Kendrick Lamar

Soundset 2013: A music and photo timeline

Ah, Soundset. The sixth installment of the Rhymesayers Entertainment hip-hop festival had a breakout year in terms of attendance -- a reported 28,000 fans came out -- and talent, with a lineup including Snoop Dogg, Mac Miller, Tech N9ne, along with the host artists Atmosphere. Many folks pegged A$AP ... More >>

Kitty Pryde calls Danny Brown Triple Rock incident "an actual sexual assault"

Danny Brown's show last weekend at the Triple Rock, in which a member of the audience allegedly performed oral sex on him, has opened up a discussion about onstage sexual assault. Brown's tour mate and friend Kitty Pryde has written a lengthy piece on Vice's Noisey music blog on the incident, referr ... More >>

Danny Brown's Triple Rock show sparks unseemly oral sex controversy

Live performance is an incredibly intimate bond between artists and fans, but that intimacy got busted worse than Danny Brown's front tooth during Friday's show on Minneapolis's West Bank. At minimum, the Detroit rapper led several fans at the sold-out Triple Rock Social Club to believe, and many pr ... More >>

Saxophonist Ben Wendel: Touring with Snoop Dogg was a circus

Ben Wendel has earned international success and awards as a performer, composer, producer and even conductor. He is a founding member of the Grammy-nominated jazz-rock group Kneebody in which he plays saxophone, and he is one of the very few well-known bassoonists outside of the classical realm -- a ... More >>

Top 10 Twin Cities hip-hop venues

It's hard to believe with the reputation it now holds that there was a time when the Twin Cities wasn't booking too many hip-hop acts. Once we were still flyover country to many of the national touring acts, and the local underground scene had yet to rise to prominence and prove the power of homegro ... More >>

Lollapalooza 2013 full lineup: The Cure, Nine Inch Nails and more

A bit of the Lollapalooza 2013 lineup trickled out a couple weeks ago, but today this year's offerings got taut, dark, and -- most importantly -- official. Though the plan initially was to drop the full, gargantuan list of bands in two more weeks, the timeline got pushed up when a pre-April Fool's p ... More >>

The best concerts in the Twin Cities this week: February 13-19

Valentines Day week has arrived! Whether you plan on celebrating Valentines Day with a special someone, alone, or with your multiple cats, be sure to check out Lucy Michelle & The Velvet Lapelles' Greatest Valentines Mixtape show at the Cedar Cultural Center. On Friday synth-pop band Usonia rele ... More >>

Baauer / Just Blaze

Get Cryphy 5th Anniversary at First Avenue, 2/8/13

Get Cryphy 5th AnniversaryWith Slug, Brother Ali, MaLLy, Lizzo, Haphduzn, Sophia Eris, St. Paul Slim, Rapper Hooks, Lazerbeak, Big Dylan, Ander Other and moreFirst Avenue, MinneapolisFriday, February 8, 2013The Get Cryphy crew capped off another solid anniversary show on Friday, ringing in five year ... More >>

Get Cryphy turns five

The DJ crew that taught local hip-hop heads to love club bangers celebrates half a decade

Jennifer Lawrence and SNL remind us Minnesota radio still lacks hip hop

Saturday Night Live still thinks the state of hip hop radio in the Twin Cities is laughable. Over the weekend, we returned to the fictional studios of B-108 in Shakopee, "Minnesota's home for blazing hip hop," for another early morning joke at our scene's expense. This time, guest The Hunger Games s ... More >>

The 2012 Pazz & Jop poll, including my ballot, is live!

The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics' poll officially signals the death knell for any more opinions on 2012 music. But before we spend too much time evaluating Justin Timberlake's return and the ascent of Willow Smith, here's a last, fond look at the year that just concluded.On the one hand, raw ... More >>

My mom reviews Pitchfork's top tracks of 2012

By Justin BakerWe just wrapped another year of wall-to-wall critics' lists, and the Pitchfork staff provided a carefully curated subset of hip music of last year. How does this music sit with the rest of the population? To  partly answer that question, we asked someone untainted by current musi ... More >>

Best Twin Cities concerts 2012

The Gimme Noise crew attended a lot of concerts, festivals, events, gatherings, and what have you this past year. As is the case with every year in live music in the Twin Cities, the cacophonous noises etched history into the walls of our storied venues and into our minds. There were a lot of firsts ... More >>

Greg Grease "Cornbread, Pearl and G" Release Show, 7th St Entry, 12/14/12

Greg Grease With Meta, Mike the Martyr, BdotCroc, DJ Just Nine, and SGLD7th St EntryDecember 14, 2012On Friday, Greg Grease took over the 7th St Entry for a release party of his latest Cornbread, Pearl and G, an incredibly solid album. The man's flow is a monster, distilling intricately composed and ... More >>

Twin Cities Year in Music 2012

From P.O.S. to Prince to Polica, 2012 was a golden year in Minnesota music

Polica's top 10 albums of 2012

Polica have already landed on plenty of "best of 2012"-type lists for their Give You the Ghost accomplishment of earlier this year. But, in addition to the ability to curate their own work extremely well, they've got an ear for other strong albums that came out this year. Tipped by Brooklyn Vegan, h ... More >>

Picked to Click 2012

After hundreds of ballots and votes, the best of the best new bands have been chosen

Picked to Click 2012: #10. Audio Perm

#10. Audio Perm: 32 points"We haven't done one photo shoot where every member has been in it," says Audio Perm rapper 80H20 with a laugh. That's because the AP crew, which has risen to prominence putting in work and a fresh approach to the Twin Cities rap sound, is more than 10 members deep. Each Au ... More >>

Brother Ali in His Own Words

Opening up about everything from new album Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color to politics and religion

Soundset 2012 captured in vivid new video

Related:Soundset review, 2012Soundset photos, 2012Soundset 2012 evacuated amid tornado watchThe majesty and the drama of Soundset 2012 gets a reverent treatment in a new video featuring some of the main stages' highlights and a bounty of hip-hop fans. Captured with some high-end equipment this is an ... More >>

Soundset battled extreme weather at Canterbury Park, 5/27/12

By Reed Fischer and Ian TraasSoundsetWith Atmosphere, Lupe Fiasco, Ghostface Killah & Raekwon, Astronautalis, Big K.R.I.T., and moreCanterbury Park Festival Field, ShakopeeSunday, May 27, 2012Related:Soundset 2012 evacuated amid tornado watchSoundset photos 2012Up until about 7:20 p.m., the fift ... More >>

Big K.R.I.T. on country rap, dream cars, and playing Soundset

Related:How Rhymesayers set up the Soundset FestivalSoundset 2012 lineup announcedDanny Brown on XXX, almost signing to G-UnitFrom the jump, Mississippi rapper Big K.R.I.T is full of interesting paradoxes. He represents dirty-south rap with endless country swag that juxtaposes hip-hop's decidedly ... More >>

How Rhymesayers set up the Soundset Festival

Minnesota's biggest annual hip-hop showcase enters its fifth year

Soundset 2012 lineup announced, includes Big K.R.I.T.

​ Officially on its fifth year of making the Twin Cities a legitimate festival destination for hip-hop lovers, Soundset will celebrate a handful of years when it returns to Canterbury on Sunday, May 27.

Five twisted Mardi Gras songs

​Today, a multitude of shiftless youth are in New Orleans to consume copious quantities of alcohol, ogle members of the opposite sex, don ludicrous costumes, become well-acquainted with NOLA PD jail cells, and just generally have an incredible time. Your correspondent is not among them -- and prob ... More >>

Critics' Picks: Schoolboy Q, Dr. Dog, Yacht, and more

Schoolboy Q

Prince Paul talks 'Negroes On Ice', family, & the music business

​ Grammy award-winning hip-hop producer Prince Paul is known as much for his material with De La Soul, Handsome Boy Modeling School and Gravediggaz as he is for being kind of a jokester. So when Paul's people hit me up about his new "Negroes On Ice" project and were vague in their description ... More >>

Best nationally released albums of 2011

​It's a good thing we waited until the last week of 2011 to publish our final best-album lists, since a few bands managed to eke out stellar releases just this December (the Roots' undun and the Black Keys' El Camino in particular made their way onto a few staffers' lists). With only a few da ... More >>