as reviewed by Steve 'Flash' Juon When sports fans think of back to back perfection, there are very few teams capable of holding such high esteem. The Yankees, The Bulls, UCLA. It's hard to achieve the kind of dominance that allows you to own your competition in and out from one year to the next. People get injured. Stars get big egoes and forget to make an effort. Overpriced players get. To begin on a related note, I recently saw a clip of comedian Aries Spears giving both blunt commentary on and an impression of British rappers. While I admit that it was funny, I also think he was turning them into a monolithic group. To an outsider with little to no exposure to UK hip-hop, to treat them as such is both understandable and ignorant. This is partly a reason why there’s a. Generally speaking, it’s so easy to under or overestimate the importance, impact and overall quality of any given album when considering the context in which it was released. From a distance, The Score should not have necessarily been as successful as it was. Neither Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, and most definitely not Pras will rank in anyone’s list of top 20 MCs. The liner notes won’t. “Leave rappers with careers and they faith over It’s a war goin on, you can’t fake bein a soldier In the basement, listenin to tapes of Ultramagnetic to the fact our messiah’s black I turn the TV down, we can take it higher than that I wonder if these whack niggaz realize they whack And they the reason that my people say they TIRED of rap” The paradox of artistic greatness is that it. as reviewed by Steve 'Flash' Juon BUM-STIGGEDY-BUM-STIGGEDY-BUM HON! An unlikely candidate for one of the most ubiquitous phrases in pop culture, but in 1992 Das EFX took their unique lyrical stylings Straight Out the Sewer into the mainstream mindframe in a big way. The story of how they arrived in hip-hop was legendary even before they hit it big - they LOST a talent competition for rap. In 2025, the hip-hop landscape continues to evolve, with independent artists pushing boundaries and redefining the genre. These ten rappers have made significant strides this year, delivering compelling projects that resonate with authenticity and innovation. They aren’t chasing trends—they’re building something real. 1. Maxo (Los Angeles, CA) Maxo’s latest album, MARS IS ELECTRIC, is. It’s easily one of the most sampled, scratched, and/or imitated phrases in hip-hop history: “I wanna rock right now!” Do you know who said it? You do if you remember the second line of the 1988 song that it comes from: “I’m Rob Base and I came to get down!” With his partner DJ E-Z Rock, the the funky Harlem born rapper made the single “It Takes Two” from the same titled album. More and more, albums outside of the Lone Star State are getting the screwed and chopped treatment. While first a strictly southern phenomena, nowadays you may be able to find artists like 50 Cent, Messy Marv, and even Eminem with unofficial screwed and chopped versions of their albums. The process of slowing down music has mixed results and some music lends itself to the treatment more, but. In the early 90s, hip-hop thrived on super-talented crews that eventually spawned individual solo artist megastars. Whether it was Redman stealing the show from his soon-to-be-split-up Hit Squad brethren on EPMD’s “Headbanger;” or Bustah Rhymes setting off the LONS (Leaders of the New School) craze after his dungeon dragon-laden verse on A Tribe Called Quest’s “Scenario;” or even. “Maker on the beat hit hard like assault crimes “ “NOIR” by Highest Low and Maker is further proof that there’s brilliant Hip-Hop out there if you dig deep enough. Regular readers may be familiar with Maker, known for his work with indie label Galapagos4 and Typical Cats emcee Qwel, and his production here is predictably stellar. As it was on those records, Maker’s foundation would.