This Friday night, the DMC World DJ Championship returns to Colorado for another eagerly anticipated edition of the battle at Casselman’s Bar & Venue. Last year’s champion, Colorado’s own DJ Vajra, of course, went on to become the greatest DJ in the world, besting competition from all over the globe…

On Chicks Only, GirlGrabbers’ ode to the ladies, the crew has crafted a damn near perfect array of instrumentals, mating soul samples with vocal loops. Each track is named for a different “hot chick,” from Arcadia Lake to Paula Patton. The cuts are slinky, uber-sexy and incredibly well arranged. The…

The ladies love Drake — and it’s not hard to see why. The Frank Sinatra of hip-hop, as he’s been called, Drake is classy, elegant and can rap his face off to almost any melody. The Toronto native took the hip-hop scene by storm with his catchy lyrics, emotive production…

Mos Def and Talib Kweli, two whirlwind rhyme-slingers in their own right, first came together as Black Star in 1998. Their first album, Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star, was propelled by Mos Def’s poetic lyrics and Kweli’s poignant delivery, and it instantly had heads clamoring for more…

James Ray, who’s one-half of Aires Jackson, does his thing on this solo release, rapping about the ins and outs of the paper chase. He has a clean execution on tracks like “Cheers 2 U” and the UGK-tinged “Crucial,” showing off varied approaches to the beat. The project includes features…

On Death by Ego, Dyalekt shows not only that he has a keen ear for beats (he produced most of the tracks himself), but also that he has a suitable flow for each sound. On the Davey Boy-produced “Alright,” the Diamond Boiz MC gives himself a little room to explore his…

I wouldn’t put Cobraconda in the same vein as anything in Denver,” says Spencer Foreman. “We get fucking crazy and buck-wild at shows. We’re party animals, man. Fuck-beast mode. This is Godzilla, older and harder than beast mode.” And when provoked, sometimes the Cobra strikes. Just ask Michael Mazzotta. In…

SLAUGHTERHOUSE @ CERVANTES’ | 4/18/12 Emerging onto the stage one by one — Crooked I first, followed by Joell Ortiz and then Royce da 5’9″ and, finally, Joe Budden — the members of Slaughterhouse came together like a perfect storm and immediately proceeded to murder the game. Royce da 5’9″…

Hold your hip-hop horses. For all you rap fans looking to get your Action Bronson on this coming week, we’ve got some bad news: The New York MC, originally slated to smash through City Hall on Friday, April 27, has canceled the show due to a scheduling conflict. The heavyweight…

TYGA @ OGDEN THEATRE | 4.18.12 All right, Tyga was pretty impressive last night at the Ogden Theatre. Okay, more than impressive — he was damn good, and he has way more hits than just “Rack City.” Surprised? We were, too! The line was three blocks long, and the sound…

When it comes to the subject of drugs, King FOE’s new EP, Junkie, is about as viciously honest and descriptive as it gets. The second EP in the BLKHRTS trilogy, Junkie is all about the reality of drug use and the ills that go along with using. FOE drew from…

Rebel Tongue is made up of a conscious lyricist, live instrumentation and enough rhythm to make you rock back and forth for days. On Movin On, the act’s debut, the players come together under the umbrella of funk and a new-age fusion of hip-hop and neo-soul. They do a great…

Talib Kweli got all hip-hop scholarly this past Friday as the keynote speaker for the spring Sankofa Lecture Series at Metropolitan State College of Denver. The event was designed to focus on the anthropology of hip-hop, and Kweli, who was succinct and clear with his message, was absolutely dynamic on…

KS107.5’s Summer Jam: Tickets for the 2012 edition of the aptly titled hip-hop extravaganza at Comfort Dental Amphitheatre go on sale to the general public tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. LiveNation is holding a special pre-sale right now (password: Boss), if you wanna get a jump. In case you haven’t…

DOM KENNEDY @ THE BLUEBIRD THEATER | 4.11.12 Maybe it was the monitors and he couldn’t hear himself, maybe it was excitement at rocking his tracks to an adoring packed crowd at the Bluebird, maybe he was trying to scourge our memory of the awful performance by Tommy Hilfiger’s son…

Update (4/10): We’ve confirmed that Talib Kweli will indeed be performing at Cervantes’ this Saturday, April 14, in place of Black Star, originally slated for that same date but moved to 5/11. Tickets for the show are $5 ($10 on Saturday for those under 21). Heads up, hip-hop heads: Black…

Supergroup Slaughterhouse consists of Crooked I, Royce da 5’9″, Joe Budden and Joell Ortiz, who combined forces in 2009 to rip the hip-hop game to shreds. All street buzz and promo, the group’s first single, “The One,” from its self-titled album, was dropped on Budden’s Twitter account, and the masses responded…

Everybody has self-esteem issues,” declares Dyalekt. “But you gotta work with what you’ve got.” Born to an Apache father and a Latina mother, Dyalekt — the MC, producer and self-made cultural sociologist known to his family as Justin Romero, the younger brother of rapper, producer and fellow Diamond Boi Zome…