So, as many of us have heard, Nipsey Hussle was shot to death yesterday in Los Angeles, in front of a storefront he’d opened. I’ve been trying to reconcile how I feel about it. I’m not a super empathetic person by default so I generally don’t feel much when I read about yet another celebrity […]

In the modern hip-hop industry, pretty much any rapper who wants to make it has to start at the bottom with a few mixtapes and move up to independently released pseudo albums. Kendrick Lamar has done both. The problem with this is the inherent risk of building hype the artist can’t live up to with […]

*Sigh* I’ve been putting this off for a long, long time but I guess eventually, something has to give. It always does. I guess I was just in denial. I didn’t want to admit to myself or anyone else that I…I…I can’t even bring myself to type it. But, assuming you can see the title […]

A year or two ago, I didn’t even know who Lowkey was. A Dutch acquaintance of mine linked me to a YouTube video of one of his songs, called Terrorist. I liked it enough to look for a download to carry with me on my iPod but that was about it. I didn’t look into […]

First off, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers in the United States (and abroad, even though this is just a regular Thursday for most of you)! After building up the anticipation among his Twitter followers for the past week or so, Lupe Fiasco has released his long awaited Friend of the People mixtape for […]

You know, in some ways, I feel sorry for Game. Here we have a rapper who started so strongly with a great debut album in The Documentary which went on to sell over 5 million copies and has been sliding downhill ever since, tipped off by a high profile and seemingly never-ending feud with 50 […]

After numerous delays, endless speculation and rumors that the album was going to be shelved entirely, Lupe Fiasco’s latest, Lasers, is finally here. Expectations have reached a fevered pitch in recent weeks leading up to the album’s eventual release. Now that it is finally available for fans to buy and listen to, has Lasers been […]

Kanye West is undoubtedly one of the most unapologetically honest rappers to ever pick up a microphone. He knows what he is and what he’s doing and as such, produces some of the most self-aware and truthful music in the industry. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the penultimate Kanye album in a long line […]

It’s rare that I find myself listening to mainstream Hip-Hop. I tend to stray far from the type of tunes you regularly hear on the radio. Yet, when I saw that Rick Ross’ latest was actually getting good scores, I was intrigued. After all, I will listen to anything as long as it’s good and […]

In Hip-Hop and music in general, there will always be artists who play around with different styles of instrumental composition and those who take that premise a bit farther, exploring regions that are rarely touched upon. Flying Lotus is one of those people. Cosmogramma is the third studio album by the California-based producer and continues […]

I hate Auto-Tune. It is the bane of the music industry, imbuing those who lack the ability and talent to control their own voice with a superficial, robotic overtone, ostensibly granting them “perfect” pitch. It’s the latest designer drug and everyone’s doing it. The opiate of the average, redeemer of the talentless, Auto-Tune has managed […]

It’s been a long while since I’ve heard an album as cohesive as this; an album that transcends its own medium and becomes something else entirely. This is one of those rare albums that needs to be listened to from beginning to end at least once to truly be appreciated. In much the same way […]

Ever since early 2008 when I picked up a copy of The Cool, I’ve been a fan of just about everything Lupe has released. Being a fan, I am also highly anticipating the upcoming release of his third album, Lasers, which is scheduled to be released sometime this year (hopefully). In the meantime, Lupe has […]

After Eminem’s return to rap in the form of last year’s Relapse, many fans were left wanting more. While Relapse was a passable effort from the venerable Detroit emcee, it wasn’t the triumphant return to form that fans were expecting from him after 2004’s disappointing Encore. When Relapse was released, Eminem revealed that he had […]

Spurred by a number of articles that have been released in recent years, the audiophile community has long been divided by the original PlayStation. According to reviewers at audiophile publications and websites such as 6moons and Stereophile, the original PlayStation, model number SCPH-1001, can go toe-to-toe with the likes of the $6000 CD players that […]

With a new decade comes a great deal of new music but I’ve also been thinking of all of the great music that has been released during the previous decade. So, over the past few days, I’ve been compiling a list of my favorite albums that have been released in the span of the last […]

Introduction Altec Lansing has a long history of making a wide range of audio equipment and has built something of a reputation for themselves as a manufacturer. In the audiophile community, particularly with the IEM subsection, they’re relatively unknown and unnoticed. Their “upgrader” line of IEMs seek to change that, offering people a number of […]

Introduction Shortly after I received my RE0s, I happened to be browsing eBay for a new pair of Bass-Freq earbuds because as much as I liked my RE0s, I wanted to replace my outgoing Bass-Freq earbuds because I liked their bass response when listening to certain music. During that time, I came across an auction […]

Headphone amps are pretty much standard equipment in the setups of audiophiles everywhere. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of research on headphone amps and come across a number of different amps in all shapes and sizes but the one type of amp that piqued my interest was the “CMoy” amp. […]

Since I got my RE0s and I started going to Head-Fi, I’ve been…experimenting with a number of different headphones/earphones and listening to the various sound signatures these devices create. In the short time since I received my RE0s, I’ve heard (of course) the RE0s the V-Moda Vibes, MEElectronics M9Ps, Koss KSC75s (with some light modifications) […]

Introduction The M9P IEMs hail from a small California-based company by the name of MEElectronics. They produce a wide range of IEMs that cater to different users with various sound signatures. The M9 and M9P IEMs are among the most inexpensive products available and are currently selling for $20 and $23 respectively. I decided to […]

Early last week as I was browsing the forums at Head-Fi, I was alerted to a discount special by MEElectronics, a small California-based manufacturer of various gadgets such as DAPs and IEMs. Having read a few reviews on their more popular IEMs, the $40 M6 and the M9, which apparently uses the same dynamic driver […]

When I received my Sennheiser HD280 Pro headphones back in June of 2008 and started to listen to them, I was immediately impressed with the overall sound signature. These were my first “good” headphones and easily blew everything else I’d ever owned out of the water. But…something was missing. Something I deem very important to […]

While I was driving home from some errands I had to run a few days ago, I passed by a local FYE store and decided to go in. Normally, I shy away from FYE because they are typically more expensive than other, larger retailers such as Best Buy but there was a huge sign in […]