Genres

The arrival of a new Kendrick Lamar album on April 14 has us thinking about the Compton MCs place in L.A.s storied hip-hop history. To that end, The Dowsers Sam Chennault, Mosi Reeves, and David Turner convened to determine this list of the citys greatest-ever rappers—and compile a playlist of their hottest moments on the mic.5. Vince StaplesTwo decades after Snoop Dogg emerged from Long Beach, another sharp-tongued and witty rapper arrived to lead a new generation. Through a loose Odd Future affiliation, Vince Staples surfaced in 2014 with the harsh screech and wailings that powered his single “Blue Suede.” While hes charming and humorous off the mic, on record Vince holds nothing back, touching upon issues of gang violence, racial injustice, and the burden society places on blackness. That weight might be why, on 2014’s “Fire,” he casually admits, “I’m probably finna go to hell anyway.” — David Turner 4. Earl SweatshirtEarl Sweatshirt’s career has been defined by absence. His 2010 debut mixtape, Earl, matched themes of adolescent obsession, neurosis, and bravado with a preternatural sensitivity to language, resulting in a statement of dysfunction startling for its casual violence, Rubiks Cube rhyme schemes, and childish misogyny. Shortly thereafter, Earl’ parents forced him into exile, banishing him to boarding school in Somoa, and making Early a cause-du-jour for his crew, the zeitgeist-peddling pranksters Odd Future. For a while, the world’s best rapper was a 17-year-old sharing a bunk-bed in a tiny island state in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. When Earl re-appeared, releasing 2013’s bleary Doris, he was heralded rap’s prodigal son, but while he lost the problematic rape fantasies, he sounded impossibly fragile. The title of his follow-up, I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside, underlined this reluctance, and many felt Earl would become hip-hop’s Henry Darger, a talented and idiosyncratic artist content to spin polysyllabic rhymes of post-adolescent ennui in anonymous L.A. basement studios. Hopefully, that won’t be how he’s remembered—he’s only 23, and his story is far from over. — Sam Chennault3. Ice CubeIce Cube was arguably the first great Los Angeles MC to win over New York’s notoriously finicky rap aesthetes. As the Jheri-curled knucklehead capable of both observing and (musically) partaking in the gangsta madness of his native Compton, and then connecting those images to a wider socio-political context, Ice Cube brought a lyrical deftness that still resonates to this day. Case in point: The popular rap blog 2dopeboyz.com recently conducted a poll of the best diss song of all time. The winner? Ice Cube’s “No Vaseline.” — Mosi Reeves2. Snoop DoggIn 1993, Snoop Dogg released his debut album, Doggystyle, which furthered the nihilistic mission statement he introduced the previous year on Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. Though he was only 22 years old at the time—and was seemingly concerned only with how much weed he could smoke and how many parties he could throw—Snoop had a prematurely aged, raspy flow that perfectly complemented Dre’s ingenious reworking of 70s and 80s funk and soul. But in the 2000s, Snoops partnership with Pharrell—which yielded the rappers first No. 1 single, "Drop It Like Its Hot"—showed how his cool demeanor could also shine over minimalist Neptunes production. And when Snoop teamed up with Charlie Wilson on “Peaches N Cream” for his 2015 album, Bush, it was a reminder of how his love of funk has guided his entire career. — David Turner 1. Kendrick LamarKendrick Lamar represents the new perspective of L.A. hardcore rap: loyal to the streets, but not defined by them. As an MC, he’s a virtuoso who is capable of speeding up and slowing down a verse’s rhythm, changing the cadence mid-speech, and shifting tones. Lyrically, he writes about the whole of the black experience as it is lived physically and spiritually. His music is conceptually ambitious, almost to a fault—it sounds like a man whose brain is perpetually stuck in high gear. But it’s a burden that he seems happy to accept. — Mosi ReevesHonorable mentions: YGDJ QuikBusdriverAceyaloneKurupt

Subscribe to the Spotify playlist right here.Within the ever-evolving world of Latin music, we’ve seen some sensational moments and headline-grabbing spectacles in 2016. Colombian urban powerhouse J Balvin solidified himself as the reigning king of the new reggaetón movement via the skyrocketing Energía; Marc Anthony and J.Lo stunned global audiences with their surprise reunion at this year’s Latin GRAMMYS with a tropical rendition of Pimpinela’s “Olvídame y pega la vuelta” (and their now-infamous kiss!); our beloved Mexican legend Juan Gabriel passed away too soon yet left behind a charming duets document, Los Dúo 2, starring everyone in Latin music and their mothers (well, not really, but you get the point). Because these buzzed-about folks and their 2016 material are doing so well without our help, having a spot secured in nearly every big publication out there, we’ve decided to spotlight some sparkly hidden gems, exciting artists worthy of your discovery, and killer songs you might have missed by respectable acts. And boy, do these 50 Best Tracks resonate loudly in our hearts.Spunky electro-pop wunderkinds Alex Anwandter, Cineplexx, and Selma Oxor kept things intriguingly hyperactive through iridescent synths and a dash of mystery. Hypnotic electro-tropical masterminds Systema Solar, Compass, and Orkesta Mendoza continued to bend the boundaries of cumbia and folkloric sounds via their dashing experimentalism and love of tradition. Alt-norteño took the throne in unconventionalism in the good hands of regional Mexican iconoclasts Juan Cirerol and Helen Ochoa while staying true to form. Debaucherous punk made waves across borders through the awesomely cacophonic powerchords of daredevils AJ Davila, Sexy Zebras, and Los Nastys. For our utter excitement, we also saw the return of alternative rock royalty Café Tacvba, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, and Andrés Calamaro. Oh, and not to mention 2016 also brought us surprisingly killer renditions delivered by the likes of Mexrrissey and Vanessa Zamora. Here are the 50 most riveting tracks hailing from indie and non-conformist Latinx acts. Happy listening!

As cassette tapes and CDs proliferated in the ‘80 and ‘90s, music began to travel to uncharted territories—like small villages in South America. And thanks to the vast reach of MTV and, later the internet, that cultural cross-pollination has only accelerated. One of the more intriguing results of this process has been the rise of Latin American shoegaze: young South American musicians in thrall to U.K. bands like My Bloody Valentine and Ride, but putting their own spin on the genre.Latin American Shoegaze can be milky and romantic (see: Robsongs’ “Essa Grande Falta de Você”), touching and spiritual (Sexores’ “Sasebo”), or brisk and spiky (Blancoscuro’s “Figaro”). The lyrics are often completely in Spanish or Portuguese, bringing a unique, authentic tone to the music (particularly in a genre known for obscuring the words). As this playlist shows, shoegaze has permeated the Latin American underground from Sao Paulo to Mexico City to Buenos Aires—have a listen to hear how they do it down south.

As was the case with most 60s-rock survivors, the 1980s were not kind to Paul McCartney. Despite ushering in the decade with a pair of blockbusterduets, by 1986s Press to Play, hed hit a commercial and critical nadir, and an artist who once set the pace for rock n roll innovation was stalled in the middle of road. But McCartney eventually wiggled his way out by reminding himself of a lesson that served him well during his Beatles years: He always does his most inspired work with a foil.For 1989s Flowers in the Dirt, he tapped the songwriting smarts of Elvis Costello. Alas, Costello proved not to be Maccas new Lennon—plans for a full-album collaboration were eventually whittled down to a handful of co-writes. (The trove of stripped-down, Elvis-assisted demos featured on Flowers 2017 reissue reveals the album that couldve been.) But the Costello experiment seemed to open McCartney up to more collaborations that would push him outside his usual comfort zone. The most surprising of these was The Fireman, a union with ex-Killing Joke bassist Youth that began in the early 90s as an anonymous ambient-techno project, but reemerged on 2008s Electric Arguments as a cinematically scaled pop group that imagined an alternate 80s where McCartney started taking notes from U2. But The Fireman wasnt even his most outré detour—that honor belongs to Liverpool Sound Collage, a beat-spliced, found-sound curio created with members of Super Furry Animals. And then theres "Cut Me Slack," a 2012 one-off with the surviving members of Nirvana that pushed McCartney toward his "Helter Skelter" heaviest.Alas, these diversions may have been too sporadic to bolster McCartneys long-standing campaign to reclaim the "cool Beatle" status that has long been conferred to John Lennon. After all, in between these side projects, McCartney continued to release solo records of varying quality that captured him in his familiar modes: the piano balladeer, the farmhouse folkie, the Little Richard-schooled rocker. But even his most forgettable albums from the past three decades—like 1993s Off the Ground—feature displays of his melodic mastery (in that case, the golden, slumberous serenade "Winedark Open Sea"). And occasionally, hes let his eccentric streak bleed into his proper albums, like on the epic Driving Rain blowout "Rinse the Raindrops," or the art-pop oddity "Mr. Bellamy" from Memory Almost Full.It says a lot about McCartneys enduring songcraft and capacity for curveballs that his most popular single ever—judging by the nine-digit Spotify streaming numbers, at least—came more than 50 years into his incomparable career. Sure, having both Rihanna and Kanye West sing on it will help boost the stats. And yet, that unlikely but carefree collaboration perfectly crystallizes the latter-day work of an artist whos still pulling from a bottomless well of pretty tunes, but is always four, five seconds from wilding.

How fitting that James Murphy released his last album in 2010, for LCD Soundsystem lives in a climate-controlled space where college students and post grads, downloading songs onto their new smartphones, got excited about voting for Barack Obama. To say the music is “dated” is redundant—all music sounds like the time in which it was recorded. Also wrong. If anything, the collar-loosening white boy boogie of “Dance Yrself Clean” and “Daft Punk is Playing in My House” predated the ways in which the Silicon Valley ethos of app-ready affluence established itself in the last three to five years: dancing to “I Feel It Coming” after a few pints of the local microbrew. LCD’s 2010 show at the Fillmore presented the act at its best, with Murphy and Nancy Whang trading instruments and losing themselves to the music. He started losing me with the singer-songwriter material that won him praise a decade ago: all that “In My Life” stuff. I included a couple moments anyway because I won’t renounce my past.Visit our affiliate/partner site Humanizing the Vacuum for great lists, commentary, and more.

This post is part of our Psych 101 program, an in-depth, 14-part series that looks at the impact of psychedelia on modern music. Want to sign up to receive the other installments in your inbox? Go here. Already signed up and enjoying it? Help us get the word out by sharing it on Facebook, Twitter or just sending your friends this link. Theyll thank you. We thank you.It’s been said that Jamaica has produced more records per capita than any other nation. And of all of the recording facilities that have served the island nation’s massive music industry, none is more steeped in legend than Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Black Ark.Operational for just under six years, from 1973 to 1979, the Black Ark was crudely fashioned in the backyard of the legendary dub/reggae producer’s family home in Washington Gardens, Kingston. It was as much an anachronism for its time as it is now a template for today’s DIY home studios. Where other Kingston facilities like Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One and Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle were places of efficient commerce, run by businessmen-producers, The Black Ark was one of unfettered creativity. Unconstrained by time, logistics, and restrictions on marijuana smoke, this was a place where Perry could unlock new levels of bass by thumping microphones buried under the base of palm trees, and where mooing cows could be summoned by applying tin foil to cardboard tubes.Perry has been the subject of a meaty biography (2006’s People Funny Boy by David Katz), two feature-length documentaries (Ethan Higbee and Adam Bhala Lough’s The Upsetter and Volker Shaner’s Vision of Paradise), and a 1994 issue of the Beastie Boys Grand Royal magazine. All grant his Black Ark years their just due as Perry’s peak period of creativity. Yet the mystique of the Black Ark— which Perry is said to have burned down to ward off the presence of evil spirits — seems to grow greater with each retelling.From the outset of his career, Perry was committed to experimentation. His use of a crying baby on 1968’s “People Funny Boy” is widely regarded as the earliest use of a sample (to say nothing of its status as one of the first reggae songs and earliest diss tracks). With the launch of his Upsetter label in the late ‘60s, he revolutionized the role of the producer, beginning his first experiments with dub and making himself the featured act from behind the boards.The opening of the Black Ark in 1973 coincides with Perry’s estrangement from Bob Marley and the Wailers, whom he had molded from a marginal, suit-and-tie-wearing vocal trio into the fierce, defiant soul rebels first announced on the group’s 1970 debut LP. Perry was the first producer in Jamaica to use drum machine, which he first employed on Marley’s raw, unfinished “Rainbow Country,” and an early version of “Natural Mystic.” (A rhythm, known as Chim Cherie and credited to Perry’s band The Upsetters—and recycled over the years by other producers for tracks like Shinehead’s “Billie Jean”—also dates from this time). In 1973, Perry also released his landmark Blackboard JungleDub album, which featured Perry’s mix in one channel and engineer King Tubby’s in the other (though it should be noted that the rhythm tracks from this release pre-date the Black Ark).Other early Black Ark recordings include Junior Byles’ “Curly Locks,” (1973), Susan Cadogan’s “Hurt so Good” and Dr. Alimantado’s “Best Dressed Chicken In Town” (1974). The latter would form the nucleus of a 1978 album that launched Greensleeves Records’ London-based reggae empire, while “Hurt so Good,” one of the more straightforward songs to ever emerge from the studio, enjoyed great success on the U.K. charts.The Black Ark era peaks in 1976-77, a period in which Perry produced The Heptones’ Party Time, Max Romeo’s War Ina Babylon and Junior Murvin’s Police and Thieves albums, as well as his own dub LP, Super Ape, each issued through Island Records. If reggae was becoming known as the sunny sound of the tropics, these albums offered a much darker vision of the genre. War Ina Babylon depicted a biblical battle between good and evil in its lyrics (and cover art), particularly on the classic title track and “Chase the Devil.” That song’s haunting opening line would later color The Prodigy’s “Out of Space” and Jay-Z’s Kanye-produced “Lucifer.”The Heptones’ deceptively titled Party Time contained weighty material including a cover of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” and the Perry-penned “Sufferer’s Time.” And the title track from Murvin’s album, “Police and Thieves” would be retroactively remembered as the soundtrack to clashes between Caribbean immigrants and cops at that year’s Notting Hill Carnival in London. Super Ape, meanwhile, remixed pieces of these and other Black Ark recordings, while introducing an alter ego Perry has continued to revisit throughout his career. (His latest release, Super Ape Returns to Conquer, is a wholesale revisiting of that LP, with new versions of each track).The Clash covered “Police and Thieves” on their 1977 debut and tapped Scratch to produce “Complete Control” during the producer’s visit to London that year. Joe Strummer and crew never reached the Black Ark, but they helped it become a magnet for musical tourists. These visitors—or at least their record labels—were generally flummoxed by Perry’s unusual methods. Paul McCartney sought Scratch’s services for his wife Linda’s quickly aborted solo career, travelling to Kingston to record covers of ‘50’s bubblegum hits “Sugartime (by the Maguire Sisters) and “Mister Sandman” (popularized by The Chordettes). The tracks would not emerge until the posthumous Wide Prairie in 1998. Robert Palmer visited in 1978 for a session that yielded only “Love Can Run Faster,” the little-known B-side to classic rock staple “Give Me The News (Doctor Doctor).”Likewise, the record many regard as Perry’s apex as a producer was rejected by Island Records in 1977: Heart of the Congos, by the titular trio of Cedric Myton, Roydel Johnson, and Watty Burnett. The album was instead issued by Perry in a run of several hundred copies, its legend left to grow over subsequent decades and reissues. After reuniting with Perry in London to record 1977’s “Punky Reggae Party,” Bob Marley visited his former mentor’s studio in 1978, recording demos—”Who Colt The Game” and “I Know A Place”—which, too, were only released posthumously.By this time, reports had begun to surface of erratic behavior and a possible descent into madness on the part of Perry. Fortunately, his eclectic nature manifested itself in increasingly odd, but brilliant recordings, the contents of which continue to baffle and inspire. This includes 1977’s Roast Fish, Collie Weed & Cornbread—in which the aforementioned cow noises were achieved by running Watty Burnett’s baritone voice through a tin foil–laced cardboard tube—and 1978’s jazz-inspired Return of the Super Ape.Sometime around 1979, Perry was seen covering the walls of the Black Ark in indecipherable magic-marker scrawlings, crossing out all of the vowels. Recent retellings suggest that this and other acts of seeming insanity were possibly a calculated effort on Perry’s behalf to free himself of the figurative “vampires” who’d set upon his home and studio—mobsters seeking a cut of label profits, or underemployed singers who’d taken to squatting on the premises.In fact, Perry’s legendary act of arson may be a distortion. Family members have been quoted as saying the studio actually burned in an electrical fire in 1983. Perry, now 81 and residing primarily in the Swiss Alps, still owns and keeps a home on the property that formerly housed the Black Ark.

There was a time, not too long ago, when the term “LGBT rapper” did not exist. Of course there were lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender rappers out there but, the truth is, they simply were not accepted by the mainstream hip-hop community. As recently as 2012, it was considered somewhat taboo for Jay-Z to come out in support of gay marriage. Around the same time, Odd Future was catching flak for their overuse of a certain anti-gay slur that’s been around rap for decades. In 2017, Jay-Z’s mother came out as lesbian on 4:44 and Tyler, The Creator confirmed on Scum Fuck Flower Boy that he’s maybe, but maybe not, gay or bisexual, like fellow Odd Future members Frank Ocean and Syd.Those are still the most high-profile examples in hip-hop, and, despite Macklemore’s best intentions with “Same Love,” the genre has yet to accept a truly mainstream LGBT artist. But advances have still been made, and the fact that there are enough rappers to fill this playlist (as well as enough bad LGBT rappers that not all of them had to be included) shows how far the genre has come in a relatively short period of time.This playlist begins with the hits, in an attempt to prove that ILoveMakonnen and Young M.A. make songs we all like, regardless of their sexual preferences. Then we get into artists that have become icons of LGBT rap, like Le1f (pictured above), Cakes da Killa, and Big Freedia, as well as younger artists like Kevin Abstract and his Brockhampton group that consider being gay normal and probably wouldn’t even want to be on this list at all.The only non-LGBT artists here (aside from the aforementioned Jay-Z) are Chance the Rapper and Jeremih, who feature on Taylor Bennett’s song “Grown Up Fairy Tales.” They’re included because Taylor Bennett revealed earlier this year that he’s “a bisexual man,” and the fact that Chance—one of the world’s most popular, Christian rappers—is supporting his brother’s sexuality is yet another small but significant testament to the genre’s progress. (Even though Bennett’s other song on this list is called “Straight from the Bottom,” it’s also good.)There are a lot of openly LGBT rappers now, but things will be better when we don’t categorize them in that manner at all. In the meantime, enjoy these songs, all of which are great regardless of their creators’ sexual orientations.

One of the beauties of living in an era of hyper-technology is that it’s never been easier to dumpster dive through the musical annals of history for hidden treasure. But while anyone can go mining through YouTube for gold, it takes a special breed to wade through the mysterious waters of reissues. Hunting down long-lost artists and restoring their precious masters to life is a tricky business, but label Light In The Attic has led the reissue revolution with panache since setting up shop in Seattle in 2002.Perhaps the most interesting quality of Light In The Attic’s reissues is the spiritual kinship that so many of their artists share. LITA’s records have a folkish, proletariat quality to them, not only because so many of their releases fall under the Americana banner, but also in the way they expose the struggles of everyday artists who never truly caught the spotlight—or in some cases, purposely avoided it. Whether it’s in the fiery political incantations of The Last Poets, the indigenous songwriters populating the Native North America compilation, or the honky-tonk surrealism of Lee Hazlewood, Light In The Attic searches for humanity in the under-exposed and reveals the alternate histories of our musical traditions that have been happening all along, right under our noses.Though tackling a catalog as wide and diverse as theirs is an unruly challenge, this playlist highlights some of the wonderful music that Light In The Attic has brought to our attention over the years, and also illustrates the spirit that connects these forgotten visions. Take a listen, and remember that sometimes the greatest voices are those least heard.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

Searching for progenitors, Americans might have stopped at Neneh Cherry’s “Manchild,” in which a lulling, dazed beat refuses to so much as shudder as strings rumble and crack. But it took hearing “Protection” at an Edinburgh pub in the summer of 1997 to start my walk backward. So did an excellent Finsbury Park performance a week later, during which they debuted new material. Tricky (Kid) was another story. By the late nineties Massive Attack were Gap music: “Inertia Creeps” and “Teardrop” accompanying the choosing of V-neck shirts. A delightful wrinkle, for 1998’s Mezzanine contained their thickest music. I missed the samples and Mushroom on 100th Window, Shara Nelson always. Hence, “Unfinished Sympathy” atop my list, first heard by yours truly on the Sliver soundtrack (Heaven 17’s “Penthouse and Pavement” too!).Visit our affiliate/partner site Humanizing the Vacuum for great lists, commentary, and more.

Thank you for checking out the seventh installment of our Thrash 101 program, produced in conjunction with GimmeRadio, your free 24/7 radio station hosted by heavy-music experts and artists. Check it out here.In 1987, heavy-music scenes were strictly divided and definitely did not play nice with each other. But looking back on such a landmark year some three decades later, we can now appreciate the influence of Guns N Roses Appetite for Destruction alongside the impact of Deaths debut and the bombast of Candlemass—because not only can those records be seen in a clearer context, they also proudly share some of the same fans. And thats the beauty of time: things marinate and evolve. Ideas change, mentalities change, landscapes change. But when it comes to the heavy-metal revolution that was happening around the world 30 years ago, what was rad stayed rad—and thats what were celebrating with this playlist.Thrash adheres to the same face-ripping formula today as it did back then, and those who are into it are still completely stoked to be caught in a mosh. Monster ballads are now less polarizing to Beavis and Butthead types because most of us decided its not only okay to have guilty pleasures, it actually might be a lot cooler if you did. And yeah, there might still be some purists who will forever ignore the fact that Whitesnakes finest hour came at the same time as Napalm Deaths (and who think the two bands have no business being on the same playlist), but the variety of heavy music and abundance of killer guitar solos that define 1987 are actually pretty impressive to see in one place.It was a year where you could venture deep into the darkness with Sodom and Bathory, glimpse the future of extreme music with Death, scale the highest heights (and notes) on King Diamond and Helloweens most iconic albums, or maybe even get a little emotional with Def Leppards biggest commercial hit. You also got essential records from one of the greatest metal singers of all time (Dio), one of dooms most prolific bands (Candlemass), one of extreme metals sacred godfathers (Celtic Frost), not to mention a few of thrashs big guns (Testament, Anthrax, Death Angel, Overkill). It wasnt all just happening then; much of it was still emerging then, taking shape and branding its scorched mark on heavy and popular music worldwide. Heres a 30-year flashback of all the awesome varieties of metal from 1987.