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Matthew Deapo is a Philadelphia-based arts critic and founding writer for Hip Hop Top 50 (hiphoptop50.blogspot.com) and Kinetoscope Film Journal (www.kinetoscope.org). His essay on Awesome Dré was recently included in Heaven Was Detroit: From Jazz to Hip-Hop & Beyond, and his personal obsessions include popular culture, tall pints of beer, and his beautiful, supportive wife.

Follow Matt hiphoptop50.blogspot.com/

Articles by this author

Article Apr 28 2017

Honoring The Best Hip Hop LP’s: Quasimoto – The Unseen

Under a plume of smoke and fogged by a head full of mushrooms, avant-garde producer, Madlib, took his passion for exhuming jazz obscurities and married it to the social consciousness and surreal wordplay of Melvin Van Peebles. The resulting tapestry of beats (The Unseen) built an army of sound from hundreds of samples, each overlapping the […]
Article Apr 24 2017

Honoring The Best Hip Hop LP’s: A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Marauders

Everything about Midnight Marauders, from lyrics to beats to album art, is about community. Building steam from the massive praise showered upon The Low End Theory, A Tribe Called Quest expanded on concepts that record only glazed over, taking a closer look at the urban social climate and adding complex layers of samples to their previously stripped-down sound. Experimenting with a sure thing was […]
Article Apr 21 2017

Honoring The Best Hip Hop LP’s: The Notorious B.I.G. – Ready To Die

Playing patron saint to drug dealers and pickpockets, the young and reckless Notorious B.I.G. brims with witty dialogue about a variety of transgressions, pushing boundaries for laughs and shock. He’s successful in that sense, but does best when he’s baring his soul, expressing anguish over his own poverty and mortality. This macabre fascination with death hangs over most of the […]
Article Apr 17 2017

Honoring The Best Hip Hop LP’s: Gang Starr – Moment Of Truth

Adapting to the sonic terrain of late 90’s Hip Hop, Moment of Truth saw Gang Starr abandoning their jazzy influences in favor of a rugged and atmospheric sound. When Guru states “we have certain formulas, but we update ’em with the times,” it never comes off as a plea for commercial acceptance. A paranoid and […]