Bonnaroo is not for the faint of heart. The four-day music and arts festival has taken place every year for the past eleven and is an absolute commitment to go. The festival crams over 80,000 festival goers into a plot of farmland, making it the 7th largest city in Tennessee when the festival is underway. Bonnaroo forgoes the single-day tickets that are popular with other festivals but rather has a huge majority of its attendees camp on site all four days, with tons of dirt, sweat, and absolute weirdness taking place under the unforgiving Tennessee sun. Some of the best shows go till 4 AM on any given night making a crowd a bunch of tired, dirty, and mostly intoxicated zombies wandering around from stage to stage. Bonnaroo is an all-or-nothing commitment.
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Bonnaroo 2012 Recap– Rap, Roots, Vets, and Fem Rock
12 JunEl-P Review: El-P’s Newest LP
6 JunEl-P
Cancer 4 Cure
If there is one known constant in the world of music, it is the high quality of music put out by the Mississippi record label Fat Possum. They helped jump start a blues revival in the early 90’s and have been pumping out our some of music’s best modern artists ever since. One of Fat Possum’s newest releases is the third full LP released by Brooklyn based hip hop artist El-P. The album is Cancer 4 Cure, and after hearing it yesterday, and I am seriously questioning why I’ve never listened to his solo albums before … apparently because I’m an idiot, that’s why.
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The Roots Review: Undun
5 DecThe Roots
Undun
A legendary live hip hop group and the best house band in late night television history, The Roots have built up quite the reputation over their illustrious over two decade career. After spending their first 22 years building their reputation on dynamic live performances, they signed a deal to be the house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, a surprising move for a band that has been mostly countercultural, but one that works quite well for them. They can finally settle in one place to raise families, get a more than adequate income, and play with a bounty of music legends when they stop on through to perform.
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Top Ten Thursday: 2010 Albums in Retrospect
1 DecAs we gear up for the conclusion of another memorable year in music and our upcoming 2011 Best-of lists, we thought it would be fun to turn back the clock to a year ago, and look at the greatest albums of 2010. However, as hindsight is crystal clear, we have adjusted our rankings based on how we feel now, so some albums that may not have made our list last year that grew on us may show up here and vice-versa.
1. Kanye West-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
The polarizing rapper’s magnum opus; a sort of wonderful ride through the psyche of the conflicted artist. MBDTF challenges the idea of what a hip-hop record is with songs like “Runaway” and “Lost In The World”, and also has its fair share of big-time hits with songs like “Power” and “All Of The Lights”.
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Jay-Z and Kanye Show Review: A Heavyweight Bout
30 NovKanye West & Jay-Z
Watch The Throne Tour
Palace at Auburn Hills
Detroit, MI
11/26/2011
Two days after Thanksgiving, Austin and I strapped on our gold watches and chains and headed up to Motown to see the two biggest acts (egos) in hip hop today, Kanye West and Jay-Z, join together to put on one massive show. As the marquee would suggest, the show was quite simply two and a half hours of unadulterated Jay and Ye, meaning no opening act, no guests, and an almost non-existent backing band, though there was plenty of flash and flair in the duo’s stage show.
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