Published: 10/6/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
When many hip-hop listeners think of Nicki Minaj as the only notable female rapper, it's clear they've not heard D-Town spitters Miz Korona and Invincible. If the latter two artists are becoming huge, there's a third female Detroit rapper, Boog Brown, deserving mass attention. Her freshly released d...[MORE]
Published: 9/29/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
Someone said that if you can make it in Detroit, you can make it anywhere. But they didn't know Detroit music, because the local artists often make it anywhere else but here. The once slightly popular but always respected Detroit hip-hop group Frank N Dank had a strong affiliation with longtime frie...[MORE]
Published: 9/22/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
For some time, if you'd asked practically any Detroit rapper who they considered the most slept-on emcee here and almost universally they'd say Miz Korona, after citing themselves, of course. She's outbattled and outhustled local lyricists for years and her songs sport more punchlines than a comedia...[MORE]
Published: 9/15/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
For 27-year-old Detroit producer Curtis Cross — better known by the name Black Milk — things operate best in his life when everything is moving in organized fashion. Call it the assembly-line method of progress and personal growth. If his music is evolving and gaining more recognition, t...[MORE]
Published: 8/4/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
Rising Detroit R&B star John Brown is hanging out with his manager, Phillip Ragan, at a downtown Starbucks near his home. Even he's dressed Detroit casual — T-shirt and jeans — and though he's generally a low-key guy, he's got this energy that can suddenly kick the volume up enough t...[MORE]
Published: 7/28/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
It's nearly 9 p.m. on a damp day's night. The Eastpointe record store Melodies and Memories is all but empty, save for manager Gary, and he's 15 mouthfuls deep into his ninth story of the evening, when this tall black dude steps in through the store's double door. The manager's face fixes on him. ...[MORE]
By Chris Parker
Published: 7/14/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
Mavis Staples is irresistible. She is. It's simple why: She's as charming as she is talented. Aretha may've had more range and Betty Davis more sassafras, but no female R&B-soul singer matches Staples' vocal personality, if not power. No one. Her deep, "growling" (as Bob Dylan once d...[MORE]
Published: 6/30/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
Lord knows that Detroit has its share of struggles. But a resurgence of activism, hometown pride and some DIY 'tude sees this place getting unified in many ways. And if the recent Allied Music Conference and U.S. Social Forum were any indication, you can feel it in the streets. Enter Monica Blaire...[MORE]
Published: 6/23/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
If you're a fan of Michigan hip hop, you'll know of OneBeLo. The Pontiac native has been a fixture in local music for more than a decade, has been featured in these pages, and is one of underground hip hop's most beloved figures nationwide. Whether it's from his material as a solo artist or his days...[MORE]
By Hobey Echlin
Published: 6/23/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
"I've helped more people paint their pictures in this city than Picasso," says Duminie DePorres. "Lately, I feel like Goya." After decades as an A-list sideman for George Clinton, Public Enemy, jessica Care moore, Bad Brains' H.R., and Last Poet Umar Bin Hassan, DePorres has sp...[MORE]
By Hobey Echlin
Published: 5/19/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
On the song "New Heights" from his new OJ Simpson album, Detroit's Guilty Simpson lays out his place in hip hop, circa 2010: I got a murderer's intent when I jump on a beat and vent/I'm Guilty, I leave my prints ... Stuff that rap missed while they do handstands and backflips ... The gr...[MORE]
Published: 5/12/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
The fact isn't just how badly Sista Otis wants — nay, needs — to play music. The fact is she virtually breathes and lives music. Her life, for many years now, has consisted of little else. Perhaps the producer of the Metro Times Blowout realized this when Sista Otis was booked to perfor...[MORE]
Published: 4/28/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
Vina Mills sits gazing out the window of the 19th floor of Southfield's North Park Towers. Usually around this hour, this space echoes sounds of Mills and her backup dancers — the grunts and thrusts of performers rehearsing stage routines. But instead, she's taking it easy on this Sunday eveni...[MORE]
Published: 4/7/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
The music industry today is certainly a lot different than it was 20, 10, even five years ago. Music video request shows are irrelevant; radio is shunned as much as it's relied upon; and CD and vinyl buyers— the ones who prefer hardcopy over downloads — are purchasing music from their ar...[MORE]
Published: 3/24/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
Sitting at a wall table in downtown's Majestic Café, guitarist Rob Smith coolly puffs his Camel, waiting for sound check. Decked in a dark blue tailored two-piece suit and sporting a bush of an Afro — he could've stepped straight out of Super Fly — the tall, svelte Smith tugs anxiously a...[MORE]
Published: 3/3/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
When this cat Charles Vann stepped onto Detroit's rap scene last winter, newly dubbed as SelfSays, he arrived as a new face and a fresh voice. For some vet local emcees, DJs, promoters and hip-hop heads who've kept track of important and upcoming names and faces over the years, Vann's move to Detroi...[MORE]
Published: 2/10/2010
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
M-1 has a University of Michigan assembly hall of 400 students, artists and faculty hanging on every syllable that leaps off his tongue. It's little wonder. Sporting a black shirt, jeans and sneakers, he's charismatic, firm and earnest. But the emcee — mostly known for politically charged lyri...[MORE]
Published: 12/16/2009
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
Music videos don't have the same cachet or traction they once had, not in an era when MTV's seminal video countdown show Total Request Live has been canceled and BET's 106 & Park no longer registers with a lot of music fans. Hell, MTV doesn't even broadcast all that much music these days. As a r...[MORE]
Published: 11/18/2009
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
When disc jockeys dropped the needle on L.J. Reynolds' first solo single, "Key to the World," back in 1981, they found that the former lead singer of the Dramatics — and previously, Chocolate Syrup — needed no introduction. It wasn't that people recognized his name; the problem...[MORE]
Published: 11/11/2009
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
As a member of one of Michigan's most storied hip-hop crews, Roland "Ro Spit" Coit, 30, has been working on music for nearly a decade. But within the past two years, Coit and business partner Rick Williams have also established Burn Rubber, the most reputable sneaker boutique in the state,...[MORE]
Published: 10/14/2009
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
Tragedy follows the men who find themselves at the center of Detroit's rap world. In the Eminem flick 8 Mile, actor Mekhi Phifer plays Future, the right-hand man to Rabbit, the film's hero. Future is at the center of the Detroit hip-hop scene, hosting open mics, promoting shows, dropping sharp 16-...[MORE]
By Hobey Echlin
Published: 8/19/2009
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
Four years ago, Hush was on top of the world. He'd been on the season finale of the reality show The Contender. Nate Dogg was singing his hooks and Eminem was appearing in his videos. "Hush is coming …" the song said — and the Detroit rapper born Dan Carlisle was on his way. Or at le...[MORE]
Published: 8/5/2009
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
Four years ago, the career of Detroit emcee Royce Da 5'9" was immensely different than it is today. No one could have guessed that he'd still be prepping for the release of a long-planned album that's executive-produced by rap icon DJ Premier. Or that he'd be ghostwriting for the likes of Diddy...[MORE]
Published: 8/12/2009
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
Editor's note: The Detroit and international hip-hop family suffered a huge loss on Saturday, Aug. 1, with the passing of Titus "Baatin" Glover, co-founder of the legendary Slum Village rap supergroup, who was found dead on the 14000 block of Anglin Street in Detroit. The cause of his deat...[MORE]
By Don Waller
Published: 7/15/2009
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
Aaron Neville first burst into the national consciousness when his fluttering falsetto and flawless phrasing propelled the shimmering slice of mid-'60s zeitgeist, "Tell It Like It Is," to the No. 2 spot on the 1966 Billboard Pop charts. A decade later, Aaron — the third eldest of t...[MORE]
Published: 6/24/2009
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
"Before I started rapping, I used to write a lot of short stories and compositions. So I write [rhymes] like I'm writing a short story. I write exactly the thoughts I want to get out there because if you try to fit lyrics in with [the music], you might miss a few words or the emotion that you w...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 6/3/2009
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
The online bio of Detroit hip-hop artists Stoopz and Breeze is implausible. Bob Stoopz, the duo's producer, was "raised by wild German shepherds on the streets of Farmington Hills [and] had to learn how to play the keytar at a young age to make ends meet." Drew Breeze, the duo's emcee, was...[MORE]
Published: 5/13/2009
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
When it comes to Eminem, a lot of backstory probably isn't necessary. Especially in Detroit. But, really, that's pretty much true anywhere in the civilized Western world (and I'd be surprised if he hasn't been used by al-Qaeda or some organization like that somewhere along the way as a symbol ...[MORE]
By Don Waller
Published: 4/1/2009
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
The Counts (aka the Fabulous Counts) are back! And some of you may be wondering just why that's so important. The Detroit group racked up a pair of 1969-'70 R&B hits with the wig-poppin' funk instrumental "Jan Jan" (later covered by jazz guitarist Grant Green) and the almost-indescribably ...[MORE]
Published: 3/4/2009
Types: Music, Hip-Hop/R&B
Competition is fierce in the Michigan hip-hop arena. The state — or more specifically, the Motor City — is heralded worldwide for its versatile array of lighthearted rappers and lyrically dense emcees, not to mention artists signed to both huge major label and powerhouse independent ...[MORE]
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