Tupac Shakur

Did Rapper Tim Dog Fake His Own Death? Arrest Warrant Says "Yes"

As long as there have been celebrity deaths, there have been celebrity death sightings. A quick Internet search will turn up allegations of people spotting Elvis Presley in the steamy Memphis heat, or Jim Morrison in a Parisian cafe. There are those who would swear on a stack of polygraph machines ... More >>

The Music Business: We're Surrounded By Some Seriously Sadistic, Self-Centered Bastards

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 Top St. Louis Hip-Hop Artists to Watch in 2013

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 Best Hip-Hop Release to Come Out of Saint Louis This Year

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 Ten Best Shows In St. Louis This Weekend: December 14 to 16

So whoa, Kiernan's leaving. This is the man that got me my start around here: I replied to an open call on the RFT Music Facebook page for writers, Mr. Maletsky in turn got me a job and now my days are spent babbling online about music rather than driving around in my car slinging pizzas. His depart ... More >>

A Shout in the Search for Phoenix Caldon: Every St. Louisan Deserves the Strength of the Community

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 >>

An Open Fan Letter to Mitt Romney and Todd Akin

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 Demonization of Chief Keef and Lil JoJo

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 Ten Black Pop Stars Who Should Go Country

[Editor's note: Country Time is a new biweekly column for our sister music blog in Seattle, celebrating that city's favorite musical genre: mainstream country.] By Mike Seely With the nation's major-party political conventions drawing to a close recently with a rousing reelection appeal from the n ... More >>

What Makes a Hip-Hop Classic?

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 >>

Tyler Perry's mammy gets less melodramatic but not less grotesque

Rodney King and The Psychotic World We Live In

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 >>

Does Hip-Hop Respect Women?

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 >>

The 2012 RFT Music Showcase Lineup for June 2

Rapper's Sheet: Gang life inspired Yo Banga's music. Now it threatens to derail his career.

Bun B, 8Ball & MJG Promoter Jonathan Burns Talks About This Weekend's Show and His Past

Big time, old school hip hop headlines a weekend of top tier rap acts with 8Ball & MJG and Bun B at the Ambassador in North County this Saturday night (6 p.m., $25-$40). Yo Gotti and his I Got That Sack tour is at the Ambassador on Friday (6 p.m., $35-$75), and Yung Joc is at Posh late on Saturday ( ... More >>

A-Game gets one step closer with his new mixtape

79-Year Old Woman Assaulted by Cops, Lawsuit Alleges

Public Enemy, NWA, Tupac... 79-year-old Velma Fortune, shining a light on police brutality.​ Updated at 11:30 a.m. to include a statement from McPherson Police Chief Dennis Shaw. Two McPherson, Kansas, police officers snatched the cane of a 79-year-old woman, handcuffed her and dragged her a ... More >>

Freddie Gibbs may hail from the birthplace of the Jacksons, but he's not looking to take over where the King of Pop left off

Attention St. Louis Thugs: Do Not Follow This Man's Example

A good look until it backfires.​We know. We know. Placing a gun in your waistband can make you look really tough. Like this picture of Tupac here.But placing a loaded weapon in your drawers also has its disadvantages, especially when it goes off accidentally as one did yesterday on a St. Louis man ... More >>

Interview: Tef Poe on War Machine, His Fantastic New Album

courtesy of Tef Poe​Tef Poe's War Machine is a nineteen-track tour de force. The Force member's musical versatility has always been his calling card, and so it's not surprise that Machine embraces diversity and defies pigeonholing. Genre-wise, it touches on warm R&B, ominous hip-hop, celebrato ... More >>

Street Lit: The Keisha Ervin Excerpts, #3

After dishing out a heavy scene or two in our street-lit excerpts #1 and #2, I thought I'd end the week with a lil' lighter passage. Today's choice comes from Keisha Ervin's third book, Mina's Joint. This novel was my favorite of all. It tells the story of Mina Matthews, an up-and-coming St. Louis h ... More >>

Beat Stealing Beef: Black Spade vs. Charles Hamilton

http://media.phoenixnewtimes.comThere aren't enough beefs in hip-hop anymore. I seriously miss the golden era-- back in the days of East Coast/West Coast feuding and Pac/Biggie rivalry-- when there was a new beef starting up damn near every week. Not only did that era inspire the best diss track of ... More >>

The Top 10 Reissues of 2008

It's time to rank the best of what went around and came around again. BILLY JOEL The Stranger (Columbia/Legacy) As punk and disco exploded, the Piano Man's deeply unhip 1978 breakthrough proved that top-shelf Broadway/Brill Building songwriting could still sell - and, occasionally, rock. "Scene ... More >>

Hump Day Slow Jam of the Week: Bobby Caldwell, "What You Won't Do For Love"

2008 Music Award Nominees: Best Rap/Hip-Hop Artist

Post-Dispatch Easter Story Retracted -- and It Won't Be Resurrected

Fist City: Rockwell Knuckles aims to punch through St. Louis hip-hop's glass ceiling

Bloodsuckahz

They get off on vampires and horror movies and brutal deaths. It's all part of the hell-hop scene.

Kafe Kibosh

Hip-hop's answer to the Hard Rock Cafe dies before it's born

Critical Fatwa

Ja Rule

Critical Fatwa

Coping Mechanism

Citizen Cope turns hip-hop on its tail

No Thanks, Deer

Unreal evades some bloodthirsty deer, chats up a man who'll pay $10K for a wife and gets creeped out by a pint-size beauty-queen doppelgänger. Plus, behold the Rachel Show!

Back to the Future

We tell the Bravery's fortune, decode a rock opera and groan over Sting's intoxicated verbosity

Merry Christmas, Beeyotch!

Forget caroling. Here are a few hip-hop jammy-jams to warm your Yule log.

Soccer It to Me

The St. Louis Steamers heat up their home opener

The Dirt on Dirty

We chronicle the greatest moments of Ol' Dirty Bastard

Grand Theft Audio

Radar Station discovers the soundtrack to crime

Fade to Black

Jay-Z signs off with The Black Album

Chingy Speaks!

Hurtling toward superstardom, the crunk wunderkind finally grants Radar Station some face time

Jam-Packed

Cicero's champs brace for the second coming of Vermont's phinest. Prince disciples couldn't care less.

Damn, That DJ Made My Day

Jam Master Jay, 1965-2002

Hol' in One

Local favorites Da Hol' 9 finally get their shot at the big time

Fighting the Power

Rapper Nas steps back into the ring, fists flying

Black and White

Written and directed by James Toback

STILL MAKING SENSE

The Talking Heads' David Byrne once again reinvents himself, this time as an ambassador of Latin American music

Original Gangsta

Legendary badass Stagger Lee, hailed in song by musicians everywhere, came to fame right here in St. Louis

Meet the Beat

Hip-hop's here. Deal with it. Check the local MCs and DJs moving up from the underground.