Uptown Notes

My twitter profile reads, “Scholar, author, hater of Drake.” Of all the things on that profile “hater of Drake” is [...]

A few days before Christmas 2011, Nike re-released the Concord Jordans to wild fanfare. As a rash of people lined [...]

“I think I’m Malcom X, Martin Luther/ Add a King, Add a Jr.” –Lupe Fiasco Building Minds Faster (B.M.F.) Recently, [...]

Marc Lamont Hill, Susan L. Taylor, Talib Kweli, Kephra Burns, and April R. Silver invite you to a benefit celebration [...]

So you all know that I’m a hater of Drake (here’s a partial explanation offered by Marc Lamont Hill), nothing [...]

For a few years now, Michael Steele has been trying to meet me on Beat Street by being more “Hip-Hop” [...]

Let me get it out of the way: I wasn’t the biggest fan of Pac’s music. I am the dude [...]

Detroit is a microcosm of Black America. I believe if you cannot love Detroit, you cannot fully love Black people. The Detroit Metropolitan area represents the best and the worst that Black folks in this country have to offer. Detroit is under intense scrutiny as of late and the flashing lights of attention may have served to take the life of seven year old Aiyana Jones as a TV crew filmed a home-raid by the Detroit SWAT. With all the fascination with Detroit around the nation we get the problems of the city beamed into our homes via satellite, but it makes me wonder, is there more there than what we normally see?

I love Hip-Hop. I love battles. I hate the same tired themes and references in them. I love this translation. [...]

This morning I woke to #RIPBIGPUN as a trending topic on twitter and was conflicted about bigging up Pun. Pun [...]