Thirty years ago today, on August 8, 1988, the N.W.A. released its proper debut album, Straight Outta Compton. Bursting onto the scene with rawness and aggression fueled by the Reagan-era Compton climate and lifestyle, Ni**az Wit' Attitudes presented an LP that would shape the sound and narrative in Rap for... Read more

After a decade of putting in work, 2016 may be pivotal for Compton's Problem. The Diamond Lane Music Group alum and longtime affiliate to the likes of Snoop Dogg, DJ Quik, and 9th Wonder released a lauded EP with Q-U-I-K in April's Rosecrans. The generation-bridging salute to the C-P-T added... Read more

Skyzoo The Writer has been writing and performing hard-hitting verses for a decade. On albums, it is not uncommon to see the Brooklyn, New Yorker dazzle with bars that are as close to symmetric as they can seemingly get. Flow is at the epicenter of many S-K-Y records, as the... Read more

LL Cool and Dr. Dre go back. The pair are in a select class of MCs who had professional musical careers in 1985 and in 2016, having only risen. James Todd Smith has gone from Def Jam Records breakthrough artist to a network actor star and host of the Grammy's.... Read more

Pharoahe Monch and Dr. Dre have never released music together. The Organized Konfusion MC and the N.W.A. producer nearly aligned when Monch was reportedly courted by Eminem and Shady Records, which would have placed the Rawkus hit-maker in the Shady-Aftermath-G-Unit umbrella. That did not happen. But like Dre, the Queens,... Read more

Although Dr. Dre executive produced Tha Dogg Pound's multi-platinum debut Dogg Food in 1995, the N.W.A. alum was not as hands-on as he'd been with Snoop Doggy Dogg's Doggystyle. Kurupt was one of the star lyricists in the Death Row Records movement, and part of that famed off-shoot group. As... Read more