Today Nas’ debut LP Illmatic is regarded as an unadulterated Rap classic and is arguably the greatest Hip-Hop album ever recorded. Nasty Nas was considered the second coming of Rakim and his album was declared a classic months before it ever even surfaced by leading Rap publications like The Source and Rap Pages.
Hip-Hop was a youth culture, meaning many of the early graf writers, B-boys, DJ’s and Mc had relatively short careers. A lot of early legends essentially aged out of their respective disciplines like Menudo.
“While You Were Sleeping” exists purely to showcase quality indie and underground Hip-Hop/Rap releases that are regularly overlooked, under promoted or downright ignored by most supposed “Rap” or “Hip-Hop” sites.
“While You Were Sleeping” exists purely to showcase quality indie and underground Hip-Hop/Rap releases that are regularly overlooked, under promoted or downright ignored by most supposed “Rap” or “Hip-Hop” sites.
Many will write about the 15th anniversary of the last great release date in Rap history. But few truly overstand why it earned that designation and why after it there may never be another great day on par. Since they can’t, I will. Not only do I remember the day well and what it signified […]
August has drawn to a close and the weather has gone from days in the 90s where it’s a nonstop parade of sundresses to days barely breaking the 70s where jeans, windbreakers & pullovers are the outfits of the day. As we enter the Fall Choosing Season, the precursor to Cuffing Season, will be underway. […]
August is already 3/4ths of the way through and before you know it t shirt and cargo shorts weather will yield to pants and pullovers weather again (Unless Kendrick Lamar can stop the seasons from changing, that is…). Before that happens, we here at Hip-Hop Wired have 20 indie & underground Hip-Hop albums from this […]
Hip-Hop culture just celebrated it’s 40th anniversary earlier this week and shortly afterwards an interesting event happened that highlighted the disconnect between Rap listeners, Hip-Hop fans and its individual contributors & participants. There are those that are too young to remember when verses like Kendrick Lamar’s on Big Sean’s “Control” were a common occurrence and […]
Today (July 17), is the late Keith “Guru” Elam’s birthday. Rest In Power. I’m old enough to remember back when Mike Dee & Keithy E left for New York in order to eventually land Gang Starr Posse a deal with K-Tel/Wild Pitch Records in 1987. Back then Boston’s Hip-Hop and Rap music wasn’t being acknowledged […]
Hello good readers, we’ve finally reached the end of April. It’s already sundress & cargo shorts season and Rap indie albums are beginning to drop more frequently than NBA players with season ending injuries. The drawback to having so many different digital avenues available and so many indie labels releasing quality music is it becomes […]
February saw a significant increase in Hip-Hop releases in comparison to January, but things will finally begin to kick into full steam in March. The growing frequency of quality releases means this new Hip-Hop Wired feature “While You Were Sleeping” goes bi-weekly instead of just monthly.
We’ve finally reached the end of 2012 and there have been quite a few excellent Hip-Hop/Rap albums released throughout the past 365 days that both the listening audience and music journalists might have possibly missed. Given that multiple indie Rap albums drop every Tuesday and it’s pretty hard to keep up with everything that dropped […]
