Wu-Tang Clan

Coachella 2013 Takes It Back to the '90s

Coachella, the Only Music Festival That Matters (or so we're told), announced its 2013 lineup late Thursday night, no holograms or Rolling Stones included. Instead, two beloved '90s UK acts whose popularity in the U.S. is spotty at best, Blur and the Stone Roses, headline the first night of the tw ... More >>

Bizarre Acting Roles by 20 Famous Musicians

It's a toss-up whether actors or musicians will go to greater lengths to make rent, but some musicians have even found themselves so hard up they've been forced to take an acting gig. Such is the case with the haystack-sized Sleepy LaBeef, who in 1968's The Exotic Ones appeared as the "Swamp Monster ... More >>

5 Cool & Cheap Weekenders: October 12-14

Stars Fitzgerald's, October 12 Even if they hadn't released an album called North, which they did this year on Dave Matthews-founded ATO Records, Stars would be difficult to mistake for as anything but Canadian. There's something both distant and friendly in their appealing blend of indie-rock and ... More >>

Rap Round Table: Wu-Tang vs. N.W.A. vs. A Tribe Called Quest

Some rappers happen to be thoughtful, intelligent people. Each week, Rocks Off will have some of them here discussing issues relevant to their culture. This Week's Panel: Mic Skills, E.S.G., Chingo Bling, D-Risha, Kiotti, Mac, Yung Redd, Damien Randle, Yung Truth, Fat Tony Not Invited: Whoever gav ... More >>

Walking Through The Five Stages Of Grief With Ghostface Killah

This weekend, my father and I had a falling-out. The specifics of the exchange will not advance the narrative in any meaningful way. You just need to know that he felt one way about something and I felt another way about that same thing, and we let each other know that neither agreed with the othe ... More >>

To Ke$ha, With Love: A Plea For Sanity At Age 25

Dear Ke$ha: Happy birthday. If 18 and 21 are the "good" birthdays, and 30 and 40 are the "bad" birthdays, what do we make of turning 25? I like to look at the positive side of things: You're old enough to have grown up responsibilities, but young enough to still party hard and get away with it. Fo ... More >>

Last Night: Yelawolf At Warehouse Live

Yelawolf Warehouse Live February 16, 2012 My ears salute the kid who told Yelawolf he wasn't hip-hop. Must have been a high-school bully, one of those corny jocks with well defined biceps. We'll call him D'Angelo. D'Angelo probably teased Yelawolf, smacked him around in the bathroom, lol'd when he ... More >>

Hip-Hop, Interrupted: 7 Rappers That Should Be More Active

Hip-hop is a genre full of guys who put out a new album or mixtape seemingly every single month. They just can't stop, even when they're incarcerated in some cases (see: Lil Wayne, Gucci Mane, and TI). It's as if rapping really is as much of a competition as they make it out to be and they're in a r ... More >>

Wu-Tang Clan

The Ten Best (Non-Houston) Rap Albums of 2011

A deal, then: Let's pretend like this was some really clever, insightful preamble; ideally, when you finished reading it, you would've immediately said, "Dang. That was a really clever, insightful preamble." Let's pretend it had some sort of neat underlying agenda, something that directly discusse ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Finally, The Super Bowl Is Safe For PG-13 Rated Entertainment Again

The boob that launched a thousand obscenity complaints...​Over seven years after the FCC went into a tizzy over Janet Jackson exposing her breast during the 2004 Super Bowl (making a D-cup out of an A-cup, perhaps), a federal appeals court upheld its finding yesterday that the commission acted ... More >>

St. Ides & Hip-Hop: Would Today's Rappers Endorse Malt Liquor?

​The early '90s was a time when some of the best hip-hop music ever was being made, and the beverage of choice was malt liquor. Before rappers glorified Cristal, Ciroc and even their own branded alcohol, there were many hip-hop-inspired malt liquor ads. St. Ides in particular enlisted several ... More >>

Eight Shows MTV, VH1 & BET Should Bring Back

We live in a time where crappy reality television has taken over three of the networks that were once originally dedicated to music videos, artist interviews and delivering current events from the younger generation's perspective. With all the flack that MTV (Music Television) gets about not really ... More >>

Saturday Night: Ghostface, Raekwon & Mobb Deep At House Of Blues

Photos by Marco TorresRaekwon (left) and Ghostface Killah​Rock the Bells Tour feat. Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, Mobb Deep, Cappadonna, Supernatural & Fat Tony House of Blues August 12, 2011 Near the end of Ghostface and Raekwon's hourlong set Saturday night, Ghost stood near the stage like he ... More >>

iLL LiaD Faces Addiction, Dark Side On Salvation

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. Something you always wanted to ask a rapper? Email sheaserrano@gmail.com. Cly ... More >>

The Seven Most Memorable Rap Beatdowns

Wreckx-n-Effect went New Jack Swing on A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip in 1993.​When pop stars and Hollywood types need to settle a score, they take it to the courtroom. Hip-hop, however, operates by a different code: If you act up, you will get smacked up. Rocks Off was reminded of this when a m ... More >>

SXSW 2011: Videos and Photos Galore

What the @#$% happened last night? A City Pages SXSW recap of 3/17 from MPLS.TV on Vimeo. Want to experience SXSW 2011 but have a short attention span? Then check out the above video compiled by our sister paper City Pages which features several big-name performers plus highlight footage from the V ... More >>

Wild Flag, Wu-Tang, Erykah Badu and Yelawolf: Liveblogging the Village Voice Media SXSW Showdown

Marc BrubakerTimes New Viking gets the party started.​The doors didn't open exactly at 5 p.m., but that didn't stop the Austin Music Hall from filling quickly just before Austin-by-way-of-Houston locals Ume took the stage, the first band in the all-night line-up for the 2011 Village Voice and ... More >>

Wu-Tang, Fishbone, Trae Top Village Voice/Frank 151 SXSW Party

Marco TorresMethod Man returns to Texas to smoke our SXSW party this year.​We finally have the full lineup for the 2011 Village Voice Media/Frank 151 SXSW party, and it's a doozy. Heading up the bill are Staten Island Shao-Lin spitters the Wu Tang clan, still coasting on their late 2010 reunio ... More >>

L.A. Rapper Gets Signed, Eats A Roach

​The members of Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All - or Odd Future, if you're into the whole brevity thing - have been on the online radar since last summer, and have already managed to make the Coachella cut and late-night talk-show circuits in 2011. At the outset, however, the most recogniz ... More >>

Top 10 Houston Breakout Acts Of 2010

​These ten Houston artists opened our eyes and made us roll off the couch or out of the cubicle to go see them this year, health or sleep be damned. Craig's Hlist's two favorite things are sleeping and drinking, and thankfully these bands play where alcohol is served. It's been a fun year so ... More >>

Wu-Tang, Meridian, Numbers, Etc. Put In Perspective

Rocks Off is following our sister Houston Press blogs into the choppy waters of "Comment of the Day," choosing a comment or a handful of comments from the previous day we find especially enlightening, infuriating or just plain hilarious. We're glad our readers have opinions, whatever they are, about ... More >>

10 Music Stories We Wish We'd Ignored This Year

​We in the alternative media - not necessarily the Houston Press and/or Rocks Off, not all the time - enjoy calling out our mainstream brethren. Whether it's ten books that didn't make The New York Times' "Best of 2010" list, or "10 Stories Our Print Version Accidentally Overlooked," us "under ... More >>

Top 10 Double Albums That Should Have Stayed Single

​Not all double albums should have been double albums, just as some albums had to be double albums in order for their point to be made. Each case is different with each band or artist. The Who's Tommy and Quadrophenia had to be double albums to tell their stories of teenage wastelands and po ... More >>

Rakim

The Five Most Bogus Rapper Apologies

​It's the unwritten rule in rap: never apologize. Offering apology in hip-hop is a sign of weakness and rappers simply can't appear weak, no matter what. Sorry, that's just the way it is. Yet, every now and then we'll see a rapper apologize for stepping out of line. Earlier this week, Paul Wa ... More >>

Rap's Top 10 Heroes Of 2010 So Far, Part 1

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 it to introducinglisto ... More >>

Accessories Houston Rappers Don't Leave Home Without

fashionbombdaily.comSlick Rick: The ruler's back at Reliant Arena, November 6​Rappers have always been obsessed with accessories. It's mandated in rap contracts, right next to girl songs and Bun B collaborations. The tradition dates back to hip-hop's early days. Before Kanye popularized shutte ... More >>

Raekwon The Chef Can't Cook Up A Delicious Performance

Photos by Marco Torres​Rap is a cultural celebration of telling, through music, what it is real today, right now; not what was real two years ago as happened on June 19, 1865 when word finally reached Galveston that President Lincoln had freed the slaves... two years previous. At midnight on ... More >>

Turning The Screw: Chamillionaire, Bun, Trae, Mystikal, Swizz Beats, The Game, Tila Tequila, Maury Povich, Jay Electronica and More

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: "Creepin'," Chamillionaire feat. Ludacris Wire To Wire Cham's Major Pain tape is supposed to be release ... More >>

Coma White: A Sampling of Songs About the JFK Assassination

Craig HlavatyDealey Plaza in downtown Dallas​ Warning: Some of these videos contain very graphic images. Anyone who knows Rocks Off, even in passing, knows of his fierce JFK assassination obsession. The theories, the scientific data, the literature and the various opinions shooting through the Int ... More >>

Sound Off on The Kanye's Jackassery at Sunday Night's VMAs

This is what happens when MTV pulls all its VMA footage from YouTube... their lawyers were up early this morning.​ By now you've seen or at least heard about Kanye West's latest bit of spotlight-grabbing at Sunday night's MTV awards - Rocks Off doubts morning-drive DJs are talking about little els ... More >>

Crash Into Me: Predicting the Economy's Impact on the Music Biz

GWAR more important than you might expect.

MP3 Monday: Music From Teenage Kicks, LSPS, Hash Brown & Fat Tony, OSIRUS and Dave Wrangler

[A while back, Rocks Off sent out a call for Houston bands and musicians to send him MP3s of their recent work. It took a little bit, but here are the fruits of that planting...] Courtesy Teenage Kicks  Here's some snappy punk from Houston trio Teenage Kicks... ...and some STP-e ... More >>

Artist of the Week: Kyle Hubbard

To Do: Tha Fucking Transmissions, Glass Candy and Farah at the MFAH

T.H.E. FLY and Rooster: The Smoke CD

Racket vs Racket Jr

Pharoahe Monch

A hip-hopper takes on politics, culture and a pack of brats

Drenched In Blog: Remembering Ol’ Dirty Bastard

Last Night: GZA in Austin (Cuz We Missed Him in Houston)

Scott Faingold Listens to Everything

And comes up with a random smattering of tortured musings

Golden Homies

Rap firebrands Brand Nubian mellow with age

Shelf Life

Long after Britney Oops her way to obscurity, these releases will continue to sing

X-ecutioners' Song

Four New York turntablists redefine the art of deejaying

Big Beat

Genaside II helped create jungle. Now it's moving on.

Men in Black

Method Man and Redman have a Blackout, tour with Family Values

Back to the Jungle

The Return of Superfly

Sound Check