Email Author Ben Westhoff

Awards

• 2007 - National Association of Black Journalists Awards

  "Ace of Spaides"

• 2006 - National Association of Black Journalists Awards, published September 14, 2005

  "Rap vs. Rapture"

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2007 Stories by Ben Westhoff

• Lil Wayne and High School Musical

  published December 20, 2007

  With his long dreadlocks, croaking voice and penchant for zaniness, Lil Wayne is, to say the least, an unpredictable MC. The former University... More >>

• Wu-Tang Clan

  published December 20, 2007

  Wu-Tang Clan's fifth album, 8 Diagrams, comes at a time of group strife. Ghostface Killah and Raekwon have laid into Wu... More >>

• Femme Fatality

  published December 13, 2007

  Femme Fatality's sound may veer toward electroclash, but they're from St. Louis, and things get to the Midwest late, so leave them alone, all... More >>

• Bow Wow

  published December 13, 2007

  A pint-sized novelty act who made preteen girls swoon with his 2000 debut Beware of Dog, Bow Wow has somehow evolved into a hip-pop... More >>

• Ghostface Killah

  published November 22, 2007

  Ghostface Killah is a brilliant storyteller and lyricist, the only Wu-Tang Clan member still making relevant solo albums and a prolific,... More >>

• Little Brother

  published November 15, 2007

  "I came back from NY, nigga lost his deal. Felt sick to the stomach, almost lost his meal," raps Phonte on Getback's first track,... More >>

• Chris Brown

  published November 15, 2007

  Chris Brown has been well known to the screaming underage masses for a minute now, but he broke out to a wider audience at this year's MTV... More >>

• will.i.am, Songs About Girls

  published November 1, 2007

  Songs About Girls is derivative, repetitive, insipid, insincere and pandering. Oh, and if that weren't enough, it also has the worst... More >>

• Jay-Z: America's Most Overrated Rapper

  published November 1, 2007

  Rap's Grateful Dead? Hova? Young? The No. 1 MC of all time? None of the above. A more appropriate title for Jay-Z is Most... More >>

• Beirut, The Flying Club Cup

  published October 25, 2007

  Beirut frontman Zach Condon, 21, is too young to have any stories of his own, so he imagines other folks' — usually folks living on other... More >>

• Chamillionaire, Ultimate Victory

  published October 4, 2007

  When did mainstream rap become more relevant than its underground counterpart? Talib Kweli and El-P released self-congratulatory pap this year,... More >>

• DJ Mike Relm and the Blue Man Group

  published October 4, 2007

  Mike Relm, a bespectacled Asian DJ clad in a suit and tie, is single-handedly introducing turntablism to a wide swath of middle America on the... More >>

• Still a P.I.M.P.

  published September 13, 2007

  No reason to fear 50 Cent, right? I try telling myself that while heading toward Manhattan's Flatiron District for a one-on-one interview with... More >>

• MF Doomed

  published September 6, 2007

  The afternoon of August 15, Allen Scott, co-owner of San Francisco nightclub the Independent, got a call from underground rapper MF Doom's... More >>

• Talib Kweli

  published August 16, 2007

  "Conscious rap" needs to be eliminated from hip-hop's vernacular — or at the very least, Talib Kweli's name should be stricken from its... More >>

• Laptop Battles

  published August 16, 2007

  Last year, white MC Sage Francis may have accidentally started a trend when he took exception, online, to a MySpace posting by far superior... More >>

• Interpol

  published July 26, 2007

  Enough with the Joy Division comparisons, already! Joy Division was a fancy-pants band that, aside from a few accessible songs, never connected... More >>

• Bishop Allen

  published July 26, 2007

  Last year, Brooklyn's Bishop Allen set out to do the ludicrous: write, record and ship a four-song EP every month. Glitches ensued, predictably,... More >>

• Vince Neil, Quiet Riot, Slaughter

  published July 26, 2007

  Would you want to be Vince Neil? Hard to say. You'd get to be in Mötley Crüe, judge the Hooters Swimsuit Pageant in Las Vegas this month... More >>

• Devin the Dude, Ludacris, Murs

  published June 21, 2007

  Legions of folks claim inside information when it comes to my taste in hip-hop. Numerous writers — even venerable Houston Press scribe... More >>

• The Ladybug Transistor

  published June 14, 2007

  In April, Brooklyn indie-rock outfit The Ladybug Transistor lost their drummer, San Fadyl, when he suffered asthma-related complications at his... More >>

• Blog Critics' Greatest Rap CDs List

  published May 24, 2007

  A pair of bloggers compiled a list of the 25 “greatest” rap albums of all time recently by polling 101 critics, almost all bloggers... More >>

• The Sad Kermit Video

  published May 24, 2007

  My roommate introduced me to the world's most revolting web phenomenon, something worse than the Virginia Tech shooter's manifesto, worse than... More >>

• Noticeably Negro

  published May 24, 2007

  So far this decade, Chicago emcee Serengeti (Dave Cohn) has released some half-dozen albums on nearly as many labels. Of the bunch, Noticeably... More >>

• Anthony Hamilton

  published April 26, 2007

  Things have never been easy for platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated, neo-soul crooner Anthony Hamilton. Before briefly touching superstardom with... More >>