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Dan Leroy

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The Cool Kids

Friday, September 17, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, 303-830-8497.

By Dan Leroy
Sep 16, 2010

For a primer on the power of golden-age hip-hop, meet Chicago's Cool Kids, exhibit A. The signifiers are everywhere you listen. There's the Detroit Pistons' "Bad Boys" starter cap, lovingly described in the opening bars of "Black Mags." There's a song simply titled "88," which pays similar homage to Guess...
A Tale of Two Rappers

How the hype played out in the 50 Cent vs. Kanye battle royal.

By Dan Leroy
Sep 27, 2007

To be a successful critic is to be a contrarian. When you're handed a story line by a publicist or manager, you're skeptical, and you immediately look for weaknesses in the story you're being sold. So it was with the massively hyped September 11 releases of Kanye West's Graduation and...
MC Lars

Thursday, February 1, Marquis Theater, 1-866-468-7621.

By Dan Leroy
Feb 1, 2007

Who was the first well-educated white smartass who realized the comic potential of hip-hop? No one knows for sure, but the prank-filled legacies of the Beastie Boys and the Bloodhound Gang are in good hands with MC Lars, a California native who uses his laptop raps to gleefully piss all...
Rap Sheet

Comeback kids, rhymin' Limeys and songs about partying defined Hip-Hop Nation in 2006.

By Dan Leroy
Jan 4, 2007

It was, according to no less an authority than the New York Times, the year rap went regional. There was plenty of recent evidence to support this claim, beginning with the suddenly paltry record sales racked up by some of hip-hop's heaviest weights. There was a lot of historical evidence,...
Snoop Dogg

Tha Blue Carpet Treatment
Geffen

By Dan Leroy
Nov 30, 2006

Tha Doggfather does much more than just show up on his eighth solo outing, though the same can't be said for Pharrell and R. Kelly, who once again lather the tracks with squishy R&B. On "Vato," a refreshing and rather startling chunk of low-rider G-funk, Snoop's nasal whine recaptures the...

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