If you manage to survive today’s snowpocalypse, there’s plenty of party goodness happening in the Mile High City this weekend. It’s Bob Marley’s birthday, in case you feel like celebrating. Oh, and speaking of celebrations, Tooey’s will toast to the Clinton-era at the Aquarius edition of the ’90s House Party,…
Happy Black History Month! February has traditionally been the month when the contributions, traditions, and historical facts about African Americans are celebrated the most. This year’s Black History Month started off a little heavy with the passing of Soul Train founder Don Cornelius. All month here at Backbeat, we’ll be…
Concept One has poured the past four years of his life into one thematic project: Beautiful Disaster, his brand-new, fifteen-track full-length. Dark and intimate in some places (“All Gonna Die”) and triumphant and motivated in others (“We Run This Shit”), Disaster serves as the ideal showcase for the American Trash Republic…
“I don’t care! He’s not gonna be talking to me all crazy!” Arms flailing, head whipping back and forth, a young woman is being carried through the sweeping front doors by a hulking security guard who ignores her protests and beating fists. Setting her down gingerly on her teetering heels,…
Good day and good rap! This week we have a ton of fresh local hip-hop for you, some new videos, some new cuts and some new faces. We’ve got new videos from the Foodchain, TC Crook, Babah Fly, as well as a sneak peek at Prime Element’s new clip for…
Lokon and Spellbinder make a formidable team on their latest effort, the fittingly titled Unity Iz Strength. There aren’t nearly enough reggae-and-rap collaborations — local or otherwise — out there right now, and this pair makes an utterly compelling case for more like-minded partnerships. Spellbinder’s perfectly pitched vocals, set against Lokon’s…
Reggae legend Anthony B. has been singing revolutionary and political-leaning songs since he emerged onto the scene with his 1996 debut, Real Revolutionary. Shying away from songs that were degrading to women (against the popular tide of music), Anthony B. chose instead to focus on his Afrocentric pride, using the influence…
This Thursday, January 19, you can get up close and personal with some prominent local creative types who are assembling to chop it up about making it in the worlds of music, art and fashion. Fittingly titled “How to Make It in America,” the panel, which features Guerilla Garden’s founder…
Freedom of Speech, an open microphone poetry night hosted by LadySpeech on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at Gypsy House, has become one of the city’s most dynamic and intimate evenings of poetry and song. The crowd starts trickling into the basement of Gypsy around 7:30 p.m…
Night Shiftin, the latest release from Six O’Clock, produced entirely by the Aurora-based MC himself, has an intimate, organic feel to it. As far as rapping goes, Six shows plenty of passion and promise, with a decent flow that’s strong enough to carry the joint. Night Shiftin is all about…
Today as the country honors Dr. Martin Luther King, a consortium of local hip-hop artists and community activists is getting together this afternoon at 3 p.m. at RedLine Denver (2350 Arapahoe Street) for Beyond Occupy: An MLK Dialogue for 2012, to engage in dialogue about the bigger picture of the…
Kid Hum’s latest release, Love to Give, is not your typical beat tape. The production pulls together unlikely rhythms, piano-infused beats and hip-hop flavors across eleven very short tracks. Early on, “Haunting Memories” conjures a feeling of dark nostalgia, while “Passing Time,” with its stuttered bass line, is funky in all…
New year, new things, new rap! You know the deal. Every week we scoured the scene for the freshest hip-hop. This week, we’ve got Spoke in Wordz doing his thing with an Eric Heights-directed joint that was actually filmed inside Denver International Airport; Mr. Midas gets all elevator-sexy on his…
What are you doing with yourself this weekend? There’s a number of parties to keep you rocking, including the Box Media Empire calendar release at Rockstar, the reggae vibe will be in full effect at both at Opal and Blue Ice and there’s an electronic drum-and-bass mash-up at Summit Music…
Three of the city’s hottest R&B singers, Amanda Hawkins, Devan Blake Jones and American Idol alumnus Julie Zorilla, are performing together on one bill this Friday night at the Walnut Room. The trio of Mercury Sauce artists will be showing off their singing and songwriting chops with one of the…
This Saturday night, inside of Club Glo (in the space formerly occupied by the Heartthrob and Catamaran Liquor Stand), a brand-new club night will make its debut. Four area promoters (Parlay Productions, Dream Entertainment Group, Take Off Ent and Still Livin Entertainment) are coming together like Voltron to present Limelight…
Kid Hum (aka Dylan Avery) has been keeping a low profile these days, lurking in the shadows and only showing his face periodically to gift the masses with new music. At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, he dropped The Beet Tape, and the new joint comes hot…
Wandering Monks is a duo whose lyrics embody the rebellion present in so much of early hip-hop. The two tackle difficult subjects like war and peace over strong production, making their anti-big-money lyrics shine. While the content is serious, it gets a bit redundant over the course of the record’s…
SLICK RICK @ CITY HALL | 12/31/11 New Year’s Eve 2011 was well under way Saturday night before Slick Rick took the stage at City Hall Amphitheater. Dipped in so much iced-out jewelry he could have fed an entire Third World country just with the diamonds in his watch, the…
You can’t possibly be partied out! The fun really starts this weekend, where all sorts of people will come together in cheap champagne and party favor glory. If you’re into getting the celebrations started early minus the shenanigans, we’ve got a line-up of album release parties, end of year live…
Ah! It’s the most wonderful time of the year! When we indulge in too much champagne and cheap party favors, whilst singing songs of old. “Auld Lang Syne” anyone? Well if you’re like us, you know it’s been a festive 2011 and most are ready to shuffle in the next…
Happy hip-hop holidays (try saying that three times fast)! As usual, we’re keeping our eye on all things new in the hip-hop streets, and for this week’s rap roundup, we’ve got everything you need: A Paul Junior-directed clip from Fresh Breath Committee’s Myke Charles; a Phil the Agony-assisted joint from…
