I met artist Tadashi Moriyama at Art Fair in 2015. I interviewed him through email. This was around the time that Kantra started walking and her life force was beaming. Haruki and I were exhausted, grappling with this new human among us. “Where did you come from?” Haruki asks her. “Do you remember?” I dropped the ball on this (and a few others). If you’re reading this Moriyama, my apologies. The first time I saw Tadashi Moriyama’s work was at …
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It’s been a minute. I’m working on something, but not sure what it is. Mostly I’m in a schizophrenic series of modes, writing this “thing” and then turning that off to write a profile on Jazz musician and beat maker Karriem Riggins. He just dropped his second album Headnod Suite. Riggins is a musical descendant of the late J Dilla. They were frequent collaborators. But Riggins definitely has his own approach to production. My ears perked up to him when I saw …
For LA Weekly I wrote an article about rapper and songwriter Gizzle. Also, I talked to rapper and producer The Koreatown Oddity. Check Gizzle’s EP 7 Days In Atlanta, shorty got bars. She’s like the Dolly Parton of rap, meaning, she pens hella songs, or in this case, raps for a lot of popular rappers. TKO was a humble cat who happens to be a multi-talented hardworking artist. Stones Throw Records just dropped his album Finna Be Past Tense. His Driving While Black flick was …
Rapper Bambu’s eighth studio album Prey For The Devil cuts through like a box cutter to the face. It’s a tightly executed thematic album and it’s one of my favorite albums of last year. OJ the Producer and DJ Phatrick’s production works like a stage for a rapper who uses his words for a molotov cocktail. Bam is woke as fuck. Sad that he ain’t saying nothing new. Sadder that what he’s saying feels new. Click bate makes history feel irrelevant and …
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of 2Pac’s debut album 2Pacalypse Now, I wrote something for L.A. Weekly about how that record influenced me as a kid. Pac’s career only lasted for a five-year blink-of-an-eye span. He was twenty-five when he passed. This year he was nominated for the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame. He wasn’t a saint or an infallible icon. He was a man that made a lot of mistakes like most people, except his faults were publicized and broadcasted for the whole …
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