2 Live Crew

The Houston 100: The Master List

SXSW: Spank Rock at Levi’s/Fader Fort

Bun B’s II Trill: An Underground King, alone on the throne

Turning the Screw: Trae Day, Luke, DMX, Nas, Rick Ross and More

Dolemite No More: R.I.P. Rudy Ray Moore

The Soul of Storyville

Having Some Nasty Fun

Too Much Joy cowers in the mouth of adulthood

Static

Too Much Joy cowers in the mouth of adulthood

Rotation

Too Much Joy cowers in the mouth of adulthood

Write or Wrong?

Marilyn Manson's Long Hard Road Out of Hell is paved with one journalist's bad intentions

Booty Call

Marilyn Manson's Long Hard Road Out of Hell is paved with one journalist's bad intentions

Bun B's II Trill

Marilyn Manson's Long Hard Road Out of Hell is paved with one journalist's bad intentions

A New Official State Song for Texas?

A case for a new — or different, anyway — state song

Girl Talk

A case for a new — or different, anyway — state song

Houston's Very Best Songs Ever

...otherwise known as the H-Town 20

2007 Houston Press Music Awards Showcase

...otherwise known as the H-Town 20

Hello, Houston!

Noise breaks down the months of live music ahead

Immigrant Song

Watch out for Miami rapper Pitbull's bite

Hip-hop as She Is Rapped

Translating the German Wikipedia entries of Houston's top MCs

Gay-Unit

Twisted G is most definitely not trapped in the closet

Throw Them Horns Up

UT's national championship and the rise of Texas rap – coincidence or symbiosis?

Bun B

Trill

Nasty Mixx

Talkin' dirty with 2 Live Crew's spinster

Mellow, Chilled-Out Fellow

The wonder that is Devin the Dude

Mouth of the Dirty South

The Geto Boys showed the nation hip-hop with real staying power

Women of the Street

Shake it with the horned-up East Coast ladies of Avenue D

Monster Mash

Jackal and Hyde breed badass beats

Hang the Airwaves

Danseparc, Substance and Stereo Bar reinvent the steel wheels

Letters

Danseparc, Substance and Stereo Bar reinvent the steel wheels

Unfair and Unbalanced

Ludacris rankles the white pride of the National Alliance and Bill O'Reilly

Ice Ice Maybe

A decade after Vanilla Ice melted down, he's back with the man who made him

That Rap-Metal Shit

A decade after Vanilla Ice melted down, he's back with the man who made him

The Once and Future King

Galveston Mardi Gras

Local Rotation

Local Music Reviewed

Straight from the Sole: Houston's Best Metal Bands

You know Soledad. He's the vocalist from controversial Houston rap-metal act Daylight Coma. He's got a lot to say. Sometimes it's insightful, sometimes less so, but it's almost always said with conviction. This week, in honor of the fast-approaching HPMA, we asked him who he thinks are Houston's fiv ... More >>

A Musical Guide to Post-Secession Texas: Houston and "Brazoria"

The final installment of our Five States of Texas project brings it all back home, to the new state of Brazoria, encompassing all of Southeast Texas from the Brazos Valley to Sabine Pass. ​Patron Saint: Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. A master of rock and roll, country, Cajun/Creole, blues and jazz, n ... More >>

Fall In

The final installment of our Five States of Texas project brings it all back home, to the new state of Brazoria, encompassing all of Southeast Texas from the Brazos Valley to Sabine Pass. ​Patron Saint: Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. A master of rock and roll, country, Cajun/Creole, blues and jazz, n ... More >>

Spermy Night In Georgia: Sexed-Up Songs To Set The Mood For Blowfly

Let's get one thing perfectly clear: Blowfly is the original dirty rapper. Before anyone in 2 Live Crew was old enough to set foot into a peepshow stall or buy a pack of cigarettes, Clarence "Blowfly" Reid was spewing forth raucous raps like "Spermy Night In Georgia" and "What a Difference a Lay Mak ... More >>

Justin Bieber For BET's "Best New Artist"? Recognize.

Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. ​Single of the Week: "Rain Drops," Yung Redd feat. T.C. This is a leak from the soon-to-be-released Eviction Notice 4. You ... More >>

Common Leaves Us Hanging At Warehouse Live

Photos by Marco Torres​8:00 p.m.: There is a female behind the decks onstage. Aftermath loves seeing females who can hold it down on the 1s and 2s. She has a bedazzled Macbook and goes by the name of DJ Superstar. Go on with your bad self, girl. 8:10 p.m.: The audience is a bona fide rainbow ... More >>

Hip Hop Honors Doesn't Totally Embarrass The South

VH1 honored the Dirty South for the 2010 edition of Hip-Hop Honors. We flew out there and sat in on the taping this past weekend. Or we Tivo'd it while we put our kids to bed and then watched it afterwards. One of those is true. Willie D​ 8:00 p.m.: Oh, good. Darrell from The Office is hosting to ... More >>

Rappers Vs. Uncle Sam: N.W.A., Eminem, Kanye...

​Mike Myers will probably go down in history as the most uncomfortable white guy next to a black guy in TV history, thanks to Kanye West's unscripted outburst during that infamous Hurricane Katrina telethon. It began with Myers reading his part of the script verbatim. Two-thirds into the PSA, ... More >>

Is Rap Acceptable In Your Sex Mix?

Some rappers happen to be thoughtful, intelligent people. Every Monday (that isn't a national holiday) Rocks Off will have some of them here discussing issues relevant to their culture. Photo illustration by John Seaborn Gray​This Week's Panel: Chuckway, Renzo, Kyle Hubbard Not Invited: Our ... More >>

Young Man, Older Woman: Top Ten Cougar Anthems

​Congratulations to Houston folksinger Glenna Bell. Her "The Cougar Anthem," from this year's Perfectly Legal: Songs of Sex, Love and Murder, was singled out Tuesday alongside Aaron Neville, Keith Richards, Norah Jones and Paul McCartney & Wings in USA Today's weekly "The Playlist" feature. I ... More >>

Top Five Rapper Deadbeat Dads

​Admit it, when you hear the term "deadbeat dad," you immediately think of a black rapper rocking Gucci stunna shades in a perfectly dimmed room, pants drooping to his ankles. Truth be told, hip-hop dads would be wise to step up and heed Ed OG's words: "Be a Father to Your Child." Relationsh ... More >>

The 10 Best Rock Samples In Hip-Hop

​Rocks Off just finished reading Ian Christe's 2007 Van Halen biography, Everybody Wants Some, which chronicles the band's history from the Van Halen boys' entry into the U.S., the upbringing of David Lee Roth, and devastating, fatal 1985 crash into Mount Sammy Hagar. Sad stuff if you're a Rot ... More >>

Starchy Arch's Top Six Rap Songs About Sex

The hip-hop world is a less than sensible place -lots of times, you're even required to clarify when bad means bad and when bad means good- so once a week we're going to get with a rapper and ask them to explain things. Have something you always wanted to ask a rapper? Email sheaserrano@gmail.com. ... More >>

1986: Best Musical Year Ever?

​For almost two weeks now, Rocks Off has been obsessed with the year exactly 25 flips of the calendar backward from this one. It started when Steve Earle did one of his "Time Machine" shows, where the singer-songwriter who plays House of Blues Wednesday spotlights a dozen or so of his favorite ... More >>

Biggest Loser, v 3.0 -- Luther Campbell

Luther Campbell brings the craziness​Yes, we're dusting off the Biggest Loser feature again! I'm sure you're fired up. The feature that was originally meant to highlight specific groups of people with dysfunctional behavior and whose rules were subsequently bent to include specific individuals ... More >>

DJ EQUE: "Bad Azz Red Gurl" Etches Her Name In Wax

Photo by Marco TorresDJ EQUE at the launch party for Pharrell's Qreme liqueur, Las Vilas, September 23, 2011​DJ EQUE has been making her mark in the industry for more than 10 years, but it was never something that came easy for her. The Houston-bred beauty had a lot to prove before she was tak ... More >>