Migos brought out Chance, 2 Chainz, Yachty, YG, Ty Dolla Sign, Swaggy P, & Jordan Clarkson for "Bad & Boujee." Nothing will ever be the same
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Otto Von Biz Markie
@Passionweiss
it’s regular but it’s not normal • EIC at POW Mag and • Founder: • Waiting For Britney Spears out 2024 on FSG • Long Live Drakeo
Otto Von Biz Markie’s posts
RIP DMX. No one radiated more agony, pain, and atomic energy. The Cerberus from Yonkers, who suffered for all of our sins and his own. Maybe the rawest rapper of all-time, no pretense or frills, just pure adrenaline, lawless genius, and reckless abandon. The struggle incarnate.
RIP Drakeo, the greatest West Coast artist of a generation, a legend who invented a new rap language of slippery cadences, nervous rhythms, and psychedelic slang, who beat life twice only to suffer the most tragic fate conceivable. The Ruler, once, always, and forever. 💔
Would’ve been a lot cooler if Kanye made an album about Satan
RIP Jimmy Wopo, for my money the best rapper to ever break out of Pittsburgh.
Radiant 1000-watt charisma and a legitimately original stylist. Kendrick's "Humble" was nothing if not an homage to "Elm Street."
This is just terrible and senseless.
By quitting, Deadspin's staff aren't just principled, they sent a critical fuck you to every private equity ogre that desecrates great publications. The only way 2 stop it from happening is stopping them from being able to turn a profit. Long live Deadspin. They were the realest
So let's get this straight: deputies approached and confronted a security guard at work -- a man w/ a spotless record and no reason to be suspected of anything -- and shot him dead in cold blood.
These men need to be arrested and the LA Sheriff's Department needs to be defunded
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#BREAKING LA Sheriff’s deputies shoot and kill an 18 year old Hispanic security guard outside the auto-body shop he was patrolling in Gardena. Police say the guard, who was armed, ran prompting the shooting. #LA #Gardena #PoliceBrutality #Shooting
RIP Shock G, psychedelic rap pioneer, one of the 1st & best to translate funk into hip-hop. A high concept genius, who discovered 2Pac & invented sex packets. Our Groucho Mark: raunchy, hilarious & weird. Burger King bathrooms would never be the same. Humpty Hump lives forever 🥸
Let your weekly inspiration be Future in a 2003 XXL when he was known as Meathead and wearing a tilted Che hat
RIP Luke Perry, who defined early 90s cool, a deeply underrated actor whose Dylan McKay unfairly overshadowed all future roles. And for good reason, the James Dean comparisons may have been hyperbolic but weren't incorrect. May he blissfully surf in Baja for infinity.
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RIP Gangsta Boo. The first lady of Southern rap, a pioneer w/ mesmerizing get money bounce, and a ubiquitous influence since she kicked Satanic verses at 15 on "Mystic Stylez." Boo defined Memphis rap as much as anyone in Three 6, and never spit a bad verse.
Gone far too soon.
RIP Soup Plantation, you never should have used that name in the first place
Bourdain represented a dying ideal American archetype, maybe one that never fully existed: infinitely curious, empathetic but skeptical, warm but caustic, cerebral but self-taught, an outlaw who was relentlessly charming and fearless w/out toxic aggression. What a loss, damn.
Between the massive media layoffs, the looming bankruptcy of Vice, the studios forcing the writers into a strike & the rise of A.I. there's been a grotesque devaluation of imagination & creativity – during a time where it feels like people are more desperate for it than ever.
RIP Young Dolph, the Memphis people's champ--the answer to what if the Delta Blues was rap and funny. An antihero whose hysterical punchlines and flashiness often overshadowed a deep conscience, introspection, generosity and dedication to building an independent empire. A legend.
RIP to the Biz. The epitome of hip-hop wild style. Unhinged comedy & goofball wit, beatbox mastery, and booger-picking pioneering of the drunken style. The physical manifestation of pure joy. May there be infinite haircuts in heaven and a big stage to go off. Forever unbeaten.
The fact that 6ix9ine is free and Greedo and Drakeo and Bobby Shmurda are still locked up epitomizes everything wrong with the criminal justice system.
Congratulations to Kendrick Lamar for living the American dream by going months without a phone
Incredible news: The DA suddenly offered Drakeo a plea deal for time served. He took it. The Ruler will be coming home tonight. is free.
RIP Sinead O' Connor. Ripping up a picture of the Pope live on SNL was the most punk thing I'd ever seen at the time, and maybe still is.
RIP to the Metal Faced Terrorist, the gas faced arsonist, the inventor of a sub-genre, language, a style of color & animation. Hip-hop's greatest villain. The last surviving rap myth, killing mics since the womb till now, where he returns to where his brother went. DOOM. All caps
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the full video because culture and history demand it.
Young Thug winning his first Grammy for doing adlibs on a Childish Gambino song is all you need to know about the Grammys.
RIP John Singleton, whose films poignantly depicted, humanized & articulated the beauty & struggle of S. Central & L.A. life as well as anyone. The best filmmaker of the hip hop generation, a creator of vivid 3-dimensional characters whose work eternally defined a place & time.
Dan Rather lost his entire career because he mistakenly reported on what were revealed as forged documents.
This is far worse. In a sane world, this would rightfully be a career-killer, but because we live in a griftocracy, the "Free Press" will just keep credulously scamming.
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Did you read that unverified first-person account about the St Louis transgender clinic that ran on Bari Weiss’ site?
Now read this deeply reported piece in which the Post-Dispatch interviewed almost 2 dozen parents, who paint a very different picture. stltoday.com/news/local/met
RIP Coolio, whose one massive hit overshadowed a formidable run of classic West Coast bangers. An original member of the Maad Circle & Compton representative – with an undeniable star quality, humor, charisma, and a gift for making street tales mainstream without sanitizing them
RIP Craig Mack, Bad Boy's first album artist. He had two perfect singles and the platonic rap remix. That's more than most. May he kick that ol' robotic, futuristic, George Jetson crazy shit in the infinite.
Ok, some good news to announce.
Introducing The LAnd, a new publication being launched by former staffers, editors, and contributors to LA Weekly, along with many other stellar LA journalists.
By locals, for locals.
In print and online.
First issue before year's end.
We’re all out safe. What a fucking insane ordeal. Black Lives Matter. RIP George Floyd. Fuck the Police.
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A quarter-century later and it still doesn't make any sense how Gangsta Boo was rapping this hard at 17 years old.
J.Cole is not for everyone ...you need a certain level of intelligence to really hate his music.
RIP Malik B.
Black Thought always received the most love, but Malik offered a Phife-caliber counterweight on those first few Roots albums. Bringing staccato fury and militance. A perfect balance and why fans listened from Michigan to Switzerland.
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RIP Mike Davis, an ancient Irish prophet disguised as a truck driving academic clairvoyant, a North Star of integrity, righteousness, and fearlessness. The greatest LA non-fiction writer ever -- an omniscient who saw doom everywhere but refused to give up hope or quit fighting.
The LAPD responding to a suicidal man with scissors -- and somehow shooting each other, the man's dog, and arresting him because somehow we have decided to give $3 billion a year and unlimited power to the Super Troopers.
To be American is to become shamefully numbed to a steady diet of mass death, political cowardice, & corporate greed -- the erosion of fundamental decency, honesty, and the desire for equality. Every day for the rest of our lives is this: numbing tragedy and contemptible inertia.
RIP Clyde Stubblefield, who created the hip-hop breakbeat, defined funky drumming, cold sweating, obscene soul, and everything else.
Obviously horrified by the national results, but L.A. voting out Jackie Lacey, voting in Holly Mitchell and Nithya Raman, and passing Measure J is a landmark moment for progressive local government, criminal justice reform and hopefully, Drakeo's freedom. Big win for the city.
E-40 innovated the English language more than any writer of the last 30 years
RIP Black Rob, one of the great millennium-era crime rap novelists, gruff but with Harlem slickness, who endured fire & brimstone to briefly reach the apex, before gravity and the law took hold. Of course, "Whoa," which owned the world for a full year, the platonic tunnel banger.
The Britney saga is as damning an indictment of the American justice system as almost anything. Evidence how even one of the most successful people alive--who committed no crime--can be stripped of agency & dignity & be trapped in an inhuman labyrinth almost impossible to escape.
I’m sorry but Post Malone is fucking terrible
RIP Pharoah Sanders, a sacred priest disguised as a tenor sax sorcerer, whose solo opuses & work w/ John & Alice Coltrane levitated into realms of time, space and divine cosmic reverie that no one traversed before or since. The holiest seer of spiritual jazz, the last of the best
RIP Slim 400. A Compton gangsta rap prototype, an ambassador for a tradition, lineage, and history -- who made a whole lot of hard-as-hell rap songs full of sober gravity and blunt force.
RIP Takeoff, the secret weapon of one of the great trios since the Magi. A wild staccato stylist, a technical rapper's rapper from the trap with half-a-million around his neck, spitting deceptively complex & colorful bars, always copied but never w/ the same lingo or charisma.
RIP Screech. Every generation gets an era-defining nerd. For the 90s, no one did it weirder.
Let us cleanse the evil of the last 365 and start off this new year the only right way.
This sounds eerily similar to the Drakeo/Stinc Team overreach--where prosecutors use tenuous & circumstantial ties to a crime to charge for the crime itself.
It's the 21st century blueprint for prosecution of rappers: call the rap group a gang and pursue Mafia-style indictments.
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Replying to @SeidenWSBTV
.@youngthug is accused of renting 2014 Infiniti Q50 sedan from @Hertz , which was used in the commission of the murder of Donovan Thomas, Jr., a rival gang member, on 1-10-15, according to indictment.@wsbtv
Garcetti has completely lost L.A. A spineless coward w/out a constituency, despised by the entire political spectrum, empowering a murderous police state laser-focused on arresting peaceful protestors. Terrified to tell cops they won’t get a raise. He needs to resign immediately.
RIP Kobe. He was our Jordan. We watched him grow up in front of us, from taking Brandy to the prom to the early yrs as a levitating warrior prince w/ the 'fro, to 5 rings & certified hoops deity. Mercurial & brilliant, possessed w/ an iron will unseen. What unspeakable tragedy.
RIP Mac P Dawg of Shoreline Mafia.
What a cursed and doomed era of L.A. rap. Drakeo, Greedo, and Frosty all getting locked up amidst epic runs. Nipsey gets killed. Mac gets killed. Shoreline splitting up after their debut album.
A golden age became what could've been....
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Nah bro. Not P Dawg... RIP bro. 
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I wrote about the life and death of Drakeo the Ruler.
Here is Prince playing "Auld Lang Syne" to usher in 1988. Happy New Years, etc.
Kanye's about to lock every music journalist in a Wyoming barn without their phones and force them to watch an infinity loop of Jordan Peterson lecturing them about how bad posture causes syphilis
Giannis is the really best thing from Greece since Democracy, and he's having a better series than Democracy.
RIP Tiny Lister, aka Deebo, aka Zeus, aka President Lindberg, aka Winston the bail bondsman. One of the greatest movie villains of all time. Without saying a word, his scowl and sneer sent everyone into hiding. No one ever ever looked more terrifying in a Pendleton. What a legend
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"I want to be remembered as the first lady of Three 6 Mafia. The first lady of crunk music. The first lady who brought a platinum plaque back to Memphis." - Gangsta Boo.
passionweiss.com/2012/08/07/que
The case of Drakeo the Ruler embodies everything fucked up, morally reprehensible, & systematically racist about the US criminal justice system.
From the K-19 ultra-max security solitary confinement cell where they're holding him, we talked about it all. tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-an
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A major reason why rap was so good in the 90s is that artists realized that the rap group was the platonic form. Malik B was a perfect example of that. Always reliable for 16 bars of heat, blessed w/ a great voice and cadence. A heroic role player on several classics.
It's easy to blame California voters for voting for such a terrible anti-labor law, but I've never seen such a well-funded, slick, & dishonest propaganda campaign as the one that Uber, Lyft, Doordash and Postmates ran.
A foreboding omen as they expand that strategy nationwide.
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Vons and Albertsons stores in California just laid off every one of their full-time, union delivery drivers, and will replace them with DoorDash gig workers who receive no benefits as a direct result of Prop 22. buff.ly/358CR6Z
Still thinking about how South Korea had 10 minute free Covid tests in March, where the results were texted the next day -- and how 4 months later in the U.S., we still have to wait days for a test, then wait 6 hrs in line, then get the results a week later. What a failed nation
Wrote about Isaiah Rashad for the Fader cover.
The last five years, the stint in rehab, the time spent broke and sleeping on couches, the car wrecks, the comic book visions, and the odyssey that resulted in his excellent new album, it's all here.
RIP Chick Corea. The Return to Forever project remains one of the most technically magnificent creations of cosmic slop ever laid down. A blueprint for genre fusion and deep galactic jazz. The fossil fuel for an eternity of rap samples. youtube.com/watch?v=vIOk3m
RIP Ras G, LA's intergalactic ambassador, the Sun Ra of the beat scene whose vision spanned alternate dimensions & unseen worlds. A gentle sorcerer, soft-spoken & humble, suffused w/ the ability to render cosmic white noise into something that glided & banged. A giant w/out peer.
Sanctify yourself by gazing at these photos of Suga Free going fishing
RIP MoneySign Suede, much more than L.A.'s own Mexican-American Kodak, but who also channeled that same pain, indomitability & sense of struggle. A young regional hero embodying the hopes & aspirations of the unsung and overlooked. Killed in jail far too young. Devastating.
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More than anything, it reflects a cynical culture of late capitalist greed run amok, fueled by tech co's & multi-national corporations run by analytics consultants trying to feed people low-cost toxic slop in the guise of "content." Solidarity to any and all fighting against it.
Semi-annual reminder that the entire 11-minute Suga Free kitchen table freestyle (with Clue Dog) is one of the greatest artistic achievements of the late 20th Century.
The Drakeo verdict is in — Drakeo’s been acquitted of all charges of murder and attempted murder.
The jury hung on a 2nd count of street gang conspiracy — a complex & convoluted charge that they’ll decide whether to refile on August 1. He will he in prison until at least then.
RIP Plug Two of De La Soul, the Dove from Amityville who introduced the Daisy Age then killed it, who brought whimsy, psychedelia, florescence, skits & surrealism to hip-hop, eccentricity & deep conscience –who made the alternative essential, who never fell off, not for a second
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Support independent artists, journalists & websites. Subscribe to a Patreon or Substack. Buy the record off Bandcamp. Go to a small club show and cop the merch. The only way out is to help your favorites directly, because these major corporations only want collusion and monopoly.
RIP Prodigy. The hardest ever w/ enough quotables for 10 lifetimes. May there may be unlimited bread, ribs & $100 bills in the afterlife.
Nothing is more LA than a “fuck the police” chant during an earthquake.
Bad news to report: 03 Greedo has been denied parole. He won't be eligible again until next June.
A tragic & punitive decision that highlights how evil our criminal justice system is. One of the most gifted artists of his generation is losing his life over a drug charge #Free03
Please RT to let the new owners and their public face know that the city of Los Angeles will not tolerate their attempts to destroy one of its most important civic institutions. #BoycottLAWeekly
RIP Jessica Walter. I don't know if any actor ever conveyed more with a wink. Her Lucille Bluth was the best satire of the smug rich ever done. Her voice all transatlantic arrogance, vodka delusion, and charming ignorance. The Motherboy episode alone, my god. A true comic genius.
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Fuck Donald Trump is playing from every car downtown like it was the national anthem.
RIP Eve Babitz, the L.A. Woman incarnate, the insider-outsider whose books & life reveled in the absurd, flamboyant, and technicolor. A genius in a feather boa, poet laureate of Tana's & Musso, all dissolute Hollywood glamour & gilded insight, who said all the wrong things right.
L.A. is still going super hard, but of course, now that the looting has ceased, there’s no narrative for the TV news to sensationalize and exploit. Tens of thousands of people out marching in WeHo and Hollywood today.
Here’s a random street corner in Los Feliz at 5 p.m.
RIP Scratch Perry, the Black Ark Noah, who warped reggae into mad science, brought the country to Kingston, mountains, earth, & trees reimagined, herb exhaled onto the console to alchemize funky sci-fi dub. Greatest producer of all-time (any genre). Who upset time, space, sound.
If all major label recording artists unionized and went on strike to negotiate better rates from Spotify and less predatory standard label deals, the entire business of music would radically change in an instant. And yet...
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It's what we did at LA Weekly. If you buy a publication to dismantle it & exploit its legacy to grift gullible advertisers, the only response is for the staff to quit, freelancers to stop freelancing & their "investment" is suddenly worthless. It's the only thing they understand.
Every time the Warriors win, a building filled with affordable housing becomes a mixed-use luxury condo with a Peet's Coffee.
Gibbs and Alchemist being nominated for Grammy rap album of the year is an all time reminder of the power of preserving your creative integrity, refining and expanding a singular vision, refusing to compromise and always staying true. A rare highlight in a worthless year.
2Pac was beaten so brutally by Oakland cops during a jaywalking stop that he sued & won a $42K settlement.
In '93, he shot two off-duty Atlanta cops who were savagely assaulting a black motorist. He successfully beat the case by pleading self-defense.
Legend of all legends
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2Pac on the police. He had the gift of articulating what millions were thinking. Happy birthday. RIP.
In '09, I met Freddie Gibbs at the rundown spot in Van Nuys that he was trapping out of. Interscope had abandoned him and no lane seemingly existed for him in the industry.
Now, he's a legit phenomenon, nominated for "Best Rap Album." This is his journey.
RIP Gilbert Gottfried, no one ever made being obnoxious, abrasive and irritating more hysterical. Cursed with a voice made of sandpaper run through a medieval torture rack, he never failed to steal a scene. An absurd comedian, flagrantly weird, one of a kind.
I don't know how I've lived my entire life without having seen this video of Snoop and Scarface freestyling over the DWYCK beat circa 92-93.
On his 1st day in office, George Gascon just eliminated cash bail for non-violent offenses, ended gang enhancements, barred prosecutors from seeking the death penalty, & vowed to stop trying juveniles as adults.
A landmark day in criminal justice reform.
RIP Gift of Gab. A behemoth blessed w/ a tuba baritone traveling at light speed, who bent language and split syllables into wild color & weird shapes. The analog arsonist, a virtuoso defining the late 90s/earlys 00s underground. An unforgettable force, eternally first in flight.
Went fragrance shopping at the Grove with Tyler and all I got was this cover story.
A stay at home order that refuses to pay people to stay home, and declines to enact a rent and eviction moratorium, is practically a death sentence in its own right. At the very least, it figures to exacerbate the homeless epidemic.
What a craven, stupid, and shattered nation.