Corey Black

The Ten Best Shows in St. Louis This Memorial Day Weekend: May 24 to 27

Wow -- where to begin? Here, we wrote a quick guide for you. Step one: Eat some barbecue. Step two: See a show or two. Step three: Repeat. This extended weekend's offerings are slightly overwhelming. In addition to these ten picks, plenty of other events covered in the past week present themselves a ... More >>

Five Questions: Hit-Making Producer Tech Supreme Talks St. Louis Hip-Hop

Editor: Tef Poe is an artist from St. Louis City. Through powerful imagery and complicated honesty, he has earned a reputation as one of the best rappers telling the story of St. Louis, which is about much more than one place. Poe has been featured in music publications such as XXL and Urb Magazine. ... More >>

27 Hip-Hop Videos You Should Know from St. Louis and Beyond

Editor: Tef Poe is an artist from St. Louis City. Through powerful imagery and complicated honesty, he has earned a reputation as one of the best rappers telling the story of St. Louis, which is about much more than one place. Poe has been featured in music publications such as XXL and Urb Magazine. ... More >>

The Power of Time and Truth

Editor: Tef Poe is an artist from St. Louis City. Through powerful imagery and complicated honesty, he has earned a reputation as one of the best rappers telling the story of St. Louis, which is about much more than one place. Poe has been featured in music publications such as XXL and Urb Magazine. ... More >>

Anything Goes and We're Staying Until Five in the Morning: The Legendary Final Night at the Delmar Lounge

Delmar Lounge once seemed like an invincible safe haven for progressive minded music lovers in the city of St. Louis. The establishment has an almost legendary reputation for the showcasing spontaneity of St. Louis loves. During the evening hours of business you could aimlessly find yourself eating ... More >>

The Ten Best Shows In St. Louis This Weekend: July 20 to 22

Happy Friday, St. Louis! Before we get to the festivities, it's been a little while since we've explained our shows-pickin' blog-postin' strategy, so here it is again for the uninitiated and the forgetful: Every Monday we do a blog post called "Out Every Night" that lists shows the RFT Music staff p ... More >>

Eleven Things Every Independent Artist Should Work On

Editor: Tef Poe is an artist from St. Louis City. Through powerful imagery and complicated honesty, he has earned a reputation as one of the best rappers telling the story of St. Louis, which is about much more than one place. Poe has been featured in music publications such as XXL and Urb Magazine. ... More >>

50-Plus St. Louis Hip-Hop Artists You Should Know

Editor: Tef Poe is an artist from St. Louis City. Through powerful imagery and complicated honesty, he has earned a reputation as one of the best rappers telling the story of St. Louis, which is about much more than one place. Poe has been featured in music publications such as XXL and Urb Magazine. ... More >>

New Music Videos: Rockwell Knuckles "Sorta Invincible" Black Spade "Running and Gunning"

Rockwell and The Force pack heat in "Sorta Invincible"​The Force is out in, um, force today on the ol' Interwebz. Both Black Spade and Rockwell Knuckles unveiled new videos for their respective songs, "Running and Gunning" and "Sorta Invincible," and both projects feature members from the friendly ... More >>

Hip-hop jack-of-all-trades Black Spade is the force behind local rap collective the Force

William Upski Wimsatt, Author of Please Don't Bomb the Suburbs, Talks Tea Party and Missouri's Progressive Potential

Image viaWilliam Upski Wimsatt​In 1994, a 21-year-old graffiti artist from the southside of Chicago named William Upski Wimsatt published Bomb the Suburbs, an introspective, non-fiction account of race, politics, art and social change during hip-hop's golden era.Almost two decades later, Upski -- ... More >>

Nato Caliph Celebrates His Birthday, Releases REACH EP

photo by Annie ZaleskiNato breathes life into the mic​If the rap gods have any sense of justice, Nato Caliph will go down in history as St. Louis' equivalent to Common. Both artists spit conscious rhymes with charisma and an intense -- yet tender -- flow. Each tells stories in their songs in a way ... More >>

Download: Black Spade's Build & Destroy -- Hear St. Louis Hip-Hop at Its Very Best

Peep the praying mantis on the left just chillin​Black Spade dropped his new mixtape Build and Destroy yesterday and the whole album is available for free download over on the Smoking Section. Click over there immediately, then get our your ear buds and put this baby on repeat. Incidentally, Spade ... More >>

Common, DJ Needles at Celebrate St. Louis, Friday, July 9

Although this year's mammoth Celebrate St. Louis concert series has been moved off the levee due to high water levels on the Mississippi (and is therefore no longer called Live on the Levee), the change of venue had little effect on the huge turnout. Fans piled into Soldiers Memorial Park to see Chi ... More >>

Review: St. Louis Underground Music (S.L.U.M.) Festival at the Atomic Cowboy, Saturday, May 29

An impressive quantity of local talent assembled in the Grove neighborhood this weekend to take part in the first-ever St. Louis Underground Music Festival. The lineup included more than 75 emcees, DJs and b-boys -- a roster so robust that performers may have outnumbered fans. The ambitious undertak ... More >>

Photos: St. Louis Underground Music (S.L.U.M.) Festival at Atomic Cowboy, Saturday, May 29

From 2 p.m. until the wee hours of the night, the St. Louis Underground Music (S.L.U.M.) Festival invaded Atomic Cowboy. Breakdancing battles, art, DJ battles -- and, of course, plenty of performances from movers and shakers in the local hip-hop/rap/DJ community -- marked the day. Jon Gitchoff went ... More >>

Saturday: The St. Louis Underground Music Fest Takes over Atomic Cowboy

​We're just going to let that flyer up there speak for itself: The first-annual St. Louis Underground Music Fest (S.L.U.M.) takes over Atomic Cowboy and the Fox Hole at Atomic Cowboy this Saturday starting at 2 p.m. Admission is $5 (with a $2 minor surcharge). The all-day festival spotlights p ... More >>

Photos Video: Tef Poe and The Force Own the Gramophone

photo by Keegan HamiltonThe Force was out in, um, force at the Gramophone on Friday​Just when it seems like the monthly (or thereabouts) hip-hop extravaganzas hosted by the Force at the Gramophone are getting stale, they go and put on a show like last Friday's. Basically the same cadre of artists ... More >>

Video: Looks Like The Force Had Fun Last Week at SXSW

Hip Hop group The Force were Austin last week at South by Southwest and documented some of their experiences on video.​The St. Louis hip-hop collective The Force represented the city something fierce in Austin last week.There was SXSTL, the St. Louis-exclusive hip-hop showcase, and a whole sle ... More >>

The Force aims to again put St. Louis hip-hop on the national map

SXSTL: St. Louis sends several representatives to Austin for this year's SXSW festivities

Tech Supreme: (One of) The Hardest-Working Men in Town

Tech Supreme, in a rare still moment​Think you're busy? Try being Tech Supreme. The RFT's "Best Hip-Hop Producer" of 2007 is forging a steady, stellar career helping out members of The Force, a newly formed hip-hop collective featuring local heavyweights such as Rockwell Knuckles, Tef Poe, Bla ... More >>

An Updated, Centralized List of Local Haiti Benefit Shows

Over the weekend, I received a ton of emails about the local Haiti benefit shows going on. Rather than add to the several posts we've already written, I figured I'd gather everything in one place. Update: Tonight! Monday, January 18: Black Label Gallery (tip to The Blender) Called "Hits for Haiti," ... More >>

Help Out Haiti: Get Drunk and Fat and Hear Live Music Every Day This Week

Nothing feels better than giving help to those who need it most -- unless you're giving help to those who need it most by drinking heavily, rocking out and eating chicken wings.Seriously though, an entire country is devastated.Image Via​There are lots of ways you can contribute to the relief effor ... More >>

Local Benefit Concerts for Haiti In the Works

I'd be remiss today if I didn't mention the absolute devastation in Haiti, caused by the 7.0 earthquake that rocked the country yesterday. Over at Gut Check, Ian noted that Pi is donating 10% of today's sales to the Red Cross relief efforts. Naturally, the local music community is also gathering tog ... More >>

Review Photos: Lupe Fiasco and Black Spade at Live on the Levee

Review coming soon. For now, here's a few pics, starting with one of the many mysterious green meanie masks in the crowd. Green meanie masks were handed out by Black Spade and co., jean shorts were not.​

Homespun: Spark1Duh?, My Life with Dusty Wallets

In this week's paper, Christian Schaeffer reviewed Spark1Duh?'s CD, My Life With Dusty Wallets. He had this to say:Spark1duh? is the hip-hop alter ego of Jason Karr, the rare white rapper who doesn't waste time apologizing for or making fun of his skin color. Instead, Karr employs a mish-mash of cul ... More >>

Teresa Jenee

10 p.m. February 26. Atomic Cowboy, 4140 Manchester Avenue.