more polarizing occurrences in Hip-Hop this year has been Macklemore's song "Downtown." Since his massive ascension in 2012, the Seattle MC has had both passionate supporters and vitriolic haters, with little in between. The divide was only heightened when Macklemore won the 2014 Grammy Award for Best... Read more

No longer at his afternoon post at HOT 97, DJ Mister Cee is in transition. The iconic DJ for Big Daddy Kane, mentor to The Notorious B.I.G., and mainstay at tri-state radio reportedly left the signal to maintain his beliefs of what should be played, when, and not conforming to... Read more

Still without an album in stores, The Beard Gang continues to demand awareness. The Philadelphia collective features gold and platinum-selling artists Malik B and Freeway, as well as self-proclaimed leader, Jakk Frost, and relative newcomer, Tana Da Beast. With allusions to the common facial trait of Philly's Sunni Muslim community,... Read more

Although hip-hop might not be the first words that come to mind when thinking of MTV these days, this week 25 years ago the network premiered a show that not only made history, but was crucial in spreading the hip-hop movement all around the world. On August 6, 1988 MTV... Read more

Yo! MTV Raps is making a return for 1 night only tonight at midnight on MTV2, right after the Sucker Free Awards. To commemorate the event, Ed Lover got on the wheels at New York's Hot 97 to do an old school mix of music from the Yo! era (Nice... Read more